Beholden

by Lesley Crewe

  I’d told George I wouldn’t contact him, but for some reason I thought he’d be in touch with me much sooner. It had been almost two months since they’d left. Surely he’d have things arranged by now. The baby had been due in October. Maybe he was waiting until the baby had a permanent home.

  On November 19 I finally saw his car come up the laneway. I was so excited I bolted out of the house in my slippers, through the snow. He took his time getting out of the car. I was so impatient, I threw myself into his arms and kissed his warm neck.

  “I’ve missed you so! Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been on pins and needles for weeks.”

  “Let’s go inside,” he said.

  I pulled him along by the hand. “Tell me everything!”

  He stood in the kitchen and looked ten years older than when I’d seen him last. He kept looking at the floor. A feeling of dread washed over me.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  “I don’t want to tell you.” Fear prickled my scalp. “Just say it. Is she all right? Is the baby all right?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was pregnant?”

  “I didn’t tell you?”

  “No!”

  “I’m sorry! I truly am. I meant to. What’s wrong, George? For the love of God, tell me!”

  He choked up and I had a hard time hearing him. “There was an accident. A buck was standing in the middle of the road and I didn’t see it until it was too late. The road was slick with rain and we went right over the side.”

  “Was she hurt? Tell me she wasn’t hurt?”

  “She died, Nell. She died in my arms.”

  I started to scream. I screamed and screamed and screamed. I went over to him and pounded his chest. “I asked you to do one thing! One thing! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault! You killed her! You killed her!”

  George took my arms and shook me. “I didn’t kill her. You did. You sent her away—you had no right to do that. I knew I should’ve turned around and come back, but I was so afraid of you that I didn’t. What does that say about me? What kind of a person am I, that I override my own instincts because of you?”

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. My baby is gone! She’s gone!” I wrenched myself from his arms and tore into the sewing room. I grabbed a pair of scissors, raced back into the kitchen, and lunged at him. He took my wrists once more and yanked the scissors from my hand, throwing them on the floor.

  “Stop it, Nell!”

  But I was beyond help. I saw myself out of my own body, struggling, crying and kicking at him. I wanted to make him hurt.

  I wanted to make me hurt.

  Finally, I had nothing left. I lay crumpled on the floor. George sat in a kitchen chair, his head in his hands.

  “Why?” I cried, my voice hoarse. “Why? All this time, I’ve been thinking of her getting comfortable in her new home. You would’ve found a family for the baby. She’d be happy. And now she’s in the ground. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you wait this long?”

  George didn’t lift his face; his voice was muffled by his hands and his breath sounded ragged. “Because I’m a coward. I didn’t want to tell you. Here I thought we could tell each other everything, but we never actually talk about anything important. We’ve been living a lie this whole time.”

  My grief and my anger fed each other and I could feel myself beginning to spin again. “And whose fault is that? I’m not married, am I? You’re the one cheating on your wife. Mr. Holier-Than-Thou. Such a good man. Such a saint in his mother’s eyes. And all you’ve been doing is screwing the spinster on the hill. You men are all the same. You take what you want when you want it, and to hell with the women in your lives. I hate men. I hate you. I hate Gervais. I hate that goddamn man who raped her. I hate the bastard who raped me!”

  Even amidst the rest of my tirade, this hit him, and he finally lifted his pale face, almost unrecognizable in his anguish. But I wasn’t about to let him interrupt me. I was done. “You can all go to hell! I never want to see your face again, George Mackenzie! You come anywhere near me and I’ll shoot you dead with my rifle.”

  “Nell—”

  “Get out! Get out and never come back. I hate you. I hate you so much!”

  He stood, shaking. I’d done it. “At this moment in time, Nell, I hate you too.”

  He went through the door and banged it shut. I lay on the floor and howled my despair throughout the night.

  I was the one who had killed her. I was the one who had hatched the grand plan. It was all my doing.

  But I wasn’t done yet. I remembered I had one of Jane’s sweaters in my spare room. I held it and cried and cried. Then I took it down to the nearest beach and let it lie in the water and sand. When it was thoroughly soaked, I dragged it back to the laneway and stopped at the cottage. Gervais’s truck was outside. I threw open the door and there he was, asleep at his kitchen table. I grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. His eyes fluttered open.

  “Wha—What’s goin’ on?”

  I pushed the sweater into his face. “Do you see this? Do you know what this is? It’s Jane’s sweater. Guess where I found it? It was washed up on the beach. Her favourite sweater. She hated you so much, she drowned herself rather than stay here with you! She’s gone, you son of a bitch, and it’s all your fault! She’s dead because of you!”

  He kept blinking and shaking his head, trying to understand what I was saying.

  “You can’t leave a child for days at a time and expect her to feel loved. You killed her mother and now you’ve killed her. She’s gone and she’s never coming back! I hope you die too.”

  And then I remembered: Bridie was here in the cottage. So I ran upstairs and grabbed the doll that was still on Jane’s bed. Why hadn’t I made her take it? That’s when I groaned with the realization that my girl was never coming back and she’d died alone.

  I tore back downstairs, Bridie in my arms, and ran out the door to shut myself up in my house.

