The Sister's Tale by Beth Powning (e reader for manga .txt) 📕

He was gone all day.

At supper, he sat stiffly, hands folded in his lap and head bowed as he spoke grace. Maud and Lucy exchanged glances, eyebrows raised. They were accustomed to hearing their brother ask the Lord’s blessings on the food they were about to receive. Tonight he intoned the words like a priest.

Margaret served leek soup, delicately seasoned with dill, perfectly salted. George tasted it, put down his spoon and turned to Josephine.

“Grandfather told me about your visit to the lawyer, Mother.”

“Did he?” He had been a stubborn child, she remembered. Serious, cautious. “I didn’t tell you last night because you were late arriving and I thought you would like to go to bed.”

“Apparently the house belongs to me, Lucy and Maud once we are all twenty-one. Grandfather explained to me that we are the owners of the house and the land and of two-thirds of all the personal property.”

Lucy and Maud lowered their spoons, slowly, at the same time. Lucy’s eyes, slitted, furious. Maud’s, round, amazed.

“I feel a great sense of responsibility, Mother.” His voice was pained, as if she should have been making allowances for this new burden which had been added to the weight of his grief. “My sisters and I…we now…”

“George. George.” Lucy reached forward and grabbed the cuff of his jacket. “You are being so rude. Nothing has changed—”

He pushed his chair back. “Everything has changed. Grandfather explained it to me. He will pay for my education, and he will give me a job in the family business so I can…”

“Oh, the family business,” Lucy snapped. “I’m sure I speak for Maud and Mother, too…we are so grateful that you are going to get an education and go to work in the family business so you can take care of us.”

“Well, I…that is my responsibility now. Why are you so angry?”

“Don’t you think your sisters might like to go to college? Don’t you think we might like to be offered a manager’s position in the factory?”

“But that’s—”

“Absurd, yes, George. Absurd.”

He flicked his eyes over her, pulled his chair back to the table, and lifted a spoonful of soup to his mouth, carefully.

“Lucy,” Josephine ventured. “Enough.” She glanced at George, picking up her own spoon. Remember, she wanted to say, but did not dare. Remember how you loved hearing your father tell you about commanding his ship? She pictured George, a small boy, listening, entranced; he had played at being Simeon, standing on the veranda, feet spread as if on a tilting deck, barking imperiously into an imaginary speaking tube.

It crept over her, an added weight to her heavy heart. How, taken under the wing of the men in her family, George would slide away, bit by bit.

Less a brother. Less a son.

—

On the day that George left for Sackville, Maud and Lucy, too, returned to school. They wore black dresses, despite the spring warmth, and black straw hats. Flora stepped out onto the veranda, broom in hand, and watched as they walked side by side down Creek Road. They passed the gingerbread shingled houses, in whose gardens protective spruce boughs had been removed to reveal green shoots. They went slowly, not speaking. Lucy stared straight ahead, Maud’s shoulders drooped—like their mother, afflicted with exhaustion of spirit.

—

The next morning, a horse and wagon came up from the depot. The women of the household stood on the lane, squinting in bright sunlight as the depot man lifted Mr. Dougan’s things onto the wagon.

Flora was the last to shake his hand, being the one who had known him the least amount of time. Mary ran a few steps behind the wagon, waving, teasing, shouting. Ellen did not watch him leave, but walked away.

Josephine hurried after her. She slid an arm over Ellen’s shoulders.

—

Hands in apron pockets, Flora slipped out behind the barn to see the state of the vegetable garden.

Mr. Dougan had pulled up last summer’s cornstalks and rotting cabbage stumps. Beneath a bloom of weeds, the ground lay soft and tilthy. He had planted no seeds.

She heard a rattling jingle and the rapid clopping of hooves as a horse and carriage passed southwards on Creek Road, away from town, heading towards the forested hills. A breeze lifted her hem. Her gaze traced the horizon. She picked out a darkness in the folds of the hills, wondering if it was the valley cupping Ada and Henry’s farm. Far, far to the east, farther than she cared to recall, was England. She pictured herself in a desolate, echoing building—chill light, cold air—and saw herself enduring, making herself like an empty dress, a deserted body, expressionless, stepping in the right places, Enid, a tiny imitation in her wake, pattering down the corridors of the workhouse, bowed over the bowls of gruel, agreeing with the assessment of their parents’ wickedness, O dear Lord, please do not mind their present evilness and the evil that brought them to this place, I try to correct them, Matron praying over the dry bread, the rice and suet.

She would find a shovel, dig up this garden, plant peas, spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets. She would take the vegetables into the kitchen and help Ellen make soups and stews. She would become like a burr attached to Josephine, Ellen, Maud and Lucy.

She would not be cast away.

—

By the beginning of June, Margaret and Mary were gone. Their bedrooms were tidied and untouched.

The barn, too, was empty. No hens. The horse and carriage were sold.

Maud and Lucy spent the long-lighted evenings in their rooms, studying for their exams. Occasionally, they argued; Lucy’s voice, vituperative, subsuming Maud’s hesitant words. Ellen, in the kitchen, grumbled over the lack of parties or dinners for which to plan.

George graduated. He wrote to Josephine, telling her he would board with his uncle’s family in order not to burden her. She had expected this; her sister-in-law had revealed her pleasure in “fixing up” the guest room for George, assuming that Josephine would be equally