“Well,” said Mr. Brown after a moment. “At least we know he’s fine. We’ll write him back after supper. I’ll go down to the Bank of Toronto and open an account for him. Nice to have someone in the family in need of a bank.”
Margaret picked up her sewing, thinking about her gentle Edward with a bayonet in his hand. She couldn’t really picture it. Edward and Dad shot rabbits and ducks and sometimes even geese, but that was for food. She couldn’t imagine Edward shooting a person. Well, maybe the war would be over soon and he wouldn’t go to England after all. That’s what all the newspapers said anyway, and if it was written in print, well, it had to be true.
A knock on the door brought their heads up.
“If it’s that old fussbudget again . . .” Mr. Brown began angrily.
He yanked the door open and Uncle Harold, Mary, and Pauline came in, arms full of packages. George and the twins pushed in behind.
“A few things from the garden Dot sent you,” Uncle Harold said. “Cabbage, a squash. There’s not much left now.”
Aunt Dorothy was kinder from a distance, they had discovered. Margaret pulled Timothy’s socks off his hands and held the small fingers in her own to warm them up. Taylor immediately pushed his hands into hers also. “Warm mine, too,” he yelled. George opened the ice box and pulled out a loaf of bread and put it on the table. He cut a slice, spreading crumbs over Margaret’s patches.
“You’re getting my sewing dirty,” she pointed out.
“Well, move it off the table.”
“I was here first,” Margaret told him.
“We’ve had a letter from Edward,” Mrs. Brown said.
Uncle Harold pulled out a chair and sat at the table.
“Bread, too,” Taylor hollered.
“And if these children would be quiet . . .” Margaret’s mother fixed them with a stare. “I’ll tell you about it.”
George cut a second slice that Margaret halved and handed to Timothy and Taylor.
“Edward’s at Valcartier Camp in Quebec. Then he’s off to England,” Mrs. Brown said.
“Being in England’s no safer than being at the front.” Uncle Harold shook his head worriedly. “I just read the other day that the Germans are conducting aerial attacks on the army camps in Kent.”
Margaret’s mother made a small noise in her throat.
“Oh, sorry, Olivia,” Uncle Harold apologized. “He certainly is safer in England than at the front,” he added hastily. “Things are not going well at all for our troops, I see from the Free Press. The war isn’t going well for them at all.”
“So this is your house.” Pauline put her hands on her hips and looked around the room. Idly, one hand reached out and picked up one of Margaret’s cardboard triangles, twirling it around.
“Put that down before you bend it,” Margaret snapped. “Please,” she added, catching Mama’s eye.
“It’s the poison gas attacks I worry about,” Mrs. Brown said. “That attack in April at Ypres. Horrible. Men blinded, skin blistered, or their lungs destroyed and the lucky ones, dead.”
“Olivia,” Margaret’s father cautioned, looking meaningfully at the children. “They have issued gas masks to the troops now, so Edward will be fine.”
“Don’t tell me he’ll be fine, Martin! I’ve heard the women talk at church. Oh, the newspaper might not be able to tell us what is really happening, but I hear. Our boys faced with barbed wire, muddy trenches, people shooting at them, and make no mistake about it, they are only boys. He’ll be anything but fine,” Margaret’s mother said. She clicked her needles together furiously.
“This place is really quite gloomy and . . .” Pauline sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “It smells funny.” She leaned over Margaret. “You smell funny, too, musty and smoky.”
Margaret moved slightly away from her, anxious to hear the adults talk about the war. Edward wouldn’t be gassed, would he? Not if the war was over soon, she comforted herself. He probably wouldn’t leave England, even if he got that far.
“I’d go overseas if I could,” Mr. Brown said. “It’d give you steady money coming in, Olivia, but with my back, instead, I’m sitting here not good for anything.”
“Was that Peter Stevens I saw leaving as we came in?” Pauline asked.
“He was visiting George,” Margaret told her shortly.
“Peter Stevens was visiting your brother George?” Pauline repeated incredulously.
“Yes.” Margaret put in a couple more stitches. “He comes quite often. He walked me home once,” she added. She felt a spurt of satisfaction at hearing Pauline’s gasp. Her cousin didn’t need to know that she’d looked frightful at the time, that she’d never opened her mouth, and that Peter Stevens had not noticed her again except to say hello when he was over to see George.
“Well . . . well . . .” Pauline stammered.
“Well, I don’t know how you can live in this awful place,” she said finally.
“Shut up!” Margaret yelled.
“Margaret!” Mrs. Brown exclaimed. “Young ladies do not use that sort of language. You apologize to your cousin immediately.”
“But she . . .”
“Now!”
“Sorry I told you to shut up,” Margaret muttered. “I should have just told you to stop your yammering.”
“Margaret . . .” Her mother’s voice held a tight note of warning.
“Olivia,” Uncle Harold said quickly. “What are you making there?”
“Sweaters for the twins,” Mrs. Brown replied.
“You know,” Uncle Harold told her, “I can get you some work knitting. It’s terrible pay, but . . .”
“Yes,” Margaret’s mother said instantly.
