LITMIR.BIZ

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quilt.

      “I figured so. You ain’t stopped fidgetin’ since this morning. A body’d think you’d contracted St. Vitus’ Dance or somethin’.”

      “I’m pregnant,” Lily said. “Four months and three days.”

      Whatever revelation Bridie had braced herself for, this was not it. “That’s not possible! What on earth do you know of such things?”

      Then, following the succinct disclosure of certain irrefutable biological facts: “My lord, child! Do you know what you’ve done? Do you have any idea what this means for you?”

      Lily said she assumed she was going to be a mother, in June.

      Bridie sighed in exasperation, but quickly softened. “Are you feelin’ all right?”

      “I’m fine.”

      “Don’t you go shovellin’ manure now, you promise me?”

      “I can’t work in the barn any more. I’m sorry.”

      “I knew I never should’ve let you go with that woman. I told you the city ways’d destroy you, didn’t I? But I don’t blame you, child, I really don’t. I put the blame onto the shoulders of Alice Templeton, I do. And the man responsible, of course. Who wasthe scoundrel, then?”

      As simply as she could, Lily suggested that no one had seduced or deceived her.

      “You can’t tell me a girl of your age an’ your innocence wasn’t abused by some blackguard who likely lied to get his way. You forget, child, I lived in Toronto an’ London, I went out to service with no family to back me up. There’s nothin’ you can tell me about ‘gentlemen’ I don’t already know twice over. An’ I trusted that woman, calls herself a Christian to watch out for you, to protect you from this, this–.”

      Lily refused to divulge the name of the father.

      “Every girl who’s ever been in your position – an’ I saw plenty in Toronto – has said the same thing, at first,” Bridie said with surprising gentleness. “But there’s no other way out of the mess, lass. He’ll have to make amends. We’ve got the law, such as it is, on our side. You are still a minor after all. If you can stand him, then he must marry you. If not, then other arrangements can be made.”

      “I won’t tell, ever,” Lily said. “No one’d believe me anyways.”

      “Not the Mayor?” Bridie went white.

      “Not anybody you know.

      “He’s gone, Auntie,” Lily said firmly. Then: “I don’t want to see him again.”

      Bridie knew better than to try to change her mind, but she had to at least prepare Lily for the consequences.

      “Look me straight in the eye. You are an unmarried girl, and in another month your belly will swell up for all the world to see. An’ when it’s seen, the tongues of the town will start waggin’. They’ll say that your Uncle is the father or old Bill or worse, they’ll say you’ve been seen down by the railroad shacks just like Violet, hangin’ round them navvies an’ deservin’ everythin’ you get from your sinnin’.”

      Lily had no reply.

      “Now you know I don’t give a sweet fig for the opinion of such people, but will youever get used to them church ladies thinkin’ an’ callin’ your child a bastard an’ keepin’ it out of school an’ makin’ it an outcast. What I’m tellin’ you is as long as we stay right here on this plot of land, our lives are our own, but as soon as we step off, they belong to those people out there.”

      For a moment Bridie looked weary, beyond recovery. “We are women, Lily, an’ poor; the world’s not ours to make.”

      Lily didn’t argue the point, but waited a moment to let Bridie know she respected all that she’d said. Then, simply, “I want to have the baby here. At home.”

      Bridie studied the girl’s face closely and recognized the innocent naivete and resolute strength that had coalesced early in her own life and led to rebellion, flight, and independence. She could do nothing less than support this young woman in her determination.

      “We’llkeep the babe,” she said. “No one, not even Bill will know it’s yours. We’ll move you into the kitchen for the winter, make you some large housedresses, keep Chester in the dark as long as we can. An’ after it’s born, we’ll say the child belongs to my cousin, an’ I’ll…go off to London an’ pretend to come back with it an’–”

      Auntie’s eyes glinted with intrigue.

      “Oh, Lily, we’ll manage,” she said. “We always have.”

      Two days later as Lily was preparing a mustard plaster for the cold Chester had caught while visiting the ice-pond, the patient whispered to her: “Love, if you have anythin’ you need to tell your Uncle, go right ahead. You can trust me. And if I need to, I can handle your Auntie.” The last remark was qualified somewhat by a spasm of coughing, but the import of his commentary was clear. That evening when Bridie shuffled in wearily from the woodlot, Chester was sworn to secrecy and taken into the conspiracy. He beamed for days.

      The plot went well throughout the winter. The ruse of having Lily work exclusively indoors was quite plausible and Bill simply had no curiosity in the matter. Ever since Violet had been taken away, he had become even more taciturn and withdrawn, though his work for Bridie was accomplished with a conscientious concern. Occasionally he would consent to take Sunday dinner with them, but most of the time he ate on the job or took Bridie’s offerings back to his hermitage. Two or three times that winter they heard the discordant strains of the mouth-organ seeking some elusive harmonies, and would know that he had ‘fallen off the wagon’ again. Mostly though he slept off his excesses and popped up a day later at dawn ready for work as if nothing had happened.

      An excuse was always found to explain her absence from errands into Port Sarnia and occasional travellers, brought to their door by a January squall or one of February’s ice-storms, only smiled their gratitude for the warmth of Lily’s hospitality.

      In fact the only visitors to arrive with a predetermined purpose were three gentlemen who said they were from “the railway” and asked to see Bridie alone. Lily and Chester went for a slow walk through the arbours of snow, holding each other upright and sending their laughter skyward. When they got back, Bridie forced a smile to acknowledge their return, but Lily recognized the subtle signs that the news was grim.

      “They wanted to buy us out,” she scoffed. “I told them where to go, and it ain’t cool there.”

      By now, the woodlot was cleared on the north-east side right back to the Grand Trunk property. Only a windbreak of pines on the north-west side separated them from the village-to-be. Bridie could cut and saw and haul and also keep an appraiser’s eye on the phantom town-site wherein so many of her hopes now lay.

      What surprised Lily about the baby taking shape in her body was how disconnected its existence seemed from the event that initiated it. Certainly the Prince’s pleasure in of that lusty and extraordinary encounter did not have thisend in view. Nor did Lily’s own surrender have any purpose but the immediacy of its joy and pain, the need to feel that she was the agent, not just a passive observer, of her own life. But the child inside her proclaimed its separate existence almost from the start, impudent and demanding.

      Her abdomen, as Bridie predicted, swelled outward and inward as well, pressing against her back. Her belly felt like a rind or a casing that might harden and burst without warning in the night. The babe cared little that she could neither walk nor sit nor lie with ease. Moreover, when she wanted to sleep, it decided it wanted to swim. Huffing and panting at the end of a day’s work, she could feel it sucking on her flagging energies, pulling the best of her blood into its own. Yet she felt no resentment. I will bear you, she thought often, then I will name you, and love you. Forever.

      By mid-April the snows had vanished. The crocuses and stove-pipes dotted the lawns and gardens of

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