by Sara Donati
Post at sunrise. It shouldn't surprise Lily anymore, really. Couriers came to her brother's door with astounding regularity, even with the port closed for the winter. At Lake in the Clouds they might get mail once every fortnight if the roads were good; in a muddy spring it could be much longer between deliveries. Here in Montreal it seemed that letters and packages and whole sledges came for Luke every day.
If Lily waited just a little longer Ghislaine, the youngest and friendliest of the servants, would come to wake her. Ghislaine would bring coffee and gossip and serve them both in generous portions while she opened the shutters and coaxed the embers in the hearth into new life. Ghislaine spoke a rustic English full of odd turns of phrase that she had learned from her American grandfather, a Vermont farmer, and they had come to an agreement: in the mornings they spoke English, in the afternoons, French.
It was a friendship based on mutual admiration but also, they were both very much aware, need. Ghislaine was Lily's only source for certain kinds of information about what was happening in the house and the town; in return Lily knew some old stories, shocking enough not to be told around a crowded hearth, that Ghislaine had never been able to prod out of any of the older servants. Lily knew these stories of the Somerville family and Wee Iona, because her father and grandfather and brother had had a part in them.
This grand house that belonged to Luke had once belonged to George Somerville, Lord Bainbridge, lieutenant governor of Lower Canada, a man no one had liked or mourned, dead of an apoplexy long ago. Lily told Ghislaine about the night that the Bonner men had escaped from the Montreal prison only to be caught up again here, in the secret stairway that, Lily and Ghislaine were both very sad to discover for themselves, Luke had indeed bricked closed when the house came into his possession.
Ghislaine longed to see Giselle Somerville, now more properly called Giselle Lacoeur for she had finally settled on a husband, late in her life. Lily would have liked to meet her half brother's mother as well, but Giselle had found a climate more suited to her temperament in Saint Domingue, and Iona was sure that she would never see her daughter in Montreal again. Not in the winter, at least, Luke had agreed. He knew his mother well.
Why Montreal cold should be so very harsh, that was a question Lily had been considering for some time. Over the weeks she had come to realize that it must have something to do with sleeping alone. In the winter nobody at Lake in the Clouds slept by themselves. Lily shared her bed with Annie and sometimes Gabriel, too, if Daniel happened to be away. They huddled together under the covers like kittens, their smells mingling together: milky sweet breath, sharp soap and wood smoke, pine sap.
She missed them, for all their pinches and giggling and pulling of the blankets and sneaking away of pillows. The truth was, even in the heat of summer Lily did not much like sleeping alone in a bed, and she did not have to: she could go with her blanket to lie under the stars or sleep under the falls, if the notion took her.
Before homesickness could dig in, Lily tried to remember what it was she had to do this morning. Was it Monsieur Picot, who clicked his nails against the easel and clucked his tongue when she displeased him, or Monsieur Duhaut, who was teaching her how to grind and mix her own pigments? Monsieur Duhaut was a strange man, morose one day and more morose the next; when his mood lifted a little he would stand too close while Lily worked and breathe onto her neck. She had spoken to Iona about him, and at their next lesson he had greeted her with such a studiously wounded expression that Lily was reminded of a dog caught stealing eggs; sorry not for the transgression, but for his clumsiness in being found out.
Suddenly Lily realized how quiet the lane outside her window was and she remembered that it was a holiday of some sort. What holiday she couldn't really say—the Catholics seemed to have so many of them—but soon the bells would begin to ring the mass. And, she remembered, more awake now, she had promised to go out with Simon to an all-day sleighing party. That made her heart beat faster, as a lesson with Monsieur Duhaut never could, though she was loath to admit it to herself. She had come to Montreal to study art, after all.
The virtuous thing to do would be to spend the day in front of her easel. But of course, she had promised.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Ghislaine called at the door even as it swung inward. She stood there with a tray held high, the steam rising up to make the hair at her temples curl. Ghislaine was a pretty girl and always seemed to be in motion; the whirlwind, Iona called her, but affectionately.
