A Sudden Sun (9 page)

“But the
Herald
is a temperance paper, and I don’t think you’re a temperance man, are you?” Lily said.

“Oh, you don’t think so, eh! Do I have the look of a drunkard?” He glanced down at her and Lily looked away.

“Not that. But I know you’re not a Methodist. If Mrs. Ohman hadn’t introduced us, I might think you were a Papist.”

“Ah, you see a bit of the Irish in me, don’t you? Well, to be completely honest, my mother was Irish Catholic. But my father was Scots Presbyterian, and she promised him on his deathbed that she would raise his son Presbyterian, though she was free to do as she liked in the matter of daughters. She dropped me at the Kirk every Sunday,” he explained, nodding in the general direction of where that church stood before the fire, “then walked on to the Basilica with my sisters, and then back to get me. Fortunately, Presbyterian preaching being what it is, she had plenty of time to spare. She never let me darken the door of a Roman church, and the truth is I don’t darken the door of any church very often nowadays. And you are right in guessing I am not a temperance man. Though I don’t say that around the editor of the
Herald
.”

“Well then.” Lily drew her hand away. They were near Temperance Hall now. “I thank you for escorting me, though it wasn’t really necessary. After all, it was only the next street over.”

“Of course. And an emancipated young woman should be able to walk a block in the city as well as any man.”

“You are still laughing at me.”

“I’m not, I swear it! I believe in the universal franchise as deeply and purely as you believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

“That’s nearly blasphemy.”

“So be it. In my grandfather’s day, no one in Newfoundland could vote. We did as we were told by the governor from England. Men all over the world have fought for the franchise—first for the wealthy and then for the poor man too. Why not for the womenfolk as well? Whatever you think of me, Miss Hunt, I’m deadly sincere in supporting your cause.” He handed over her parcel and bowed.

“Well, then—I commend your politics, if not your manners,” Lily said. “You’ve been very impertinent, and I don’t think it’s proper that we should speak again.”

“That would be a shame and a sorrow indeed, Miss Hunt.”

“Good day, Mr. Reid.”

She meant to go straight into the hall but it was almost impossible not to watch his tall frame walking away down the sidewalk, hands thrust in his pockets, long strides swinging. He walked as if he were pleased with himself, as if he might be whistling. The nerve of the man!

Then, at the end of the street, he turned back and waved. As if he had known all along that she would be watching.

Y
OUR FATHER TELLS me you’re active in the WCTU, Miss “ Hunt?”

Reverend Obadiah Collins leaned across the dinner table toward her. He showed early signs of both stoutness and baldness. Lily had been told that he was twenty-four years old but he looked as if he were apprenticing for middle age. Lily and her parents were dining at the home of Reverend Pratt, the Cochrane Street minister. Reverend Collins and Lily were the only younger people present, and Lily had no illusions about why her father had been so anxious to accept this dinner invitation, nor why he had talked with such warmth about the son of his old friend Jacob Collins. Young Reverend Collins shepherded the Methodist flock out in Greenspond. He was apparently learned, pious and, most important, unmarried. In need of a wife, that indispensable accessory for the hardworking clergyman.

“I am devoted to the cause of temperance, Mr. Collins,” Lily said, keeping her eyes on her plate. She found it impossible to say “Mr. Collins” without thinking of the character from
Pride and
Prejudice
, and this young clergyman bore an unfortunate resemblance—in his manner, at least—to his literary namesake.

“I am so glad to hear that!” Reverend Collins had the air of a man interviewing a promising candidate for a position in his firm. A new partner in the business, as it were. “It’s very well, of course, for those of us with the light of truth to accept the temperance message for ourselves, but there are folk all over this island—poor folk, uneducated—who will never see that light. Oh, Miss Hunt, if you could only see what I have seen—the poverty, the hardship, the ignorance. I have witnessed scenes I would not dare describe in a woman’s hearing, all due to the evils of alcohol. And they will never put it aside unless it is taken out of their hands by force—the force of law.” Mr. Collins’s bay accent had been carefully schooled for sermonizing, but misplaced Hs slipped through the homiletic net: when he spoke of the Ardship and Hignorance, Lily had to hide her smile.

Now she looked up and met his eye. “You say you would not repeat what you have seen in a woman’s hearing, and yet it’s the women, and the children, who have to live with those scenes and bear the brunt of them.”

“Of course, of course. It’s the very reason why the WCTU ladies have been such a strong voice for us in the cause. I commend their desire to improve the lot of their suffering sisters.” Dinner was a roast of beef, very tender: the Pratts had an excellent cook. Forks clinked against plates and conversation rose and fell.

“My daughter here is a great admirer of Mrs. Ohman,” Papa said, “but I’m concerned about the way she links the prohibition cause to votes for women.”

