A Sudden Sun (18 page)

She’s younger than I am
, Lily thought,
Fifteen? Sixteen? What happened to her? Did she fall in love with a man who abandoned her? Or did some man take her by force?

A year ago she would not even have thought of the latter possibility. Abby had been the one to tell her, when they were sixteen, that babies resulted from a man and a woman “having relations,” though she did not explain what those mysterious relations might be. She said it was a bit like dogs or horses mating, only not as nasty. Lily had always assumed the act to be inevitably a part of marriage, or at least of romance. Mrs. Ohman had had to explain to her that girls of
the poorer class were often forced into “relations” against their will.
More like dogs and horses after all
, Lily had thought.

“I have some hopes for Agnes,” Captain Jost was saying to Mrs. Peters. “She’s a good, biddable girl, and we should be able to place her in service if the baby dies. If he lives, we may be able to find a good home for him. It’s a sin the orphanage won’t take illegitimate children. They’re the ones who need care the most.” She led the ladies back out of the room and downstairs. “That one Nancy, now, she and her baby were living on the street—actually on the street—and she was selling herself for gin. They’ve been here six weeks but Nancy’s still hard as nails, and she won’t be parted from the child. I don’t see much of a future for either one.”

The squalls of babies followed them down the stairs, and even when the Rescue Home doors had shut behind her Lily still heard those cries in her head. The WCTU ladies swept into the carriages back to the Withycombe house for refreshments: Abby and Lily were to be collected there when Abby’s mother had finished her calls.

Lily sat next to an open window—it was a mild day for October—and drank tea while she listened with half an ear to a conversation that Mrs. Withycombe was having with Mrs. Ritchie out on the verandah. Only when she heard the words “
Water Lily
” did she rouse from her reverie to listen to the older women.

“My dear, she’s relentless,” Mrs. Withycombe said. “She’s come back to me twice this month looking for money to pay the printer. Of course I’ve put her off as gently as I can.”

“But will we pay?”

“Well, you are the treasurer, suppose you tell me!” Mrs. Withycombe laughed. “Of course, she’s not entirely reliant on us for money. Her husband puts some of his own cash into it, but it’s not enough to keep it going. Mr. Macpherson was funding her for a while, because he’s such a strong temperance man, but I’ve heard tell that he doesn’t want the good name of the Royal Stores associated
with votes for women, so that money has dried up. If she can’t get anything from us, I don’t think she’ll be able to put out another issue.”

“It’s simply too damaging to the cause…in these times…all this suffrage rhetoric. Nobody wants to hear it.”

“I’d rather not come out and say it, of course—so much better if one can avoid unpleasant scenes.”

“I don’t believe Jessie Ohman thinks so. I think she fairly relishes unpleasant scenes.”

The women’s laughter tinkled like little brooks running over stones. Smooth stones, like beach rocks that would never cut your foot or show a jagged edge but were as unyielding as the cliffs rising above.

“Well, if it comes to unpleasantness, you know you have my support,” Mrs. Ritchie said. “And the support of most of the ladies, I think.” The voices lowered to an indistinct murmur as the two women moved along the gallery to the door at the far end of the house, and as they did, Abby appeared in front of Lily with the news that her mother’s carriage had arrived and it was time to go.

Lily said nothing on the ride home. She would have had little opportunity anyway, for Mrs. Hayward interviewed Abby about the visit to the Rescue Home with all the tenacity of a news reporter cornering a member of the House. “Those poor girls,” she said when Abby described the young mothers with their babies. “Be grateful, both of you, that you’ve been raised in good homes with good morals and every advantage. The horrors that await poor girls with no one to protect them out in the world, well, let me just say that the plight of those girls you have seen today is by far—by
far
—the best possible outcome. How much worse it might be, well, I could not describe for innocent ears like yours, but many a young girl has been brought to ruin in this city, and…”

Lily stared out at the streets rolling by, at the construction sites where hammers were still swinging and brick being laid, men
working as late into the fall as they could on houses and shops being rebuilt from the rubble of the fire. Mrs. Hayward’s monologue became as much a part of the background as the carriage wheels and the horses’ hooves. Lily had, in fact, been deeply shaken by the sight of those poor girls. Could their fates change? Or once a girl fell, was she fallen forever?