“Yesterday,” Ghislaine began straightaway. “Yesterday the youngest daughter of Pierre-Amable Dézéry dit Latour—Amélie, she is called—agreed to marry Gérard Berthelet, in the rue de l'Hôpital. Such a scandal, you cannot imagine. A daughter of the surveyor to the governor engaged to an apprentice joiner who suffers from—” Ghislaine stopped to search for an English word, her small mouth pressed together in concentration. “Early balditude.”
Ghislaine was vain about her own beautiful hair, and expected no less of others. When Lily pointed her lack of charity out to her, Ghislaine only flicked her fingers. “Pffft. Do not preach to me, Miss American Who Knows All. I haven't seen you spending time with the hairless. In fact, your sweetheart has so much hair that his head cannot contain it. It sprouts from his collar and cuffs.”
At that Lily could not help but laugh, though what she wanted to do was to correct Ghislaine: Simon Ballentyne was not her sweetheart. But it would not do to rise to the bait. Instead she swallowed her coffee, very strong and laced with sweet fresh milk, and with it the protests that would only start Ghislaine off on a tangent.
“I see you do not disagree,” Ghislaine said with a satisfied sniff.
“No,” Lily said, finally throwing back the covers. “I simply do not argue.”
At breakfast Luke watched her. Lily could almost see the questions pooling in his mouth, puffing out his cheeks, ready to spill: What is it Simon Ballentyne wants from you? and, Have you written to our father or must I?
Lily applied herself to her porridge and refused to meet her brother's steady gaze. Iona gave her less room.
“Simon's a good man,” she said to Lily when Luke had excused himself from the table and gone off to see to the post. “But he's just a man, after all, lass. You mustn't forget that men are all weak willed when it comes down to it. It's the woman who must bear the burden, in the end.”
Down to what? Lily might have asked, but this would be the worst kind of deception. She knew what Luke and Iona were worried about: that she would allow Simon too many liberties and end up with child, which would mean, in turn, that she would have to marry him and make a life here in Montreal. Or go home carrying her shame before her and admit to everyone that she had not been equal to the freedom she was given. As had been the case with Iona herself, and with Giselle too, both women having borne their children without the benefit of a husband. No wonder they were worried.
At this moment Lily understood, and she could promise Iona that she would be sensible. She could say the words, and mean them. The problem was Simon; could she say the same to him? When he put his hands on her face so gently and kissed her with such skill that the muscles in her belly fluttered with it, could she remember what was expected of her, or even more to the point: what she expected of herself?
The best thing, of course, would be to stay at home today. Just as Lily was forming this resolution in her mind she heard the jangle of harness bells flying past the door. The first sleighs on their way out of the city, on their way to Mount Royal or Lachine.
She went to Iona and leaned over her shoulder. The old woman smelled of herbs and tallow candles this morning, as she often did; there were fresh ink stains on her fingers that said she had been writing. But what? And why? She never sent a letter out with the courier. Iona did not speak of the things that kept her busy behind the closed door of her chamber, and Lily had never had the courage to ask.
She kissed Iona's soft cheek. “I will be sensible,” she said. “I am my mother's dau
ghter, after all.”
“And your father's!” Iona called after her.
A suitable warning, of course, as Lily's father had spent a winter here when he was younger than she was now, and fathered a son on Giselle Somerville.
But Lily only raised a hand in acknowledgment and wouldn't turn back, not now, not with the sound of bells filling the lanes.
When Simon stopped the sleigh at the door Lily was ready in her layers of wool, wrapped in a hooded cape lined with fur. It was impossible to walk normally when she was bundled up like this, but then she only had to negotiate the few steps to the cariole.
