The Lemon Tree

by Helen Forrester

  Watching him, Wallace Helena guessed that the young man’s passage had not been easy. She had been much despised herself, because she was thought, in her early days at Fort Edmonton, to be part Chinese and, when this was discounted, to be Jewish and, therefore, not someone anybody white wanted to know. Thank God for Joe and his Cree relations, she considered grimly. Without them, she would have been very lonely, too.

  He was speaking again, asking a personal question suggested by her remark about his loneliness. ‘Do you have help on your farm – someone you can leave it with? Bobsworth told me you had a big farm.’

  She gazed at him thoughtfully, the long narrow eyes weighing him up once again. ‘I’ve a partner,’ she admitted cautiously.

  ‘What will you do, if you want to stay here with us?’

  ‘I don’t know yet whether my partner would wish to continue managing it or would want to sell up. I’m awaiting his reactions to some suggestions I have made by letter.’

  That accounted for her dilatoriness in making up her mind. He was relieved that there was a sensible reason for her slowness.

  But in her heart Wallace Helena knew that if she was not in Edmonton and he did not want to come to England, Joe would take his horses and drift back to the south, perhaps into the United States, to peddle his expertise in warmer climates; he did not have Tom Harding’s passionate love of the land; he loved only her.

  And how could she desert him? Yet she was tired of the un-equal struggle in the Territories, the hardship; her body had begun to crave the comfort of a civilized city. ‘Tush, I must be getting old,’ she muttered. ‘Wait and see what Joe has to say. And, meantime, get on with the job here.’

  Benji was turning to leave the office. She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose hard, her goodbye somewhat muffled.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Living in the same district, Mrs Hughes was well aware of the social standing of the self-styled Mrs Al-Khoury, and, when the unfortunate lady presented herself on Mrs Hughes’s snow-white doorstep, she treated her with supercilious disregard, as if she had never seen her before.

  Eleanor Al-Khoury was in full mourning. The opaque black veil of her widow’s bonnet had been thrown forward, to shield her face from the gaze of the vulgar. In one black-gloved hand she held a black-edged handkerchief and in the other a worn black change purse. She told the landlady in a low voice that Miss Harding was expecting her.

  Mrs Hughes kept the visitor standing in the hall, while she went to inquire of Wallace Helena whether she was at home this evening.

  Rather startled, Wallace Helena replied in tones muffled by her cold that, as far as she knew, she was right here. Why?

  ‘A woman wishes to see you.’

  ‘Mrs Al-Khoury?’

  ‘I believe she goes by that name.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring her right in?’ Wallace Helena demanded irritably, as she rose from, her fireside chair. Mrs Hughes sniffed and, full of offended dignity, reopened the sitting-room door, and snapped, ‘You can come in.’

  Holding her handkerchief to her streaming nose with one hand, Wallace Helena held out her other hand to Eleanor and drew her towards the fire. ‘Come in, Mrs Al-Khoury, close to the fire. You must be quite chilled – it is so damp outside.’ She pushed her handkerchief into her waistband, and saw the visitor comfortably seated opposite to her own chair.

  Immediately a little relieved by the fact that Wallace Helena had called her Mrs Al-Khoury, an indication, she felt, of acceptance as a member of the family, Mrs Al-Khoury sat down.

  ‘Do take off your bonnet and gloves,’ Wallace Helena urged, anxious to make the bereaved woman feel at home. ‘Let me take them from you.’

  At such kindness and condescension, Eleanor Al-Khoury felt she wanted to cry again. She carefully lifted the ugly bonnet off, and handed it to Wallace Helena.

  A round, pleasant face was revealed, framed by puffs of light brown hair streaked with white. Deepset blue eyes looked red from weeping and lack of sleep. Though the round cheeks were a deep pink, the lines of the face spoke of exhaustion. When Eleanor peeled off her black cotton gloves, Wallace Helena noted that her hands had the same work-worn look as did her own, except that Eleanor’s were bright red from frequent immersion in hot water and soda.

  The visitor sat bolt upright in her chair, as a lady should. When Wallace Helena, smiling, sat down again, she returned her hostess’s inquiring gaze without faltering. Then suddenly she bent her head and burst into tears.

