Mable Riley

by Marthe Jocelyn

  “We could make a trifle,” I said, “if you have any fruit. And some cream. We'll line the pudding with the best bits from your cake.” Her gaze of admiration warmed my cheeks.

  “That's why I like you, Mable Riley You know how to do things.”

  “Anyone can make a trifle,” I said.

  “Not true,” she answered. “I have never made a trifle. Or a cake. But I shall learn, I swear it. There is a saying, ‘The richest women are the most useless.’ I am determined to break this rule and become useful. That is my goal in the kitchen as well as in the world.”

  I was momentarily dumbstruck.

  “But you're not rich,” I said. “You work in a factory.”

  “I am from a wealthy family,” she said, “and therefore completely untrained in the skills required for independence.” She handed me six wizened peaches, which I set about to scalding. I made the trifle as best I could, and suddenly it was three o'clock and the ladies were arriving.

  There were seven of them in all.

  I was expecting Mrs. Watson from the choir, of course, but was astonished to see Miss Robertson, who does the church accounts for Reverend Scott. She has spectacles so thick she might use them for doorknobs. There were two women from Sellerton I had not met: Miss Thomas (with manly eyebrows) and her sister, Mrs. Tupper, whose husband has a large piggery on the other side of the village.

  The most surprising was the last to arrive. It was Helen! I think of her as Kissing Helen (from the train station on our first evening). She arrived with a friend called Mrs. Sophie Barnes, and I could see at once that they were not so genteel as the other ladies. (Or am I adding that now that I have heard her story?) Helen Stevens did not seem so lovely standing in Mrs. Rattle's parlor as she did in the arms of her beloved. It was a shock to examine her closely. Her complexion was dull, the ribbon on her hat was stained, and her cuffs were frayed. How could this be my heroine, brimful of love and adventure?

  Sophie wiped her palms on her skirt as they hovered in the doorway. When they caught sight of the naked dancer on the wall, they eyed each other, hiding giggles behind their hands.

  “Come in, come in, Helen, my dear,” said Mrs. Rattle. “Sit here, Sophie, next to Miss Robertson. Mable will bring you a cup of tea.”

  I did so at once, while Mrs. Rattle continued. “This is Helen Stevens and Sophie Barnes, everyone. They have come all the way from town to-day on their day off, just to confirm that what I tell you is true. They work at the Bright Creek Cheese Company and have been there much longer than I have.”

  The ladies oohed and aahed as if this were very important news, and the factory girls wriggled under their scrutiny. Where was Helen's Phillip to-day? Had he driven them over? I looked out the window but saw no mustached man loitering in the garden.

  Other than Mrs. Rattle, all the women appeared ordinary. (Only later did I consider this with more attention.) They wore neat, dark clothing; their hats were fashionable but not showy. Their hair was pinned, their manners pleasant, and their chatter gay and friendly.

  I poured the tea, asking each time, “One cube or two?” and slid a dainty silver spoon into the saucer.

  “This is Mable Riley,” announced Mrs. Rattle, patting my shoulder. “She is a neighbour and a very clever young woman. She brought the pear tarts and made the trifle! I thought she might benefit from our discussion here to-day. Her sister” she emphasized the word “sister,” which surprised me. She has never met Viola that I know of “is the new schoolmistress.”

  “How very helpful that would be,” murmured Miss Thomas.

  “A delicious trifle, my dear Miss Riley!” said Mrs. Tupper. “Our brother's son, Tommy, is in your class and often speaks of you. Quite a favourite with the boys, I hear.”

  I wished I were not gripping the teapot so that I could cover my face.

  “Oh, don't blush, child! It will serve you well to win the hearts of men. So long as you win their votes as well, isn't that right, girls?” She looked around and the other ladies laughed. “Isn't that what we're here for?”

  Indeed, I realized at that moment that none of them carried a book or had mentioned reading once. I put the teapot back under its cozy. Was this not the Ladies Reading Circle?

  No! It was not!

