Hetty Dorval (5 page)

The man moved in his chair and got up. He moved to the fireplace, standing with his back to it and ramming the tobacco down his pipe with a match. He looked down at Hetty and went on talking, and Hetty lifted her head. The lamplight and the firelight shone on her face as she looked up at him.

We were able now to see something of Mr. Dorval’s face. He was heavily built and he carried his head thrust forward so that there was a sense of power about him. Although his face was heavy, his look was alert and intent. When, as rarely, Hetty spoke, he jerked his head forward a little as if to listen and to seize the full value of her words. Once, laughing, she raised her hand to him, and he took it, and held it, and continued talking, looking down upon her.

We stayed watching until I felt a little pinch from Ernestine that I took to mean we’d better get away. I felt too, that this eavesdropping business was not very nice and I don’t think we thought much of ourselves, doing it, except that it was fun in a way. I took another good look at Mr. Dorval, and of course I shall never forget his face, although I never saw him again; but I heard, afterwards, that he came to Lytton two or three times. I saw his picture in a newspaper some time later, and the name under the picture was not Dorval.

All this winter and spring there had been much talk at the ranch of my going away to boarding-school. It was exciting, but I did not know whether to be glad or sorry. Father and Mother had planned always that I should some day have a year or two in England, or perhaps in France, like Mother, and they had saved and probably denied themselves a great deal with this in mind. Now although I had my French lessons each week with Sister Marie-Cécile, there were other school subjects that Mother and Father said I would be behind in if I went straight from Lytton to England, and their plan was that
I should go to a school in Vancouver when I was about fourteen (I was thirteen by this time), and have some special teaching so that I should not find myself too unequal when I arrived at a strange school. It had practically been decided that I should go to Vancouver in the following spring, that is, in a year’s time. And then one or two things happened to change this.

Father had bought another five acres north of the ranch house and this necessitated some more fencing, and he got Joe Charley and Charley Joe, who always travelled together, to come up from Lytton and help with this work. Partly they fed themselves, but partly we fed them, and they used to come to the kitchen a good deal, and Mother or Jean would give them fresh meat, or milk, or a baking of bread.

One Friday evening I rode up to the ranch and saw no one about, so I slid off Maxey and stabled him and ran into the house. Mother was in the kitchen and I rushed up and kissed her. She did not respond in her usual way and I felt that there was something wrong. Mother looked at me for a minute as if she were reading or learning me off by heart and she was rather quiet. My guilty conscience stirred, but I had carried on my peculiar occasional secret friendship with Hetty Dorval for so many months that I did not at once think about that. I said, “Where’s Father?” and Mother said, “I don’t know.” That’s all she said. I stayed in the kitchen a minute or two, but then as Mother did not seem to have anything more to say I wandered out to the corral. Father was there with a bunch of work horses we had. I called to him, and he looked up quickly and gave me a wave of the hand and went on with what he was doing. I felt uneasy, as ordinarily Father would have hailed me and beckoned me over to the corral, or I would have gone without being beckoned, and would have wriggled inside or climbed up on the stockade and leaned over. But Father did
not seem to encourage me to do this. When things are not right one sometimes avoids contacts, as the easy natural words do not come.

So I went back and up to my room, and looked at things, and then went down to the kitchen again. Soon it was supper-time and Father came in and washed, and we all sat down at the table in the living-room.

Father and Mother were very polite to me, and I realized later that they wanted to get supper over and let me enjoy my meal first if possible before they said to me what was on their minds. Because it was quite obvious that something was wrong, and this something hung in the air and thickened the atmosphere of the room uncomfortably.

When we had finished supper and Mother and I had cleared the table and taken the dishes out to Jean, we sat down beside the fire as we nearly always did, my chair drawn up near my father’s. I became quite sure that the trouble was Mrs. Dorval. I was inexperienced enough and perhaps stupid enough not to realize that any discovery that I had for some months been hiding something from my parents – something of which they could not guess the significance – while going through the usual motions of love, would be a radical shock to them. As we sat there in a waiting silence I felt that there was, between my parents, and between their eyes which looked on one another, a lasting bond woven before my time, and that I, Frankie, had contrived to place myself outside. We had always been three, and there was no constraint amongst us. Tonight we were two, and one. Or so it seemed to me on this evening as I sat there, waiting for something. And I myself had done this, for a stranger, for Mrs. Dorval. Things seemed very confusing. I felt cross with everyone, and I felt a ninny.