  In a moment, Wallace Helena was on her knees beside her. She put her arm round the bent shoulders and pleaded, ‘Please don’t cry. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of you, luv,’ the woman snuffled through her tears. ‘It’s ’cos everything’s gone topsy-turvy, like – and I miss ’im so much.’ She sobbed for a moment. while Wallace Helena held her and tried to soothe her. ‘And it hurts so much that he never thought to leave me even a bit to live on.’ Her voice rose to a wail.

  ‘It was an accident, Mrs Al-Khoury; he simply did not expect to die for a long time yet. I’m told he appeared to be a very stalwart man.’

  The straightforward use of the word die instead of a euphemism caused another paroxysm of grief, which Wallace Helena did her best to stem by suggesting a nice, hot cup of tea. She had been much amused by Mrs Hughes’s prescribing tea for every ill; colds, aches, lack of appetite, headaches, all yielded to a nice cup of tea, according to the landlady. Nothing like it.

  While Mrs Al-Khoury sobbed her thanks, Wallace Helena pulled the bell to call Violet May, Mrs Hughes’s maid-of-all-work.

  By the time Violet May had arrived and had been asked for tea and cake or biscuits, Eleanor Al-Khoury had begun to gain control of herself. To divert her, Wallace Helena asked her if she lived nearby.

  ‘Oh, aye. I’m only a little ways away, round the corner. Me pa left me the house, and it’s a godsend, it’s bin. It’s old-fashioned, but Jamie liked it ’cos it’s close to the soap works.’

  Wallace Helena asked how she had met Uncle James, and Eleanor told her the story of how, as a young immigrant, he had knocked on her door and asked if she had a room to let. ‘And we went on from there,’ she said more cheerfully. ‘He were always so good to me – that’s why I can’t understand …’ Her face crumpled again and she took out her handkerchief to hold it to her quivering mouth.

  ‘He was good to me as well. When Mama and my stepfather died and I decided to go on farming, I asked if he could get me some books about agriculture in a cold climate. He sent me several very helpful books. He must have had to send for some of them from other countries – one was in French and two on botany were in Arabic.’

  Eleanor stopped weeping and looked at Wallace Helena in great surprise. ‘I didn’t know that,’ she said.

  ‘I gathered from the lawyer that Mr Helliwell did the dispatching.’

  ‘Oh, aye. He’d have all the boxes and wrapping paper he needed by him in the office. That’d be it.’

  Wallace Helena nodded. She recalled with amusement that he had never mentioned either Eleanor or Benji in his covering letters to her. He had, however, given her the name of a friend of her grandfather, long established in Montreal. She had written to him to ask if he knew of any research being done on farming in Canada, and he, too, had been very kind. He had sent her two papers on sowing pasture and one on the problems of raising wheat in a short growing season.

  As Eleanor droned on with the story of her life with Uncle James, Wallace Helena berated herself for not keeping in closer touch with her uncle. But the distance had been so immense that she was always amazed when a letter or a box actually did arrive from him. And often the daily life of herself and Joe had been so hard that it had left little time to think of anything except the next task to be done. But the books had been a wonderful help, especially one he had obtained on Russian farming.

  Eleanor was saying, ‘Me next-door neighbour told me I were mad to take in a foreigne
r what could hardly speak any English. But he sounded loovely.’ She stopped, and then added with a shy smile, ‘And he were loovely to look at, with the same nice smile our Benji has.’ She clutched her handkerchief in her hand, and wondered how she could explain to this woman from the Colonies the particular, magical attraction of James Al-Khoury as a young man of twenty-two.

  The stranger would have understood perfectly. Had she not fallen in love at the age of eighteen with a fine, six-foot-tall, black cowpuncher and horse-breaker, whose voice still held traces of the deep vibrance of his Zulu forefathers?

  Without apology, Wallace Helena blew her reddened nose hard; she wondered if she had a temperature.

  The tea was brought by Mrs Hughes herself. Though annoyed at having to provide it, she was not averse to intruding on the visit. It was disappointing that, apart from Wallace Helena’s murmured thanks, the two women remained silent while the tray was arranged on a low tea table. Eleanor did not smile at Mrs Hughes, though she managed a stiff inclination of the head. Mrs Hughes acknowledged it with a slight nod, as she left the room disappointed at not being drawn into the conversation.