  My lonely, lonely house.

  5

  Eileen

  1945

  The worst day of my life was when I was ten. I told my mother that I loved my cousin George and I was going to marry him someday. She was peeling carrots at the time.

  “Sorry, sweetie. First cousins can’t marry each other.”

  “What’s a first cousin?”

  “Your aunt Jean and I are sisters. Our children can’t marry each other. You’ll have to fall in love with someone else.”

  I dramatically fell on the daybed by the stove. “NO! That’s not fair! I wouldn’t give a hoot if it was Donny, but George? He’s the only boy who’s nice to me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find another boy someday.”

  Not likely. I’d heard my sister Betty say that I was as homely as a hedge fence. I told her that she looked like a skunk. She laughed and said that didn’t even make any sense. It made sense to me. She stank.

  The best day of my life was when I was twelve and broke my leg very badly. Our families were all at the beach and George dared me to jump off Dead Man’s Cliff. So I did. But I should have known better; I was always hurting myself. I was a big, awkward girl, even though I pretended otherwise.

  When I hit the water, I was in mid-scream at a very odd angle. I probably would have drowned if George hadn’t gotten to me first. He held my head out of the water and tried to carry me to shore. I didn’t even feel the pain. I was too enraptured by the feel of George’s hands on my body. He was my knight in shining armour and I was the Lady of Shalott.

  “Eileen! A-A-Are you okay? It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have told you to jump. I’m-m-m sorry!”

  I waved my arms around as he struggled to keep me upright. “I can’t breathe! My leg! Hold me.” It was wonderful. Everything I’d imagined.

  I saw my father and Uncle Joe run into the water. I wanted
them to stay away for a few more minutes at least…but then the initial adrenalin wore off and the pain in my leg grew so big, I fainted dead away. The “best” part of the best day of my life ended rather abruptly.

  And that’s why I walk with a limp. And that’s why I’ve never had a boyfriend. Who wants a wife who limps? At least that’s what I tell myself. Of course, Betty married when she was eighteen. She didn’t want me as a bridesmaid because of my gait, but our mother, Jessie, put an end to that nonsense. She made me the maid of honour. I did my best to hobble horribly. Betty pretended to stab me in the heart when no one was looking.

  George always felt awful about it. He’d look at me with big sad eyes until finally one day I told him to knock it off. “I didn’t have to jump, you know. You didn’t push me.”

  But that’s the kind of guy he is. You can’t help loving him.

  I’d prepared myself for a long and boring life, since I was still living with my parents at the end of the war. I was thirty-five and a bit on the large side. A classic old maid. George had married Mavis five years before. Her only relative was a stepfather who lived out west and didn’t bother showing up for the ceremony. Who doesn’t have a family? They must have all run away; she was vile. I hated her instantly and spent their entire wedding crying into a hanky. I told Aunt Jean it was hay fever, but the way she smiled at my mother, I suspect she knew the real reason. Sisters never do keep secrets. Fortunately, Betty and I don’t have that problem, as we never tell each other any.

  The only thing I was good at was cooking. That’s because I like to eat. There’s not much else to do in River Bourgeois in the winter.

  I was having a bit of a mid-life crisis for a time. My parents were worried about me. Even Betty would come by and try to get me to go shopping. But I wasn’t interested.

  And then one day out of the blue, George showed up, handsome as ever. I tried not to focus on his wedding ring, but it sure did irk me. He asked if he could talk to me privately. I lived in hope it was to tell me that Mavis was lost at sea and he’d realized his tragic mistake in not marrying me.

  That wasn’t quite it.

  He leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands together. “I have a proposal if you’re interested.”

  Did he say proposal?

  “As you know, Mavis and I have a baby now.”

  Darn. I’d forgotten that. Or I tried not to think about it. “Yes, little Patricia.”

  “We call her Patty. She’s a bit of a handful. Suffers from colic. On top of that, Mavis isn’t doing well. Sometimes new mothers have something called postpartum depression, and I’m afraid Mavis has it in spades.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but how can I help?”

  “I was hoping you’d come and live with us for a time. Our house is large enough. Off the kitchen there’s a bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room that were once a maid’s quarters. Obviously, I don’t want you to be our maid, but for the time being, I need someone in the house to help Mavis with the meals and taking care of the baby. I’d rather have someone I love and trust in the house than hire someone I don’t know, and I thought you’d be perfect. I’ll pay you well.”

  Did he say love?

  “Now, I know it’s asking a lot, Eileen, to uproot you from your life—”

  “What life? I’m yours.”

  He gave me a huge smile. “That’s such a relief! Thank you so much, Eileen. You’re a doll.”

  I pointed at him. “My mother didn’t suggest this, did she? As a way of cheering me up?”

  He genuinely looked confused. “No, not at all. It was my idea.”

  That sealed it.

  So that’s how I came to live in my cousin George’s house. All my dreams had come true.

  Well, not quite. Mavis was still on the scene.

  It took a while to figure that one out. She was so grateful to see me when I first showed up that I thought maybe I’d gotten the wrong end of the stick about her, but she soon shot that down.

