A Sudden Sun

by Trudy Morgan-Cole

  “What is it?” Mrs. Peters asked. The paper had come out yesterday evening while they were all in the House of Assembly; there would be no mention in it of last night’s debate.

  “A letter—an infamous letter! Do any of you know anything about this?”

  She read the letter aloud. It was from an anonymous member of the WCTU addressing the question “Should Women Sit in the House of Assembly?” The author’s answer was a resounding no.

  “‘Besides the duties of a true and faithful wife’—that part is in bold type, by the way, ‘there is a more sacred trust given to them, a trust which is every true woman’s ambition to attain, that of a mother’,” Mrs. Ohman read.

  “But we never asked for women to sit in the House—much less said women shouldn’t be wives and mothers!” Martha burst out.

  “No, dear, but once the spectre of the women’s vote, even on a single issue, is raised, every man in the Assembly believes women will run for office next,” Mrs. Withycombe said. “Which is why we must be so careful not to give the wrong impression.”

  Mrs. Ohman continued reading the letter, which ended, “It must be obvious to all right-thinking people that the instant woman becomes independent of man for her support and protection, the collapse of the whole social system is at hand.”

  “All right-thinking people, indeed!” snorted Mrs. Peters, taking the paper from Mrs. Ohman. “This can’t be genuine! The editors of the Telegram must have written this, to make it appear as if we are not united in our cause.”

  “But we are not united, are we?” Mrs. Ohman said, shooting a glance at Mrs. Withycombe. “I would not say that anyone here would be so disloyal as to send such a letter to the public press, but the sentiments are ones that we have all heard some of our members—including you, Mrs. Withycombe—express.”

  “I hope you are not accusing me of writing letters to the paper!”

  Suddenly the carriage seemed very crowded. Lily’s former pleasure at being included in this elite gathering of temperance women evaporated. The carriage was rolling past the Pleasantville cricket grounds; the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake lay broad and inviting on the other side.

  Mrs. Peters followed her glance. “Oh, have your driver stop and let’s get out and walk for a bit,” she said to Mrs. Ohman. “It’s a lovely day and I think we all need the exercise—at least, I know I do.”

  “Quite right,” said Mrs. Ohman, leaning forward to get her driver’s attention.

  The day was sunny and mild. It was late enough in the afternoon that schoolchildren played on the banks of the pond, and a few rowboats dotted the surface of the water. Martha leaned against the bridge railing and watched the nearest boat, a far-off expression in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter a fig to them, does it?” she said. “Everything we fight so hard for—votes and Prohibition and all that—that family out for a row on the pond doesn’t care one bit, do they?”

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Lily said, but Mrs. Ohman’s voice, piercing as a piccolo, cut across hers.

  “You may be right, Martha. They may know nothing about the battles we fight. But if that young father is sipping from a gin-flask and gets drunk and capsizes the boat, and all those pretty children are drowned, everyone will gather round the little caskets weeping. Then we’ll see what a difference it might have made, had we succeeded in passing a prohibition law.”

  Lily had often admired Mrs. Ohman’s ability to string together speeches that sounded as if she were standing on the platform in a lecture hall, just in ordinary conversation. But Mrs. Withycombe was less impressed.

  “I didn’t write that letter, but I do believe we’d have a prohibition law sooner if we hadn’t distracted the Assembly and the press with the spectre of women voters. We ought to have kept our focus clearly on Prohibition from the beginning, and that family might be closer to being saved from a watery grave.”

  In fact the young man pulling at the oars did not look in the least intoxicated, though Lily did see, as Mrs. Ohman apparently had, that he took a quick drink from a flask at his side. There was, in fact, something half-familiar in the set of the strong shoulders that propelled the boat along. When he took off his straw hat to wipe perspiration from his brow and she saw the shock of sandy hair, Lily realized with a start that the man was David Reid. Was he married and the father of a family?

  She turned resolutely away from the pond, the man, the boat full of laughing children, and towards Mrs. Ohman and the other ladies. “What next, then? What do we do next?”