Reverend Collins bobbed his head towards Lily. “I would not tarnish the name of one you admire, Miss Hunt. But it is my firm conviction, as I’m sure it is of us all,” he added, looking around the table for support, “that when woman steps outside of her proper
sphere of home and family and seeks a role in public life, she is demeaned by it. Her natural purity and moral fibre are cheapened and coarsened. Do any of us really wish the ladies to be sullied by the grime of party politics?”

“No, of course, not,” Papa boomed, and Reverend Pratt echoed him. Mama said nothing, but Mrs. Pratt put a hand to her throat as if she felt a sudden draft in the room. “I couldn’t agree more, Reverend Collins. As a wife and mother I have always felt I’m fulfilling God’s call. Why would I want to raise my voice in the public square when that is my husband’s role? I might as likely expect to get up into the pulpit and preach on a Sunday morning!”

“Where we start listening to these votes-for-women agitators, we’ll soon see women preachers as well as women politicians, and far worse,” Reverend Pratt said. “But the sentiment is being taken up by so many people that it is hard to combat. I was most disappointed to hear that at the Temperance Rally a few weeks ago, some of the gentlemen who spoke—clergymen, even—were speaking in support of giving women the vote on this issue. I am glad to see we are all in agreement here.”

Did Lily imagine her mother’s eyes meeting hers over the table? Did she see a little headshake of warning?

Lily needed no warning. She said nothing at all as the conversation moved on from women’s votes and Prohibition to the feud that was brewing at Gower Street Church over the reconstruction of their burned-out building. She nibbled at her roast beef, listened with a smile, but proffered no further comments.

Her silence bothered her. In bed that night she looked out at the slice of sky visible through her window and thought that she was like Peter on the night of Jesus’s trial, warming himself by the fire, vowing he never knew the Man. She had not forsworn her beliefs, but she had not stood up for them either.

But the greatest test was still to come. On Tuesday evening the
bill asking for the women’s vote on the question of Prohibition would be presented in the House by Mr. Morison. Mrs. Ohman and Mrs. Peters were urging as many of the WCTU ladies as possible to attend. Some, like Mrs. Withycombe and her daughter Martha, had already declared they would not be there, claiming that even the gallery of the Assembly was an inappropriate place for a lady. Lily was sure her Papa would feel exactly the same about his only daughter sitting with a crowd of suffragists, watching men debate in the House of Assembly.

Yet how could she stay away? The only thing she could think of was to draw Abby Hayward into her confidence, gambling that Abby’s love of secrets and conspiracy would outweigh her disinterest in politics.

It was a winning gamble. “If we’re going to deceive our parents and sneak out at night, I can think of a dozen places more entertaining than the Colonial Building,” Abby sniffed, “but I’ll never be able to drag you anywhere interesting. If I invite you to spend the night here, and then we tell my parents that we’re going to spend the evening at your house before coming back here to sleep, I’m sure neither of them will suspect a thing.”

“Unless our mothers talk to each other.”

“But they won’t. Yours has the vapours again and mine is much too busy. The upstairs rooms are finally getting painted and papered again.” Abby’s house, unlike Lily’s, had been undamaged in the fire but her mother claimed there was “soot everywhere” and had decided to redecorate anyway. “It’s all she can think of. I’m sure I could smuggle myself out to a tavern on Water Street if I cared to. Shall we wear disguises, in case some friend of your father’s recognizes you in the House?”

“Not disguises exactly, but I have a hat with a little veil, and if I keep a fan up in front of my face most of the time, I’m sure no one will recognize me.” Lily’s heart pounded at the thought of the
subterfuge. She wanted so badly to sit with Mrs. Ohman and Mrs. Peters and the other ladies who were getting things done, who were really making a change in society. They had talked at the last WCTU meeting, tallying up the members of the House who would likely vote for them, who was soft on liquor and who was friendly to the women’s cause. “We have a chance,” Mrs. Ohman had declared. “Only a chance, but it’s better than last year. At least my brother has come round.” Her brother, Mr. Murray, had spoken against the bill the last time it had come before the House, and family feeling had not stopped Mrs. Ohman from roundly criticizing him in the pages of the
Water Lily
. Oh, to be so bold and daring: to be able to chastise even the men in one’s own family!

On Tuesday, the fourth of May, the girls met after dinner at Lily’s house and told Lily’s mother they were going to Abby’s. Instead, they walked to Temperance Hall, where about twenty of the WCTU ladies had gathered, with the intention of processing to the Colonial Building together.

“Lily! How wonderful to see you. And your friend—Miss Hayward, is it? Thank you for coming to add your support to the cause!” Mrs. Ohman looked around the room. “Not as many as I’d hoped. We had over fifty women marching, you know, a few years ago when we brought our first petition. Every time the bill gets brought forward and defeated, more women lose hope. But we must not abandon the ship! Last year we lost by only two votes, and I’m sure we are closer this time.” She sailed off to greet another newcomer, and before long the little knot of women began making its way up Victoria Street towards Military Road and the imposing bulk of the Colonial Building. The government building was, along with the Roman Catholic Basilica, among the few landmarks that had not been touched by the fire.

