FOR THREE MONTHS she was obedient. For three months she remained the girl her mother had raised, the girl her father hoped would marry the Reverend Obadiah Collins. She went to church, went to meetings of the WCTU, the Women’s Missionary Society, and the Ladies’ Aid. She visited girlfriends for tea, she read books, she went for walks, and she did not see David Reid at all. Or rather, she did not speak to him. She saw him on Water Street one day as she and Abigail passed Clouston’s storefront, a temporary booth the tinsmiths had set up to sell pots and pans while their shop was being rebuilt. As Lily paused to admire a china teapot, Abby poked her ribs with her parasol. “It’s that man! Isn’t that he?”
Lily shot a look at Abby that she hoped would freeze the blood to ice in her veins. She wasn’t really good at giving that kind of look but she hoped that with practice she would get better, having seen Mrs. Ohman do it at meetings. She looked at the red-headed man walking towards them only long enough to know that it was David Reid, but she did not meet his eyes. She lifted her skirts and veered around a stack of barrels on the sidewalk to avoid him, though that meant she had to step down into the street and barely missed a pile of horse dung.
“He tried to speak to you!” Abby protested, looking back over her shoulder. “You were very cold to him!”
“Why shouldn’t I be cold? Father made me promise never to see him again.”
Back in May, after she had failed to show up in Bannerman Park at the appointed time, Mr. Reid had sent two further notes. She burned them both. Sometimes she woke between midnight and dawn from a dream in which she was in an alley with David Reid again, his lips against hers, his fingers pulling the pins from her hair. She woke from those dreams breathing fast and found it hard to get back to sleep.
She said nothing of this, of course, to Abigail, who would have giggled and gasped with delight at such fantasies. That door was closed, Lily reminded herself. She prayed every night that God would cleanse her of evil desires.
In all that time, she had not seen him. But that was not strange. They did not move in the same circles. The only place she was likely to see him was walking along Water Street. Now it had happened and it had not been so painful after all. There had been just a moment when their eyes met and the urge to turn her head and look back had been like the force that must have pulled the gaze of Lot’s wife toward Sodom. But Lily was made of tougher stuff: no pillar of salt for her.
The next note came the following day, slipped brazenly into her mailbox rather than hand-delivered by a messenger as the others had been. It was put in the box after the morning mail had been delivered but before Papa came home for his dinner, so its secrecy depended upon Lily checking the mail before Papa returned. Fortunately she did, and carried the small envelope up to her room, unseen by anyone. Her fingers trembled as she tore it open.
Tiger Lily—
Your heart is stone, and mine is like a poor stray tomcat who has lost a dozen fights and is missing an ear and part of a tail but still goes out prowling. Which is to say, I thought I had given up hope ’til I saw you yesterday. And now I find I cannot put you out of my mind again. A note left at my place of work will always find me, if you choose to take pity, stone maiden.
– D (Discouraged, but not Defeated)
She read it over and over, and could not help smiling at the picture of the battered alley cat, still roving the streets, spoiling for another fight. In an endless battle he could not win, for the maiden with the heart of stone—Mr. Reid certainly did not mind mixing his metaphors—would never relent.
Still. She did not burn this note. She put it under her pillow and slept with it there that night. Woke in the morning from a dreamless sleep cursing herself for a sentimental fool. She was as bad as a girl in a novel, and not a sensible girl like Alida either. A silly girl like Alida’s sister, Lottie, doomed to destruction for her selfishness. Sleeping with a note under her pillow! Lily threw it on the morning fire.
“A friend of yours is coming to town soon,” Papa said that night at dinner. “He wrote and asked if he might call on you.”
“You mean Reverend Collins.”
“I hoped the news might please you.”
“It does. It does—please me, Papa.” Lily tried hard to put warmth and energy into her voice. “I know you think very highly of Reverend Collins.”
“I hope that, in time, you’ll come to think well of him too.”
She tried to think, over the next few days, good thoughts about Reverend Collins. She had met him only that once, at Reverend Pratt’s house. Her father had said that he was a very progressive young clergyman—though not so progressive, apparently, as to approve of votes for women. She struggled to recall his face. His thinning hair was—black? Dark brown? Some nondescript colour. Not red, certainly. And whatever colour his eyes were, they were not green.
Reverend Collins came a week later: came to sit in the parlour and make polite conversation with her father while Lily sat silent beside her mother. He was in town for the Methodist Conference and was full of talk about the wonderful sessions he had attended and the great speakers he had heard. He showed his excitement by a slight rise in the pitch of his voice, and by laying his teacup down in the saucer with a little clang. Every time he did it Mother started, either because the noise troubled her nerves or because she was worried about damage to the china.
Mr. Collins had invited Lily to attend a lecture in the evening, by a returned missionary who was also attending the conference, telling about his experiences in the Congo. It was held at the Tabernacle on Parade Street, the temporary home of George Street Church, and it was well-attended. Their seats were not as good as Lily would have liked. She was stuck behind a woman with a very large hat that blocked Lily’s view of the speaker and his magic-lantern slides. The speaker’s voice was dry and scratchy. He seemed to have had amazing experiences in the Congo but lacked the ability to describe them in a way that would keep his hearers awake.
