A Perfect Gentle Knight

by Kit Pearson

  “Can I see them?”

  “We aren’t allowed to go into her studio. And I already showed you the living room, the first day you were here,” tried Corrie. But Meredith persisted, saying she hadn’t looked carefully then.

  Corrie led her once again into the dim room. “Can’t we open the curtains?” asked Meredith. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled back the heavy velvet curtains that shrouded every window. The room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as light entered it. Corrie’s stomach lurched as the familiar objects came into view.

  Mum’s vibrant paintings lined the walls. Meredith admired the strong patches of colour arranged in patterns. “But what are they supposed to be?” she asked.

  Corrie shrugged. “They’re called abstracts. Mum said they were more about feelings than things.”

  She gazed at her favourite: streaks of blue hiding vague grey shapes, the one she used to call Horses in the Rain. Corrie remembered Mum laughing as she said, “That’s a perfect name for it!”

  She was hearing Mum’s voice so much today! It was almost as if she were in the room.

  Meredith noticed a large photograph on the mantel. She went up to it. “Is that your mother? She’s beautiful! And look, here’s you!”

  Corrie stood beside her and stared at the photograph. It had been taken before the twins were born. Everyone was sitting on the chesterfield, her parents in the middle. Harry was a fat toddler in Mum’s arms. Corrie, aged four, snuggled in Fa’s. Sebastian sat beside Fa and Corrie, with one arm resting on his father’s knee, smiling sweetly at the camera. Roz, in a smocked dress, her blond hair in pigtails, held Harry’s hand. She looked serious for a six-year-old.

  Mum’s sleek brown hair fell in waves to her shoulders. Her smile was wide and generous. She looked utterly content in the midst of her family.

  “You and Sebastian look so much alike! And is that really your father?” asked Meredith.

  Corrie grinned. “He had way more hair then.” She studied Fa’s craggy face, so much more focused and happy than it was now. She could almost remember the feeling of being in those sheltering arms.

  They drew the curtains closed and went outside. Corrie lifted off the key that hung around her neck and they tightened their skates onto their shoes. They skated down the driveway and Corrie led the way to the Wedds’ slanting front path, the smoothest place to skate in the neighbourhood. They each coasted down several times. Then they went around the whole block.

  Corrie lifted each heavy foot in turn, letting the even rhythm and the grating sound of the wheels against the pavement soothe her discomfort. Perhaps Meredith would forget about the birthday party.

  THAT EVENING AFTER DINNER Corrie sat at the dining-room table, working on another diorama. This one was a snow scene. She had painted the back of the shoebox blue and pasted white shapes against it to be icebergs. The bottom of the box was lined with pieces of cotton batting. Now she was trying to shape an igloo out of sugar cubes, gluing each one in place after she filed the edges round with a nail file.

  Mum was the one who had taught Corrie how to make dioramas. Corrie could still hear her encouraging voice as she showed her how to work from the back to the front. Corrie’s first scene was from “Hansel and Gretel.” She and Mum had had a wonderful time gluing real candies onto the little cardboard house.

  Mum again! Why was she thinking about her so much?

  Corrie carefully placed the finished igloo onto the “snow.” It looked perfect! She gazed with satisfaction at the contained, safe little world she’d created.

  Roz came through the kitchen door with a glass of juice. She slid into the chair beside Corrie.

  “That’s beautiful! It’s your best one yet!”

  “Thanks,” said Corrie. “I may add some sled dogs or seals.”

  “Why not some Eskimos as well?”

  “Because I don’t know how to draw people—you know that! So I just pretend they’re inside the igloo.”

  Roz laughed. Then she said quietly, “Corrie? Do you know what day this is?”

  Corrie was trying the igloo in a different place. She shook her head.

  “It’s the third anniversary of Mum’s death.”

  “Oh!” Corrie whirled around on her chair and stared at her sister. “How do you know?”

  “Because I write it down on my school calendar every year. But do you know what?” Now her voice was angry. “No one, not even Fa, has remembered! Or if they have, they haven’t said anything.”

  “I think I sort of remembered,” said Corrie slowly. “Inside myself, I mean. All day today I’ve been thinking about Mum and hearing her voice.”

