by Kit Pearson
The voice had come from a woman reclining in a chair by the window. Her full face was circled by a thatch of curly silver hair. Her wide grey eyes almost matched her hair. An ample bosom swelled under her red silk dress, like the breast of a well-fed robin. In contrast to her stout body, the long legs which stretched out on the Persian carpet were slim and elegant.
“Come and shake hands,” commanded Mrs. Ogilvie. Norah shrank from the extended fingers, but she had to take them. A ring with sharp stones bit into her own wet palm.
“You must be Norah—and this is little Gavin, of course. Do sit down. I’m delighted to meet you both.”
Mrs. Ogilvie assumed they knew who she was. Norah sat, waiting for her next instructions. A throbbing energy came from the woman, as if she were an engine running in perfect order. No wonder her daughter was so pale and subdued; her mother seemed to have sucked all the colour from her.
Gavin gazed at Mrs. Ogilvie’s splendour as if he were bewitched. Mrs. Ogilvie looked him over and purred with pleasure. “Aren’t you a handsome little boy! You come over here by me.” She pulled a low stool close to her feet. “I won’t eat you! You and I are going to be great friends.”
Gavin advanced slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. One hand burrowed in his pocket.
“You’re five, aren’t you. And what do you have in your pocket?”
“Creature,” whispered Gavin, pulling out the elephant to show her.
“Creature! What a charming name! Look what I have for you and Creature.” She opened a drawer in the table beside her and took out a small tin aeroplane. “There! I know what little boys like.”
Gavin stroked the aeroplane with shining eyes. Norah gazed at it jealously. It was a very good model of a Blenheim. She wondered if she would get a present too. “Say thank you,” she hissed.
“Now, now let him be,” admonished Mrs. Ogilvie. “This is a new and strange experience for him.” She looked at Norah again. “What part of England was it that you’re from?”
“Kent,” mumbled Norah. She offered a few details about the village when Miss Ogilvie questioned her. Mrs. Ogilvie had immediately turned her attention back to Gavin, who was telling her about the ship. Norah shifted irritably. How could he talk so easily to a stranger when he had hardly talked to his own sister the whole trip?
“How frightening it must have been when the German planes flew over,” shuddered Miss Ogilvie. “You must be so relieved to be safe.”
“I wasn’t frightened,” declared Norah, still watching Gavin. “I didn’t want to be safe.”
Mrs. Ogilvie looked over and frowned. “She’s awfully small for her age, Mary. Are you sure she’s ten?”
“I’m ten and a half,” said Norah indignantly. “You needn’t speak as if I wasn’t here.”
Miss Ogilvie gasped. Norah regretted her words when she saw Mrs. Ogilvie’s expression.
“Sauce! We won’t have rudeness in this house, my girl.”
Norah knew she should apologize, but something in those determined grey eyes made her want to be just as stubborn back. She sat in angry silence, all her resolutions to be polite flown away.
Mrs. Ogilvie waited for a few seconds, then she gave a knowing glance at her daughter. She picked up a little brass bell and rang it.
A maid in a ruffled white apron wheeled in a trolley with an elaborate tea on it: egg sandwiches and chicken sandwiches, warm scones with butter and raspberry jam, thin lemon biscuits and a heavy spice cake blanketed with maple icing. Norah ate rapidly. It was tricky to balance everything on her knee; she finally copied Gavin and squatted on the floor. Mrs. Ogilvie made them drink milk. “Tea’s not good for children,” she said when Gavin asked for some.
“Now, let’s get ourselves organized,” she said, setting down the silver teapot. “I thought you might feel more comfortable if you called me Aunt Florence and my daughter Aunt Mary. I know you’ll feel at home here—we follow the good old British traditions. And in this terrible war, especially, we’re eager to help our mother country as much as we can. That’s why I decided to take on war guests—to do my part.” She looked at Norah as if she expected her to be profoundly grateful, then smiled at Gavin. “And, of course, I wanted to have a little one around again.” Turning back to Norah, she continued. “You will have to do your part, too. I expect you to be quiet, clean and well mannered. You’ll be treated like members of the family, and I’m sure your parents will be glad to learn you’ve come to such a good home. Do you have any questions?”
