Wild Rose (10 page)

Sophie was stunned. “All over Canada? In Québec too?” The lawyer looked down at his desktop before he answered.

“No, Mrs. Hippolyte. Only here in the North-West Territories.” He moved his fingers slightly this way and that, then held them still. She had observed that he was, or could be, a handsome man, tall and straight-backed, his pale thinning hair carefully brushed to one side, and held in place with a discreet amount of pomade. There was not the tiniest piece of lint on his dark blue jacket, and a distant part of her marveled at that tidiness, unobtainable on a dusty homestead. Which brought back the smell of the cabin in the early morning, Pierre’s heat against her’s, that he had gone…

She struggled for composure, breathing deeply through her nose, lifting her head again and straightening her back, holding her child more tightly. She could see in his eyes how he watched her, his face composed into politeness of the sort the better men reserved for their dealings with women: excessive courtesy, which as a girl she had thought beautiful, veiled watchfulness, a hint – she could never rid herself of this perception – of amusement.

“I see there is no help to be had here.” Her voice had softened to a whisper. The lawyer stiffened, his face smoothing to a mask of politeness, and came round his desk to escort her and Mr. Campion from the room.

“There is no recourse in law for what your husband has done, indeed,” he told her, “And I deeply regret this. Had I known, perhaps I would have refused his business. Nor did Mr. Campion have any idea that the…uh…person with him was not his lawful wife.” At the door to his empty reception room, his stiffness relaxing slightly, he added, “I have heard of the most deplorable cases – a Galician mother of six little ones abandoned and utterly penniless. At least you are –” he hesitated again, “not without resources.”

She wanted to ask how much money Pierre had received for their farm, animals and crop, knowing it had to be worth, she had estimated this quietly on the long ride into town, perhaps two thousand dollars, but she knew if she asked the lawyer he would refuse to tell her, and she wouldn’t give Campion the satisfaction of telling her what her very life had cost him. As little as he could get away with, of that she was sure – a thousand dollars, maybe, or twelve hundred. She knew Pierre; when it came to money, if it were up against a stronger desire, he had no sense at all, he would throw money away, whereas being raised in a household supported by direct commerce, she supposed she had imbibed a certain attitude without even realizing she had.

When they were in the waiting room, the door behind them closed, Sophie stood, her son still dozing on her shoulder, her back beginning to ache from carrying him, but with no place to put him down, and the weight of the portmanteau suddenly too much for her so that she took an uncertain step to one side, as if she had lost her balance, then regained it. She realized with a start that Mr. Campion remained to her left, quietly, waiting on her.

“Monsieur Campion?” she queried, hearing the note of desperation in her own voice and cursing it.

“I’ll take you to the Mountie. You’re lucky – he’s in town today.” She was about to refuse, then thought that with a man of his substance beside her, she might fare better with the Mountie. Without speaking she began to descend the stairs slowly, hugging Charles closely with one arm, peering over his rounded back to see where she was stepping, lifting her skirt with the other the bag hanging uncomfortably from her forearm. Campion gave a slight tug at the portmanteau and again, she let him take it. At the bottom of the stairs, she recovered it from him, refusing his offer to carry it.

As she and Campion walked back down the street the way they had come, past the general store toward the blacksmith shop, in between which stood the small building they were looking for, he inquired of her, had she any friends in town? She didn’t want to answer him, yet all her girl’s training in courtesy to her elders forced an answer out of her.

“No,” she replied. “I seldom came to town, and my husband preferred we spend our free time with other settlers like ourselves. I mean – French–speakers,” she added.

“One of them, maybe?” he asked. She shook her head, no, then managing, “The Le Fèbvre family left for the north I was told.”