  As Wallace Helena poured the tea and proffered biscuits, Eleanor continued her tale. ‘Though ’is English never were that good, he could speak French and Arabic – and our Benji grew up with three languages. They’d talk away for hours in one lingo or the other, till I says, “Let’s have a bit of English, so I can be included in.”’ She smiled at this reminiscence, and then sighed. ‘Clever, he was – and so’s our Benji. He insisted on bringing me buckets of coal up from the cellar, and it was there he saw me wash boiler, and got the idea of making soap – came to ’im out of the blue, it did. So I managed to keep ’im fed, while he got started.’

  ‘So you really gave him his start?’

  ‘I suppose. I haven’t never thought of it. He were welcome.’

  As Eleanor became more relaxed over her cups of tea, Wallace Helena listened and watched her carefully. She had learned in the hard world of Chicago, and had it confirmed in the Territories, that behind the most innocent face could lurk a convoluted mind capable of all kinds of perfidy. She wondered if mother and son had any plan to undermine her ownership of the Lady Lavender. She could not immediately think what benefit the Al-Khourys might get out of a scheme to unseat her, but she did not underestimate the power of angry, overlooked relatives.

  Finally, Eleanor Al-Khoury became quiet. Then she broached a fresh subject.

  ‘Our Benji says as how you would like to know how an English lady lives – bearing in mind soap, like?’

  Wallace Helena nodded. ‘I would indeed,’, she responded. ‘Canada is so very different’ She sighed, but did not elaborate. She dabbed her reddened nose, which was feeling very tender. ‘I’ve been to Mr Benson’s house – it was, of course, a formal visit. I didn’t like to ask about their private use of soap!’

  Eleanor laughed suddenly, her face crinkling up to show the merry person she usually was. ‘Well, I don’t mind showing you, as long as you’ll take me as you find me. If you don’t mind clouds of steam, you come along on Monday morning – I do me wash then. I’ll have me boiler goin’ long before you arrive, and we can sit a few minutes and have a cuppa tea before I start to scrub.’ She paused to ruminate over this statement, and then went on, ‘That’s where most of the soap gets used. I use some of the soapy water, afterwards, to scrub the floors and the steps.’

  ‘In summer we do our washing in the creek,’ Wallace Helena confided, feeling on safer ground. ‘We pound it on a smooth rock. In the winter, the creek’s frozen over, so we have to do our best in a wash tub in the cabin – it gets put outside to dry, though, spread over the bushes. It freezes solid and yet it gets almost dry. Then we finish it off over a line inside.’

  ‘It must be proper hard for you livin’ out there amongst the savages,’ responded Eleanor sympathetically, though, despite her liaison with James Al-Khoury, her own life had been a hard one.

  Feeling that she had stayed long enough, she rose to take her leave. She smiled down at Wallace Helena, and said, ‘You’ve been proper kind to me tonight, and you so poorly with a cold. Would you like to come on Monday?’

  ‘I would.’ She rose slowly from her chair, as her visitor went over to the centre table to pick up her bonnet and then came back to the fireside to arrange it in front of the mirror over the mantelpiece. ‘It’s been very nice meeting you,’ the Lebanese told her, remembering her manners, as she shepherded the visitor towards the door of the room.

  In the hallway, before lowering her black veil over her face, Eleanor surprised Wallace Helena by standing on tiptoes and gently kissing her on her cheek, despite the likelihood of catching her cold. At the same time, she squeezed her hand tightly.

  Then she turned and let down her veil, while Wallace Helena, smiling, opened the front door for her.

  ‘See you Monday,’ Eleanor said with false brightness.

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Wallace Helena promised, hiding her general unease.

  After Eleanor had gone down the spotless front steps, the hem of her skirt making a soft plop on each step as she descended, Wallace Helena slowly shut the front door and, as quietly as possible, turned the key; she had no wish to bring Mrs Hughes from her back sitting-room to begin a speculative conversation in the chilly hall.