I
sat waiting for someone to begin and arrayed myself for whatever was coming. The dreadful thing was that I was sure that Father and Mother were going to be reasonable and that I would have no chance to feel injured and so take up a strong defensive stand, whatever it was. I had been astonished, a little while before, at what a woman had said to Mrs. Dunne about someone else’s father and mother. “Do you know,” she said, “that their son told me that he had never in his whole life heard an angry word in his home! His father and mother had never once raised their voices in anger to each other in his whole existence!” I could not see why she was so surprised at this, as I also had never heard an angry word in our home, either in public or private. You could hear every single thing in our house, walls were thin and doors were open, and nothing would have surprised me more and made me more uncomfortable than to hear anger between my father and mother. Of course, they didn’t always agree about everything, but that’s different. Also, they never spoke angrily to me, although both Mother and Father could be short with me on occasion. But now I sat, fearing the
unknown. Fearing perhaps their anger. The room was unusually still except for the crackling fire. I looked down at my fingers.

Mother folded her hands and stretched her arms stiffly as with effort before her, giving a sigh, and then she relaxed and said to me, “Frankie, Father and I are very much disturbed, and we may as well tell you what we have heard, and then you can tell us what has been happening and why. Last Monday when Charley Joe came to the kitchen he said to Jean something about Frankie being all the time at Mrs. Dorval’s, and Jean was surprised because she hears everything that goes on and she’d never heard anything about our knowing this Mrs. Dorval or you knowing her either, and she said ‘Not
our
Frankie, not Frankie Burnaby, she doesn’t know Mrs. Dorval.’ And Charley insisted that he’d seen you there often.” (Had he? When? Oh, the lighted windows!)

Mother paused for a minute and looked at me questioningly and Father looked hard at the empty pipe that he was handling.

I didn’t answer at once, because although I had promised to say nothing about going to see Mrs. Dorval, it came over me with a rush that the promise was all washed away now that Mother and Father and probably other people knew. So at last I said, looking downwards at my twisting fingers, “Yes, I’ve been there.”

Father spoke in his pleasing growl but his tone was not pleasing. “How often, Frankie?”

I still looked downwards and said, “Four times, I think, no, five. Ernestine and I went and looked in at the window one night.”

Then Father exploded. “My daughter a Peeping Tom!” and I was silent and ashamed.

“Darling,” said Mother to Father, “let’s hear what Frankie has to say. Frankie,
why
didn’t you tell us?” Pause and no answer. “Did you feel there was something wrong about it?” No answer.

“Did this woman tell you
not
to tell?” asked Father, speaking sharply. I disliked Mrs. Dorval being called “this woman,” so I looked up and said grandly, “Mrs. Dorval told me she did not want to have callers. She’s very fastidious.” This was a word I liked, but I did not often have an opportunity to use it. It seemed a splendid word for Mrs. Dorval.

“ ‘Fastidious’!
My God!” said my father, and jumped up and began to stride up and down the room. I was apprehensive!

“Tell us, Frankie,” said Mother patiently, “we still don’t really understand why, if there was no harm in it, you should keep it a secret from us. It’s either very silly or very wrong. You haven’t told us yet.
Did
Mrs. Dorval ask you not to tell that you went to see her?”

I nodded glumly, feeling that a great deal of fuss was being made about nothing much.

Father stopped walking up and down and swung round and stood over me. “What is this lady’s reason for not wanting to be called upon. Did she say?”

I tried to remember Mrs. Dorval’s words. “Yes, I think she said that she didn’t want her life complicated and people running in at all hours. There’s nothing wrong in that, is there?” I said miserably.

“And where did you first meet her?” asked Father, still standing over me, tall and brown, extra tall, he seemed.