  “Oh, Corrie, I’m so glad! Everyone else seems to have forgotten all about her! I’m going to too, unless we talk about her, but we never do!”

  “We can’t,” said Corrie. “It would make Fa too sad. Sebastian too.”

  “Aunt Madge used to talk about her sometimes,” said Roz. “I sure wish she hadn’t left.”

  “Me too.”

  They sat in silence, then Corrie said, “Roz, you can talk to me about Mum if you want to. I’d like that.”

  Roz smiled. “Thanks, Corrie. But I wish we all could. Then we’d remember more. It’s almost as if Fa and Sebastian are ashamed of Mum! Why is it such a secret?”

  “I don’t know.” Corrie looked up hopefully. “So, do you want to talk about her?”

  “Not right now. I have too much homework.”

  Roz left the room and Corrie went back to her diorama. But the icy scene made her feel so cold that she put it away and went to bed.

  BY THE NEXT DAY it was settled: Meredith said her mother would be delighted to have a party for Juliet at her house.

  “Are you sure?” Corrie asked her.

  “I’m sure! Mum loves planning parties and she missed doing mine this year. Please say yes, Corrie.”

  Corrie thought of how eager Juliet had looked when Meredith suggested a party. “Okay …” she said slowly. “It doesn’t seem right to have it at your house—she’s my sister, after all. But if your mum doesn’t mind, I guess we could.”

  Corrie immediately regretted her decision. For the next two weeks, all Meredith and Juliet could talk about was the party. It was as if Meredith were more Juliet’s friend than her own. Juliet crayoned sixteen invitations and delivered them to every girl in her class. Mrs. Cooper found an outgrown frilly yellow dress of Meredith’s that fit Juliet perfectly and was in much better condition than Corrie’s old dresses. It even had a crinoline. Juliet adored it.

  Mrs. Cooper made a Dick and Jane cake and decorated the house with pink balloons. She bought pink hats, and Juliet spent hours with Meredith deciding on favours and filling little plastic baskets with candies.

  Of course Juliet couldn’t help talking about the party at home, even though Corrie begged her not to. Roz said she was glad for her, but Sebastian was upset.

  “This won’t do,” he told Corrie. “Why should Meredith’s family have a party for Juliet? We always have a special dinner for her—isn’t that enough? Can’t you put a stop to it?”

  “It’s too late,” said Corrie. Of course they couldn’t stop it, not when Juliet was so excited.

  CORRIE WATCHED FROM the kitchen doorway as Mrs. Cooper cut the cake. The seventeen little girls had admired its tiny sugar figures of Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot, and Puff. Now they watched avidly, each one hoping to find a nickel wrapped in waxed paper in her piece of cake. Sunlight poured in the window and lit up the table; it was as if Corrie had frozen the scene in a photograph. Juliet’s clean curls glistened around her sharp, intense face. In a few minutes, Corrie knew, her little sister would be roaring around the living room bossing everyone, her face and dress covered with chocolate and her sash undone. But at this moment she looked angelic, as did all of her friends. It was just like a picture in the Dick and Jane readers—bright splotches of colour and rosy, happy faces, all too good to be true.

  In grade one Corrie had found Dick and Jane so b
oring that she had sat at her desk and made up more exciting stories for them.

  What were Dick and Jane compared to the knights of the Round Table? Corrie threw back her head disdainfully. What was she, Sir Gareth, doing in this bland scene? She missed the usual chaos of family birthday parties. She could hardly wait to get Juliet home to the real party that was waiting for her.

  8

  Aunt Madge

  At the end of November, Fa made an announcement. “I had a letter from my sister. She’d like to come and visit for Christmas. What do you think, my dears, shall we ask her?”

  Aunt Madge! Corrie’s heart leapt. Aunt Madge phoned on birthdays and holidays, and once in a while she wrote them a letter, but they hadn’t seen her for two years.

  “Aunt Madge?” asked Orly as if he weren’t exactly sure who she was, but Juliet squealed, “Yes, please!” Corrie was amazed that she remembered her. Roz looked thrilled and Harry smiled in his sober way. Sebastian, however, frowned at his plate.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he mumbled.

  “You don’t? I must say, I miss Madge. I wish she hadn’t had to leave us and look after Daphne, but I suppose she needs Madge more than we do.”