  When Mrs. Rattle called the ladies to order, I discovered myself in the midst of a meeting of suffragists! This was a secret club! The Reading Circle is but a ruse to hide their real intentions from husbands and busybodies.

  Had I been suspended upside down from the peak of a hay wagon, I could not have felt more sick. Yet thrilled as well, I confess it. Hattie would never believe me! Viola could not imagine it! But what did they mean about Viola being helpful? She had been afraid to join even the Reading Circle when Mrs. Watson had asked! How could she help anything? What would she think to find herself where I was! And where was I? Why had I been invited?

  I refilled the teacups, not breathing for fear I'd miss something.

  Mrs. Rattle readied her pencil above a small notebook. “We'll begin with a short report on your activities since the last meeting,” she said, “and then attend to the business of Bright Creek. Agatha, you first.”

  Miss Thomas sat up tall, like a scholar preparing to recite. “I have ordered the fabric for our pennants. Your husband, Mrs. Watson, was most curious as to what I might be doing with twenty yards of felt. I do think it best that we did not involve you. He said I should receive the shipment within the week.”

  “Very good,” said Mrs. Rattle. “We can use our meeting times to cut and stitch. If we're not making enough progress, we'll work at home in between. Though daylight hours at home are now a luxury. Thyra?” She turned to Miss Robertson, who nervously adjusted her spectacles.

  “It has been a most trying week,” said Miss Robertson. “I did not approach the Stratford Council as I had intended. Mr. Scott has been ill and requiring attention like a baby …” Her voice trailed off in admission of failure.

  “Any likely recruits this month, Muriel?” Mrs. Rattle addressed Mrs. Watson, who hesitated and looked at me before speaking.

  “I am becoming friendly with the new teacher, Miss Riley, as she goes to Endeavor with me on Thursdays.” She then turned to me. “I did not realize you would be here, Mable. I am hopeful that your sister will join our ranks. What do you think? Is your sister of a like mind with us?”

  My throat went dry. What could I say? That Viola would rather run ten miles in wet skirts than be a suffragist?

  “Do you understand, Mable?” said Mrs. Rattle, as if she were speaking to a Grade One scholar. “The teacher is a respected member of any small community. We need supporters who might have influence with many families. Do you suppose your sister … ?”

  Is that why I was invited? To woo Viola to participate in this peculiar assembly? Is that why Mrs. Rattle has been friendly to me?

  I took a sip of tea, which had gone cold in my cup. “I think my sister is, uh, still perhaps, uh, getting used to her new position.” I sounded like a dimwit but could not prevent myself. “Perhaps you should, uh, wait awhile longer to approach her.” I was addressing Mrs. Watson, but the sigh of disappointment was from everyone. I never wished harder to be hidden under my quilt than at that moment.

  “Well, then, Muriel,” said Mrs. Rattle, “continue to be friendly, and we'll discuss it again at the next meeting. Now I would like to say a few words.” She stood up to speak.

  “When I moved to Stratford, I planned to live on my savings until I could find employment with the newspaper. That employment has not come. I have become a curd presser instead and realize I have been pampered and blind until this month of my life. I did not expect to be a labourer and I do not enjoy being a labourer, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have my eyes opened wide. I will never again eat a piece of cheese or wear shoes or use soap without wondering what hardships were faced by the women who made those things!”

  She raised her voice as if addressing the audience in a town hall rather
than a circle of ladies in her own parlour. “Women are the victims of a universal scandal! But here at the Bright Creek Cheese Company, we have a chance to open more eyes, to improve the working conditions for our own neighbours! Tell them, girls.” She beckoned to Helen Stevens and Sophie Barnes. “Is it not time for change?”

  The factory girls seems a little cowed at first by the force of Mrs. Rattle's passion, but she soon had them talking about what their work involved.

  “I've been there two months,” said Helen.

  “I've been there more than a year,” said Sophie.

  “We start at 6:40.” said Helen. “I'm up at five in time to walk out to the factory. With the walk, I'm home by eight o'clock in the evening.”