Uncle Harold held up a hand. “Now hear me out before you decide. I know a man who supplies a store in Toronto with baby sets. Sweater, booties, whatever a set is. He doesn’t pay very much.”
“Tell him I’ll do it.”
Chapter 8
“Has anyone seen Jean Thurlowe?” Miss Simmonds asked.
Margaret glanced around the classroom, but no hands went up. Jean had not been at school for four days.
At the end of class Miss Simmonds asked Margaret to stay behind. “I see you occasionally speak to Jean,” she said.
Margaret nodded.
“But you haven’t seen her for a while . . .”
“No.”
Two small lines of worry creased Miss Simmonds’s forehead. “I hope she’s well. She’s always so underdressed for the weather and there is a lot of influenza around.” She pulled a small pile of paper towards her. “Would your mother let you go by Jean’s house and take this homework to her? I’d hate for her to get behind. Also . . .” Miss Simmonds bent down and opened the bottom drawer of her desk and took out a book. Margaret read the title upside down: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. “Tell her I am lending her another book to read,” Miss Simmonds continued. “Have you read it, Margaret?”
“Yes,” Margaret replied. “Evie borrowed it from our teacher at our last school and read it out loud to us at home. I’ll ask Mama, but I don’t expect it would be a problem to take the homework to Jean.”
She stood a moment, admiring the smooth chestnut waves in the teacher’s hair, wishing she had hair just like that instead of her own unruly yellow mop.
“Thank you, Margaret,” Miss Simmonds smiled. “Have you been to Jean’s house before?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll draw you a map. It’s not too far. And, Margaret . . .” Miss Simmonds paused as if at a loss for words. “Let me know if anything seems amiss,” she finished.
Puzzled, Margaret gathered up the books and piled them in her arms and opened the heavy school doors. Why would Miss Simmonds think there was something wrong with Jean? She shifted a book edge that was poking into her stomach and hurried home. The curtains of the big house moved as Margaret ran past. Nosy old woman. She debated sticking out her tongue, but no doubt that would get back to Mama, so she pretended not to see. Pus
hing open the door to the cottage, she was immediately engulfed by the smell of burning wood. Mama kept the fire going all day now that the weather was colder, but the stove didn’t draw well, filling the room with smoke and giving Mama and the twins coughs.
Margaret threw her books on a chair. “Mama, Miss Simmonds asked me to take some homework to Jean. She’s been away for four days.”
Her mother sat near the window, holding her knitting to the dim light. She didn’t answer right away, squinting as she counted stitches. She wouldn’t light the lamp until she absolutely had to, not wanting to waste coal oil or even a candle. Margaret hadn’t seen knitting needles out of her mother’s hands for two solid weeks, not since Uncle Harold had brought over a huge bag of wool. Mama knitted baby sets from dawn to late at night.
Her mother frowned. “I could use your help here—” she began.
“Miss Simmonds even drew me a map,” Margaret interrupted. “So it must be important.”
“I don’t like you associating with that girl, but if the teacher asked . . .”
“I’ll go as fast as I can,” Margaret promised.
“Very well. On the way back, stop at the store and get me a half pound of sugar and a half pound of stewing beef. That’s the cheapest cut. Get my purse and I’ll give you some money.”
“Mr. Jackson at the store says we can put our groceries on credit and pay Saturday afternoons,” Evie said. She stood at the sink, washing dishes in a basin.
“Putting things on credit is only putting off paying,” Mrs. Brown told her. “Buy something only when you have the cash to buy it. That way you stay out of trouble.”
Margaret knew she was thinking of Dad owing on the seed and farm equipment.
Her mother took out some coins, carefully counting them before handing them to Margaret. “That ought to be enough. Make sure he trims most of the fat away from the beef, though a little doesn’t hurt for flavour. Hurry now.”
“I will, Mama.” Margaret turned to leave then stopped abruptly, seeing movement in her parents’ bedroom. Dad. What was he doing home? Usually he spent his days going to the various factories looking for a job. Doing the rounds, he called it, on the off chance there might be work. She rushed out the door.
Late-afternoon dusk was gathering in the bottom branches of the pine trees. Margaret studied the map and realized she would have to cross the river to get to Jean’s house on Simcoe Street. As she passed over the bridge, a beam of sun broke through a black cloud, slanting towards the water. Margaret’s feet slowed at the sight of the river transformed to liquid gold, framed by trees raising black, stark branches to the sky. A mallard rose from the rushes, seemingly drawn up by the single yellow ray. Margaret knew she should hurry, but it felt as if time had stopped. She followed the duck’s flight until it vanished from view. Time flowed again with the water beneath her, and she continued on her way.
She waited for a streetcar to clatter past, then crossed the road, picking her way around muddy holes, mindful of her boots. Frame houses crouched near the road, their yards unkempt with long brown grasses and weeds. In front of one, a lone chicken scratched busily away. A train rumbled on a track nearby, setting the ground trembling beneath her feet. Carefully Margaret counted five houses from the corner as Miss Simmonds had drawn on the map and found herself in front of a grey house, blue paint peeling from the door. Margaret hesitated. It didn’t look very friendly. She shifted Jean’s books from arm to arm. Miss Simmonds had asked her specially and she had promised the teacher, she reminded herself.