  Mrs. Ohman sighed. For the first time she looked defeated. “I hardly know what to say, dear Lily. I am going to dedicate some time to thought and prayer before our next WCTU meeting.”

  It all seemed hopeless—after all their meetings and speeches, the petitions, the letters, the march and the handbills and signposts. It all came down to this: a group of women could do nothing if the men in power would not allow them to do it. And just a few yards away on the sparkling water of Quidi Vidi was David Reid, with three children and a flask of gin, and Lily’s heart felt jagged in her chest, like broken glass.

  He was rowing the boat to shore now, making the children laugh. The oldest boy, no more than nine, had his hands on the oars too, helping to bring the boat in, and on the shore a woman stood waiting for them. His wife? Lily looked at the woman’s face, her red hair, the easy way Mr. Reid spoke to her as he lifted the children from the boat. The little girl shouted “Uncle David!” as he handed her to her mother—Mr. Reid’s sister, surely. In spite of the quick, silver glint of the flask Lily’s chest felt lighter. The heat of the day seemed joyful rather than oppressive.

  The other women talked on and Lily gazed at David Reid, at his broad shoulders and the long line of his lean body as he pulled the boat into shore and tied it up. He wore no tie, waistcoat or jacket, only a blue shirt with the collar open and sleeves rolled up past the elbows. His trousers were rolled up too, above the ankles, and he was barefoot, splashing into and out of the water, then sitting on the grass to put on shoes and socks. The children clambered over him as he sat down: two little towheaded boys and, between them in size so presumably in age, a girl whose red hair was twisted into braids but escaped in small damp curls around her face. She had the same colouring as her mother and uncle: just at that moment Mr. Reid took off his hat again and laid it on the grass, and the gleam of sunlight made his hair shine like the polished bottom of a copper pot.

  Then he looked up and saw Lily. He looked twice, as if making sure of who it was, waved, and came over, the little girl still clinging to his arm. He picked up his hat as he rose and put it back on his head just in time to lift it off again as he approached and said, “Miss Hunt. Mrs. Ohman. Ladies.”

  “Mr. Reid, good day,” said Mrs. Ohman, a little stiffly. “You must have a holiday.”

  “Half-holiday. Promised my sister I’d take her and the little ones down to the pond as soon as we got a sunny day.” He turned the full force of his charm on Mrs. Ohman as if he would burn through her chilly greeting like sunshine through morning fog. “I was in the House last night. I’m sorry. You must be greatly disappointed—I know I am. I’d dared to imagine it was the dawn of modern times in St. John’s.”

  “I fear we will have to wait a long time for that, Mr. Reid,” said Mrs. Ohman. “And at any rate you know that we wanted the vote so we could bring in Prohibition, so I hardly think you would be entirely pleased with the outcome.”

  “Ah well, I like to take the good along with the bad, as it were,” he said. “Miss Hunt, will you come down and meet my sister and the little ones? This here is Annie. She won’t leave go of me, but I know Catherine would like to meet you.”

  “Of course,” Lily said. She excused herself from Mrs. Ohman and the other ladies, and found herself being introduced to Catherine Malone, Mr. Reid’s widowed sister, and the two little boys, who were clamouring for a sweet now that the boat ride was over. Mr. Reid made a great show of searching his pockets and finding nothing, then pu
lling molasses kisses out of his ears and nose, which had the children falling on the ground in laughter.

  “They can’t get enough of him,” Mrs. Malone said. “We don’t see much of him, he’s so busy with the paper, but he’s as good as a circus when he comes by to entertain the children.”

  “Miss Hunt! We’re leaving!” called Mrs. Peters from the bridge.

  “Oh, stay with us awhile,” Mr. Reid pleaded. “You can walk home with us, and who knows, perhaps we’ll even get you out in the rowboat?”

  “I’m not dressed for boating,” Lily protested, but she ran over to the bridge anyway, to tell Mrs. Ohman that Mr. Reid would see her home.

  Mrs. Ohman pressed her lips into a thin line. “Lily, have your parents met Mr. Reid? I hardly think they would approve of him coming to call on you. Mr. Reid is a member of the Kirk only so far as having his name on the books: he is neither a regular churchgoer nor a temperance man.”