“No,” muttered Norah.
“No, what?”
“No … Aunt Florence.” The name stuck in her throat like dry crumbs. Why should she have to call someone “aunt” who wasn’t even related to her? Then she remembered she did have a question. “What about … school?” That was a hurdle she wasn’t at all prepared for, but she had to find out about it sometime.
“You’ll begin school on Tuesday. The people at Hart House suggested you stay home for a day first to get used to your new family.”
The maid arrived back and removed the trolley. Then there was an awkward silence. Norah pushed up her sleeves; her winter dress made her feel hot in the stuffy room.
“Well, now, what shall we do next?” Aunt Florence smiled kindly, but Norah only looked at the carpet. “Why don’t you have a game of cribbage with Norah, Mary, and Gavin and I will play fish.”
Her daughter obediently rose and led Norah to a table in the corner. On it lay a long narrow board with ivory pegs stuck in its holes, a pack of cards and some paper and pencils. Norah tried to pay attention as Aunt Mary taught her the game, but she couldn’t help listening to Gavin’s gleeful voice as he ordered “Fish!” again and again.
Cribbage was so confusing that she was relieved when Aunt Florence finally told them to go back to their room. “When Mary fetches you, you can have a light supper in the kitchen. Sunday is our bridge night, and I’d like you to come in and meet everyone.” She dismissed them with a regal wave of her arm.
“Aunt Florence is beautiful!” said Gavin when they were back in the tower. “Do you think she’s the Queen of Canada?”
Norah scowled. “Don’t be such an idiot, of course she’s not. And how can you possibly like her? She’s mean and bossy and fat.”
“Oh.” Gavin looked deflated. “Does that mean we aren’t going to stay here, if you don’t like her?”
“Do you think it’s up to me? If it was, we’d never have left England! Of course we’re staying. There’s nowhere else to go.”
Gavin climbed onto the horse and hummed, zooming his plane in the air. “Creature thinks he might like to stay here.”
AUNT MARY CAME UP at six-thirty and told them to get into their pyjamas. Norah wanted to protest about getting ready for bed so early, but she knew that anything she said to Aunt Mary would just make her all the more nervous. They put on their dressing gowns and slippers and followed her down to the kitchen.
Aunt Mary left them with the cook, Mrs. Hancock. She was an older, good-natured woman with red hands and untidy hair she kept pushing under a hairnet. “All the way from England you’ve come!” she marvelled. “I’ve always wanted to visit the old country. I saw the King and Queen when they visited Canada last year. Real close they were, I could have touched them. Sit down here and try my tomato soup.”
They ate soup, toast and pudding at a scrubbed pine table. The kitchen was much like theirs at home, except it had a large refrigerator and no fireplace. Mrs. Hancock was comfortable to talk to. She showed them how the refrigerator made its own ice cubes.
“Call me Hanny,” she said. “Everyone in the family always has. This is just like the old days, when Mary and Hughie used to eat their Sunday supper in here. That must be thirty years ago! What a treat to have young ones in the house, isn’t it Edith?”
Edith, the maid, who was slouched over a novel at the other end of the table, ignored Hanny’s comment. “It’s my evening off. How soon can I leave?” she asked sulkily.
&nbs
p; “Not until you carry in their sandwiches. Have some more pudding, Gavin.”
Norah was sorry to leave the kitchen when Aunt Mary fetched them again. She led them to the door of the living room. At one end of it, seven adults were sitting around two square tables. Mrs. Ogilvie looked up from a pack of cards she was shuffling expertly. “Here are our young war guests! Come in and meet everyone.”
All the adults got up and moved towards the children with broad smiles and outstretched hands. Norah’s hair was ruffled and her arm pumped vigorously. “How do you do?” “Welcome to Canada!” “Where do you live in England?” “Did you have a good voyage?” “Are you beginning to feel settled?”
Since it was impossible to answer so many questions, Norah kept silent. When Gavin began to talk timidly about Creature the adult voices froze.