“There are some new people in town, came a month or so ago, I’m thinking – the Tremblay’s,” he suggested. “That is French without a doubt.” Tremblay! That was the name, and their oldest daughter was Marguerite. Hadn’t Pierre spoken of meeting the family not long ago at the Beausoleil’s? And once, after that hadn’t he said he’d dropped in on them when he had come to town for the mail? And Charles feverish so she had stayed home? Aloud, she said, keeping her voice light. “I do not know them.” First, she told herself, she would talk to the Mountie. Then she would go to Mrs. Emery’s boarding house. She clung to this thought as a kind of salvation from the company of this man, helpless as she was against the necessity of acting before she had even properly assimilated her own plight. She would go to Mrs. Emery’s, and Mrs. Emery would take them in. Surely she would.

How she would pay for the night there, if indeed Mrs. Emery would have a room free for her, she didn’t know. Work, maybe? She had only a few pennies, a fact which her intuition told her no one must know. Pride yes, but also she recognized how vulnerable she would be should anyone know; she vowed then to claim that she was only waiting for money to come from her family in Québec. No one would ever know that there would not be money coming from Québec, because she would never ask, would never reveal to her grandmother or her brothers that they had been right about Pierre, and she, wrong. She clung more tightly to Charles. No, appealing to her family would be her last resort before starvation. In a flash that came and went so quickly it barely registered, she longed for the comfort of Antoinette’s bosom.

The Mountie, luckily, was in his spare, unlined shack that, on the days the family with the mail route brought it, also functioned as a post office. His papers were spread out over the table and irritation appeared on his face, as she pushed open the door, that evaporated when he saw Mr. Campion enter behind her. He stood, a short man, with an officious manner and military carriage, his lips pursed as he pushed his papers this way and that with his fingertips, without making any perceptible progress in arranging them. She could feel his contained fuming from across the table between them and her familiar woman’s patience in dealing with difficult men settled into her chest and forehead, even brought a measure of calm, as something she understood.

“Constable McMann,” Campion said heartily, extending his hand. “Glad to find you in. Wasn’t sure this was your day to be here.”

“Just finishing up my patrol, Mr. Campion. In the morning I’m for Garden City and a few days leave.” He didn’t look at Sophie.

“New house in town,” Campion said. Something passed between them that Sophie couldn’t divine, but the Mountie nodded, smiling faintly, and not replying, yet the new house with its lace curtains was only yards from where they stood. “This is Mrs. Hippolyte.” Sophie waited, but he said nothing more. Now, she thought, she was to speak for herself, and a flash of hatred
for both these men startled her even as she suppressed it.

“Constable McMann,” the officer said. “May I be of service?”

“Mr. Campion has been kind enough to accompany me here to see you,” she said, forcing her voice into a clear light tone, aware of her accent, and cursing it. In this world, she would be better without it. “My husband –” She paused, swallowing. “My husband, Pierre Hippolyte, has deserted me.” In this new, light voice, it was possible to say things she couldn’t say in her own, and having said it, continuing was easier. “Worse, he has sold our farm to Monsieur Campion and I am without a home for myself and my son. We have just come from the lawyer who tells me my husband acted within the law.”

“Oh,” the Mountie said, noncommittal, then shifting his tone. “You’re not the first lady to come to me with such a story.” Then, another shift into firmness. “There’s nothing I can do.” “He has abandoned us,” Sophie repeated, not changing her tone. “Can’t you pursue him?”

“When did this happen?” the Mountie demanded, as if she were the criminal.

“I saw him yesterday,” Campion intervened. “Here in town, when I bought the farm from him. Yesterday morning, to be exact.” It suddenly occurred to Sophie to wonder how Archibald could not have known that the woman with Pierre was the pretty daughter of the new family in town. Perhaps he didn’t see her in the wagon? And Campion might truly not have known as she was fairly sure he didn’t live in Bone Pile, and as they had never seen each other before this morning, a blonde woman with Pierre would mean nothing to him. Or was she, appallingly, inventing excuses for him? And why was he staying with her when all he had to do if he really wanted to help was to hand her back the deed to the farm? Yet she knew, as well as she knew herself to be Charles’ mother, that Campion would never return the farm to her, hadn’t a qualm about what had been done to her, probably viewed all this business as tedious beyond words.

