A Sudden Sun (19 page)

L
ILY, PLEASE COME to my study after dinner.” The words she “ had been dreading for months.

October was nearly over. Since July she had been meeting David in secret, relying on Abby’s lies and subterfuge and, increasingly, on lies of her own as well.
It has to end sometime
, Lily thought, not for the first time.
Perhaps it ends today
.

Ends how?
she wondered as she spooned the last bite of trifle into her mouth. Papa had left the table as soon as the main course was finished: he never stayed for dessert, though Sally made something every night—a trifle, a few slices off a fruitcake, jelly or blancmange. Tonight it was trifle, innocent, like everything in their household, of the rum that laced most people’s trifles and cakes. Neither Mother nor Papa would allow alcohol in the house for any reason at all, not even medicine or cooking. They were stricter than even most of the Methodist teetotallers Lily knew. Abby’s family were temperance people too, but Lily vividly remembered her first taste, as a girl of ten or eleven, of rum-soaked trifle in the Hayward house. It tasted wrong, like sin but not in a delightful, naughty way. Like something spoiled and sinister.

Her mother sat across the table, taking tiny bits of cream on the tip of her spoon, licking it off and putting it back, without ever plunging into the fruit and cake below. “Do you know why Papa wants to talk to me, Mother?” Lily tried.

Eleanor’s eyes rested on hers just a moment, then slid away. “Somebody told him something about you that upset him.”

“What? Do you know who, or what they told him?”

Eleanor laid down the spoon, put her hand to her forehead and rested it there, as if her head were too heavy to hold up any longer. For as long as Lily could remember her mother’s headaches had been like an additional member of the family, far more vivid and strong and demanding more attention than Eleanor herself. Now Eleanor pushed back from the table, blinking two or three times. “Excuse me, I must go up and lie down,” she said. In the doorway she turned back for a moment. “He’s a very fair man,” she said, looking at a vase on the mantelpiece rather than at Lily.

Her father, in the leather wingback chair behind his massive oak desk, looked like a fair man. “Lily, I heard something today that troubled me. I wanted to lay it before you, to give you a chance to explain yourself. The person who spoke to me might, after all, have been mistaken.”

“Yes, Papa.” She was going to ask,
What was it you heard?
But why should she ask? Let him chart the course.

He leaned back in the chair, frowned, made a church steeple of his fingers. Lily thought it looked as if he had been hoping for a teary-eyed confession or a protestation of innocence. “Mr. Withycombe called by my office on a matter of business this morning,” he said. “His wife thinks very highly of you, you know, admires your dedication to the temperance cause. So he thought it was his duty to let me know his wife and daughter had reported seeing you the day before in a very…how will I put it?…a regrettable situation.”

“Regrettable,” Lily echoed. She could not regret, could never regret loving David. But she regretted the lying, the sneaking around, all the subterfuge necessary for her to enjoy those rare moments of happiness. She had not Abby’s temperament. Oh, what would Abby do if she were called into her father’s study at such a moment? Blithely deny it all, or burst into convincing tears and beg forgiveness?

The silence stretched out. Lily clenched her teeth, fought back the urge to add something helpful, to ease this difficult conversation.

“Regrettable. Yes, indeed.” Papa bowed his head a little. The point of his steeple touched his chin now. “You remember, of course, when we had a similar conversation like this in the spring. I asked you to promise me that you would not see a certain young man, or have anything to do with him again?”

“Yes, Papa.” Not one word more. She imagined turning a key in her chest, as if she could lock her secrets into her heart. She knew his next question would be:
Have you kept that promise?
And then she must decide how deeply to damn herself.

“It was Mrs. Ohman who spoke to me about your behaviour in that instance. And I told you then that while I disagreed with her on certain issues, I believed her to be a good Christian woman and I knew she had done right to speak to me.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Some events in the months since then have led me to, well, to question my judgement of her. Mrs. Ohman, no matter how noble her intentions may have been at first, is no mere temperance crusader but a blatant agitator for women’s rights. She misled the WCTU into seeking votes for women, and though Mr. Withycombe assures me that his wife and most of the other ladies involved now see their error, Mrs. Ohman has not. She continues to agitate for that cause, as I believe you well know, for Mrs. Withycombe informed her husband that yesterday afternoon you were standing on the pavement in front of Ayre and Sons with
Mrs. Ohman, handing out copies of this—this piece of trash.”