It was a small affair, just big enough for two, and painted a bright red with green trim. The bridles were woven with ribbons to match, altogether too fine for the team of country horses: tough little beasts, shaggy coated, narrow of chest and half-wild but able to run for hours in the cold and then stand for even longer. They were spanned not side by side but nose to tail so that they could pull the cariole through the narrow lanes. For all their rough appearance they were clever things, and affectionate: once out of their traces they would follow Simon around like dogs and push their damp velvet noses into his pockets looking for maple sugar lumps and dried apple.
The sleigh came to a halt just as she heard Luke call her. He was holding a letter out as he came forward. “From your mother,” he said. “It was in among the others.”
Lily was thinking of leaving it for reading in the evening when Luke grinned at her, a teasing brother at this moment rather than a worried one. “Take it along,” he said. “Best to have Elizabeth along with you in that sleigh, in spirit at least.”
But he was looking beyond her when he said it. At Simon, Lily thought, and then she turned and saw the scarlet uniform coats. The sight of soldiers always seemed to take her brother by surprise, though the city was full of them.
When she turned back again, Luke's expression had changed, from playfulness to concern.
The reason she liked these rides so much, Lily told herself as she settled in, was that nothing was required of her in the way of conversation. Simon was busy with the horses; Lily's only job was to stay warm in the piles of buffalo hides and bear pelts and to enjoy the ride and the view. They rushed over the countryside toward the hill that all Montreal liked to think of as a mountain. Mount Royal, they called it, six miles away and a good place to go for a view of the city.
The sky was a clear, hard blue, cloudless, serene, the sun so bright on the snow and ice that Lily must squint. The trouble with blue eyes, her father would remind her, smiling to take the edge off the truth, they let too much in.
A letter from her mother was tucked up Lily's sleeve but it was her father who came along on these sleigh rides. In all of the stories he told, Nathaniel Bonner never spoke of the winter he spent here; and still Lily could imagine him sleigh racing, wild to be off, to be moving. As he must run, sometimes, for the beat and rhythm and rush of wind on his face. Wolf-Running-Fast he was called by the Kahnyen'kehàka, or Between-Two-Worlds. The first name always seemed to Lily the better one.
There were ten sleighs altogether now: bright green, blue, yellow, red. Most of the party were known to Lily, friends of Simon's and her brother's, all younger men, all of them come out with a girl tucked in beside them. In the city young women vied for these invitations, Ghislaine had told Lily, as if she weren't properly appreciating the honor bestowed upon her by Simon Ballentyne, who could fill the spot beside him twenty times over.
Lily had asked about Luke, if he never went out with a sleigh and a girl beside him, and with that earned a surprised laugh from Ghislaine. Luke Bonner, it seemed, was above such things, too much a gentleman, far too seriously busy with all his many concerns.
And had this superior godlike brother of hers never had a sweetheart? Lily wanted to hear, unless of course Ghislaine simply didn't know. This brought a long recitation of the names and connections of those young ladies who had set their sights on Luke without success. Some had wondered if Luke was the kind of man who preferred the company of other men, but then of course Mademoiselle Jennet had come from Scotland and all was made clear. Ghislaine was looking forward to having Mademoiselle Jennet as a mistress; she laughed, and she made Monsieur Luke laugh too, a rare skill indeed.
The citizens of Montreal put a great deal of value on good humor, Lily had noticed that right away, and these sleigh parties were the very best example of their lighthearted playfulness.
The sleighs had been brought to a halt while the men made plans about the route and the women called out in English and French to each other, good-natured challenges and outrageous boasts calculated for laughter. The horses nickered and tossed their heads too, holding their own conversations.
Simon sent Lily a sidelong glance, his dark eyes alive with the challenge, as excited as a boy with his first bagattaway stick. He flicked the reins and they were off, caught up in the scream of the wind. Lily heard herself cry out with it.
All around them the countryside rose and fell like the wings of a great bird, snowy fields crisscrossed by lanes beaten down smooth. But the colors were the thing. White snow, blue sky, Daniel would tease her when she talked of such things. What more is there to see?
