by Sara Donati
At night she thought of Nicholas Wilde and Simon Ballentyne and suffered sharp dreams that woke her to find that she had sweated through her nightclothes.
On a Saturday when Luke had been gone for a week and would be gone for another, Lily and Iona sat down to another solitary dinner just as someone knocked at the door. The gust of cold air came from down the hall, sharp and sweet with snow, to announce the visitor. Lily would have got up to see for herself who it was out of simple curiosity and boredom, but Lucille came straight in to announce the company.
“A visitor for you, Miss Lily,” she said, not so grumpy as she usually was, with a flush of something that might even be curiosity.
“Who is it?” Iona said patiently.
“A strange little man, called Mump or was it Bump, who,” she added in a disapproving tone, “has no French.” Lucille had very little English, and was proud of that fact.
Lily was up and flying down the hall before Lucille finished, and there he stood: Cornelius Bump, as true as life. No taller than she was herself and humped of back, with a face as creased and folded as an apple forgotten in a dark corner of a winter cellar. His head, the shape of a lopsided egg, was covered with a thick pelt of hair that stuck out from under his cap as straight as straw, the color of yams heavily peppered with gray. His long earlobes were fire red with cold, in contrast to the blue of his eyes, endlessly old and wise and sweet, her old Bump, her friend. Lily's face was wet with tears as she hugged him.
“There now, girl, there, Lily my sweet. No call for tears, none at all.”
She did not trust her voice at first and so she hugged him again. He had always been small and light of bone as a bird. As a child she had often asked him if he was a pixie, a question he had never answered with anything but a smile.
“I've been wishing to see somebody from home,” Lily said. “I've been wishing and wishing. And here you are. Did you come from Paradise? Did they send you? Do you have news? You must be hungry.”
He laughed at her good-naturedly, the odd little man who had been such a friend to her when she was a girl. While she tugged his coat from him and his cap and his mittens he answered her questions: he had indeed come from Paradise with news enough to tell and he would welcome a bit of dinner, milk would be much appreciated if there was any to be had, and would Lily remember her manners please, they weren't alone in the house after all.
She took him by the arm and led him into the dining room, only to find out that there was no need of introductions; Bump was no stranger to Wee Iona.
Iona, as settled and unflappable an old woman as Lily had ever known, was so happy to see Bump that there was a glittering in her eyes when she took his hands in her own.
“Weel, and look at you now, Cornelius. Look at you. How long has it been? And are you well?”
“Too many years, Iona my dear. Old bones and growing older, but old friends too, to ease the ache.”
“And so they do,” Iona said, and without warning she leaned forward to kiss the old man on a bristled cheek.
Standing back, Lily watched and listened and saw things: Iona and Bump were much of a size, so that for once she herself seemed to be the tall one, without Luke here to prove her wrong. The servants saw how Iona had greeted the stranger and they began to flit around him, offering food and drink and the comforts of the house.
Bump said, “First things first.” He began to undo the letter case he wore around his middle, his fingers working the buckle and the ties and more ties until it was free in his lap. He unfolded the leather flaps and a whole great stack of letters appeared. Most of them he put on the table. “For Luke.”
On the top of the pile Lily recognized a letter in Jennet's small, angled handwriting, but then Bump was holding out more letters, to Lily. A smaller packet tied with string. Lily could barely keep her hands from trembling, and the urge to get up and run from the room was so strong that for a moment she feared the others must see her agitation and ask questions she couldn't answer. This was the first post she'd had from home since the news about Dolly's death.
“There are packages for you in the sleigh,” Bump said. “But I expect the letters are what you want first.”
She nodded because she did not trust herself to speak.
“Now,” Bump said with a smile that showed off a row of small white teeth. “Is that soup I smell?”
Lily's hunger had disappeared, but she ate nonetheless from the bowls and platters that Jeannette and Lucille put on the table: stew thick with potatoes and bacon and beans and cabbage, fresh brown bread still warm from the oven. A steaming bread pudding studded with cherries and apples and currants, with a jug of cream to pour over it.
She had so many questions to ask but then so did Iona. Lily must wait, though she could not keep herself from jittering while they spoke of the war and of old friends and of the things that Bump had seen and heard as far away as Washington and Baltimore and Philadelphia. The letters in her lap seemed almost to hum at her, as impatient to be read as she was to read them.
“I didn't know you came so far north in your travels,” Lily said when it seemed that Iona had had her fill of Bump's answers.
“Not often,” Bump admitted. “Only when there's special reason.”
“Don't you ever tire of traveling?” Lily asked him, because it had already occurred to her that it would be a fine thing, indeed, if Bump should decide to stay in Montreal for the winter.
At that Iona snorted softly. “You might as well ask your brother if he never tires of work. It's in the blood, is it not, Cornelius? Your mother's people were tinkers in the old country.”
At that Bump only gave them his small smile, the one that meant he would keep his thoughts to himself.
“Have you really been as far as Washington?” Lily asked the question more out of politeness than real interest, and because she imagined her mother had asked the same question. Her mother was always interested in what was happening in Washington.
