The Age of Water Lilies (10 page)

Flora told Jane about her own coming-out season in London, spring and summer of 1909. She was one of a group of thirty girls presented to the King and Queen, all of them clad in white dresses with silk trains drifting behind them.

“Mine was Empire-line, with a draping I hoped would look Grecian. Silk, of course, and embroidered with seed pearls. I remember feeling grateful, when the dressmaker came to our house for fittings, that the season wasn't a few years earlier when my cousin was presented. Her dress was in the style of that year and made her look like an elaborate letter S.”

“Did you feel a little like a sacrificial lamb, Flora, being dressed in white like a bride and paraded in front of that man? Our impression here in Canada was that he was something of a roué! There was talk even of mistresses—all those actresses!”

Flora laughed. “I didn't think that then. I didn't dare. It was just something we were groomed for, our season in London, where it was hoped we would meet the right young man and instantly become one of the hostesses behind the scene for the next round of girls. But I do see it now. My brothers were sent to school and expected to do something, even if it was the church, but I had a very casual series of governesses at home to teach me a little French, a little geometry, because of course I would marry and needed only to produce children and run a fine house.”

“It was different here because my family couldn't afford governesses, so I went to school,” said Jane. “And my mother wanted me to have more than she'd had, more possibilities.”

“That's heartening, Jane. But you didn't have brothers, did you? It seems all the family hopes are invested in the young men. But I did love to draw, and painted a little, and one of the tutors was very good at helping with lessons. My mother was pleased when I began to create designs for needlepoint. What I didn't know, to be quite honest, was how constrained my life was. I see that now, especially when I ride with Gus. These skies—well, I feel I can breathe in a way I never felt before. I don't remember noticing the skies before. Though there was one coming-out ball held in a house with a ceiling painted like an open sky, deep blue, with stars. The young girls in their gowns dancing like meadow flowers on slender stalks. And the King standing in his uniform. We were brought before him, as you say, like spring lambs.”

“What was it like, meeting him? Them? Did he seem like the sort of mortal who might dally with an actress? And was she really as aloof as I imagine she was?”

“The King was quite fat, I remember, and yes, his Queen was aloof. She was lovely, though. And the whole thing was very quick—we were presented, they took our hands, mumbled a few words. She had an accent, of course, coming from Denmark. There were rumours among the young women, particularly those who lived in London and whose families were part of the King's set, rumours of his appetites, shall we call them?”

“What happened to your dress? Did you wear it again?”

“Oh, Jane, of course not. Did you ever wear yours again?”

Jane shook her head no.

Flora continued: “Mine was put into the wardrobe with all the other gowns, my mother's and my own, made for special occasions and never expected to be worn more than once. We kept them all the same, much as my father kept the trophies won by his horses and his prize water lilies. Proof of performance, I suppose. The shoes I did wear again, and the gloves with the beaded embroidery. No, the dress will be there still, at Watermeadows, beside a ball gown made for Mother for the presentation, cream silk, that one was, with black lace and jet bead, very extravagant, even for her. But not quite right for the next year and so put into the wardrobe with its sachets of cedarwood and lavender to keep away the moths.”

Then Flora was quiet, remembering the months that followed. The years. There were dances in London, and parties. A series of young men sized her up. She'd had no idea what to expect of courtship, but surely it had to be more than a clammy hand pressed to her back, discreet questions to determine what came with her. Land? Horses? A sizeable sum? She had not anticipated the stubborn voice that told her mother and father that she could not imagine a life with this one or that one. It was like another girl speaking, using courage Flora had no idea she possessed (but was in the process of finding again). Two years after her coming-out season, George was planning to come to Canada and Flora was still without a suitor, dangerously close to being considered too old—at nineteen!—to interest the young men with money, or prospects, or both. And perhaps a reputation for fussiness beyond what was reasonable. She was not quite a beauty, though she had a look that was lovely in profile, and wonderful hair. The men were eyeing the new crop of girls in London. And when she expressed an interest in joining George at Walhachin, there had been a collective sigh of relief. Already it had become known as a place where matches could be made. All those single men from good families, and so few suitable women.

