The Lemon Tree (14 page)

Well, he’d done his best, Joe considered. He had brought her a Macintosh apple tree.

With a half-peeled potato in her hand, Aunt Theresa had come out to view the tree when it had been planted. She had assumed he was planting it for shade.

‘What kind of tree is it?’ she had asked.

‘It’s a fruit tree – an apple tree.’

Aunt Theresa had never seen an apple, and she fingered one of the leaves with interest. Then she said circumspectly, ‘It has always seemed to me that trees – and plants – need others exactly like them round about, before they’ll propagate.’

‘I never thought of it.’ He looked glumly at the little sapling. ‘Will it flower?’

‘If it lives, it probably will.’ Then, to cheer him up, she added, ‘You could watch out for a chance to get another one or two. Then you might get some fruit.’

‘God knows where I’d find them. This one came on the train from the east, in a pot.’

‘Trains bring lots of settlers. They bring plants they like with them,’ prophesied Aunt Theresa shrewdly.

Next time he was in the little village outside the Fort, he dropped in on a member of the Agricultural Society, and explained his first effort at planting a tree. ‘Usually, I’m felling them, to get them out of the way or because I need timber. I never thought of planting one before.’

Pleased to be asked for advice, the man confirmed Aunt Theresa’s information.

Joe’s face fell, so the man kindly went on to suggest how the sapling might be kept alive through the winter, until Joe had the chance to buy some more. ‘I doubt you’ll get many apples,’ he finished up. ‘Our winter’s so cold, and the wind’ll strip the blossom off in no time.’

Joe shrugged, and thanked his adviser. ‘I’ll nurse it along,’ he said. And as he got on his horse and rode away,
he thought of the young girl he had nursed along through her early years at Fort Edmonton. She’d turned out strong enough, God knows. Maybe the tree would, too.

Wallace Helena ate without comment the third English breakfast provided for her by her landlady, Mrs Hughes. The breakfast consisted of oatmeal porridge followed by two boiled eggs served with thick slices of toast. Though she enjoyed the luxury of wheaten bread, she found she lacked her usual appetite, and she realized that she did not need so much food. After days of train travel and the confines of an immigrant ship returning to Liverpool, she was now penned up in the odiferous soapery all day. She politely refused Mrs Hughes’s offer of more toast with some home-made marmalade.

Mrs Hughes was uncertain whether or not she approved of Wallace Helena. In repose, the visitor’s face was almost forbidding, though she was gracious enough in a foreign kind of way. While the Lebanese ate her breakfast, the puzzled Liverpool lady fluttered round the dark, high-ceilinged dining-room, straightening ornaments and pictures and commenting on the raininess of the day. She hoped to overcome Wallace Helena’s uncompromising reserve and learn a little more about her.

Mrs Hughes considered that, despite her stuck-up looks, Wallace Helena was no lady. In justification of this observation, she had already told her next-door neighbour that Wallace Helena licked the butter off her fingers after eating her toast. ‘Mr Benson told me,’ she added, ‘that she’s a colonial from Canada – but she looks
real
foreign to me.’

In an absent-minded way, Wallace Helena was aware of her landlady’s reflections, though she did not know that, from being much outdoors, her skin was dark enough, and the sweep of her black’ eyebrows and eyelashes was great enough, to make Mrs Hughes wonder if she were harbouring an East Indian, like the lascars she sometimes saw in the city.

Wallace Helena was used to being disliked – because of her dubious origins, as one Scottish clerk at the Fort had once put it – and also because, around Edmonton, few people got the better of her when bargaining. She had become stiffly proud, and particularly quick to take offence if anyone cast a slur on Joe Black. She accepted that the pair of them were outcasts, and, in consequence, they owed no special loyalty to anyone except each other and those who shared their home. They took tender care of each other, and minded their own business.

As she drained her last cup of tea, her thoughts strayed for a moment to Joe. Despite her fascination with the new world into which she had plunged, she would have given a lot, today, to skip going to the soap works and, instead, to ride out with him under hot sunshine to the boundaries of their land, to check that the fencing was still in place; they could do with another hand to give most of his attention to fencing, she felt, and she wondered if the Liverpool business could provide her with enough money to invest some of it in the homestead. If a railway finally came as far as Edmonton, she might be able to sell grain to Europe – or even steers; amid the turmoil of coping with a Liverpool soap works, it was a cheering thought.

Stiff from lack of exercise and fretful from weeks of sleeping alone, she rose awkwardly from the breakfast table, aware of her heavy black skirt and petticoats dragging at her. She longed for the soft, worked skins of her old Indian tunic and leggings. Even her boots, newly
cleaned by Mrs Hughes’s maid-of-all-work, hurt feet normally encased in moccasins. Ordinarily, she wore formal clothes only when going down to Edmonton or to visit the priests in St Albert.