She stepped from the road to the door and knocked softly. A baby cried within and a shrill voice yelled. A blanket covering the window moved slightly, then the door opened a crack. Jean slid out, pulled the door closed behind her, and stood looking down the street away from Margaret.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, voice sullen.
Margaret blinked at the girl’s surliness, then remembered her reason for coming. “Miss Simmonds asked me to bring you your homework so you wouldn’t get behind,” she explained. “And she said you would like to read this book.” She held up Little Women. “It’s good. Evie read it to us.”
Head still averted, Jean grabbed the books from Margaret. “Thanks,” she muttered, backing towards the door.
“Are you sick?” Margaret asked. “Will you be at school tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Ma’s not feeling too well. I have to stay home and watch the baby for her.”
A piercing shout from within whipped both their heads around, and Margaret gasped to see a red welt running down Jean’s cheek from her eye to beneath her chin.
“What happened to your face?” she cried.
Jean immediately turned away. “Nothing. I walked into something. A door.”
“Oh,” Margaret said. She turned to leave. “Well, maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Where are you going now?” Jean asked suddenly.
“I’m picking up some sugar and meat, then straight home,” Margaret answered.
Jean stared at the door a moment. “I’ll come with you as far as the store,” she said. “Wait a moment.” She went around the side of the house, pulled open a door leading into the cellar, and went down. She soon returned without the books. “Come on,” she said with an anxious backwards glance at the house.
“Don’t you want your coat?” Margaret asked. A few flakes of snow drifted lazily out of the sky.
Jean pulled her sweater across her chest and tucked her hands up inside the sleeves. “I don’t feel the cold much,” she told Margaret.
They walked in silence for a while, Jean wrapped in misery and Margaret unable to think of anything to say.
“We had a letter from my brother, Edward,” she said finally. “He’s in Quebec for training, then he’ll be going to England soon, if he hasn’t left already.”
Jean nodded but said nothing.
“Mama’s really worried about the gas attacks from the Germans.”
Again Jean nodded.
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?” Margaret asked desperately.
“Two brothers. Jack’s eleven and supposed to go to school, but he mostly doesn’t. The truant man’s always at our house. Richard’s ten. There’s my sister, Brenda, she’s four. And the baby. A girl. Dad’s never seen her. Ma says he doesn’t deserve to see her after all the trouble he’s brought us. She says she won’t have Dad back in the house. Well, if he’s not coming back, I’ll be going away, too, as soon as I can.”
“Where to?” Margaret asked.
“To be a nurse at the war. I told you that before,” Jean said indignantly. “I’m going to be like Edith Cavell. You know who she is, don’t you?”
Margaret shrugged. The name sounded a bit familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
Jean sighed. “Edith Cavell was a British nurse in Brussels. She ran a nursing school and hospital, and she hid Allied soldiers from the Germans. But the Germans found out and she was executed just a few weeks ago! On October 12! You must have seen the posters of her put up everywhere!”
Margaret’s mouth formed a shocked “O.” She felt ashamed she didn’t know that a nurse had been killed, but the past few months had been a blur of worry with not much time left for anything else.
They stopped on the bridge to let the rag-and-bone man’s cart pass. He wore only a thin shirt open at the neck despite the cool weather. He raised his hat to the girls.
“Crazy man,” Jean said.
“What’s his name?” Margaret asked.
“Johnny. No one knows his last name,” Jean replied.
“Where’s he live?”
“You see all that stuff in the back of his cart?”
Margaret nodded.
“Well, he burrows in beneath it all and sleeps there at night, wherever he stops his cart. In the real cold the livery lets him stable his horse and sleep there.”
No matter how bad things seem, there’s always someone worse off, so don’t feel too sorry for yourse
lf. Margaret remembered Grandma Brown telling her that as she stitched on a quilt for a burned-out family.
They hurried across the bridge to the store. Margaret could feel Jean shivering beside her and shuddered herself when she opened the store door and a blast of warmth and yellow light spilled out to mix with the cold.
“Could I please have a half pound of stewing beef? A half pound,” Margaret repeated, pointing to the slab of red beef in front of her. She wrinkled her nose at the sharp smell of fresh-cut meat. “And Mama said just a bit of fat for flavour—cut the rest off, please.”
“Coming right up.” Mr. Jackson smiled at her and began to chop up the meat. “You’re the girl that’s moved in behind Mrs. Ferguson’s.”
“Yes,” Margaret replied.
“Your mother’s been in here. Your daddy found work yet?”
Margaret didn’t know what to say. Mama never liked them telling family business, but the man seemed friendly and he was cutting up their meat.
“He’s hopeful,” she said, repeating what she heard her mother tell people at church.
He wrapped the meat in brown paper and took it to a cash register. Margaret carefully counted her money and handed it to him.
“Now,” he said. “If you two wait a moment.”
He went back behind the counter and pulled out four meaty soup bones, wrapped them up, and handed a package to each girl. “That’s for your dogs,” he said.
“But we don’t have . . .” Margaret began, but Jean tugged on her arm.
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