“So he has had the better part of two days and a night,” the Mountie noted. He shook his head. “He’ll be over the border by now. He has broken no laws. There is no reason for me to chase him. I might have tried to reason with him if I’d known, but…” he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s too late now.” Sophie didn’t know whether there was something the Mountie could do or not, only that there was nothing he would. She was about to turn away, Charles beginning to wake, twisting in her arms so that she hummed softly to him in reassurance, jiggling him a little and patting his back, all the while with her eyes fixed on the Mountie’s face. “Now, if you’d run out on him that would be different. I could go after you. No wife can just up and run off and take a man’s children.” Sophie drew in her breath quickly. She could tell by the Mountie’s abrupt change of expression that she must look as stricken as she felt. Now he looked concerned, although she had noted too, the look of exasperation that had passed fleetingly over it before his face softened.

“Wait – do you need a place to stay for the night? Are you destitute?” It was the first time he had really looked at her, and she saw his eyes pass swiftly from her bosom, mostly hidden by Charles, to her waist and then up again to her earrings where they lingered for less than an instant, but enough that she saw interest, even perhaps a hint of respect. She ignored his question about her financial situation.

“I am going to Mrs. Emery’s for the night,” again working to keep her voice steady. “I will make other decisions tomorrow.”

“You have family here?”

“I have not,” she replied. “But my family in Québec will m’aid.” Annoyed, she corrected herself, “Help me. They will help me.”

He nodded, relieved. Clearly, he didn’t want another penniless woman and her brood on his hands, had already begun calculating what he would do if she hadn’t a roof over her head and no help she could turn to, and the fact that he would have to do this was annoying him no end.

“Now, you never know,” the Mountie said to her, smiling in a false way, she could see him washing his hands of her, “your husband might be back in a few days or a week, and even if he doesn’t return, he may send you some of the money.” She wanted to strike him, speaking to her as if
she were a child, and she shifted Charles a little, moving her eyes away from the Mountie’s so he wouldn’t see her anger.

“I will not wait for that,” she said, grimly. No, Pierre wouldn’t be back in a week or ten days, although – now that she thought of it – maybe he would send her some money, if not for her, at least for his son’s sake. She turned from the Mountie without speaking again, deliberately not thanking him.

Outside again in the stifling early fall heat, the air laden with dust and the sun lowering in the western sky, turning it bronze and yellow, she said to Mr. Campion, “You have been very helpful. I must thank you.” She didn’t smile, but couldn’t stop herself from adding, “Despite your being the agent of my –”
she struggled for the English word, “misfortune.” Charles was begging to be allowed to walk, so she set him down. Her arms and the small of her back ached from his weight, as well as from the bag she carried.
“Ne bouger pas,”
she said, and then from habit, “Stay here.”

Campion had again removed the hat he had taken off in the lawyer’s office and then in the Mountie’s. She could see he had something he wanted to say to her, and anxiety arose again. Indeed, she half knew already what he was working to say.

“Mrs. Hippolyte –”

“
Oui
, Monsieur?” she replied, gravely, as if she were not fighting a sudden rise of gorge into her throat, as if her heart hadn’t begun to trip quickly there, making her swallow.

“You know I have to either go back to the farm right away to milk the cow, and in the morning to let the horse and chickens out to graze, that I have to find them five cows and bring them in, or there’ll be a disaster. Never mind get that crop off while it’s still standing. I’ll find somebody to do all that, but right now I have business to attend to. I – I have a proposal –

“Yes, Monsieur?” coldly, now.

“I need a cook; I need someone to keep the cabin clean, to wash the clothes, to look after them animals when I’m elsewhere.” His words hung in the orange-tinted, dusty air between them.

“I know exactly what you need, Monsieur,” she said, with every ounce of repugnance she could muster, and turned on her heel, Charles trundling after her. Her face burned, her entire body glowed with heat. He came after her, caught her by the sleeve. Her instinct was to pull away, but who might see this? Better to make it look as though they were having a friendly discussion. It stunned her, how quickly she had become prey.