  “It’s a family outing, with his sister and her children. They’ll see me safely home. It’s not as if I’ll be alone with Mr. Reid.”

  “Still, I know your father would not be pleased.”

  Lily’s admiration for Mrs. Ohman was so great that it was difficult to stand her ground, but last night’s escapade emboldened her. Perhaps the anti-suffragists were right: once a woman took it into her head to think for herself, who knew where the defiance might stop?

  Mrs. Ohman shrugged. “Your parents trusted me to take you out for a ride and back. I suppose I will have to trust you, now, to get back by tea-time.”

  “I will, Mrs. Ohman.”

  The other ladies went back to the carriage as Lily returned to the lakeshore where the children were playing leapfrog with Mr. Reid. Lily sat on a bench with Mrs. Malone, who was easy to talk to and seemed surprisingly cheerful for the widowed mother of three small children. Her husband had gone down on a ship called the Mary Rose two years earlier; she was a seamstress who worked long hours into the night to earn enough to pay her rent and feed the children.

  “David helps us a bit, when he can,” she said, “though he makes little enough money himself. He loves writing for the newspapers even though it doesn’t pay so well. He likes to believe newspapers can change the world.”

  It was, Lily knew, a bit dishonest to have told Mrs. Ohman that she would be with Mr. Reid, his sister, and the children. They all walked from the lakeshore to Water Street and took the streetcar to the west end, then got off and walked to Mrs. Malone’s home on Cuddihy’s Lane. It would have been far shorter and simpler to drop Lily off first at Queen’s Road, which they had passed on the way to the streetcar stop, but she did not suggest that and neither did Mr. Reid. His sister asked if they would stay and have tea but Mr Reid said no, he would walk Lily home. Saying goodbye to the tangle of children and kissing his sister on the cheek, David Reid tucked Lily’s hand firmly in the crook of his arm and set off on the walk back east along New Gower Street.

  “They’re a grand bunch of bairns, but they do get wearing after a few hours,” he admitted.

  “You’re very good with them. I’ve hardly ever seen a man so much at ease with little children.”

  “Ah, it’s only that I’m hardly grown up myself.”

  They were walking so close she could feel the heat of his body. The triangle of skin at his bare throat was sunburned and so was the bridge of his nose: his fair skin coloured easily and it made him look even more boyish.

  “I don’t think your Mrs. Ohman likes me very well,” he said after a minute.

  “She thinks my father would disapprove of you walking me home, so she disapproves too.”

  “And me such a supporter of her cause.”

  “Only one cause. She told me to beware because you are not a temperance man.” The silver flask, so briefly glimpsed earlier in the day, was an unspoken presence between them.

  “I’ve already confessed to that.”

  “Why are you not, though?”

  “There’s worse things a man can do than have a glass of spirits to refresh him at the end of the day. I think the temperance crowd makes too great a fuss over a little thing.”

  “Are there worse things a man could do than beat his wife, neglect his family, drink away his pay packet at the tavern before he buys food for his family?”

  He smiled, as if delighted she was debating him. “You’re right of course, those are terrible things. But why not attack the problems themselves and the men who cause them, instead of punishing all the poor fellows who enjoy the odd glass?”

  “Many a man says he only enjoys a sociable drink, but how many of those end up becoming drunkards?”

  “Fewer than you’d think, Miss Hunt. And that sentence sounded like it came straight out of one of Mrs. Ohman’s serial stories.”

  Lily couldn’t deny that. How strong and determined Mrs. Ohman’s heroine Alida had been, refusing to marry James, who was perfect in every other way, until he signed the temperance pledge! Lily could imagine herself as Alida, but Mr. Reid, unlike James, was hardly the perfect suitor even if he could be persuaded to take the pledge.

  “Reverend Collins would like to come call on you the next time he’s in town,” her father had said, after that awkward dinner at Reverend Pratt’s house.

  Why should he? What would we ever have to say to each other? Aloud she had said, “Yes, if you wish, Papa.”