  “My mother looks after my kiddies,” said Sophie. “I'm lucky that way.”

  “I'm usually on the stir vat,” said Helen, “meaning I handle the pole and move the curds around without stopping or they clot.”

  “All day,” said Mrs. Rattle. “Just as I spend my twelve hours in the next room, working the curd press. And Sophie's on cleaning. Show them your arms, Sophie.”

  Obediently, Sophie unbuttoned her cuffs and rolled back her sleeves, revealing wicked lashes, inflamed and blistered.

  “The burns don't have a chance to heal,” she explained. “The water's got to be boiling, to sterilize the milk cans, but they don't give us gloves or naught and the soap is harsh.”

  “But what can we do?” Mrs. Watson sounded bewildered. “Why do you not explain to the boss what the problems are?”

  “We need our jobs,” said Helen. “Mr. Forrest knows that. I was meant to be getting married, but Phillip's gone off and left me. I need every penny.”

  I tried not to stare. It was hard enough to accept that Helen was not as romantic as I had imagined. But to find her alone and miserable made me feel actually sick. Is this how Mrs. Rattle would be in a few weeks' time? Hopeless and exhausted?

  I busily collected the cups and plates to wash up. The tray jiggled so much in my trembling hands that the sugar bowl and creamer did a dance. In the kitchen, I purposely clattered and clanked so as not to hear any more. I could not absorb another word. A thousand thoughts stormed my mind. I felt tossed, as if by waves, and prayed for the wind to drop to allow some peace of mind.

  I could not wait for the meeting to conclude. The refreshments were done with, the dishes tidied. Grateful that I'd left my shawl draped across the kitchen chair, I took it and slipped out the back door.

  A drizzle had begun, and the smell of wet leaves was stirred up by my feet as I hurried home through the dusk. I thought how to explain my afternoon. “They were terribly serious,” I might say, or, “Each lady spoke an opinion and the others listened.”

  Or perhaps I should tell the whole truth? That I expected to remember what I had witnessed for the rest of my life.

  “They were most complimentary about our pear tarts” is what I told Viola at supper.

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 14

  Alfred rode up the drive in the buggy as we came through the gate after school. His sombre face alerted us of dreadful news: Mrs. Goodhand's father, Horace Finchley, died late Saturday night.

  Mr. Goodhand is packing a bag now and will go to be with his wife at the funeral in Berlin. Alfred is driving him to the evening train. Roy will be hired on to help on the farm for the three days until Mr. Goodhand returns. Poor Alfred will sleep in the barn, as it would not be proper to have him under the same roof with Miss Viola Riley while both the Goodhands are away. Mrs. Campbell will travel with Mr. Goodhand, leaving her husband behind, and Elizabeth will stay with us starting tomorrow. All this was decided by Mr. Goodhand within minutes of the news.

  The only person displaying any sorrow is Mrs. Campbell, and she is weeping enough for everyone. It's terribly sad that she did not travel to Berlin earlier, to bid her father farewell. Mr. Goodhand is a bully and she should have ignored him to do what she knew was right. She will feel regret for the rest of her life that she did not see her father on his deathbed.

  Viola and I came up to our room as soon as our condolences were spoken. Of course we did not know Mrs. Goodhand's father and cannot pretend to grieve.

  The upset in the kitchen was making me feel quite twitchy I tried to read but could not settle my eyes upon the page. Viola poured water from the pitcher into the washbasin and began to scrub her hands.

  “Viola?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Do you remember the night when Father –”

  “I remember.”

  She dried her hands and sat next to me on the bed.

  “Remember how the sleet blew against the window?” said Viola. “And how Mama put on Father's robe against the cold?”

  “But I didn't want you to keep the stove going,” I said, “because Father wouldn't be there to split more wood.”

  “And then Mama said Arthur would do it now. From now on. It would be Arthur's job to look after us. Remember?”

  “And we all cried.”

  Viola put her hand on top of mine, lying on the quilt. Her fingers were damp still from washing, cool and heavy. I did not move, not even a tremble, in case she pulled away.