‘I’ll walk down to the Brunswick Dock, Mrs Hughes,’ she announced. ‘I need the exercise. Would you kindly tell Mr Benson, when he arrives with his carriage, that I have gone on ahead. I’ll meet him by the dock gates – I presume the dock will have a gate?’

‘Yes, there’s a gate, Miss. But it’s no district for you to walk by yourself, Miss. I wouldn’t advise it.’

Wallace Helena laughed shortly. ‘Don’t worry. I’m used to being alone in wild country. Mr Benson says that
he
has to take me into the dock, because otherwise they won’t let a woman in. Ridiculous, isn’t it?’

Mrs Hughes ran her tongue round her teeth before replying. Then she said carefully, ‘I appreciate your comin’ from Canada and being used to all kinds of strange things, Miss, but Mr Benson’s right to escort you. You could get accosted, like. We got worse ‘n Red Indians round them docks, believe me. It’s no place for a lady by herself.’

‘Mr Benson will probably catch up with me in his carriage long before I reach the dock.’

‘Well, if you get there first, you tell the Customs Officer or the policeman at the gate who you are, and you stay close to him till Mr Benson comes.’

Wallace Helena promised, and went upstairs to put on the black straw gable-brimmed hat which she had bought in Montreal; it suited her much better than the beaded bonnet she had bought in Mr Johnstone Walker’s newly opened store in Edmonton. She reflected with amusement that Mr Walker had not thought much of a woman who tried to beat down the price of his millinery, so painfully freighted up by ox-cart from the railway at Calgary.

Since it had been raining and the air felt clammy, she put a black woollen shawl round her shoulders, and, when she went downstairs again, she accepted the loan of a long black umbrella from Mrs Hughes.

Mrs Hughes followed her uncertainly towards the front door. ‘Now, you be careful of yourself, Miss. Turn left at the bottom of the hill and keep walking. You can’t miss it.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Hughes. I do know the way. Mr Benson drove me past it yesterday.’

Thankful to be out in the air, temporarily washed clean by the early morning rain, Wallace Helena ran down the wide stone steps of the house. Sunlight was creeping through the lifting clouds and the damp pavement shone in its rays. Two little girls were skipping towards her. She smiled at them and they smiled shyly back at her. She passed a number of women dressed in black, carrying shopping baskets on their arms. They stared at her as she strode past them, her unfashionable gathered skirt swinging round her a couple of inches above her ankles. Even to a city accustomed to immigrants of all kinds passing through, Wallace Helena seemed eccentric; her rapid, masculine walk, her almost scornful expression and an aura of great energy, barely suppressed, aroused casual interest

As she walked, Wallace Helena concentrated on the day before her. Though she had made a list and it was safely tucked into her reticule, she went over all that she had learned from the Canadian lawyer who had secured her homestead for her, all she knew from her father about contracts, bookkeeping and running a business in Beirut, and her own limited experience, as first Tom’s Will had been laboriously proven and then her darling mother’s. Lastly, she thought of all that her father had done to reestablish himself in Chicago. Surely, she considered, between the lot of it, together with running the farm, I
have enough experience to cope with the Lady Lavender Soap Works; it’s not that big, really.

She felt a nervous excitement at the challenge she had been presented with. She had come to check what was being done by Mr Benson, the Executor of her Uncle James’s Will, to make sure that selling the business was in her best interests and that she was going to get the right price for it. Now, already in the back of her mind, she itched to get her hands on it, to run it herself. She had not yet faced all the implications of this sudden desire.

Though its owner had died, the works seemed to be functioning fairly well under the care of Mr Bobsworth, the bookkeeper, and Mr George Tasker, the Soap Master, who had been with the company almost from its inception. Despite their devotion to their duties, however, she had noticed in some sections a lackadaisical air, a lack of good housekeeping which she would not, for one moment, have tolerated on her homestead; she sensed that the general discipline of the place had slipped a little.

Even when she, as the new owner, walked in, there had not been that quick shuffle to appear busy, which she would have expected. ‘Perhaps they reckon I’m not going to be their new employer, since I’m a woman,’ she thought with a wry grin. Then she muttered to herself, ‘Little do you realize what is going to descend on you, my boys.’

If Joe Black could have watched her during that brief walk, he would have grinned lazily and would have sat back and watched the carnage she would subsequently wreak amongst the slothful. And then, had he been there when, drained and hungry, she had returned home, he would have encouraged her to eat plenty and afterwards spread herself before a good log fire, while he rolled a cigarette for her and listened to the successes and failures of her day. In their intimate enjoyment of each other, they
would have found much to laugh at in the soap works.

The tightly packed rows of town houses, each with its shining brass doorknob and letterbox, past which Wallace Helena strode, seemed to shut her in, enclose her like some long narrow box. They soon gave way to humbler, even more closely packed homes, and then to small works and warehouses.