“A song to raise our spirits!” Mrs. Peters suggested. She had a good, tuneful voice, and struck up a temperance tune that most of
the women joined in with as their boots tramped the hard-packed dirt of the road. After “Would You Be Free from Your Bourbon and Gin” they began one that Mrs. Ohman had written specially for the Newfoundland cause:

Faces appeared in windows as they passed, and people strolling down Military Road in the fine spring afternoon paused to stare. Lily pulled her hat a little down over her brow so the veil covered her eyes, but Abby tipped her own hat back and laughed. “Whoever would have thought I’d be out marching with a bunch of bluestockings! If Norman Winsor were to see me now—well, wouldn’t he get a shock? It’d serve him right, too!” Norman was the latest of Abby’s many beaux.

Inside the Colonial Building, the women filed up the stairs to the Ladies’ Gallery and crowded onto the benches. The session began at four o’clock. It was hot, and no subterfuge was required for Lily to take out her fan and keep it vibrating in front of her face. The veil on her hat had to be pushed back, though, for otherwise it was hard to see the rows of white-haired, mutton-chopped men on the benches below.

Still, now that she was inside surrounded by the cluster of ladies, she felt safe from discovery. Mother or Papa might still find out, of course, that she had not been at Abby’s all evening: there might be a reckoning, but for now she was free and she was here. Here to see history being made.

The worst thing about making history was that much of it was awfully tedious. The old men below were fond of long speeches, and there were other items of business to discuss before the women’s
suffrage bill came up. Even when it came, the attitude of the speakers was disappointing. Mr. Morison presented the bill and spoke of the need for Prohibition. Mr. Morris replied with a stirring speech about how men had the right to vote for laws because they had a duty to go out on the battlefield and defend those laws. Mr. Morison had no good response to this.

In the row ahead of Lily, Mrs. Ohman leaned over the gallery rail, perching so far forward on her seat she looked as if she might tumble forward into the assembly of men below. If she did, Lily knew from the set of her shoulders and thetrembling of her hat that she would land with her mouth open, ready to defend the cause of women’s suffrage even before she picked herself up off the floor.

But Mrs. Ohman kept her seat and kept silent even when the premier, Mr. Whiteway, rose to speak. There had been some speculation that he might come around to the cause, and indeed he started off by saying that he had originally been inclined to support giving women the vote in the local option elections.

“Oh, mercy,” Mrs. Ohman said to Mrs. Peters. “If he says he was originally inclined to support it, that means he’s decided not to.”

The premier went on to say that after hearing several speakers who seemed to view this as a first step towards a general franchise for women, he had changed his view. “I am surprised,” he said, his voice booming in the musty air of the chamber, “to see Christian gentlemen trying to upset the Biblical doctrine that the woman is subject to the man!”

Lily felt the hot waves of anger from the women around her, heard the murmur of comments. Premier Whiteway painted a vivid picture of the happy home ruled over by a contented wife and mother. “What would the condition be,” he asked, “if the husband returned home to find his wife away on a political mission, and the comforts of home and children neglected?”

Mrs. Ohman, unable to hold back any longer, shouted, “Disgraceful! Shame!” Her outcry was stifled by cheers and jeers from the gentlemen below, but Mrs. Peters jabbed Mrs. Ohman in the arm with her fan. “You’ll do our cause no good if you get thrown out of the House,” she reminded the other lady in a sharp whisper.

It was long past supper-time. Lily’s stomach growled. Surely they would be missed at Abby’s house. Surely her mother, however distracted she was by paint and paper, would send a messenger up to the Hunt house to see why the girls had not arrived. But when she whispered this to Abby, Abby smiled. “I thought of that ages ago,” she whispered back. “When I went out for air I sent a boy round with a note saying we’d decided to stay at your house for the night instead.”

It was nearly midnight when the vote was taken and, before anyone said Aye or Nay, Lily knew it would not go in their favour. The men below looked tired and cross: a fug of blue pipe-smoke and cigar-smoke hung in the air, and the men who were in favour of the women’s vote would not hold out all night against those who so eloquently opposed it. They wanted to sweep the matter away, to be done with it so they could go home to their beds, beds no doubt occupied by docile wives who never questioned their place.

“We’ve lost, we’ve lost,” Mrs. Ohman muttered under her breath as the men recorded their votes one by one. Mrs. Peters put her face in her hands when the tally was recorded: fourteen votes in favour of women’s franchise, seventeen against. And then the session was over, and the members below filed out of the hall, and the ladies in the gallery did the same. They were quiet now, shoulders sagging, hats no longer jaunty. No thought of singing, now.