by Sara Donati
She did not mind keeping silent and watching. In these weeks Lily had learned a great deal about her brother during his dinners. He was clever and quick and opinionated; he was never directly cruel, though he did not suffer fools. Most of all, he liked a good argument.
Wee Iona sat at the head of the table and said very little; she never volunteered an opinion and seldom gave one, even when asked directly. Lily had come to like Iona, though she was still shy of her and unwilling to ask questions, even when they were alone. From the first day she had known that Iona would be her only ally in this household, the person who would stand up for her when Luke overstepped, as he was wont to do.
The younger men who came to Luke's table watched Lily closely when they thought she didn't notice, and sometimes when they knew that she did. They talked to her of art and Montreal and things she must see, people she must meet. They loved the city and wanted her to love it as well.
Lily knew she should be pleased with all this attention, but she found it unsettling. She wanted to do what was expected of her—what she expected of herself—to fall in love with Montreal: the shops and lanes and hidden corners, the odd houses with their tin roofs, the beauty of the fields and hills and the people. It was a city of artists, of painters and miniaturists and engravers and woodcarvers and goldsmiths. Many of them had fled France during the Terror and settled here; all of them were eager for any student, even a female student, as long as the tuition was paid promptly.
This is everything you wished for, she told herself sternly as she put away her tools. She sucked at a cut on her thumb and tasted her own blood, as salty as tears.
At night she often dreamed of home, of her mother and her father and the lake under the falls. The dreams were bright and quick, gone when she woke no matter how determined she was to hold on to them. She dreamed of her brother, her twin, sleeping in snow with his rifle cradled in his arms as he had once cradled a pet raccoon. She dreamed of Nicholas, the look on his face when she turned away from him that last day when she was in such a hurry to be gone to this new life.
She dreamed of her sister Hannah. Hannah sitting by the banks of the lake under the falls. Hannah frozen in place with eyes like marble.
“You will ruin your eyes working in the half-light,” Iona told Lily when she came down to the dinner table. Iona's own eyes were filmy with age, and still she seemed to see everything and understand more. When Lily passed the old woman reached up and stroked her cheek with such kindness that she drew a sharp breath.
Just that simply she realized that no one had touched her since she came here. Her hands, yes. Men held her elbow on an icy street, or took her gloved hand while she climbed into a sleigh. French women kissed her cheek fleetingly, a touch of breath and perfumed skin. Luke never touched her at all.
She missed her mother's cool hand on the back of her neck; Gabriel's weight in her lap; Annie's fingers in her hair. Many-Doves' habit of pressing her shoulder whenever she was nearby. The brush of Daniel's arm, of Blue-Jay's, her father's hug. Nicholas Wilde's breath on her skin, the taste of him.
When I happen to see Nicholas in the village he is very drawn and pale, though he greets me politely and asks after you and your brother both. Yesterday when your father took your newest drawings into the trading post to show, Nicholas spent a long time looking at them.
Lily kept this most recent letter from her mother folded and tucked inside her bodice. Because Nicholas could not write to her and she could not write to him, her mother's letter was the only evidence that he was still in the world. With a wife whose health seemed to be improving.
From her spot at the head of the table Iona was watching her, and for one moment Lily had the uneasy feeling that the old woman was reading her mind.
“She's lost in her thoughts,” Luke said to his grandmother. “I don't think she heard you.”
Lily said, “Of course I heard her. You're right, I must take better care of my eyes.”
“I'll have more candles sent up for you.” Luke sent a pointed look to the woman who was circling the table with a platter of meat and repeated himself in French.
Jeanne, Lily reminded herself. Her name was Jeanne or maybe Jeannette; none of the servants spoke English, and she hadn't tried very hard to talk to any of them except Ghislaine, who was her own age and friendly.
It was hard to know how to talk to the servants, as she had never had any before. Now she was in her brother's household, and he never hesitated to say the words that sent them running for whatever he thought she might need. He was never cruel or even thoughtless, and they adored him, every one.
This was the way Lily's mother grew up, in a household where young ladies were waited upon, their needs anticipated, their wants indulged—within reason. Lily had imagined that life with wonder and longing.
What a contrary creature you are. She could hear her mother's voice, ripe with frustration. Lily was coming to see the truth of it.
The table was crowded, and her brother's attention had already moved on to another discussion. Mostly the guests were men he did business with, French and Scots and Irish. A few of them were English born, and now called themselves Canadian.
They talked of the war as men of business must: prices going up and profit with them, the difficulty of moving merchandise, how hard it had become to get the products people wanted most and needed least. The streets were full of soldiers and sailors and officers in uniforms as gaudy as peacocks, but none of them were at this table to join in the discussion, and never would be; Iona would not allow it. Lily was thinking of excusing herself when Simon Ballentyne caught her eye.
“Would you care to take a walk?” he said to her in a clear voice, meant to be heard by all. “There's a full moon rising this evening.” This deep in winter the night came quick and left reluctantly: they could get up from the dinner table and go out into the dark.
