Far From Home (5 page)
She shook away images of the box and thought of Treffie, sure she knew what the little girl was feeling. She had come to a strange place where there was no one who had the same last name, no one who knew anyone belonging to her. Clarissa shuddered with the loneliness Treffie must be feeling. She pulled the bedclothes tightly around her, pretending they were the arms of her mother.
C
larissa awoke to the clang of the morning bell. She stirred to the feel of cool air on her face. Missus Frances believed in leaving the windows open a crack all year long to let out stale breath and invite in fresh air. Sometimes freezing air and snow sweeping across Clarissa's face made her wish she were bundled in a bear's fur.
Without the bear,
she thought wryly. Georgia must have forgotten their dormitory this morning when she went around to close windows and turn on the radiator valves. Clarissa shivered as she got out of bed and pulled on her surgical corsets, clean petticoat, grey flannelette drawers, Sunday dress and stockings. She was glad for the trunk that had come with her to the orphanage. She sat on it to get into her braces before putting on her gaiters.
Clarissa was moving sleepily down the hall, the clattering of her crutches on the hardwood floor mingling with the scuff of other children's feet, when her eyes were drawn to the sky framed in the window at the end of the hall. She stopped to watch as the day rose from its dark sleep. A liquid ribbon of startling pink was softening into a pool of light above shadows rising as purple hills. The rosy light glowed off the dark harbour waters. It spread over the new morning, stirring and stretching itself on puffy, pink pillows lying in a bed of delicate blue blankets. Cora, calling to her to hurry if she didn't want to miss breakfast, drew her away from the window into the silence that came after the rushing feet of children.
Clarissa tip-tapped her way down to the dining room and sat down at her place, staring at the hated bowl of porridge. She had been expecting cornmeal and molasses, forgetting that her favourite breakfast had been served yesterday, and would be served again tomorrow.
Treffie had been scrubbed and her hair chopped to her ears. She was sitting at the side of the table by the younger girls. Missus Frances stood by the door in her Sunday dress, looking firm as she instructed the new orphan.
“Trophenia Premer, everything we do here is for the benefit of our children, to see that you all grow into healthy and enlightened adults. We have thirty boys and girls. Although there are separate dormitories, the older boys and girls come together for meals. There is a separate dining room for small children. Your place is always in here. Do you understand, Trophenia?”
Treffie looked towards the mistress and nodded.
“Answer in a clear voice, Trophenia. Here you will learn not to mumble your words and run them into each other.”
“Yes ma'am,” Treffie answered in a hoarse voice, swallowing hard. Her hands fell to the sides of her woollen gimp. She gripped the pockets with her fists.
“We must depend on boats to bring much of our food, so it has to be allotted. Navigation will soon close for many months. You must eat all the food on your plate, chewing with your mouth closed. You will eat in silence. The left arm is to be kept under the table while you use the right hand to eat. Our staff will cut your food, if necessary.”
Treffie looked down at her green enamel plate as if her eyes were following its white trim. She lifted her eyes without raising her head; the whites showed big and curved under blue irises. Her thin, light eyelashes flickered as she protested in a weak voice, “But Miss, I always use my left hand. That's the way it comes to me to do.”
There was no hint of leniency in Missus Frances's voice: “Here you must follow the rules. Those who do not do so are punished.” She paused, then continued. “Other children came from across the Labrador Straits before you, Trophenia. They were not used to seeing food left on a plate. Some of them would eat their own food and anyone else's, if they were not watched.” The mistress's eyes lifted to include all the children. “No child shall take food from another child's hand or off someone else's plate. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Ma'am.” The children's voices rose in unison.
Clarissa's lips moved but she made no sound. She was glad when the mistress excused herself from the room, leaving Ilish in charge. Ilish the Butter Dish, a couple of the boys had nicknamed the plump girl behind her back.
Clarissa frowned at the bowl of the coarse-looking porridge. If she didn't eat it now, the punky porridge covered in cold, sticky molasses would be staring her in the face at lunchtime. If she left it then, she would face it at supper. She spread her brown handkerchief across her knees and, when Ilish wasn't looking and the tattlers around her were digging into their porridge, she dumped hers into her handkerchief and pushed it into her pocket. When the children were dismissed, she left the dining room with the soggy porridge against her hip. She reached the dormitory as fast as she could, and flushed the porridge down the toilet. She had done this once before, after a bowl of porridge she wouldn't eat for breakfast was left for her lunch. Then, like today, the cold mess had fallen from her bowl into her handkerchief in a shiny, round lump, leaving the bowl looking as clean as if she had licked it. She washed her porridge-messed handkerchief in the scratchy tub by the toilet, and left it on the radiator to dry. She would have her regular lunch and supper now.
Church bells were ringing, calling people to worship, as Clarissa hurried down the stairs and out the door to where Cora was waiting for her. As they made their way along the road, Clarissa looked around to make sure no one was walking close to them. “I had a bad dream about the box last night,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I'm glad we didn't open it.”
“What did you dream?” Clarissa asked eagerly.
“I can't remember.” Her hand lifted to her mouth in a fist and she coughed into it. “And it seems that if I do remember, I can't tell,” she added with a frown. “I'm
never
supposed to tell.”
“Don't, then,” Clarissa said crossly. She couldn't see why anyone would say they had a dream if they could never tell what was in it.
She struggled over the steep hill, to the beautiful, clear pealing of the bells, stopping to rest on her crutches and pull her coat tight. Cora kept on going.