“I have,” Bump said. “Though the credit must go to my good little horse. She does all the heavy work. Now you tell me, Lily, where is this Simon Ballentyne I've heard so much about? Is he gone to Québec with your brother, or will he come by this evening so I can see him? I did promise your father I would pass on a message to him.”
A silence fell around the table. Even Lucille, who had been gathering up bowls, stopped to watch Lily, who felt herself flushing with embarrassment and anger, white and strong.
“What—” she began in a voice that wavered and broke, though she meant it not to. “What do you mean? What have you heard?”
Bump's smile trembled and faded, and Lily's fear grew all the brighter, and on its heels came a keen cold anger. “Did my brother write home—” She stopped and tried to think how to say the awful things in her head. “What did he say? What have you heard?”
Bump's expression was solemn now, his quick blue eyes adding things together and taking things away. He said, “You're not set to marry, I take it.”
“I am not,” Lily said tightly. “I never have been. I never have been,” she repeated. “Not to Simon Ballentyne or anyone else.”
“I'm sure Luke never wrote of you marrying,” Iona said calmly. But she looked uncomfortable and ill at ease and that was all the proof Lily needed.
Iona said, “I'll write to your father straightaway, Lily, and make the truth known.”
“Please do,” Lily said. “Tell him I haven't seen Simon Ballentyne in a month and have no plans to see him.” She was trembling and so she folded her hands in her lap tightly and tried to smile.
Bump said, “I've handled this badly.”
“No,” Lily said quickly. “Not at all. It's not your fault, but my brother's.” She glanced at the letters in her lap and all her joy was gone, replaced by worry about what might be in them.
“I have more news,” Bump said. “And I promised your mother I would tell you myself. She didn't want you to read it in a letter.”
Lily's heart was
beating so fast and loud in her throat that she couldn't speak, even to ask for the reassurance she wanted.
“Your uncle Todd is gone, Lily,” Bump said. “It was the cancer that took him, in the end.”
Lily nodded, because she couldn't say the things that were in her head. Not my brother, was what came to mind. Not my father or mother, nor any of my people, thank God. Thank God.
But of course Uncle Todd was one of her people, she reminded herself, and she should feel sorrow. Uncle Toad, they had called him as children, and laughed behind their hands for their cleverness.
Uncle Todd who had been married to Kitty, who had first been married to Lily's uncle Julian. Family and not family; no blood kin but a man she had seen almost every day of her life before she came away to Canada.
For a moment Lily was unable to call his face to mind. Nor could she recall the last time she had thought about him.
As a little girl she had been afraid of Uncle Todd, afraid of his gruff manner and his sharp judgment and most of all afraid that he would try to hurt her father or mother again. She had heard the stories, and while there seemed to be an uneasy peace between the two families she sometimes dreamed at night of Uncle Todd with bloody hands.
Bump had put an end to those nightmares, when he came back to live in Paradise. Bump had known Richard as a very little boy and he had stories to tell, funny stories that he told right in front of the doctor, who turned an astonishing shade of red but never denied the truth of it. Bump had cured her of her fear of her uncle, but Lily had been grown before she learned to see past his curt manner, to the sharp wit and sense of humor.
Her uncle had never spoken to her of her drawing, but he sometimes brought her paper when he came back from one of his journeys, and once a set of pencils that came all the way from France.
It was Bump who had cured her of her fear of Uncle Todd and now he had come to tell her that he was dead.
“Did you come just to tell me that?” she asked, and blushed to hear how raw the question sounded, how childlike.
“Not just that,” Bump said. “But that's the worst news I have, and I wanted to get it out of the way.”
Lily felt herself nodding, felt some of the fear and worry leaving her at this. Then she thought of her uncle again and she wondered about her father, how he had taken the news and if he had been happy or sad. In the spring they would dig his grave in the small graveyard behind his house where Aunt Kitty was buried with the babies she had tried to bring into the world. Her cousin Ethan was alone now, in a way Lily could hardly imagine.
She said, “I must write to Ethan.”
Bump smiled at her. “That would mean a great deal to him, I'm sure.”
In her chamber Lily closed the door and drew her shawl tight around her shoulders though the room was quite warm. She sat on the edge of the bed under the embroidered silk canopy that had been Giselle Somerville's when she was a young woman. On the lace counterpane worked by nuns Lily put down her letters and studied them for a moment.
One thick letter from her mother; another one, even thicker, from Jennet; the last, a single sheet, from Curiosity. Nothing from Nicholas Wilde.
Disappointment had a taste, sharp and salty. She chided herself for her foolishness, for her hope, for her faith in a man who had never been able to claim her and never would.
Or maybe, Lily reasoned to herself, maybe it was just too soon for him to write. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
She tucked her legs up under herself, took the letter her mother had written and held it against her cheek and inhaled, hoping for some vague scent of her. Right now she would give almost anything to have her mother here, but there was only the letter, and that would have to be enough.