But with a different part of her brain Lily couldn’t stop hearing Mrs. Withycombe’s laughter as she plotted to keep Mrs. Ohman from getting funds to print the
Water Lily
. Had they schemed like that to get Mrs. Withycombe elected secretary instead of Mrs. Ohman? All the speeches and pamphlets about women’s franchise said that politics would be better, nobler, cleaner, if women were involved: women were too pure and fine for the dirty old game that men had been playing for centuries. But what if that weren’t true? What if women, given a chance, were just as nasty and back-stabbing as men?

“You’re lost in thought,” Abby said, and Lily realized that Mrs. Hayward had fallen silent—they all had.

“It was the Rescue Home,” Lily said. “Those poor girls, the babies…what will become of them?”

“Nothing good,” Mrs. Hayward said crisply. “One can’t drown babies like puppies or kittens, of course, but when I see children like that I can only think how much more merciful the Lord would be if He had taken them to Himself as soon as they were born.”

“Mama! That’s terrible!” Abby said. She sounded, for once, genuinely shocked.

“I know it sounds harsh, darling, but think practically. Think of their lives, their suffering. If there were a way to sterilise the poor it would be a great advancement for society. Ah, Lily, here we are. Give my regards to your poor mother, won’t you?”

^“
I
WON’T GIVE give up, regardless of what anyone says,” Mrs. Ohman insisted. Her voice was pitched to carry over a large roomful of listeners, though only Lily, Abby, and two other women sat in her dining room folding leaflets. “If the WCTU is no longer willing to support the cause of votes for women, then we need to speak directly to those who care about the real issue.”

“So it is the real issue, isn’t it, Mrs. Ohman?” Lily asked. This was, of course, the very charge that Mrs. Withycombe levelled against Mrs. Ohman as if it were a slander: that she cared as much about getting the vote as she did about ending the liquor trade.

“It’s at the heart of all the other issues. I’m coming to believe that more and more since our defeat in the House,” Mrs. Ohman said. “We can pick away at the liquor trade, homes for unwed mothers, better conditions for factory girls and whatnot. But the key to all these issues is to get women’s voices heard.”

She was even standing in speech-making posture, feet slightly apart and chest thrust out a little, a leaflet held in her outstretched hand.

“Well, it’ll never happen if we don’t get anyone out to meetings,” said Mrs. Bulley, taking a new pile of leaflets from the tall stack. Mrs. Ohman had paid for these to be printed out of her personal funds. Lacking a paper to publish her views, and lacking a voice at WCTU meetings, her latest idea was to start a local branch of the Woman Suffrage League. With a general election just a few weeks away, Mrs. Ohman declared it was the ideal time for women to throw their support behind candidates who supported the suffrage cause.

So far, she had garnered little support, and her first attempt at a meeting had drawn only six women, including herself and Lily. Abby had begged off that one, but Lily had insisted on bringing her today to help distribute five hundred leaflets. The leaflets advertised an organizational meeting to be held in Gower Street church’s temporary tabernacle. They had had to be printed up a second time because Mrs. Ohman had originally planned to use the parish hall of the Presbyterian Kirk until some members had complained and the minister had told her she couldn’t hold her meeting there.

“Now we’ll each take a few of these home to give out to ladies in our churches this Sunday,” Mrs. Ohman said as their little procession reached the main shopping section of Water Street, “but apart from that, try to get them all handed out today. Lily, Abby and I will be here in front of Ayre’s. The rest of you go on to cover the Royal Stores and Bowring’s.”

“I’m going into Ayre’s,” Abby said in Lily’s ear. “I’ll take a handful of leaflets to keep her quiet, but I’ve no intention of handing them out. I’m looking for a new hat. Come with me.”

“No, I’m going to stay here by the door,” Lily said. Unlike Abby she felt no embarrassment at being associated with the cause, though she did worry about being seen by someone who might report her to Papa. Still, as women came out of the shop, singly, in pairs, or with
husbands, she joined Mrs. Ohman in thrusting leaflets into their hands. “Women deserve a voice in the most important issues of our day!” Lily said, over and over, while on the other side of the Ayre’s entranceway Mrs. Ohman said, “Find out why Premier Whiteway is determined to silence women!”