“What a darling accent!” one woman cooed when he’d finished. Norah frowned—didn’t Canadians realize they were the ones with accents?
“And what do you think of Canada, Norah?” a man asked. “Is it very different from England?”
Once again there was an expectant hush. Norah stared at the beaming faces and blurted out the first words that came to her. “Everyone in Canada has very white teeth.”
The adults roared with laughter and Norah blushed with confusion. What had she said that was so funny?
“Off to bed with you now,” said Aunt Florence. She kissed Gavin and began to approach Norah but when Norah backed away she changed her mind. “And turn out your lights at once. You must both be very tired.”
They were sent back upstairs by themselves. “Creature understands now,” said Gavin when they were in bed. “We’re going to live here for a long time, until I’m eight, and then we’re going to live with Muv and Dad again.”
“Not until you’re eight! Maybe almost seven.”
“Miss Carmichael said eight.”
“Well, she’s wrong! Dad said ‘perhaps a year’. Those were his exact words.”
Gavin soon fell asleep. Norah tossed for a while, then got up and sat on the window seat. A warm wind had risen—it turned the trees into a surging leafy sea. Rosedale was much quieter than the university. Occasionally a car passed or a dog barked, but in between all she could hear was the steady burr of some insect. It wasn’t quite dark, much too early to go to sleep. Norah stared out the window with a sad finality.
This was it, then, their home for the duration, however long that might be. The war and England seemed far away from the cushioned luxury of the Ogilvies’ life—their life, now.
She noticed that there was a hinge along the back of the window seat, and when she lifted it up she found a cavity stuffed with blankets. That would be a better hiding place for her shrapnel. After she’d placed it there, she got her coat and uncovered the five pounds Mum had sewn in the lining. She hid it under the blankets as well and closed the lid. Mum and Dad had told her to give the money to her new family for safekeeping, but Norah decided she would rather have it close at hand—just in case.
She got back into bed and thought of her abandoned room at home, with her parents sleeping below. She began to cry softly, but even that seemed useless, so she lay and listened to the night until her eyes closed.
11
Monday
Breakfast was a formal meal in the dining room. Norah and Gavin and Aunt Mary sat at one end of a long polished table, eating the porridge and eggs and bacon that Hanny brought in. “Mother never gets up for breakfast,” Aunt Mary explained. She seemed more relaxed without her mother.
In front of each plate was a piece of long yellow fruit. “What’s this?” asked Gavin.
“It’s a banana, silly,” Norah told him. “We haven’t had bananas since before the war,” she explained to Aunt Mary. “He doesn’t remember.”
“Ouch!” Gavin had bitten into the skin without peeling it.
“You poor child—let me help.” Aunt Mary showed him how to take off the skin. “Now, what would you like to do today? We should think of something nice before you start school tomorrow, Norah.”
“And Gavin,” Norah added.
“Isn’t Gavin too young for school? I thought he was five. I suppose he could go to kindergarten, but I think Mother would rather have him at home….”
“He’ll be six in November and anyway, he’s already been to school. He was in the Infants last year. So he’s old enough, aren’t you Gavin?” Norah felt proud of her brother this morning; for the first time since the hostel, he hadn’t wet the bed.
“I don’t think Mother knows he’s almost six,” said Aunt Mary doubtfully. “I’ll have to tell her, I suppose.”
“I don’t like school,” said Gavin.
“You did after you learned to do up your buttons,” Norah reminded him. Gavin used to come crying to her at playtime after he’d been to the lav, and she’d have to button up his trousers behind a tree. Thinking of that made her resent him again; she would have to look after him even more at a new Canadian school.
“Your school is only six blocks away,” Aunt Mary was saying. “I found out at church yesterday that you’ll have some friends from England there—the Smith girls. They and their brother are war guests of our minister, Reverend Milne.”
Norah put down her spoon. She had forgotten about Dulcie and Lucy. It seemed odd to associate them with the Ogilvies.
“Would you like to invite them for lunch?” asked Aunt Mary. “They haven’t started school either and Mrs. Milne decided to keep them home today so you could all begin together.”