As her father passed the familiar broadsheet across the desk, Lily clenched her jaw again, this time to bite back laughter. She had been braced, in every muscle, for the news that Mrs. Withycombe had seen her walking arm-in-arm with David Reid along Duckworth Street, or seen her leaving the side door of Ayre’s with him, or even—heaven forbid—seen David kissing her behind a tree in Bannerman Park. To be confronted instead with the crime of handing out suffrage pamphlets came as a heady relief.

“Is this true?” her father pressed as she read over again the words she had scanned so many times.

Lily looked up from the paper. With the greater danger removed for the time being, it was easy to confess to the lesser crime. “I’m sorry, Papa, but it is true. I did help Mrs. Ohman give out these leaflets.”

“Surely you must have known I would not approve.”

“I thought only about the fact that I believe the cause to be just.”

“You mean that Mrs. Ohman has convinced you of it!” Papa shouted. Quicker than she could see, his hand-church collapsed into two fists, one of which he slammed on the desktop to punctuate his words. “That woman has led you astray! You have believed the cant with which she’s filled your mind, and listened to her counsel over that of other, wiser women, like Mrs. Peters or Mrs. Withycombe.”

“I think Mrs. Ohman is right. The battles will never be won ’til they are fought on the right ground. If we women don’t have our voice in society and in government, then—”

“Stop parroting her!”

“I’m not a parrot! These are my own thoughts!”

“Silence! A girl of your age and experience has no thoughts of her own, save what she hears or reads, which is why it is so important to guard the influences to which you are exposed.” Papa sighed and buried his face in his hands for a moment, his fingers
twining through his thick grey beard. “I blame myself, in truth. I have been negligent, knowing that your poor mother is not well. I have trusted too much in women like Mrs. Ohman.”

Now that he had taken some of the blame on himself, the advantage was tilting slowly back towards Lily.
If Abby were in this chair
, Lily thought again,
she’d know what to do
. Abby would know that now, with her father blaming his own poor guidance, it was the moment to humbly bow her head, promise to hand out no more leaflets in the street and to always be ruled by his good judgement.

But Lily was discovering in herself something more rebellious than Abby, in her most daring moments, could have dreamed up—a defiance that flared even when it was clearly against her own best interests. “Are you so certain, Papa, that Mrs. Ohman is in error? For I don’t think so.”

“That you can even raise such a question shows how far you have been led astray, Lily.”

“Does it, Papa? I have searched the Scriptures, and I am convinced that God created woman with the same gifts and responsibilities as man, and—” her voice wavered a little under her father’s incredulous glare “—and if I hand out leaflets or go to a meeting to urge that women have the vote, I believe I’m doing God’s will.”

“God’s will! You see, Lily, this is what comes of the line of thought Mrs. Ohman has been feeding you. Determining God’s will is not your task. Your job is to obey those in authority over you!”

It had taken all the courage she possessed to defy him. Now all she could do was to sit silently. Silent, without apologies or promises, without showing the contrition she knew he wanted to see. And it was easy to do that, because she felt no contrition.

His face grew harder and angrier, and then in a moment it seemed to melt, and he looked sad. “Oh, Lily, you are so innocent.
When a young girl begins to think that she can defy her father’s authority—when she begins listening to strong-minded women talk about women’s rights and the like—it’s the first step on a slippery slope. Every man knows what can happen to girls in such a situation. Be glad you have a father to protect you from that fate.”

Lily thought of the young girls at the Rescue Home, who surely had had no god-fearing fathers to protect them. But whatever had led them astray, she doubted it was speeches about the rights of women.

More silence, while Papa waited for the words Lily would not say. The carriage clock on the mantle clicked like a disapproving tongue.

“You are not to see, or speak to, Mrs. Ohman again under any circumstances,” Papa said at last. “You are not to attend any meetings to do with suffrage business, nor to read any literature about women’s rights. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Nor are you to attend any more meetings except the Ladies’ Aid, and then only if Mother is well enough to attend with you.”

“I understand.”