EIGHT

August 1914

“Must you go?” she murmured against his shoulder. Her skin was flushed with sun and love; small droplets of sweat had collected behind her knees.

“Oh, yes, of course, Flora.” He said it emphatically, as though there could be no question.

“‘Of course?' I didn't think you were so fuelled by the promise of heroics as the rest of them.” She turned so she wouldn't have to see his eyes.

He took her chin gently in his fingers and turned her face back to his. “Sweet Flora, it's not heroics. I don't have war fever. Absolutely not. And I'm not even convinced that any of us ought to go out of any kind of patriotism. The idea of this country means something different to me, I expect, than it does to the other men here at least, most of whom weren't born here. England calls to them as it never could to me. But I must go because it is my duty right now. I have shirked duty enough in the past to know that it is time that I paid attention to its demands.”

He smiled at the young woman lying in his arms on a saddle blanket spread on warm grass in a little box canyon he had discovered. He brushed damp hair from her forehead, the delicate curls that had eased themselves out of her braided coronet. “You are so lovely. I will always remember you like this, even when we're old and grey together.”

“Will we be, Gus? Old and grey together?” There were tears in her eyes. He touched them with his finger, and licked the salty taste. He kissed her.

“I will come back as soon as I can. I don't expect this to be a long war, no one does, and perhaps I'll even be home by Christmas. We could shock the community by appearing at a dance together, you in the obligatory gloves, I in a jacket and tie. I do own those things though I can't remember the last time I wore them. I expect the moths have been at the jacket—though being moth-eaten hasn't made a bit of difference to the nobs at the hall.”

“I'll write to you every day,” Flora told him, her hands on his forearms, his hands resting on the small of her naked back.

“I won't promise you daily letters in return, my love, because I don't know what is in store for me. But as often as I'm able to, I'll write. I expect there will be restrictions, perhaps even someone who will read every letter written by young men to their sweethearts in case vital secrets are being revealed. The secrets of the mess kitchens, the tents, the tin baths where we will be allowed to wash ourselves in a few inches of tepid water. I imagine there will be fleas.”

They both laughed.

Gus continued. “We should have a code, shouldn't we, so you know if I am simply sitting in a camp eating and waiting or else on my way into the heat of battle. A line from Virgil perhaps?”

“You will have to write it down for me so I can compare. Your Latin is far superior to mine. Is there a bit about horses? I can always recognize
equus
when I see it. And now, too,
pressi lactis
, though perhaps horses are more appropriate to war.”

“Something from the
Georgics
, then. Let me think. But before I think, may I adjust my arm? What you are doing with your hand is particularly fine.”

Much later, after they had made love again in the privacy of grass and washed their bodies in the trickle of icy water entering the canyon from the main creek travelling down from the lakes on the Bonaparte Plateau to the Thompson River, after they had dressed and were tightening saddle girths and making sure Flora's hair was tidy, her clothing reasonably unrumpled, Gus turned to her over the back of Agate and said, suddenly, “
Sed nos immensum spatiis confecium aequor / et iam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla
. That will be it, Flora.”

“And what does it mean? I recognize horses, of course, and something about distance, is it?”

“Well, let's see. Something like, ‘But now, a huge space we have travelled / and time has come to uncollar our steaming horses.' When I send you this message, you will know that, hmmm, that . . . oh, please don't cry, Flora. I'll write it down for you, shall I?”

“Yes, I will memorize it so that I have it by heart at every instant. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be feeble. And now, speaking of collars, could you check to make sure I have no grass seeds on the back of my blouse? I would hate to be thought a woman who lies down in fields.”

“I can't think of anything more appealing somehow. But here, let me just unthread this needlegrass from your sleeve. And now we should be on our way.”

