LITMIR.BIZ

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she threw her arms around her papa and then Lady Theo. “Thank you for deciding I could go to Mr. Ellice’s. I’ve never been to a Welcome to Winter party. I’ve never heard of one before.”

      “And I doubt that you will again,” Lady Theo said, smiling and hugging her back. “It’s distinctly a Janie Ellice idea. But it will be fun. Better yet, it will give this situation a chance to settle down. You’ll see.”

      The next day passed in a blur of activity. Lady Theo produced a bolt of a soft, red cloth made from the finest merino wool. Sophie was taken to the dressmaker in the village and measured, pinned, and measured and pinned for hours. Just when it seemed that all efforts were in vain and she would have to leave for the Ellices with her horrible brown clothes, a message arrived from her papa saying that their departure had been delayed. Some papers that he was waiting for had not arrived and he couldn’t leave until they did. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The dressmaker promised immediate delivery of the red dress and Lady Theo ordered another two of different colours.

      She could have ordered eleven, or even twenty, because a second messenger soon brought news that Mr. Mallory was further delayed and that he’d stay in Montpelier until he finished his business there. The Ellices, according to the messenger, had already been told that although Mr. Mallory would arrive on November 9, the Thursday before the party, Lady Theo and Sophie would travel to Beauharnois as originally scheduled.

      Lady Theo hemmed and hawed at the news. On the one hand, she saw the wisdom in getting Sophie away from Malloryville as quickly as possible. On the other, she was loath to travel with only the grooms and coachman for protection. Sophie’s woebegone face finally decided things, and the following day the Mallory coach set off for Jane Ellice’s Welcome to Winter party.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      To Sophie’s astonishment, Mary chose to go with them. Even though she and Eloise, Lady Theo’s maid, sat with their backs to the horses, Sophie noticed that her eyes got bigger and rounder the further they travelled northward. And she had a good idea that her own looked the same.

      Sophie had no idea what she expected Lower Canada to be like. She’d been so preoccupied with getting away from Malloryville that she simply hadn’t thought much about Beauharnois. Or that it would be foreign. When she looked north from the Mount Donne lookout, she knew that at some point Vermont stopped and Lower Canada began, but there was no red line saying the United States here, Lower Canada there. Nor did it look like it would take a trip of six hours to go from Malloryville to Beauharnois, on the southern shore of the mighty St. Lawrence River.

      As the coach jolted its interminable way north, everything seemed foreign, and Sophie hadn’t expected that. England, another foreign country, had simply seemed different. Everything there was bigger, of course. She had seen mansions in London that were double the size of anything in Boston, and the city had an enormous number of very poor people as well. And maybe, she decided, that summed up England. More of everything. More magnificence, more filth. A greater emphasis on manners, less concern for actual people.

      Lower Canada, however, was simply foreign. Most of the people spoke a French that she didn’t begin to understand, a French that puzzled Lady Theo and Eloise at times. Even the houses were different from those in Vermont. Their roofs didn’t slope straight down as normal ones did. They had a kind of curl to their eaves, as though the builders tried to copy the branches of trees. The farmers’ fields were different as well. Instead of being square, they were long and very narrow. Sophie couldn’t imagine how any of the new harvesting machines she’d seen in England would ever work in Lower Canada. There wouldn’t be enough room for them to turn.

      Mary almost hung out of the window to make sure she saw everything. “Oh, miss, oh milady,” she kept saying. “Everything’s so strange and exciting. Just look at that man over there.”

      The man she pointed out was dressed in leggings, as almost every other man seemed to be, and had a colourful red sash tied around the middle of his coat. He wore a long cap on his head, which Lady Theo said was called a toque, and he smoked a clay pipe. When he saw them staring at him, he swept them a low bow. “Maybe he thinks we look as strange as he does,” Mary giggled.

      “More likely he thinks we’re stupid for travelling on these atrocious roads,” Eloise muttered. “They call this a highway? Me, I think it’s nothing but ruts.”

      “She’s right,” Sophie told Lady Theo, wincing as the coach hit yet another pothole. “I’m going to be black and blue all over, not just on my arms, by the time we arrive. That is, if we ever get anywhere.”

      Eventually the novelty of the scenery faded. Everyone became bored. A sleeping Eloise began to snore. Sophie fidgeted until Lady Theo, in self-defence more than anything, began telling stories about various trips she’d taken. Each stop at an inn to change horses became a highlight, a chance to stretch their legs, but after a while even that palled.

      “I had no idea the world was so big. Will we ever get there?” Mary grumbled.

      “Imagine having to sail across the Atlantic in a sailing boat for days and days and never seeing land. This is a picnic compared to that.”

      “Cheer up, both of you. We’re almost there. If you look out this side you can see the church spire and the manor house in the distance.”

      Sophie immediately clambered over a box to peer out the window. “Where? I can’t see a manor house.”

      “Over there. The house with the copper roof.”

      “That’s a manor?” She stared at the building in amazement. While the two-storey house was on the shore of a large lake and close to a substantial wharf, it looked smaller than that owned by her father’s manager in Malloryville. Sophie, after being in England, expected something much grander. She turned to Lady Theo in dismay. “Where will we all fit?”

      Lady Theo laughed. “It’s bigger than it looks. There are at least nine guest rooms, so you won’t have to sleep in the barn. Now, let Mary tidy you up. We’re almost there.”

      While Mary brushed her hair and tied the ribbons on her hat, Sophie stared at the manor house. She didn’t know what dismayed her about it. Maybe it was just the foreignness of everything, but it didn’t seem a comforting place. And, as the coach came to a stop in front of the house, a cacophony of sound broke out.

      “What on earth’s making that noise?” asked Lady Theo.

      “That,” Sophie answered, pointing to a large turkey that came rushing at the coach in a way that reminded her somehow of Elias, honking its head off.

      The horses stopped, then tried to bolt in a frenzied effort to get away from the incessant sound. The turkey, though, wasn’t interested in them. With unerring instinct he planted himself midway between the coach and the manor house’s front door. He made no protest when John opened the coach door, but as soon as Lady Theo attempted to step down, he set up a raucous gobbling.

      She hesitated for a moment, then tried stepping down again. Immediately the turkey charged towards her, his long neck extended, his beak snapping open. “Good gracious,” she muttered, hastily climbing back into the coach. “What now?”

      What now became a good question. The turkey was capricious. He allowed the grooms to walk around the coach without moving or making a sound. But as soon as one of the four women tried to descend, he charged.

      “It’s insane,” Lady Theo declared after her ankle had barely escaped being pecked.

      “I think it believes it’s guarding the house,” Sophie said. “Maybe one of the dogs brought it up when it was a chicken, or whatever you call baby turkeys.”

      “Me, I think it’s the devil,” Eloise said, crossing herself. “I will not leave here until it goes.”

      “Let’s try another door,” Lady Theo said. “Maybe we can confuse it.”

      She nodded to the coachman, but as soon as the horses moved, the turkey charged.

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