“And you have no more to say?”

“No, Papa.”

“You may go to your room now.”

Lily went to her room. Disbelief had burned off to anger before she set her foot on the first step. She climbed the stairs to her room, sat at her desk and pulled out writing paper and pen. She scribbled furiously for a few moments, tore up the paper and threw the scraps in the fire, and started again. A shorter message this time, only a few words. A place and a time.

She went down the back stairs, not passing Papa’s study but going straight to the kitchen where Sally was scrubbing out the
pots from dinner. “Hello, Miss,” Sally said.

“Hello, Sally.” Lily passed on through the kitchen door into the yard, wondering if her father had thought of setting Sally to spy on her. But then, he was all unaware of the possibility of secret assignations or messages sent to lovers. He thought only of keeping her away from political gatherings and strong-minded women.

She was out of the yard and onto Queen’s Road, then up around the corner onto Garrison Hill before she found the right sort of grubby nine-year-old boy, the kind who would always carry messages for a penny. She gave him the address of David’s boarding house and a penny, and he ran off as if his heels were on fire. Lily went back down the street, into the yard and back through the kitchen. Sally only nodded this time, and Lily went quietly up the back stairs to her own room.

T
HE HALLWAY WAS as narrow as the passage between the kitchen and pantry in Lily’s house. It struck Lily that this was the poorest house she had ever set foot inside, and David’s sister and her children were humble but by no means destitute.
I tell myself I want to help the poor
, she thought, remembering that day at the Rescue Home,
but I know nothing about them
. And she was here today, not as a bringer of charity but as an intruder, coming when Catherine would surely not approve of her being here.

She thought of leaving. No one had seen her arrive: David’s note had told her to come at three, let herself in and wait ’til he arrived at three-thirty. She went into the small parlour, crowded with furniture, and eased herself onto the pink velveteen settee as if afraid to make any impression on any part of the room. Spidery ferns in brass pots draped the bookshelves: watering the plants was part of David’s duties while Catherine and the children were away.

What if they came back early? They were due back on Sunday, but what if something had gone wrong in Upper Gullies and they came home sooner than expected? She imagined Catherine Malone,
carrying bags and bundles and surrounded by her three young children, opening her front door, saying, “Miss Hunt! What are you doing here?”

When the door did open, she jumped. “It’s only me! Are you here, Lily?”

She stood up as he came into the parlour. He stopped two feet away, took his hat off but made no move to hang it up or to step closer to her. It was the first time they had ever been alone with each other in a building, with a roof over their heads and a door shut between them and the world. Goosebumps rose on Lily’s arms, but perhaps it was just that the room was cold.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t be here.” His voice sounded gritty, as if he had a sore throat.

“I almost didn’t come.” Lacking the excuse of WCTU activities or church women’s meetings, she had found it difficult to get out of the house alone for a few hours. When she proposed a visit to Abby, Eleanor had offered to go with her and visit Abby’s mother. A swift exchange of notes with Abby changed it to a walk in Bannerman Park—a subterfuge they soon would not be able to resort to, as the days were growing chillier. Eleanor decided her head was not strong enough for a walk and had contented herself with warning Lily to go to the park, meet Abby, and be back by suppertime.

Abby, of course, had to know the real plan. “You’re actually going to his sister’s house alone with him? Aren’t you frightened?”

Yes, of course. Lily was frightened of almost everything now—frightened her father would catch her out in lies and discover the truth was so much worse than passing out women’s suffrage tracts. Frightened that David would interpret her frantic note, her scribbled desire to meet him, as permission to take liberties. But frightened, most of all, that her life was closing in, narrow as the hallway of Catherine’s house. Reverend Collins’s letters arrived every fortnight
and Lily knew that when winter passed and ships came to town again, he would come with a proposal of marriage. Then she would be a minister’s wife out in Greenspond, and everything she loved would be barred to her forever.

So here she was in Catherine Malone’s parlour on Cuddihy’s Lane, alone with David Reid.

David bent down to light the parlour fire. When he had it going he put his arms around Lily, as if lighting the fire had dispelled more than just the chill of the room. She hadn’t imagined the luxury of a kiss in an empty house, with no one nearby to see and judge. He pulled her closer ’til her body was pressed tight against his and she could feel every line, every muscle.
One flesh
, she thought.
Is this what it means?