“Riding into Lytton.”

“Frank,” interposed Mother, speaking to Father, “I’m sure Frankie promised in all innocence. But darling,” (to me) “did you feel comfy about all this? Not telling us, I mean?”

I shook my head and found it hard to keep the tears away.

“The thing that disturbs us is that you should ever have begun to keep anything from Father and me …”

“I think, Ellen, I’ll have to tell this young lady …” interrupted Father, sitting down and polishing his pipe again. And then he told me about Mrs. Dorval. He found it difficult, I could see, to explain to me about “a woman of no reputation.” (“Oh,” I thought, sitting still and discreet like a bird that is alarmed, “I know, like Nella that went to stay with that rancher, and that woman with the funny hair!” – we children just naturally heard and knew these things) and I learned that Hetty was “a woman of no reputation.” Father stopped short there. Apparently he could have said more. In my own mind, seeing Hetty’s pure profile and her gentle smile, I said to myself that Father couldn’t have believed these things if he had seen her himself. But a sick surprised feeling told me that it might be true.

After a little silence Father said that he would not exact a promise from me that I would not go and see Mrs. Dorval, but he hoped that I saw now why her house was no place for me.

I made one more effort at defence. I looked at each of them imploringly. “Maybe it’s all lies that you’ve heard. She’s so sweet and she rides well and she reads books, French books too, and sings lovely songs, and plays the piano, and we don’t do things like smoke and drink and play cards for money at her house. Just she sings and we have tea – and she
loved
the wild geese!” I added as a proof of Hetty’s innocence.

I suppose the picture of their child carousing with the bad Mrs. Dorval was funny, for Mother smiled across at Father. She got up and put her arm round me. “My funny little daughter!” she said. “Come, let’s play Russian Bank.”

We spoke no more of Mrs. Dorval but I was greatly troubled. It was just possible, I felt, that Father was wrong. I couldn’t think of that strict Mrs. Broom allowing Mrs. Dorval to be wicked even if she wanted to be. And as I thought of Mrs. Dorval looking up at the wild geese and turning to me in rapture, I still could not believe that she was bad.

I came to a decision. Rather dramatically I decided that of course I would “part” from her, but I could not bear that she should think I had deserted her. I would go and say goodbye. Then I would let Father know afterwards. At that thought I quailed, I can tell you!

I
was very much subdued when I left for Lytton on Sunday. I hoped, yet feared, to see Mrs. Dorval on the way. Knowing that I should never feel right with her and with myself if I did not go again to see her and say good-bye, I still dreaded to go. In a sense I had learned to love her very dearly. She was all that I thought beautiful, and so nice to be with. That, I believe, was Hetty’s chief equipment for life. She was beautiful, and so nice to be with. I did not meet her on the Lytton road.

I saw Ernestine that Sunday evening. She ran in to Mrs. Dunne’s after church to tell me about the circus. The thing was incredible news. Ernestine and I had never seen a circus. “Is it going to be a real circus with lions and elephants and clowns, d’you suppose?” I asked. Ernestine said no, she didn’t think so. Not a real circus, just a small travelling fair, and the posters were already in town.

All over the town on Monday a rash of posters broke out. Posters went up and down “the line” and into the hills. They promised a Merry-go-round, and a Ferris Wheel, and a Midway with prizes, and a tattooed man, and a strong man,
and a fat lady, and a five-legged calf, and Torquil the Lobster Boy. What was a Lobster Boy?

On Wednesday the youth of Lytton town watched the circus unpacking itself and setting itself up on a large vacant space overlooking the Fraser River. Late on Wednesday the gas flares were burning, the din of the calliope filled the night, the barkers were shouting, the Midway shone with its odd spurious glamour, and the fair was on. Round and round went the lighted Ferris Wheel. Round and round went the lighted Merry-go-round with people clasping the horses. Silent Indians moved slowly out of the darkness into the light and stood watching, or they moved slowly about the little Midway, always watching. The Indians, in small groups, moved always together, as by some inner self-protective compulsion, like certain birds, with their own particular kind of awareness.