Winter Shadows (13 page)

Fortunately, Papa spoke before Ivy, who was huffing like a rooster ready to crow. “A fine and charitable thing to do, Beatrice. I look forward to hearing young voices in the house. However, it will mean more work for Ivy.”

“No, Papa! I will do all the work with the help of Dilly and the three girls. For Christmas dinner, I have asked Miss Cameron to come, as well as her pupils and … and Reverend Dalhousie, his sister, and the girls they have agreed to take in.”

“How dare you invite strangers into my home without asking me first!” Ivy screeched, mop cap askew. “Well, you can tell them it’s off!”

Dilly kept her head close to her plate, hands in her lap
.

“It will all be done for you, Ivy,” I repeated. “You won’t have to do a thing.”

“No! I forbid it! I forbid it!”

Papa took her hands in his. “Christmas is a time of peace and good will, Ivy; of giving and sharing. Yes, Beatrice should have asked you first. But it will be pleasant to have the new vicar and his sister here. We should have had them long before this.”

“I don’t care about that papist minister and his spoiled sister! She’s had two tea parties and hasn’t invited me to one. Because I speak my mind about her brother’s namby-pamby services! At least Bishop Gaskell gave a good rousing sermon.”

Papa said, “We can’t unask them now, and remember, Ivy, these young girls from Miss Cameron’s are without their own families the whole year long.”

“And where will the food come from to feed all these people?” she cried. “Here I am, making do with bits and pieces of scrag end of buffalo and venison and –”

“We have more than enough for this special night,” he answered. “I will choose a large haunch of venison. I told you this very morning to start using the remaining better cuts as I have made good money on the rest. We will allow Beatrice to do this, Ivy.”

I tried to soften things a little by saying, “Miss Cameron is bringing a number of dishes as well. And your son, Ivy, is going to add a goose and a whitefish for our table. Remember?”

At that moment, the door flew open and Duncan Kilgour
burst in, beard and hat thick with frost, a large burlap bag slung over his shoulder. Why does he always fill a room to overflowing with his presence? But I was glad to see him, for once, despite the embarrassment of last night
.

Papa laughed a little too heartily. “What have you got there, Father Christmas?”

“When I was at Charlie Dibbott’s farm, I heard that a crowd was coming for our Yule dinner, so I’m going to add my last maple-sugar-cured ham. And Minty just trapped these rabbits this morning.” He lifted a huge crusted ham out of his bag, then flopped two jackrabbits softly down beside it. “The jacks will hold you until the big day!”

Ivy ground her chair back. “We’ve been eating scrag-end stew while you’ve been hoarding a ham and rabbits? And how did Mr. Dibbott know about all this before I did?”

“One of Miss Cameron’s students is living with them, Mother. The hares are fresh killed. I’ll skin them and put them in your ice house if you don’t need them right away. As for my ham, you’ve had plenty of cured meat, hocks, and smoked chops off this beast even before Miss Alexander came home. I’m also pickling three buffalo tongues. No doubt, you will have one of those to hoard soon.”

Ivy’s scrawny neck flushed purple. She was having a terrible day and knew who to blame for it. Me
.

I prepared a tray for Grandmother. “That ham will be most welcome come Christmas Day, Mr. Kilgour,” I said
.

“Duncan, please. Now, Mother, I’m hungry.”

Ivy banged a thick bowl on the table before dishing up her gray stew. Kilgour peered into it, his nose wrinkling. As
Dilly and I cleared away our dishes, he said, “Mother, you’ve outdone yourself with this bannock. And the tenderness of the gingerbread is a wonder.”

“Miss Beatrice made them,” Dilly said
.

Duncan glanced at his mother, then at me, with a sly smile. “I can hardly wait for the rest of the special baking then. I hope you have all the ingredients, Miss Alexander.”

He seemed to take pleasure in teasing Ivy. There was definitely something not right between this mother and son – not right at all
.

But Ivy, by then, was standing by her store cupboard like the queen’s guard, arms crossed over her chest. I’d wondered for some time what she had in that cupboard, as she kept it locked, but suspected that if any of us approached her at that moment, she would cry, “You will have to kill me to get anything out from here!”

I cleared my throat to keep from laughing. “Yes, I have all I need except the eggs. I’ll use the kitchen now and tomorrow, if I may, Ivy. Tonight Dilly and I will stone the raisins, shell the nuts, and line the cake pans with brown paper.”

“And you will have those eggs,” Duncan said, looking at his mother
.

“You take a day off, my dear Ivy, and let Beatrice go to it,” Papa said. The look she gave him should have turned him to cold stone
.

I escaped with nôhkom’s tray. After giving her supper, I brought the cloth bags of nuts and dried fruits to the kitchen
.

Dilly was wiping the last plate clean. She smiled. “We will begin?”

Ivy guarded the table, as if daring me to try and get past her. Papa was working on his harness with exaggerated concentration. Duncan Kilgour was gone
.

As I edged past Ivy, she snarled at Papa, “And how am I supposed to make our meals tomorrow with those two all over my kitchen? It won’t do, Gordon, I tell you!”

“I’ll make rabbit pies for tomorrow’s dinner,” I said. “Minty and your son will cut wood for the ovens.”

Faced with solutions for all her complaints, Ivy stalked out of the room, banging the door behind her
.

“Ach, she’s still getting used to life in this house, Beatrice,” Papa said. “ ‘Tis hard having another grown female around.”

“Do you want me to cancel the Christmas plans?” I asked curtly
.

“Of course not, dear girl. This is your home, too. I just wish Ivy could accept …” I knew what he was trying to say
.

Kilgour brought in a pile of firewood. “I’ve loaded the outside clay oven with dry wood and kindling. You only have to light it tomorrow and keep feeding it.”