Some women took the leaflets without looking too closely. Several waved their hands in protest or said, “No, thank you!” Lily saw several crumpled and tossed in the gutter just a few feet down the road, as though the ladies had thrown them away as soon as they realized what they were. A few ladies paused to read. Some stayed to argue. “Really, Jessie,” said one who obviously knew her well enough to be on a first-name basis, “what would poor Nils say if he knew you were down here, a few feet away from his shop, hawking political pamphlets?” The giant watch and chain marking Mr. Ohman’s watchmaking shop was visible just down the street from Ayre’s.

“My husband supports my endeavours fully!” Mrs. Ohman said.

“But does he know you’re passing out leaflets in the street?”

“Of course he does. Just because some people are married to men who want to keep them slaves to the household, doesn’t mean we all are!”

“This is hardly the appropriate place for a Christian lady, a merchant’s wife,” said another lady.

“Isn’t it? We who are fortunate enough to be well off are the very ones who need to speak out!” Mrs. Ohman said. “The Christian’s job is not just to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable!” Lily had heard that quote from her before: Mrs. Ohman said she had read it in an American newspaper and would embroider it in a pillowcase if she ever had the time to do fancywork.

A few more ladies stopped to join the discussion, including
Mrs. Ritchie, Mrs. Withycombe’s supporter. News of Mrs. Ohman’s latest antics would be all through the WCTU by teatime, Lily knew.

“Is it going to break out into a street brawl? Because I’ll want to write that up for the
Herald
,” came a familiar voice close to her ear.

Lily looked around to see David just behind her. She thrust a leaflet in his direction. “We’ve been giving them to ladies, but I think members of the press should be informed too,” she said. Her spirits, which had sunk as low as her boots when she saw Mrs. Ohman quarrelling with her opponents, were buoyant again. “Are you working this afternoon?”

“Just got away from covering a speech by Mr. Fox—going home to write up the article before press time tonight. Can you sneak away with me for a little while?”

“I promised Mrs. Ohman…”

“Very well, I’m going into Ayre’s to look for, er, a pair of new shoes. If you happened to come in and pass out a few leaflets inside the shop you wouldn’t be abandoning your post, would you?”

“Abby’s in there, I suppose I ought to go find her.”

“Of course you ought. You’ll find
me
in gentlemen’s shoes,” David said, and slipped through the doors of Ayre’s before Mrs. Ohman had a chance to see him—or so Lily hoped.

“Mrs. Ohman, I have to go into the shop and find Abby. Could you take the rest of these?” Lily said a few minutes later, pushing the rest of her leaflets into the lady’s hands. Mrs. Ohman was explaining to a plump grey-haired lady that when God made the husband head of the wife, He never intended to make every man on earth the head of every woman. She barely registered Lily’s defection.

Inside, Lily moved past shelves of pots and pans, through racks of ready-made clothes, to bolts of fabric and sewing patterns. Men’s
shoes and women’s millinery were both near the back of the shop, and it was a peal of Abby’s laughter that led her to the right aisle. To her surprise she found not just Abby but David there. David leaned, arms crossed, against a shelf while Abby posed with a feathered hat.

For just a moment, before either of them saw her, Lily froze. She knew that Abby would never consider keeping company with a man like David Reid; for all her talk of naughtiness, Abby had told the truth when she said she would marry the sort of man her parents would select for her. Yet the easy, open way she smiled at David caught at Lily’s heart. If Abby wanted to ensnare him, she surely could. Why, out of all the inappropriate girls he could have fallen in love with, had David chosen quiet, straitlaced Lily instead of laughing, flirtatious Abby?

“Well, here you are finally,” Abby said. “Come save me—I’ve been chatting to a strange man. If anyone saw me, my reputation would be ruined.”

“Not too strange, I hope,” David said. He was holding his hat by his side with two fingers and now laid it across his chest and bowed slightly. “Miss Hunt can introduce us properly.”

It was true; Abby had once carried a message from David to her, and had conspired in a dozen intrigues to allow them time to be together, but they had never been introduced. Lily hesitated. Was it that stab of foolish jealousy that gave her pause, or was it the knowledge that when she introduced David to anyone else she knew, she chipped away at a barrier that separated their private world from her everyday life?

“Miss Abigail Hayward, this is Mr. David Reid. He writes for the
Evening Herald
.”