  Back in her own sitting-room, she sat for a long time before the dying fire, reflecting on Benjamin and his mother. Would they, in their bitterness, become her most dangerous opponents? Eleanor was, according to Benjamin, a close friend of Mrs Tasker and Mrs Bobsworth, who could, in turn, influence their husbands. The two men and Benji could make it impossible for her to keep discipline in the works, though they probably would not go so far as to ruin the business – all three earned a living out of it.

  She remembered, with a sardonic smile, that in Edmonton, nowadays, men were distantly civil to her, but when it came to business transactions, there were no holds barred. She wished Joe Black could have a look at the mother and son; like a dog, he would sense whether they were to be trusted or not.

  Dear Joe. I want this soap works and I want you; and I need Benjamin Al-Khoury’s managerial know-how. And I’m not too sure how to secure any of them permanently.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lying in bed that night, unable to sleep because of her cold, Wallace Helena began to feel once more the sense of desolation that had, from time to time, haunted her ever since her mother’s death. It was born of the knowledge that, after Mama had gone, there was nobody left who understood what the massacre in Beirut had done to her, that her whole life had been ripped apart, her roots destroyed, all the kindly people that she had known in her childhood cruelly murdered, simply because they were a minority, a fairly prosperous Christian minority. She knew she should be thankful that she had escaped, not only the massacre but subsequent death from smallpox; yet, at moments like this, when other problems impinged and seemed insoluble, a sense of being punished for surviving hit her. Was she to be a foreigner, a strange one forever, like the Wandering Jew who had to live until Christ returned to earth, alone, unliked, distrustful of everybody and everything?

  Usually, Joe could comfort her a little when such morbid fancies sent her to bed to lie shivering helplessly in a kind of Hades. Tonight, Joe was six thousand miles away, and she felt bereft of courage, deserted, left behind.

  Towards the end of the night, she must have slept, because, when Violet May knocked on her door to say breakfast would be ready in half an hour, for a second she could not recollect where she was.

  She answered the girl. Then she slowly dragged herself out of bed to bring in the ewer of hot water left outside the door for her by the servant. She ached all over, and her nose and throat seemed half-choked with the cold.

  After washing in hot water, she felt better, and, scolding herself for being so self-pitying, she went down to breakfast

  When Mrs Hughes brought her meal in and saw her, she said immediat
ely that Wallace Helena should on no account go out that day; the milkman had forecast more rain, and he was always right.

  Feeling that she could not endure sitting all day in the gloomy, over-furnished house, Wallace Helena insisted on going to the Lady Lavender. She asked her landlady if, when she went shopping, she would buy her a couple of dozen more handkerchiefs, and she agreed to do this. Then, with unexpected solicitude, she ran upstairs to fetch four of her late husband’s big handkerchiefs to use in the meantime.

  Although she did not like Mrs Hughes much, Wallace Helena had to admit that she was being very kind, and she accepted the proffered hankies with gratitude. Though she was just as capable of blowing her nose through her fingers as the labourers in the soapery did, she had quickly learned, when she did it once in their presence and heard their subsequent amused remarks, that English women did not do this. She wondered how such women felt when faced with a lonely homestead, where every scrap of material was precious; she herself used her few handkerchiefs only when visiting Edmonton village.

  That evening, she returned pallid and obviously worn out, her clothes soaked by a summer rainstorm which had swept up the river.

  As Mrs Hughes relieved her of a dripping umbrella lent her by Mr Helliwell, she protested, ‘Miss Harding, you must take care of yourself. You’ll get tuberculosis, if you don’t watch.’ She took the umbrella from her and put it to drip in the basin in an adjoining wash room. Then she returned to help her lodger remove her sopping wet shawl. ‘I’ll dry it for you in front of the kitchen fire,’ she promised. ‘And you give me your wet boots as well.’

  Thank you, Mrs Hughes. I’ll be all right. I’m used to rough weather.’

  She was not all right; she felt dispirited and very tired. Though she was used to extremes of heat and cold, she was not accustomed to damp, the penetrating dampness of the gentle rains of Lancashire. In her bedroom, she took out her hairpins and rubbed her hair dry; her hat, also, was wet, and she cursed, because she did not know how to hold an umbrella to best protect herself. She longed for hot sun and clear skies, and wondered if the sun ever shone properly in Liverpool.