I was suddenly happy at the prospect of baking for our Yule gathering. “You really do want that shortbread, Mr. Kilgour!”

“Aye, that I do, lass!” he said in a broad Scottish accent
.

We smiled at each other. Suddenly unsettled, I turned to Dilly and began to show her how to stone the raisins for the cakes
.

Kilgour asked, “Would you like me to carry your grandmother downstairs to help or to watch? She gets so little company.”

“Would you, Mr. Kilgour? She’d like that.”

“I haven’t the legs to do it yet,” Papa said sadly
.

After my smiling grandmother was tucked into an upholstered chair from the parlor, she started to sort out the less-perfect raisins to be used in scones and soda bread on another day
.

Duncan lifted the rabbits to the butchering table
.

Even Papa helped, cracking nuts and sifting wheat flour to create a finer blend
.

“I wish there were apples for the pudding,” I said, “but grated old carrots will have to do.”

“What about a jar of crab apples? Would that work?” Papa asked. “I saw some in Ivy’s store cupboard a few months ago, and they’ve never passed my lips!”

Ivy’s store cupboard had a lock on it. I knew the key hung on a string around her waist, but Papa reached into his vest pocket and handed me a single key. I hesitated
.

“Take it, child!”

Curiosity won out over guilt. When I swung the doors of Ivy’s fortress open, I marveled at the sight. There were rows and rows of jars packed with raspberries, saskatoons, crab apples, and wild plums
.

“She did all this?”

“She got most from Annie Druce, who sells them for a bit of extra money,” Papa said. “I didn’t realize how many were in there. Take out a jar of apples, Bea.”

“I couldn’t, Papa –”

“Don’t be ridiculous, girl, my brass bought those! Take one, I tell you!”

I opened a jar, poured off the juice, and gave it to nôhkom as
a restorative drink. She smacked her lips with pleasure after each sip. Dilly and I chopped the fruit, throwing the tiny cores into a pail for the pigs. The room smelled of apples, spices, and the sharp scent of dried lemon and orange peel set in the warm oven to soften. Memories of doing the same thing with Mama washed over me
.

I said to Duncan, “If your mother gives me a few eggs, I would be most grateful. But what if she –?”

Duncan was staring at the locked store cupboard. “My mother will give you the eggs. She’s not as bad as she seems, you know. Is she?”

At those words, the rest of us looked at each other, then Dilly got the giggles, followed by Grandmother. They were so infectious, even Papa snorted while I bit my lip. With Duncan grinning and protesting weakly, the mood lightened. Soon we were busily working together
.

As Duncan gutted and skinned the rabbits, asking which of us would like warm mittens after he’d dried and cured the skins, Ivy strode into the kitchen. He quickly moved in front of the empty crab-apple jar. “We are almost done, Mother.”

“You’d better clean up before you leave, for it won’t be me who does it!”

Why were we so afraid to let her know about the apples? Did we expect her to take up arms? The thought of Ivy in a helmet, brandishing swords, was almost too much to imagine. I turned away to swallow a bubble of laughter. Was I becoming giddy? It was as if part of me had broken free
.

Someone tapped on the door, distracting Ivy long enough for Duncan to grab the empty jar and push it deep into the
pile of kindling beside the fireplace. He winked at me, and I grinned back. Dilly ran to open the door, and Reverend Dalhousie walked in, looking pinched with cold. He bowed to Ivy, who sneered and left the room. He nodded at Papa, then at the young giant with rabbit blood on his hands, the old woman in her blankets and shawl, the little maid who fumbled a small curtsy, and me breaking sugar with a mortar and pestle
.

“I see I have come at a busy time. How snug it all looks in here. I should leave you to it.”

“No, Reverend,” Duncan said. “You came just in time. In fact, you could say you saved us from a right good rollicking.”

And everyone laughed as the minister stood, hat in hand, looking startled
.

“W
hat’s that supposed to mean?” Martin asked.

“You have ghosts?”

I shrugged. “Forget it. It’s nothing.”

He moved closer. “Your face says it’s not nothing.”

“I had a high fever. I thought I saw things,” I muttered. I probably looked completely mental with my hair on end.

“I heard about the bus incident.”

“Yes, the Alarming Incident on the School Bus,” I sneered. “Crazy Cass making Gus stall the bus in a snowbank. I fell asleep, woke up with a jerk, and called out. Gus stopped the bus. Its back wheel got stuck for all of five minutes.”

“So who was the jerk you woke up with? I wasn’t even on the bus!”

I had to laugh. His hand came up and touched the brooch on my green top. “Hey. Diamonds on pj’s? Where’d you get that? Looks old. And expensive.”

He was examining it, his head close to mine, when Jean walked in. I slapped his hand away and pulled
the covers up over my brooch. Martin slid back, his face flushed.

“I came to see if you needed anything, but Martin’s leaving. Now,” Jean said.

I sneezed. “We still have work to discuss. Go away, Jean.”

“Excuse
me?” she said, hands on hips.

“Yes. I
do
excuse you.”

It was Jean’s turn to go red. “I will not ask twice, Cassandra.”

“We were doing nothing wrong.”

“I’m sure your father will be interested –”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Cullen,” Martin said. “I was just looking at –”

I stared at him, eyes wide with warning.

He stood up. “We’ll get together as soon as school is over and set up a plan, Cass. After you’ve read about some of the poets, we’ll decide who to write about.”

“Sit down,” I said. “We have other stuff to discuss.”

“Nah, I gotta get going. I’m taking that girl I met on the bus to a movie tonight.”

I was stunned. Jean looked confused. I kept the covers up over my brooch.

“Nice you can date on a school night,” I snapped. “No need to do research.”

“I’ll drop by after school tomorrow, Cass, okay?”

“Don’t exert yourself or anything. I’ll be busy reading these books for you.”