“Pleased to meet you at last, Mr. Reid,” Abby said, extending her hand. “And now I am going to be very busy looking at hats for a quarter of an hour. I find that the area over there behind the
men’s flat caps is quite secluded at this time of day, if you’re interested.”

David laughed as he led the way and Lily followed him to the secluded spot behind the caps. “You’re right. She’s every bit as shameless as you described her.”

“Shameless? Did I say that?”

“Oh, she’s not really. She just likes to appear it,” he said, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. “I know her sort—all men do. Pretty girl, good family, likes to flirt. Pretends to be bold and daring. But in the end she’ll do exactly as expected—marry a nice boy, have a family, become her mother. They all do.”

“Will I?” Lily looked into his green eyes as if she really could read her own future there.

“You’re a different type entirely. No coquetry, no foolishness. But still waters run deep. If ever a girl were going to do the unexpected—to run off with the wrong sort of man, say—well, it wouldn’t be your friend Abby there.”

His words laid a cold chill over her, so real Lily shivered. “I don’t know,” she managed to say finally.

“Neither do I, I’m only speculating. Wishful thinking, you might say.”

“Talk about something else. What was Mr. Fox’s speech like?”

“Deathly dull. He wouldn’t stand a chance except he’s running against a man even duller than himself. I’m much more interested in what your friend Mrs. Ohman is doing out there.”

“Trying to drum up support for her Woman Suffrage League.”

“I thought you told me that was a bust?”

“She’s calling another meeting.”

“This is strong stuff.” David unfolded the leaflet, still in his hand, and read aloud. “ ‘In Newfoundland today a woman who manages her own business can have no vote, no voice in elections, yet the most incapable man in her employ may do so. Women of
Newfoundland, demand your rights!’ Marvellous. I’d like to print something about this, but it’ll only get her in more trouble.”

“I think she’s past caring about trouble. She’s tried the whole plan of catching flies with honey and it’s gotten her nowhere so she’s opening the vinegar bottle, and…devil take the consequences.” Lily dropped her voice to a whisper, hoping no one else was nearby to hear her bad language.

But Abby was there, of course, her beribboned head poking around a towering display of men’s bowlers. “I’m buying this hat,” she declared, “then I’m going out to tell Mrs. Ohman that you were called home all of a sudden,” she told Lily. “Then I’ll make the supreme sacrifice of handing out leaflets in your place.”

“No, you don’t need to—”

“You’re not expected back ’til dinnertime so it gives you an hour or so of freedom. Use it wisely.”

“I’ll walk you home,” David offered, giving Lily his arm. “We’ll take the back streets so Mrs. Ohman and her comrades are unlikely to see you.”

It was a risk, going out in the public street in broad daylight, but they took the side entrance out of Ayre’s and cut up over McBride’s Hill and Church Hill, past the building sites of the churches, to avoid the busier traffic of Water and Duckworth Streets on a weekday afternoon. “We’ll saunter through Bannerman Park,” David offered, “and perhaps steal a kiss behind a tree. That is, unless you’d like to go in the other direction, come by my sister’s place. Her and the young ones have gone out to her husband’s family in Upper Gullies for the fortnight to look after the place while her mother-in-law’s sick. I’ve been looking in on their place every day. We could go there for a few minutes’ privacy—if you wanted.”

Lily said nothing. “I’m sorry,” David said after they had walked along for a silent moment. “I shouldn’t have asked that. I didn’t mean to imply you were the kind of girl who’d…well, who’d do
anything she didn’t think was right and proper.”

But you already said I was
, Lily thought, remembering their conversation. He had as good as said that while Abby would play the coquette’s game, Lily was the one who would actually sin. Lily was the falling woman.

“I couldn’t do that,” she said. “Go there with you—to an empty house, alone.”

“Of course not. I know that,” he said. He sounded a little distracted now. After a moment he added, “and I wouldn’t ask it of you. Only I’d like to believe, if you said no, that it was because you thought it was wrong. You, yourself, not because of what your parents or the church or everyone around you said.”

She turned his words over in her mind before she replied. “How does anyone know what’s right or wrong, without parents or church or God? You can’t just make up right and wrong for yourself.”

“What if we did, though? Just sort of puzzled it out for ourselves? You know, thought through the consequences of whatever we did, and answered to our own consciences?”

“Is that what you do?”

“I suppose I try to.”

“I think it’s different for a man,” said Lily.