  But after a bit she stood up and tugged the towel straight on the washstand and corrected the placement of her brush and comb on the doily.

  “I don't suppose it will do us good to venture backward,” she said. “Mrs. Goodhand's trials are fresh and ours are grown over. It is she we must think on tonight.”

  I awoke in the dark from a dream where there was sleet again, hissing against the window. I suppose it was only chestnut branches. Viola was snoring, ever so gently. I'll have to tell her. I thought of Mrs. Goodhand's mother, spending the night alone after sharing her room for fifty-six years. Perhaps her husband snored like a bear. Will she cherish her first ever night of peace? Or will she toss and turn, aching for the buzzing drone that has been her lullaby for half a century?

  Did my father snore? I don't remember. I could ask Mama.

  Suddenly I missed Mama with an ache I have not felt since we came to Sellerton. I tried to remember her face but could not. I tried to imagine her voice or her embrace but could not.

  Then came a picture of her hands, folding bedsheets stiff from the clothesline. Her hands are brown and freckled, even in winter, her nails short and scrubbed clean. I could see them peeling apples, the way they do in October hundreds of apples. Peeling, cutting, coring, slicing, picking up the next apple in her left hand, turning the paring knife in her right, the peelings coiling down to the newspaper on the floor, the white, naked apples going into the blue enamel basin with the chipped rim.

  I felt better. Then I tried the same exercise with my father, which only baffled me again. I tried to picture the hands that held the Bible every night, but instead recalled the hard edge of the kitchen bench under my bottom while I wriggled, waiting for the passage to be done. I know he read aloud in a voice always gruff with a cough. I know he smacked his lips when he ate apple cake and left his boots under the table. But I know these qualities as I know a character in a story, because they are the details that my mother has repeated to us.

  I do remember the sudden hole of not having him. The sound of my mother's leaky sniffling in the night; the discovery of his cap on its nail a month after he died; the charred tobacco in his pipe, sucked dry by his very own breath that was not breathing anymore.

  I hugged my own arms for comfort. How odd that Mrs. Goodhand and Mrs. Campbell are tonight discovering the hole that I have felt since I was ten.

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15

  I wrote a condolence letter to Elizabeth about her grandfather, inking black the edge by hand as there were no mourning cards to be found about this house. I am not much practiced at this form of correspondence but did read the dozens Mama received upon my father's death. It seemed a wasted penny to post it, so I handed the envelope to Elizabeth as we lined up to make our manners at the morning's start.

  At lunch, we sat together as has
become our custom. (Whoever would have guessed it?) Elizabeth said that she has only met with her grandparents rarely and feels no sorrow on her own behalf. “But my mother grieves as if her heart has broken,” she told me, “though never did a day go by while he lived that she did not complain of his lack of interest in her endeavors. Not that she endeavored to be more than a farm wife, and why should that interest him?”

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16

  We had a picnic for supper tonight! On the kitchen floor, the three of us girls. Viola scrambled eggs while Elizabeth and I toasted bread on forks over the fire. Roy and Alfred turned up late after milking, and we made the same again for them. When they'd been fed, Roy suggested that since we used the floor for eating, we should use the table to play the new game that is so popular. We cleared away the cloth and centerpiece, and he took a small ball of string from his pocket. Roy said there are real balls and paddles manufactured to play, but home devices work near as well. The game was called Gossima until recently when it was changed to Ping-Pong, which sounds much more like a game, does it not? We had no paddles but used Mrs. Goodhand's smallest fry pans instead. The object of the game is to bounce the little ball back and forth across the table between two players without losing it to the floor. We got quite wild taking turns, until Viola remarked that we should perhaps not be so hilarious, this being a house of mourning.

  One further footnote: Roy said he'd seen Mrs. Rattle walking home from the factory. She'd had a puncture and had to push the bicycle more than two miles. He helped her patch it so that she could ride to work in the morning.

  “Did she mention me?” I asked. “Does she know you're working here?”

  “No,” said Roy.

  Does she miss me? I wonder.

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17