What an unfortunate thing, Lily thought. It would be so much more convenient if the world was arranged so that interesting things only happened to people who were good public speakers or writers. Good experience was, after all, wasted on anyone who could not convey the sense of it. She thought of sharing the thought with Mr. Collins, but decided he would not appreciate the humour.
In the carriage afterwards he said, “You are very fortunate, living here in St. John’s, to be able to hear good speakers and good music, to be in contact with the wider world. During the winter months in Greenspond, I think with longing of lectures such as the one we just heard, or some of the sermons that were given during the conference.”
“Well, conference week is unusual. There isn’t normally such a collection of great Methodist preachers in St. John’s. But of course you are right, we have more diversions here than in the outports.”
“There, a man must depend on reading to broaden his mind,” sighed Mr. Collins. “You attended some of the ladies’ sessions yourself at the conference, no doubt, Miss Hunt?”
“I did.”
“And the Temperance Rally on Sunday night?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Now that was inspiring! No doubt you were moved by it, as well.”
Lily had gone with her father to the big Temperance Rally. The speeches had all been stirring, but not one of the speakers—all men, of course—had made any mention of the work of the WCTU. It was discouraging, after the heady excitement of the rally she had attended earlier in the spring when not only women’s work but women’s votes had been spoken of with such approval.
She tried to explain her disappointment to Mr. Collins. “Having been so involved with the women’s temperance work, I felt it as a rebuke, to be quite honest.” She had not intended to raise any topic that might be controversial, or even interesting, but he was the one who had brought up the rally and she was a little curious as to how he would respond if she shared even a sliver of her true opinions.
“Ah…yes, I suppose I can imagine how you might feel that way,” Mr. Collins said. He seemed a bit taken aback that she had expressed anything other than admiration for the wonderful speakers at the rally. “But you know, there are other issues going on behind the scenes. I’m afraid many of the leaders of the movement are rather unhappy with the direction that the WCTU has been taking. Some of the ladies involved, and certainly Mrs. Ohman’s paper, have been quite strident in stating that they want the women’s vote. They talk not just about letting women vote on Prohibition, but of extending the franchise to women generally.”
“Is that it?” Lily asked. “Is the WCTU being punished because the temperance men fear it’s been taken over by suffragists?”
“Well, my dear, things are always more complicated than they seem. It’s politics, you know, and perception. How things look from the outside. It’s demeaning when women sully themselves with such things. You, my dear Miss Hunt, are a fine example of what I mean—a good and virtuous young girl, working in the temperance cause because of a sincere desire to end human suffering. But what if your name, your reputation, were to be tarnished by association with these striving and ambitious women?”
“I suppose that would be dreadful.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Collins, who appeared deaf to sarcasm. “For women to concentrate on the ballot-box is a mistake. Indeed, many temperance men think we have little chance of seeing Prohibition passed in the next year or two, that we need to concentrate more on educating the public, and less on the legislature. No real change is likely to happen while Mr. Whiteway is our premier.” He glanced over at her. “But I am boring you, of course. Nothing duller than people talking of things that are outside one’s own experience.”
The worst part was that he could say such a thing, so smug and condescending, without recognizing that he was giving her the equivalent of a slap across the face. But Lily said nothing. There was no value in arguing with Reverend Collins. She already knew she would strike no answering spark.
“I fancy you found Reverend Howlett a little dull as well, tonight,” he went on, “and I promise the next time I come to town I will try to find something more diverting to take you to. Nothing frivolous, of course, but perhaps a nice sacred concert?”
The thought that her obligation to him—to Papa, really—was not discharged, that she would have to go along with him to another event and sit stiffly by his side through a choral cantata or organ recital, felt as dispiriting as a downpour on a summer morning. “I’m sure that would be very nice,” Lily said. It was as if she were an actress, reading someone else’s lines. She could not help remembering that Abby had gone, this evening, to the dancing assembly at the Parade Rink with Frank Ayre. Much too frivolous an entertainment for a young clergyman, but Lily couldn’t help thinking a little touch of frivolity might not hurt her. He might at least have offered to take her to watch the boat races down at Quidi Vidi.
The next day she went to the corner shop, bought a copy of the Evening Herald and read a scathing article about the way in which Premier Whiteway’s government was bungling everything it touched. There was no by-line, but she needed none: she heard David Reid’s sardonic voice in every line. She imagined him sitting in the gallery at the House of Assembly, his pen flying frantically across paper, copper head bent forward as he caught the currents of the debate. This was what he had been doing last night, no doubt, while she sat next to Reverend Collins watching lantern slides about the Congo. Being patronized by a man who thought she was bored by politics because she could not understand them.
The Herald. A letter sent to my place of work will always find me. She drew notepaper towards her, filled her pen.
Mr. Reid—You have been impertinent. Yet I am inclined to forgiveness. You mentioned a place of meeting once. If you recall the place and can be there on Thursday at three in the afternoon, you may find me walking in the vicinity. Fortune favours the bold.
– L (Lady Luck)