  Everyone looked guilty except Harry and the twins—they had never known all the reasons why Aunt Madge had left.

  “Oh, please say she can come, Fa!” begged Juliet. “I like Aunt Madge! She made cookies!”

  Roz glared at Sebastian. “Don’t listen to Sebastian,” she told her father. “We’d love to see Aunt Madge again.”

  “Why don’t you want her to come, my boy?” Fa asked.

  Corrie knew he’d never tell. He shrugged, his face down. “It’s all right.… She can come. Forget what I said.”

  Fa looked puzzled, but he was distracted by the rest of them asking when Aunt Madge would arrive. “She wants to come on December twentieth and stay for two weeks,” he told them.

  “Two weeks! That’s too short,” said Roz.

  Sebastian looked stricken. Corrie knew he thought it was far too long.

  “WE HAVE TO CLEAN this filthy house,” said Roz the next morning. “Aunt Madge wasn’t a very good housekeeper, but even she will be shocked by this.” She picked up one of the rolling dustballs that got bigger and more numerous every day.

  “Let’s do her room first!” said Corrie.

  It took them two weeks. Every day after school they dusted and swept and vacuumed and scrubbed while the Elephant sat over her puzzle and her magazines in the kitchen. Sebastian even cancelled Round Table meetings so they could clean all day on Saturdays as well. They put pails and pails of garbage in the lane and even polished the silver. Meredith helped eagerly.

  Surprisingly, Sebastian didn’t seem to mind Meredith being there. He was the keenest cleaner of all of them. “I don’t want Aunt Madge complaining to Fa that the Elephant isn’t doing a good job,” he explained to Corrie.

  “But she isn’t doing a good job!” said Corrie. “Oh, Sebastian, couldn’t we ask Aunt Madge to come back for good?”

  “No! Anyway, she can’t. She has to look after Cousin Daphne.”

  Corrie nodded sadly. She tried to enjoy the fact that they would have Aunt Madge for two whole weeks, instead of remembering that she would then leave.

  FOR ALMOST EVERY DAY in December they had clear, frosty weather. Corrie felt more and more Christmassy. In school they were learning from Mr. Zelmach carols she had never heard before: “Lullay Mine Liking” and “In the Bleak Midwinter.” On the last day of school they were going to go around to all the other classes and sing to them. She and Meredith pretended that the carol singing was being done for a neighbouring castle.

  One evening Sebastian had them all write letters to Santa Claus. Corrie knew that he then took them to Fa.

  “Roller skates, two turtles, and a dog,” copied Juliet carefully from the words she’d asked Sebastian to print for her.

  “Santa won’t bring you a dog,” Sebastian warned her. “He knows Fa doesn’t like them.” Fa had told them how he’d been badly bitten by a dog when he was young.

  “I know Fa’s afraid of dogs, but maybe a little one would be okay,” said Juliet. “How do you spell ‘little’?” She added it in front of “dog.”

  Corrie pondered her own list. All she could think of was books. Then she remembered something she’d always wanted and added “pogo stick” to her list. Fa—Santa, she grinned—might have a hard time finding one, but why not try?

  A few days after the house was cleaned, Fa gave Sebastian their usual Christmas money. Sebastian carefully allotted it among them. Roz took Juliet and Orly to Woolworth’s and they chose small presents for everyone, making her wait at the front so she wouldn’t see hers.

  Corrie and Harry rode their bikes up to the stores in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood one Saturday to do their own shopping. They split up, agreeing to meet in an hour.

  Corrie found most of her presents in the stationery store. She got a stapler for Fa, crayons for the twins, glue for Harry (he was always running out), an eraser shaped like a butterfly for Roz, and a family of tiny china dogs for Meredith. In a clothing store next door she found a lace handkerchief with an “M” on it for Aunt Madge.

  That left Sebastian. He was the hardest because Corrie wanted his present to be perfect. Finally she discovered a small penknife in the hardware store. It cost more than she had left from Fa’s money, but she pooled her saved-up allowance with it. Sebastian would love it!