The men around the table went silent. Luke was waiting for her response with an unreadable expression, but Iona would have none of his brotherly bluster.
“Och, aye. Go on. The fresh air will do you good, child. Your complexion will suffer with you sitting inside all day.” After so many years in Canada Iona's English was still full of the Gaelic, softly rounded and sibilant.
They were looking at Lily expectantly, each and every one of them. Some of them calculating out the benefits of the match, others thinking of their own sons. Her father might be a backwoodsman but her brother was one of the richest men in Montreal, and he would see to it—how could he not?—that his sister had a fat dowry. The only thing that held some of them back, Iona had explained to Lily, was the confusion about her religion. Was she Catholic, or Protestant, or did she worship trees like the Indians she had grown up with?
Ghislaine had told her about this topic of conversation, not to give offense, but to make Lily laugh. She said, “Tell them I was raised as a rationalist.” It pleased Ghislaine, the odd English word, and she carried it off in her pocket like a sweetmeat.
Now Lily wanted to go to her chamber, but more than that she needed to confound her brother. To Simon Ballentyne she said, “I'll get my wraps.”
They walked for half an hour in the cold, talking of nothing in particular: the new snow, the moon, the news from New-York. She recited what she could remember of her letter from home and Simon grunted low in his throat and said nothing that might reveal his thoughts or tell her what she wanted to hear: her brother was safe.
“You miss your people,” he said, as he might say you're fevered or you've cut yourself.
“I didn't think I would,” she admitted, almost relieved to have the idea out of her head and in the world. “Don't you miss your family?”
The question surprised him, she could see that. He said, “I've no wish to see Scotland ever again.”
There was a story here, of course; one he would tell her, if she were to ask. If she didn't, he would keep his peace. Simon Ballentyne was a rare man, one who was neither put off nor unmanned by a refusal and
able to bide his time.
At the banks of the St. Lawrence they stopped to watch the rising of a wafer-thin moon, bruised with shadow. The river was normally crowded with ships and boats of every kind, some of which were the property of her cousin the earl far away in Scotland. The few that remained were iced in and the rest were gone now to warmer seas: the world was such a large place, almost too big to fit inside her imagination. Lily shivered thinking about it.
“You're cold,” said Simon. “We should turn back.” From his voice she could hear that he did not really want to go back, just yet.
“I'm not so very cold.” Lily wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself. “It's beautiful here.”
“Aye,” he said gruffly. And then: “Are you thinking of the sweetheart you left behind?”
A bold question, but Lily couldn't find it in herself to be offended. Her mother would rebuke such impertinence with a few well-chosen words, but the truth was, Lily was weary of deception and she had the idea that she could talk to Simon Ballentyne. He was strong and quiet and competent, and young women turned their heads when he went by and blushed prettily.
The silence drew out between them. Lily thought of telling him the truth. I love a man who has a wife. To say those words out loud was such a strange thought that she might have laughed.
“What makes you think I left a sweetheart behind?”
“It's plain to see you're heartsick, and fair green with it.”
A flush crawled up her neck, irritation but mostly panic; the impulse to share her secret with him left her just as suddenly as it had come.
“I left no sweetheart behind.” When he said nothing she looked at him and saw things in his face she couldn't quite read. Anger, or disappointment.
She said, “You don't believe me.”
“You don't believe yourself.”
“Very well,” Lily said, hugging herself and rocking back and forth on her heels. “Believe what you like.” Then her anger got the best of her anyway.
“And what of you? I suppose you left some unhappy girl back in Carryckton.”
“Aye,” said Simon Ballentyne. “That I did. Brokenhearted and miserable unto death.”
“You want to talk about her?”
“Christ, no,” said Simon. “I'd rather cut out my tongue than talk about it.” He paused and looked down at her with eyes that seemed almost black in the night. His expression was severe, as if she were the sinner and he the confessor.
Lily turned away and he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Even through the layers of wool she imagined she was feeling the heat of him.
He said, “Her name is Ellen Cruikshank, and she's the wife of the man who lives across the lane from my mother. I last saw her ten years ago, when I left home.”
Panic filled Lily's gut and rose into her throat and made her fingers go numb. In his face she saw an understanding that should not have been there.
“I left because otherwise I would have shamed her and myself and my family, and we needed no more of that. I left my home for the same reason that you left yours.”
Lily forced herself to breathe deeply, drawing in the cold air and holding it until her lungs screamed in protest. She wanted to slap him and run away; she wanted to tell him that wherever he got this idea about her, he was wrong; she wanted to weep.
But when she opened her mouth something very different came out. She said, “Do you still love your Ellen?”
“No,” Simon said very calmly. “Love needs to be fed, and mine starved long ago.” He blew out a noisy breath and drew in another one. “So I'll ask you again, lass. Did you leave a sweetheart behind?”
Lily said, “I left no one behind who would claim me as his sweetheart.” The truth and a lie all at once. Nicholas would claim her, if he could.
“Ah, then,” said Simon. “Then maybe it's time you had one.”