This. She wished her brother were here so she could make him understand what white could be. Trees tangled together against the horizon, a web thrown up to hold up the sky and still its color seeped away and into the landscape itself: blue in layers upon layers, melding into shadows purple and copper that faded to rosy golds. The winter sun, too heavy for the sky, moving down and down like a sleepy child, radiating colors that defied pigment and palette and brush, putting every artist who had ever lived to shame.
This, she would tell Daniel. See this.
He would look, out of brotherly love, out of curiosity, but he would not see. It was not in him; it was not in most, it seemed. Daniel had many gifts that she did not, of course: even as a very little boy his talent with animals had been undeniable, a fellow feeling, her father had called it, that allowed him to pick up birds and call wolves to him to stand, watchful, a few feet away. As if he only had to choose between one family and another.
He was a creature of the woods, her brother, alive to them in the way that few could be, but in his world color was just another piece of a larger understanding.
Gabriel Oak, who had been Lily's first drawing teacher, had told her that it would be so, that there would be many who loved her but could not understand this gift she had been given, the seeing. She had been a little girl and not taken his meaning, and just as well; it saddened her now to think of it, that the people she loved best could not share what she valued most.
Nicholas would see. Nicholas had the eye. If he were here with her they would sit and watch and never say anything at all until much later, when they tried to find words to make it last between them, this wonder, this fiery brilliant cold world. He understood why she had come so far, to another city in another country to live among strangers.
Simon turned and cupped Lily's head in one gloved hand, pulled her close and kissed her and she tasted the color there: hot and bright, his joy in the day as plain as salt on the tongue. She kissed him back, in gratitude, at first, and then more.
Nicholas was at home in Paradise, tending to his apple trees and his bears and his sad daughter and sadder wife, and Simon was here. The letter in her sleeve crackled and whispered, but the beat of her heart was louder.
The noise was tremendous, everyone talking and shouting and laughing as they recounted the morning's races, each of them with their own story that must be heard above all others as they tumbled out of the carioles.
They stopped for dinner at a farmhouse that belonged to Paul Lehane's aunt or maybe it was Jamie MacDonald's brother, the whole crowd of them moving into the warmth where they shed coats and furs like snakes frantic to be free of old skin. As soon as hands emerged from mitts a servant with one brown eye, as bright as a sparrow's, pressed a pewter cup of hot cider agains
t chilled fingers.
In a far corner someone was tuning a fiddle. The house was full of comforting smells: lamb stew and new bread and beans cooking in molasses over a fire of apple wood and aged oak, coffee and hot milk and cider and too many people. The tiny windows dripped with steam and rattled with noise. Someone upset a basket of kittens and they scattered with tiny red mouths open in alarm.
Lily picked up a gray kitten with a tail as long as its body and found a spot on the bench that ran around the great tiled oven, as tall as a man. Then she pulled out her letter and broke the seal.
“Dearest Lily,” her mother had written in her strong, slanted hand.
“Ho,” cried a girl Lily had not yet met, the flush on her cheeks having less to do with cold and more with brandy, by the smell of her. “Are we here for a school lesson then?”
She tried to snatch Lily's letter away, would have snatched it had Simon not caught her hand and swung her around with a laugh.
“You need something more to drink, Meggie,” he said, and winked at Lily over his shoulder. “Coffee, I think, and lots of it.”
Lily pushed herself harder against the warm tile and bent her head over the lines her mother had put down on the paper.
I write to you today with news that is both tragic and strange, because you will want and need to know the particulars, but also simply because to put them down on paper requries careful thought and ordering of the facts, a process which, I hope, will resolve some of my own confusion.
“From home?”
Lily started, losing the sound of her mother's voice just as easily as she had found it in the words on the page. Daniel Fontaine, a man with her brother's name and none of his understanding, stood before her. He came from a wealthy family, Lily remembered. More money than sense, Simon had said of him. But good with horses. Simon was on the other side of the room, pouring coffee for Meggie while she leaned in toward him, her face turned up like a calf wondering at the moon.