  Yes, Papa. Yes, Mother. Whatever you say. If you think that’s best. The phrases that had been bred into her from birth came naturally to her lips. She was, had always been, a dutiful daughter.

  “I don’t understand how you can be so backward-thinking on this one issue and so forward-thinking on others,” she said now to David Reid. There was something thrilling, as thrilling as deceiving her father, in arguing with Mr. Reid. She’d never spoken this way to a man before.

  “It’s because I see things differently than you do. I’ve listened to different lecturers, read different sorts of books. I’ve read Karl Marx; have you?”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Well, when you do hear of Marx, some preacher or temperance lady will tell you he’s a terrible infidel with dangerous ideas. But the truth is he’s very right about some things, and there are a lot of people in the world who think so. The world is going to change a good deal in the next few years, Miss Hunt, and I intend to do more than just watch and write about it.”

  “That’s what your sister says—that you think you can change the world.”

  “Why can’t I? Why can’t you? Would you be sitting up in the gallery of the Colonial Building with a crowd of lady suffragists if you didn’t think it would change the world?”

  “You saw me?”

  “I did, and admired you. In all possible senses.”

  “Much good it did us, sitting up there to watch them vote down our bill.”

  They passed the ruins of Gower Street Church and the Anglican Cathedral: both were busy sites now with men picking through the rubble for anything that could be salvaged and sold to finance the rebuilding efforts. Business owners worked more quickly than churches: while the congregations worshipped in temporary structures as the great churches started to slowly rebuild, most shopkeepers had already cleared the rubble of last summer’s fire and some had erected new structures back in the fall. Now, with the good spring weather, new shops and houses were sprouting up everywhere. On Queen’s Road, as they neared Lily’s house, men were working on the new Congregational church that would replace the old Stone Chapel.

  “Come, let’s take a shortcut,” said Mr. Reid. He took her by the hand and led her down behind the ruins of the old chapel. The lane was very dim and smelt strongly of horse manure.

  “I don’t think this is a shortcut. My house is just down the road there.”

  “I’m about to do something inappropriate, Miss Hunt.” He turned to face her, put his arms around her, ran his large hands up and down her back as he drew her to him. Lily knew all the things she ought to say and do, knew it w
as a girl’s duty to safeguard her virtue. But all she wanted was for him to go on touching her.

  “Perhaps you should call me Lily,” she said.

  He laughed, a low laugh deep in his throat. “Well, that would be very improper indeed.” He turned her face up toward his, leaned down, and kissed her.

  She was unprepared in every way for his kiss, had never imagined how it might feel to have his mouth open a little and the warmth of his breath inside her own mouth. Her head was tilted so far back that her hat slipped off and she made no move to catch it.

  David—impossible to think of him as Mr. Reid now—buried his hands in her hair, pulled loose a hairpin so that a long, thick rope of her hair fell down across her face and shoulder as she pushed closer to him. Every place he touched felt like it was on fire.

  When he pulled out another hairpin she finally drew back, breathing hard. “I’ll look dreadful!” she said, with a weak laugh. Everything in her felt broken, shattered, but what was shattered was a vessel that had held something delicious and warm, something that had now spilled out to flood her whole body.

  “Here, I’ve rescued this anyway,” David said, holding up her hat.

  “That’s no good on its own, I need my pins.” He handed her one; it had landed on her blouse. She tried to put her hair back in place and shove the pin in but her hands were shaking. He took it from her, awkwardly skewered the pin through her hair.

  She looked straight into his green eyes, as she might stare into the heart of the sun, to see how long she could without having to look away. She found she could hold his gaze, though it sobered her at once.

  “Don’t apologize,” she said.

  “I’d no intention of it.”

  Lily

  CHAPTER TEN

  FOR THE NEXT week Lily went around in a cloud of mingled delight and confusion. She was upset about the defeat of the bill, and especially about the divisions it created among the WCTU ladies, most of whom seemed to feel it was time to abandon the franchise fight. Many of them felt, and said, that it had been a mistake ever to push the issue of the women’s vote. At the Tuesday evening meeting a quarrel broke out between Mrs. Ohman and Mrs. Withycombe, and everyone left in a bad mood.