The wax seal cracked under her thumb. Lily spread out the sheets and counted them. Eight in all, closely written: the essence of her mother, her thoughts and words in strong even lines, straight and clear.
She began to read. The story began without preamble or niceties or polite inquiries or reassurances, and that in itself set Lily to worrying. And here it was, finally: Hannah's story, the one they had waited for and despaired of ever hearing.
Her mother had written it in clear sentences, in logical order, and yet Lily could hardly make sense of any of it. She stopped and went back and read through again, and again, until her mind opened itself to the ideas and images, and then she put down the pages and wept for a while, her hands pressed to her face.
All this her sister had been carrying around with her, while Lily's worst problem was a love letter that would not come. She flushed with shame and sorrow for Hannah and the need to do something, anything that might help.
Finally she picked up the letter again.
. . . I might have started this letter—perhaps I should have started this letter—with very different, far more cheerful news of your brother and cousin. We have had a letter from Daniel and Blue-Jay, written in tandem, it seems, passing a quill filled with bullet lead back and forth. They are well, they tell us, and seem to be relishing the soldier's life. Gabriel is just across from me at the table, copying out your brother's letter to include with this one, so that you may read the news for yourself. Your little brother takes this job very seriously and I fear in his concentration he may bite through the tip of his tongue and never notice until blood spots the page, already much mishandled and smeared. In itself the letter is a true portrait of Gabriel, one you will appreciate, I think, for its own self.
Of your uncle Todd's death I find myself strangely unable to write at any length, but Mrs. Freeman assures me that she will do this and indeed you may have read that letter first, and of course Mr. Bump will have passed along our messages. It must suffice to say that he suffered greatly in the last weeks and is now at rest, for which we must be thankful.
Finally there is news in the village, news of such a shocking nature that I find myself again unable to even begin any reasonable accounting. That story I leave to your cousin Jennet, who is not so very attached to the persons involved and will, in this matter at least, be more capable than I of putting the story into words. I have specifically requested that Mr. Bump not speak to you of this matter, so that you have the whole directly from Jennet, who experienced much of it personally. Once you have finished reading you may wish to interview him, and indeed I believe he will have much to say, and his own perspective to add.
Having piqued your curiosity, I will close this already very long letter with the assurance that we here at Lake in the Clouds are in good health. As to your sister Hannah, I can say only that there is a blessing to be found in those sad events of Christmas Eve. For so many months she carried a terrible burden hidden inside her that is now open to the healing power of light and air and reason, and will mend, we trust and pray, in the fullness of time.
I have not written anything here about you or the news in your last letter, I realize now, but you mustn't believe, even for a moment, that I do not think of you. You are in my thoughts constantly. Some might believe that by now I should have become accustomed to your absence, but every morning it is a surprise to me to see your bed without you in it.
You must remember that whatever foolishness the men might discuss among themselves, I know you to be an intelligent and sensible young woman, capable of making decisions for yourself. They may not always be the decisions I would make. They most probably will not be the decisions Luke will try to make for you, in his brotherly concern and overly protective way. They may even be wrong decisions, at times, but they will be your decisions. And yet I am still your mother and so I will ask you (as you have been waiting for me to do, no doubt) to strive to favor the rational over the subjective as you select one course of action among those available to you.
I will admit that I hope you will not settle too far from us when the time comes (if, indeed, it does come; you may decide to travel from one teacher to another for the next ten years, and in that, too, I would support you, for how could I not support a curio
us daughter who longs to see the world?).
Your loving mother,
Elizabeth Middleton Bonner
January 3, 1813
It was an hour before Lily could bring herself to open Jennet's letter. She sat with it in her lap, and thought of throwing it in the fire. In it was a story so upsetting that her mother had not been able to write of it.
Lily felt in her bones that it must have something to do with Nicholas. This story, whatever it was, would explain why there was no word from him.
The very worst news, of course, would be that Nicholas had died. She imagined what Jennet might have written: of fire, of runaway horses or fever or a hunting accident. A strange thought came to her, one that sat heavy in her throat and would not be swallowed: If he is dead, then the worst has happened. If he is dead, I am free of him.
She was shocked at herself, so shocked that she looked around the empty room, sure someone must have heard her, for how could such wickedness be kept quiet?
Lily opened the second letter and began to read.
Later, she fell into a weary sleep with Jennet's letter pressed to her breast; she slept so long and so deeply that when she woke at sunset she was disoriented and even frightened, forgetting for that moment where she was in the world, thinking first of her mother, until she saw the canopy covered with embroidered flowers over her head. Her cheeks were tight with dried tears, but why?
The crackle of paper under her cheek brought it all back, every word and image. Lily sat up and looked at the letters, her mother's words and her cousin's. Curiosity's letter was still unopened.
There was a hollow feeling deep inside, as if someone had stolen something from her while she slept. Lily got up and walked to the hearth, stood for a moment looking into the flames and then dropped all the closely written pages in Jennet's hand into the heat. She could destroy the words on the page, at least. They caught one by one, glowed briefly, curled along the edges and became nothing more than drifting ash.