Over the stone setts of the street, huge horses pulled drays loaded with bales, barrels, boxes, and sacks of coal, all the needs of a great industrial country. The horses’ big hooves splashed through puddles left by the early morning rain, spattering the passersby. Sometimes, they stood patiently slavering by the pavement while being loaded or unloaded; and clog-shod men in flat caps and sackcloth aprons shouted upwards to others peering down at them from behind blocks and tackle used for hoisting goods to the upper floors of the warehouses.

Suddenly, a black shadow passed over Wallace Helena. She looked up quickly.

‘Mind yourself, Queen!’ a man shouted urgently and pushed her roughly aside. Uncomfortably close to her, a sacking-covered bale was lowered swiftly onto a stationary dray at the kerb. ‘Aye, Missus, watch yourself. You could’ve bin killed.’

Though a little alarmed by the unexpected danger, she managed to smile at the labourer and thank him.

Before she continued on her way, she edged past the great flanks of the horses, to stand well in front of them, so that they could see her, despite the blinkers that they wore. They were chomping at their bits as they waited. Another labourer stood idly by them.

‘Are you the carter?’ she inquired.

The man touched his cap. ‘Yes, Missus.’ Though he was respectful, there was nothing humble about him. His interest was aroused by her foreign accent, and he turned
a brown, foxlike face towards her. ‘You visitin’ here, Missus?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes were on the Percherons before her. ‘May I pet them?’ she asked.

‘For sure, Missus. They’re real gentle.’

She spoke softly to the nearest animal and, after a moment, it stretched forward to nuzzle her. She stroked its nose and neck.

The carter warned her. ‘Be a bit careful, Missus. Bobby, here, could be a bit jealous.’ He need not have worried; Wallace Helena had already transferred her attention to the other horse. Then she stepped back. ‘I’ve got horses at home – but nothing as good as these; I could use a pair of them, especially in winter.’

‘Where are you from, Missus?’

‘Canada.’ She turned to look him in the face and smiled her wide, generous smile. To the man, it changed her from an austere, strange lady into a warm human being. Emboldened, he asked what Canada was like.

‘Very cold – and very hot,’ she told him, and then added thoughtfully, ‘It’s big – the distances are enormous.’

She remembered suddenly the lawyer she was supposed to meet, so she smiled again and turned away.

At the bottom of Hill Street, when she was about to cross the road, her eye was caught by a flutter of brown sail in a gap between black buildings. She stopped to get a better look.

Between the Coburg Dock and the Brunswick Dock lay a small quay. It was being approached by a fishing smack floating lightly on the silver river. A man was reefing sail. Near the quay was a muddle of low domestic buildings, half surrounding a cobbled square, in which fishing nets had been spread to dry. Ivy nearly smothered a particularly pleasant-looking cottage at one comer; in its clean, curtained window sat a canary in a cage. Two men in
rough blue jerseys came out of the cottage and went down to the quay to watch the smack tie up. At their approach a cloud of gulls glided into the air and circled the boat. One of the men leisurely lit a clay pipe. Despite the threat of rain, nobody seemed in a hurry; it was a peaceful vignette, next to the maelstrom of activity in the main road.

Wallace Helena thought a little wistfully how pleasant it would be to walk into the quiet square. She had a feeling that its inhabitants might greet her in a friendly country way, as she had been greeted as a little girl when her family had gone up into the mountains to avoid the damp heat of Beirut’s summer.

For a minute, she stood entranced, poised on the corner of Hill Street, the soapery forgotten. ‘That’s how Liverpool must have been long ago,’ she guessed. Then she roused herself and crossed the road. She was accompanied by a band of small ragamuffins; they ran in and out of the traffic, followed by the scolding voices of the draymen, who were afraid the scurrying mob would make their horses rear.

Before crossing Sefton Street, she paused again. Further along, in another side street parallel to Hill Street, lay the soap works. Across the road before her lay the Brunswick Dock. She watched carefully, as at the dock gate the driver of a cart paused to speak to a uniformed man at the gate and was then allowed to drive in. She presumed that everything that came into the Brunswick Dock for the Lady Lavender Soap Works would have to be off-loaded onto just such a cart and be taken the very short distance to the works to be unloaded. She had the previous day overheard a brief conversation between Mr Bobsworth, the bookkeeper, and one of his underlings from which she had understood that goods left long in the dock warehouse were subject to high demurrage charges; everything must be removed quickly to its own warehouse or
yard. She was as yet unaware that the soapery had its own spur railway line, along which its goods could be rolled straight from the dock to its yard. She retreated to a niche in a wall, while she fished out a small black notebook and pencil to make a note to remind herself to ask Mr Bobsworth more details of the movement of ingredients and finished goods; the notebook was already nearly full of observations and questions in her small, cramped handwriting. Accustomed to the acute shortage of good farm workers in and around Edmonton, she had been shocked at the mass of labourers involved with the soap works, and many of her queries were in connection with the cost of this; she had as yet little idea of the cheapness of labour in Liverpool.