“'Tis a soft wind gettin' ready to shiver across the harbour this morning,” observed Uncle Aubrey on his way past Clarissa. The caretaker always dressed for church in a vest over a collarless white shirt and narrow-cuffed pants under a long coat. His grey head was topped with a quiff hat, making him look almost as distinguished as Dr. Grenfell. He stopped to knock his clay pipe against his hand. Ashes floated into the air. Now it would be cool enough to lie in his coat pocket until the service was over.
Clarissa looked towards a spread of fishing boats asleep on the still water of the harbour, the likeness mirrored on the calm surface. The wind livened and brushed away the image. The water's lips sucked the keels of the little boats; they began to rock and nod under a sky alive with clouds scudding like a school of mackerel. It was almost time for the fishermen to haul up their boats for the winter.
Missus Frances spoke from behind Clarissa: “If I had to struggle like you with your braces and crutches I'd go mad, and I've not near the miles left in my life that you have to travel.”
Clarissa stiffened. Her lips tightened in resolve.
I'm going
to be well,
she vowed silently.
I'm going to grow out of this
. She didn't know why the mistress didn't know that. As she hobbled along on the crutches, she often told herself, sometimes aloud, “Each step is taking me closer to where I'm going and then I'll be there.”
She finally reached the little white church. The caretaker kept the door open as she swung herself inside, smiling and nodding thank you to him. She slid down next to Cora in the pew, steadying her crutches against the seat in front of her.
There was no sign of Dr. Grenfell. He sometimes joined Reverend Penny and preached, although he didn't have a licence. After these services, some of the parishioners would trot off mumbling that he should stick to games of chess when he wasn't practising medicine.
Reverend Penny was soon sniffling through his sermon on Proverbs. “Give me Agur's wish,” he said piously. “Let me have neither poverty nor riches.”
Clarissa wanted riches and the full use of her body. Some Sundays Reverend Penny read about Jesus helping a lame man walk and raising a twelve-year-old girl from the dead. If God could do all that, He shouldn't have any trouble making her well. Cora needed more breath too. Some days, hers seemed to be stifled inside her.
There was a stir in the seat behind the girls. They looked at each other. Peter and some of the other boys were doing it again: mooching from church on the pretense of going to the outhouse. Clarissa sat listening to the sermon, knowing that the boys were having more fun sneaking down to Bottom Brook behind the orphanage to go hoosing for pricklies. She imagined them slipping their hands under the tiny, freckled water striders skimming across the fresh water. Sometimes they threw out an empty bottle tied to a string. After a time, they pulled it in with pricklies swimming inside. Often, they hid the bottle behind a tree and came back to church before the service ended.
Reverend Penny hurried down the aisle after the service to shake hands with the parishioners before they left the church. He had a pleasant face, and he always touched Clarissa's shoulder without speaking. Today as she made her way along the road, he overtook her, commenting, “My, it must be awfully hard walking that way. You're our little pet.” She looked around to make sure no one but Cora heard him. She didn't mind being called a pet as long as the other children didn't hear. It was kind of Reverend Penny to say that to her; suddenly he wasn't just a sniffling preacher. He was someone who understood.
Clarissa always felt hungry after the Sunday service. Now she could hardly wait to get to the orphanage. She was always excited about the Sunday lunch of baked beans and spiced, black bread, and curious about the pudding dessert. She made a wish:
Let it be chocolate, and not tapioca or rice.
She panted her way up the orphanage steps and stepped inside. Cora had gone on ahead and was already seated with the other children around the long table by the time Clarissa came from washing her hands. She moved as fast as she could to sit as graciously as she could in her seat at the head of the table.
After the children had finished their rice pudding and were dismissed by Ilish, Clarissa called, “Come on, Treffie, I'll take you to the study room and show you some pictures.”
The younger girl looked at Clarissa with large, clouded eyes, but she followed her into the study room. Her eyes lost their uncertainty as Clarissa sat down and pulled an album off a side table. She opened it to a photograph of Dr. Grenfell and eighteen children sitting on the school steps.
Clarissa grinned. “There's me. I was only ten then. And there's Cora.” She smiled at the sight of the girl in the striped dress leaning forward carelessly, her dark, straight hair parted at the left and pulled straight across her forehead. It framed a glad face and a wide smile, though the eyes were dark and shadowed. One arm was over Clarissa's shoulder as if to show the world that they were friends, friends forever, even if they couldn't skip down the road holding hands like some of the other girls.
Clarissa pointed to Alice, one of the girls in her dormitory. She was wearing a light gimp and dark blouse trimmed with a white, pansy collar; her hands were clasped as if they were holding each other for comfort. Her face had a worried, heavy look. It always looked like that, even when she was doing things like blowing out her birthday candles. Alice was paired off with Ettie, who looked sensible and serious. Ettie's hair was parted to the right and pulled tight across her forehead and pinned with a barrette. Then there was Imogene who was older than Clarissa. Imogene stayed with Ettie and Becky in the dormitory on the third floor.
Except for Cora, the girls seemed to be in rack with each other, leaving Clarissa out.
They think they can catch my lameness
, she thought. She often watched the other girls go hippity-hopping down the road, holding hands and swinging them.
“Youse all looks to be a big family,” Treffie said wistfully.
“You're in that family now,” said Clarissa. “I'm sure you'll have your photo taken soon.”
“I've never had my picture snapped. I wish Mammy and Poppa could see me on paper.” The girl's eyes filled with tears, her voice faltering over the words. “Poppa was hunting â he got lost in the woods. And Mammy â she had the consumption; it drove the air out of her lungs and wouldn't let it back in.”