The Sister's Tale, Beth Powning [important books to read TXT] 📗

if they had been made by the teeth of a human being and her body bears the marks of bruises. The walls of the room in which she was found are finely spattered with stars of blood. The murder weapon, an axe, was in plain sight, leaning against the stove, soaked in blood. Her reason for being at the home of Mr. Tatum, by his accounts, is as a boarder. She was found by him when he returned from St. John. He saw the body lying on the floor, the head red and her clothes tossed up. By his account, Mrs. Cavanaugh, a widow, was of County Tyrone, Ireland, and has been living in this country for over thirty years. She was fifty years of age, portly, of short stature and ill health. It is not known…

The front door opened. She lowered the paper, startled. On the cold air, the smell of horse, the bite of snow.

“Ready, ma’am?” Mr. Dougan gave her his arm as she stepped up into the sleigh. She had asked him not to tip his hat. You are in Canada, now, she’d said.

She settled, pulled up the bearskin rug. A blanket for the girl was folded on the seat beside her. Mr. Dougan handed up a basket prepared by Ellen—gingerbread, a ham sandwich.

“She said the girl will be cold and hungry,” he explained.

Dappled coat groomed to a trout-shimmer, the mare snorted, neck arched, as Mr. Dougan climbed into his seat and collected the reins. Josephine, adjusting her collar to cover her nose, felt a wave of pleasure as the sleigh slid down the lane—lindens, snow-covered lawn, the house Simeon had built for them, with its scrolled red trim, turret and verandas.

She leaned forward to enjoy the sight of Hilltop, the town’s largest house, built by an English duke for his two childless, widowed sisters. Snow made a conical cap on the roof of its three-storey turret and accentuated its delicious details—veranda railings topping spindled balusters, Gothic windows with stained-glass panes, gingerbread scrollwork.

Everything had become like a painting, Josephine thought—all things made less ordinary by a turn in the weather.

TWO The Auction

A SMALL, QUICK-MOVING WOMAN came up the attic stairs and stooped over the pallet, shaking the sleeping girl, impatiently.

“Dress in your warmest clothes.”

She sat up, slumped forward, mindful of the nails poking through the sloped ceiling. Her nightdress was missing a button at the neck, the collar scrubbed to a threadbare finish. She crossed her arms, felt the warmth of her own hair, fallen from its pins. She could not make out the woman’s expression.

“Why?”

“Because you…And pack up all your belongings.”

“Am I leaving?”

“Yes. The Overseer of the Poor will no doubt reimburse you.”

The woman’s dress rustled as she lifted it to descend the perilous stairs.

The girl dressed in her union suit. She pulled a wool sweater over her dress, worked her feet into long stockings. She knelt to set folded clothing—wool socks, drawers, two merino undershirts, her only other dress—into the wooden box, painted green, that had accompanied her on the ship, the train, the wagon to Ada and Henry’s farm, and now here.

She went down the narrow stairs, awkward, one arm barely surrounding the box.

The kitchen was warm, lit by kerosene lamps.

“They’ve eaten,” the cook said, glancing at her. “They let you sleep in. You’re to have your breakfast and then go wait in the hall.”

She sat at the kitchen table and ate a bowl of oatmeal and a slice of buttered bread with jam made from last summer’s raspberries. She went into the hall and slid onto the bench where the children sat to remove their boots. In the cold light, she could see snow falling past narrow windows on either side of the door.

She listened to the ticking of the clock, thinking of Ada, remembering how she’d been glad to see her wearing her red felt hat on the day that she and Henry set out for town to buy the dimity.

The last thing I saw of them. Shooing the barn cats from their feet. Their winter boots.

A knock on the door; she jumped to her feet and opened it. A man stood in the falling snow.

“You Flora Salford?”

“I am.”

“Got your things? Hand ’em over…”

Bits of hay clung to the man’s wool coat. Gobbets of frozen mucus in his moustache. She followed him out the door. He was in a hurry, she thought, and wondered why. An open farm wagon stood in the street, filled with men, women and children. They did not look up at her, but hunkered against the cold and the snow.

The man gave her a hand up onto the wagon’s iron step.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Her words hung in the air, an embarrassment, for no one answered. All the people had bags at their feet. All jolted in the same direction as the wagon moved off. A woman lay rolled onto her side, grey hair showing above a blanket. Beside Flora was a boy her own age. He leaned forward, arms like broken branches, hands hanging. A little girl began to cry, a keening mournfulness muffled by an older girl’s coat. A little boy huddled on the bigger girl’s other side. Flora didn’t dare look at all the others—four or five men and women.

“Where are we going?” Flora whispered to the boy her own age. Rheumy eyes lifted only as far as his knees and then returned to settle on his hands. As if, she thought, she had said it to torment him.

The wagon passed through the centre of Pleasant Valley. The street widened, storefronts on either side—dry goods, laundries. Rug-covered horses stood hitched to sleighs. The wagon rattled over the train tracks, turned towards the station.

Men pressed together, jostling, in front of the station house, a two-storey building. People carrying satchels and carpet bags hurried up its front steps, crossed a porch, vanished inside. Across the street stood a long, three-storey hotel. Beyond, beneath the snow-covered