  She waited for Harry outside the drugstore as they’d planned. People bustled up and down the sidewalk in front of her, getting ready for Christmas. A Salvation Army band stood on the corner and played “The First Noel.” Corrie’s cheeks glowed in the frosty air. This week before Christmas was her favourite, with so many treats in store. And Aunt Madge would be here again! Corrie pretended that everything was normal.

  Of course, nothing had been normal for three years, not since Mum left them. But at least it could be as normal as possible.

  THE FIRST TERM of school ended with a flourish. In November, everyone in 6A had drawn a name. On the last afternoon of school they had pop and cookies while they exchanged their gifts. Corrie received a pink barrette from Jamie. She never wore barrettes, she didn’t like pink, and Jamie irritated her; sometimes he called her Freckles. But she was feeling so excited about Christmas that she thanked him politely and put the barrette in her pocket. Juliet or Roz might like it.

  Corrie had drawn Deirdre’s name and had given her three pencils with her name on them. Deirdre, who had never paid any attention to Corrie, smiled warmly. Sharon was eagerly thanking Meredith for a package of red licorice. Brent pulled one of Carolyn’s braids and she didn’t even protest. Kathy, Valerie, and Louise started singing, “We three kings of orient are / Trying to smoke a rubber cigar,” and everyone joined in. Then Gary and Frank, who were always being hauled into the principal’s office for fighting, passed out candy canes arm in arm, saying, “Ho, ho, ho!” Mr. Zelmach had them all bellow, “We wish you a Merry Christmas!” before they scraped back their chairs and dashed out the door into the holidays.

  Meredith’s family was taking the train to Calgary and staying there until school started. “I’m so excited about seeing Sue and Ruthie!” she told Corrie. “I hope we’ll still be friends.”

  Corrie tried to suppress her jealousy. But she was reassured when Meredith gave her an autograph book. It had different-coloured pages. On the first blue one Meredith had written: “On the golden chain of friendship may I always be a link.” She seemed to love the china dogs.

  CORRIE WAS THRILLED when Fa chose her to go with him in the cab to pick up Aunt Madge. All the way there she struggled to think of something interesting to say. Finally she simply leaned against him. Fa put his arm around her. Corrie pressed her cheek against the prickly tweed of his coat, hardly daring to breathe in case he moved.

  The train station was packed with holiday travellers. Corrie and Fa peered into the crowd. Will I
recognize her? wondered Corrie. Finally she spotted a tiny figure laden with luggage.

  “Aunt Madge!” Corrie dashed to her aunt and was engulfed in her soft fur jacket.

  “Corrie! Goodness, how you’ve grown! And William, my dear, how are you?”

  Fa pecked his sister on her cheek and took her heaviest bags. Corrie struggled with two more. She was squished between the two adults on the way back, like a filling in a sandwich.

  Fa asked Aunt Madge politely about the weather in Winnipeg and about Daphne, the old cousin she lived with and took care of.

  “She’s quite a bit better, although her heart still isn’t strong,” said Aunt Madge. “Her friend Dorothy has moved in with her while I’m gone.”

  Fa and Aunt Madge had always been formal for a brother and sister. Corrie wondered if they had been like this as children. There were only the two of them; had they been closer then?

  Aunt Madge asked about every member of the family. Just as she did on phone calls, Corrie told her an edited version. When she left out Sebastian being bullied and the antagonism between him and Roz, the Elephant’s slovenliness and her own worries, their family seemed as smooth and content as the Bobbsey Twins or Dick and Jane. “… And Harry won first prize in the science fair,” she finished.

  “Did he?” asked Fa with surprise. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “We did,” said Corrie.

  “Dear William, as absent-minded as ever,” said Aunt Madge fondly, patting him on the arm. “I’m so excited about seeing everyone again!”

  THEY HAD OPENED the curtains in the living room. Now they all sat there, everyone but Sebastian. Orly perched on a stool and gazed at Aunt Madge suspiciously. Juliet snuggled into her side, wiping her eyes. Juliet rarely cried, but at the sight of Aunt Madge she had burst into loud sobs.

  Corrie studied her aunt greedily. She hadn’t changed a bit. Aunt Madge wore owlish round glasses and kept wiping back the wispy brown hair that escaped from her bun. She blinked a lot. She wore the same shabby blue tweed suit that she had two years ago, its lapel pinned with a gold horse brooch that had belonged to her mother.