“No, thank you.” Norah tried not to sound rude. “Could I—could I just go out for a walk instead?”
“All by yourself? I wonder what Mother would say.” Aunt Mary looked at Norah’s pleading face. “I suppose it’s all right. Everyone in the neighbourhood knows who we are, so if you get lost just knock on someone’s door. Don’t go too far, though, and wear your hat. I’ll expect you back in an hour.”
Norah tried to be still enough to listen to the rest of Aunt Mary’s cautious directions. Then she dashed upstairs to use the toilet and fetch her hat.
On the way down, she paused on the landing outside Aunt Florence’s bedroom. Despite her impatience to be out, she couldn’t help stopping to listen when she heard a voice. She was doing a lot of eavesdropping these days, but it seemed the only way to get information.
Aunt Florence couldn’t be talking to herself. She must have a telephone in there. Norah had never heard of anyone having a telephone in her bedroom. In Ringden, the only people who had one at all were the doctor, the policeman and Mrs. Chandler; the rest of them used the call box on the main street.
“The girl?” said the throaty voice. “Well, she’s cheeky, but we’ll work on that. Girls are so sly—I had to be much stricter with Mary than I was with Hugh. But wait until you see Gavin! He’s such a character, with an adorable accent. And such rosy cheeks! The girl is thin and pale—you’d never guess they were brother and sister. And their clothes … well, you can see they’re not well off. I’m going to take Gavin shopping tomorrow. With his fair colouring, he’d look so fetching in a navy-blue sailor suit. Would they still carry them at Holt’s, do you think? It’s been so long since I’ve bought children’s clothes. I’m telling you, Audrey, this is all making me feel young again.”
Aunt Florence wouldn’t be able to take Gavin shopping when she found out he’d be in school tomorrow, Norah thought as she continued down the stairs.
As soon as she stepped outside, she forgot her resentment. A delicious sensation of freedom swept through her. It was the first time since the day she’d left England that she could go where she pleased. And it was the first time since the war began that she’d gone out with nothing to carry—no gas mask, identity card or lifebelt.
She left her hat on the steps and walked along the sidewalk slowly, savouring the sun on her bare arms and legs. It was going to be a scorcher, Hanny had told them, but the morning air was still fresh. The winding street divided around islands of flo
wers. Ranged along it were houses as grand and impassive as the Ogilvies’, some of brick and some of stone. Norah wondered why none of them had names. In one she saw a curtain twitch, as if someone had peeked out at her.
The twisting streets were like a maze. Norah noted each turn carefully so she wouldn’t get lost. She was proud of herself when she found her way back to the Ogilvies’. Then she went around again the other way. At one house a small, wiry dog rushed up to her from behind a wrought iron fence. When she crouched down it licked her fingers, pushing its nose through the railings.
After she’d completed the circle again, it didn’t seem like an hour yet, and she didn’t feel like leaving the bright outdoors for the Ogilvies’ dim house. Their garden was tiny; it seemed odd to have such a large house on such a small property. But there was something much better than a garden behind the house: a thick patch of trees that spilled down the bank into a valley.
Norah plunged into the trees, thrusting through bushes and pushing aside branches, until she reached a clearing at the bottom. High above her stretched a bridge; she could hear the rumble of cars driving over it. Someone had written rude words on one of the concrete supports.
You could make a good fort here; but it would be lonely to build a fort all by herself and she felt too lazy to start. She sat on a log and scraped the ground with a twig. When she thought of school tomorrow her chest felt heavy, but she breathed deeply and scratched pictures in the dirt of all the aeroplanes she knew.
When she had been there for a long while Norah suddenly remembered the time. She scrambled up the bank and rushed into the Ogilvies’ house. For a second she almost thought she was at home, for from the den came a familiar voice: “This is the BBC news coming to you directly from London.” She paused outside the door; would Aunt Florence be angry?
The Ogilvies were sitting around a large wireless. Aunt Florence switched it off quickly as soon as she saw Norah—as if she didn’t want her to hear. “Where have you been, young lady? We were just about to call the police!”