•  •  •

The box canyon became a favourite retreat. You could ride by it without noticing its entrance, a narrow gap between rocks, hidden by a hedge of Saskatoon bushes. Pushing aside the bushes, they would urge their horses through. The bushes sprang back, perfect camouflage. Once inside, it was like being in a room with a ceiling decorated with tumbling cloud. The creek for water, dry grass for a bed. Within its intimate space, they talked about everything, sharing details of their lives (though there was always some reserve on Gus's part regarding his life since leaving his family home), books they had read and loved (“When I read
Cranford
, I thought it amazing that a book about a quiet village in which nothing really happens could be so entranc- ing. It occurs to me that such a book could be written about Ashcroft, or Walhachin.” “Maybe you will write it. As I recall, the narrator of
Cranford
is a young woman who has come to the village as a visitor . . . ” “Oh, but I'm not a writer. I am keeping a journal, though, and perhaps when I am old and idle . . .”)

The one problem was finding the proper excuse for Flora to ride off without arousing suspicion. She had her sketching and that was considered suitable, but generally her brother would encourage her to find someone to accompany her. Once the workload of the community increased in summer, with watering and fertilizing, her excursions were not so noticeable. And Gus found ways to absent himself too. Because he worked for many but for no one in particular, it could always be assumed that he was off on a job that took him away from Walhachin.

Within the box canyon's walls, wild baldhip roses and drifts of cinquefoil. Hawks nested at the cliff top and floated over the lovers like angels, their harsh call either blessing or warning. And once they woke from a brief nap to see the tracks of a rattlesnake that had passed close to their sleeping bodies, its scribble in the earth a text as mysterious as Sanskrit. And once after they had been absent from the canyon for some weeks, the stripped body of a deer that a cougar or a bear had brought to the canyon in secrecy for a long meal for itself and its young. All the flesh was gone; the ribs looked like the frame of a small boat, beached and ruined. Gus used his knife to remove the lower jaw from the skull, wanting it as a talisman to pack in his rucksack once the call came to travel overseas. He washed it in the little creek, rubbing at the remains of connective tissue with sand to scour the bone clean. One of the teeth was loose in its socket, ground down by the animal's diet of leaves and grass.

NINE

Late September 1914

A young woman dozed on a blanket under a tree in an orchard of apple-laden trees, her body cooler now that she'd loosened her bodice, removed her stockings. In the orchard it seemed as though everything might go on as usual—the apples picked, Wagoners, Jonathans, Spitzenbergs, Wealthys, and Rome Beauties finally come to maturity, loaded into bushel baskets, taken by cart to Pennies. Whatever happened in the distant world, the dogs would still bark as coyotes sidled too close to the chicken coops, sheets billowing in the wind, raising their cotton hems to the sky. Sage would release its scent to the brief rain, and oh, if she watched long enough, Gus might still ride between the trees to take her in his arm and murmur into her hair. Her face was hot. It was certain she carried a child.

Flora's workbasket was at her side and she took out a piece of linen, one of a set of a dozen napkins she had hemstitched and was now embroidering with a monogram in fine whitework, her initial
F
and the
A
for Augustus, married to the second A for the surname they would share once he came back to her. He had been gone a month, to Quebec with his regiment, which had been dissolved almost immediately upon arrival; most of the men had been absorbed into the 5th Battalion, but Gus had been invited to join men from a detachment of Rocky Mountain Rangers from Kamloops whom he'd known for a few years. There was also a connection, Flora was not quite certain of its details, with the Victoria Fusiliers, who were also part of this first British Columbia Regiment, the 7th Battalion.

She would not panic. Everyone said the war would not, could not, last long. George had gone too, leaving the house in her care and a detailed list of responsibilities to be divided among her, Mary, and the Chinese men who would be helping with the orchard. George had some concern about the flume but felt that enough able-bodied men, too old perhaps to go to war but certainly capable of maintaining the irrigation system, would ensure the continuity of water. For herself, Flora was willing to work hard, though how long she could depend on her energy and strength was a worry. Mary was pregnant again and came to work on her horse, her modest bulge usually concealed by an apron or the work pinafores that Flora left hanging for her behind the kitchen door.