He kissed her without further discussion or question or excuse. His beard prickled; his mouth was cold and warm, soft and knowing all at once. He was no stranger to kissing; it had been ten years since he saw his Ellen, but he had not been without the company of women, that much was clear.
“Stop thinking of Ellen,” he said, and kissed her again, more purposefully this time.
That was the first surprise and the second one was this: she liked his touch. He was not Nicholas; she should not be moved by him, but she was.
Walking away from the river Simon said, “I'll come fetch you Sunday and we'll go for a sleigh ride.”
“My brother won't like it.”
He had a way of shrugging that said more than words. “It's not your brother I'm inviting.”
Which was, of course, just the right thing to say. Lily thought carefully before she responded.
“If I go for a sleigh ride with you, you mustn't think of yourself as my sweetheart.”
At that he gave her a good strong smile. “I'm a patient man,” he said. “All in good time.”
At the door she said, “How did you know? Did you follow me, when you were at Lake in the Clouds?”
He looked at her with kindness and maybe with a little irritation as well. “You could have anyone you wanted, Lily Bonner. It must be a man who isn't free to love you back.”
Her anger took her by surprise. “He loves me,” she said, and then flushed hot to have said the words, and hotter still to see Simon's expression: understanding, and pity.
For two days she thought about Simon Ballentyne constantly and when she woke on Sunday morning to the sound of church bells she knew that if he came to the door in his sleigh, she would go with him.
The bells reminded Lily, day in and day out, that Montreal was Catholic in its very bones. Most of the city was on their way to mass, dressed in the clothes they kept for that purpose alone. The servants in this house went too, drifting down the stairs silently as ghosts so as not to disturb their mistress, who always kept to her chamber on a Sunday. Wee Iona, who once wore the veil and called herself a bride of Christ, never showed her face on the Sabbath. It was one of the great mysteries that she trailed along behind her, along with the question of how it was she had come to bear a daughter, so many years ago, to George Somerville, Lord Bainbridge.
As a young girl Lily had sometimes gone to Paradise with her mother to listen to Mr. Witherspoon's sermons on Sunday mornings. Then he moved away and instead of services her mother would read from the Bible on Sunday evenings, enough church for anybody, Daniel used to say and Lily agreed with him. In time her uncle Todd had said she might as well use the meetinghouse for her work, and now she had somehow lost all interest in sermons.
As they were, Sunday mornings were the time Lily liked best. It seemed as though she and Luke had not just the house but the whole city to themselves. Her brother spent this time in his little study, writing letters and catching up on his bookkeeping, and Lily had soon got into the habit of sitting nearby with a book in her lap, though she did not read very much.
The room was well lit and there was always a good fire in the hearth. While snow brushed the windows they would talk, of the week that had passed or the week to come. If the mood was on him Luke would tell her stories about his boyhood here in the city, or Lily would talk of Lake in the Clouds and most of all of her brother. It was the only time she allowed herself to speak of Daniel, and she looked forward to it all week, as she imagined Catholics looked forward to confession and being relieved of their sins.
This morning when she came into his study Luke sent her one long look and said, “If you're going to let Simon Ballentyne court you, there are things you should know.”
In her surprise and irritation Lily thought of turning on her heel and leaving, but the challenge in her brother's face was such that she could not.
“He's not courting me.”
Luke tapped his finger on the desk, once and twice and three times. “He thinks he is.”
Lily shrugged. “I made myself clear.”
“And you accomplished that by kissing him under
a full moon,” her brother said calmly.
She felt her temper ignite like paper put to candle. “Who I kiss is my own business, brother, and none of yours. You can call off your spies.”
“I don't need spies,” Luke said gruffly. “Not in this city. The news comes to me unbidden.”
For a long moment Lily thought about that, a truth that it would do no good to challenge or even rage against.
Luke said, “I won't stop you—”
“No,” Lily interrupted him. “You won't. Because I won't let you. I did not leave one kind of prison behind for another.”
When he was angry Luke looked most like the father they shared. Their coloring was so different that the connection might be missed, until Luke frowned and the furrow appeared between his brows. Disapproval rose off his skin like body heat; it was all too familiar.
“I can't stop you,” Luke said pointedly, as if she hadn't interrupted. “But you should know—”
“About Ellen Cruikshank. Yes, he told me.”
Surprise flickered across Luke's face. “He told you about Ellen Cruikshank. And did he tell you about his family too?”
Lily raised her eyes to Luke. “His family is no concern of mine, but go on then, if you must.”
He said, “Before she married, Fiona Ballentyne was Fiona Moncrieff. She had two brothers. One was a Jesuit who took the name Contrecoeur, and the other was—”
“Angus Moncrieff,” she finished for him.
Luke was watching her closely, hoping for something particular: shock or dismay or anger. Lily could find none of those things within herself.
She said, “Simon is Angus Moncrieff's nephew.”
“He is.”
“Angus Moncrieff, who betrayed our family and kidnapped Daniel and me when we were babies. And why would you bring Angus Moncrieff's nephew to Lake in the Clouds?”