Then his lips left her lips and began to trace a path down her jaw, onto her neck. Shivers that had nothing to do with cold or fear of discovery travelled over her body. His mouth was at the collar of her blouse now, then his fingers were there too, unbuttoning, kissing the hollow of her throat, caressing bare skin that had never been touched since, she supposed, she was a baby in her mother’s arms.

She wanted to touch, to feel his skin too, wondered what his bare chest and arms would look like with his shirt off. His shirt was untucked already. She slipped her hands beneath it, found his skin warm and a little sweaty to the touch.

“Lily. Ah, Lily.” He pulled away from kissing her throat, closed his eyes and then straightened up and opened them again. “Lily. Wait.”

She left her hands where they were, touching his bare skin, but he pulled them away and held them in his tightly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to—to take advantage. I know you’ve got your—well, what you believe about right and wrong and all that. I didn’t bring you here to—” His usually quick tongue groped for
the words, words she didn’t know herself. She knew there were coarse words for the things a man and a woman did but she had only heard them muttered in the street. What would she call it, if she talked about it? “The joys and troubles of the marriage bed,” she had heard a lady of her acquaintance say once, but this was no marriage and there was no bed.

“It’s all right.” She didn’t know if that was the truth or the boldest lie of her life. She couldn’t think of the right words either.
Show me the pleasures of the marriage bed
would hardly do it. All she wanted was to keep touching him, for him to keep touching her. Surely they could do that and she could still keep at least some of her virtue intact.

“Are you sure?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t sure at all. In fact she had come here thinking that she would have to be very strong, very firm with him if he tried to push her. Thinking of her virtue as that castle she had always been told it was, surrounded by a moat, the drawbridge securely pulled up and the walls guarded. But she thought instead of words like
yield
,
surrender
.

He unbuttoned her blouse and touched the curving line of the tops of her breasts, covered in the light fabric of her shift. Then his hands moved down to her waist, enclosed in the stiff bones of her corset. “Pardon my language, but this thing looks bloody uncomfortable,” he said.

She giggled, feeling as she were gasping for air. “It is. You could…I wouldn’t mind taking it off, but I’d need some help. Sally usually laces it up for me in the morning and unlaces it at night.”

“You’ll have to show me what to do.”

She turned her back to him so he could untie the laces of the corset. It took some time; David kept interrupting the process to kiss the back of her neck. But every loosening of the laces was a release.

“Is that it? It just comes off then?”

“No, there’s a hook down there…I thought you’d be a man of experience.” Now her voice was the one that sounded hoarse, her mouth dry.

He laughed a little. “Only a man of very little experience, and not with the sort of ladies that wear corsets. Ah, there it is, then.”

And then she was free, free of the corset, and it was easy to slip off her shift so he could touch her bare skin. Her petticoat was on the floor at her feet. “Are you quite sure?” he said again, coming up from kissing her like a man breaking the surface of water, gulping for air. She was not at all sure and at the same time completely sure. Sure only that whatever right and wrong meant, whatever virtue was, whatever God might say, she could not stop touching David and feeling his touch, could not stop this lovely sensation that flooded through her whole body when he touched her bared breasts.

“Oh, God. My God, my God,” he said. A man’s hands on her breasts, and instead of shame she too, was
thinking My God, my God.
A hymn of praise. The only hymn that mattered, because commandments and rules were a thousand miles away, and all Lily wanted was David, here and now, skin against skin.

“It will hurt,” he warned her later. They hadn’t talked in what seemed a long time, absorbed by kisses and touch and the intricacies of her undergarments. Her clothes were a bed below her now, covering Catherine’s parlour rug. “It’s not like in some romance.”

She knew nothing of the kind of romances that enumerated these details. Jane Eyre said only, “Reader, I married him,” and left the rest to imagination. Cathy and Heathcliff, for all their talk of dark passions, had never even gotten in a bed together. Lily had no idea what to expect. But she was, now, absolutely certain, all doubt washed away under the touch of lips and hands. The drawbridge was down. There was nothing in the castle worth guarding. Everything good had been waiting outside all along.