  Little Patty was a cute enough baby, but she did cry a lot. No wonder, with Mavis as her mother.

  “I love Patty,” Mavis sniffed one day as I brought her breakfast in bed, a custom that lasted for years, long after her baby blues had disappeared. If they ever really did.

  Another day, another moan. “I can never have another baby, Eileen,” she snivelled as she held up her feet so I could vacuum the rug under her chair. “I never want to go through that again. Men just don’t know what it’s like to suffer like we do.”

  I had a hard time trying to work out how exactly Mavis was suffering. She spent most of the day in bed while I bathed, clothed, and fed the baby. She usually went out with friends while the baby had a nap, and I did the housework and made preparations for supper.

  She’d spend most of dinner whining to George about one thing and another while he nodded his head and smiled vaguely. He’d disappear into his study to smoke his pipe in peace and Mavis would moan to me about how men were so ungrateful.

  This went on for years. Despite Mavis, I grew to love my life in George’s house. I loved my kitchen, and the garden I planted out back. As Patty grew and became easier to deal with, her mother paid more attention to her. Mavis would dress her up in pretty party dresses and never let her get dirty. George would say he’d like to take Patty fishing, but Mavis would give him a horrified look.

  “Have her around those stinky old fish? Have you lost your mind?”

  I knew that George loved his little girl, but he never really saw her much. Mavis would send her to bed early so she could invite people over. I knew George hated the cocktail parties that Mavis insisted on throwing.

  “They’re good for your career, George. Don’t you want to be a big shot at the hospital?”

  “Not really.”

  “Men! I have no idea why we women have to do all the heavy lifting. Someone has to think about our future.”

  “What’s wrong with our present? We live in a great house and have everything we need.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with making more money.”

  “Why bother?” George would grumble. “You’d only spend it.”

  Mavis would walk up to him and peck him on the cheek. “Exactly.”

  George would often find solace in my kitchen. I’d make him a cup of tea and a warm biscuit with homemade strawberry jam.

  “You are the best cook around, Eileen. Don’t tell my mother I said that.”

  “Hey, no one can beat your mother’s lemon meringue pie.”

  “True.”

  “I wanted to show Patty how to make cookies the other day, but Mavis didn’t want her to get her dress dirty.”

  George shook his head. “You can’t tell that woman anything.”

  “You can say that again.”

  He looked at me seriously. “Eileen, I am well aware that after five years, my wife’s medical condition has vanished. I feel like I’m keeping you here under false pretenses. If you ever want to go home, I don’t blame you. But I have to tell you that I would sorely miss you.”

  “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you. You really don’t need me anymore, and yet you’re still paying me.”

  “Oh, we need you. More than ever. If you’re happy staying here, I’m delighted. You can stay forever.”

  “Then I will.” We clinked our teacups together.

  I just love that man.

  It was mid-September in 1950 and George was off on one of his fishing excursions. And while the cat was away, the mouse did play. Mavis had a wild party at the house one night with the hospital gang, including her brother-in-law, Donny, who kept coming into the kitchen for more shot glasses.

  “Hey, cuz! How’s life treating you? Ya got a good gig goin’ here. Still playing on George’s guilty heartstrings?”

  “You’re an ass, Donny Mackenzie.”

&n
bsp; “So true. And that’s Dr. Donny Mackenzie to you.”

  “You’ll always be Donny the Jerk to me.”

  “Priceless!”

  I caught him and Mavis kissing in the pantry a few hours later. She at least had the decency to look flustered as she rushed out. Donny winked at me. “Loose lips sink ships.”

  As if I’d tell George about those two. They’d get what was coming to them. They didn’t need any help from me.

  The next day, while Mavis nursed her hangover, the phone rang. I picked it up. “Mackenzie residence.”

  “It’s me.”

  It was the way he said it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Meet me at the hospital. I’ll be there shortly.” He hung up.

  I rushed about getting my coat, hat, and purse. I charged up the stairs and knocked on Mavis’s bedroom door, opening it slightly. “Sorry Mavis, I have to go out. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  She lifted her head off the pillow. “That’s very inconvenient. Who’s going to look after Patty?”

  “I’ll take her over next door and ask the maid to watch her for a couple of hours.”

  “I should think so. Oh, my head.”

  Despite the fact that Patty didn’t want go next door, I took her. Doris owed me a favour, as I sometimes watched her charges for an afternoon.

  I called a taxi and told him to hurry to the hospital. After I paid the man, I jumped out and stood there, unsure what to do. George said he’d be arriving shortly, so that meant he wasn’t in the building. After waiting by the emergency entrance for twenty minutes, I was shivering. It was a rainy and windy day, and at that point, I was getting frantic. Just then, an ambulance pulled up and George appeared, looking bloodied and bruised, holding his coat in front of him like a shield. But worse than all that was the colour of his skin. He was as pale as I’d ever seen him. Just a whisper away from passing out.

  My first reaction was to hug him. Instead, I hurried over and took him by the arm. “My God, what happened? Are you all right? How can I help?”

  “Eileen. Eileen. I’ve done a terrible thing. I killed someone today.”