The fine weather which had begun early in May, Ellie’s favourite month, continued as the apple blossom faded and the more striking colours of garden flowers began to catch her eye on her daily journeys back and forth to work.
On the south-facing side of the old stone gable, opposite the forge, her own small garden flourished. The tiny slips from Charlie Running’s rich red geranium he’d left for her at the forge on one of his regular visits, were now vigorous plants, already coming into bloom. They made a brilliant contrast with a purple clematis she’d found herself one Sunday afternoon out walking with George.
In a lane beyond Annacramp, she’d caught sight of a startling carpet of colour spreading over tall weeds, tangled briars and fallen stones in the ruins of an old house. He’d tramped a path for her to let her get a closer look, then he’d cut down some of the more rampant weeds that threatened to choke the roots. She’d laid down pieces of stone to protect them, then left the plant to go on blooming undisturbed. When they visited the old house again, she found some aquilegia and wallflowers as well, but they did not return with a spade to lift the clematis till all its flowers had gone and only their silvery seed heads and her marker stones showed them where to dig.
Cycling home in the evenings, she thought longingly of walking the lanes, hand in hand, talking about the events of the day, or their plans for the future, before finding a quiet field entrance with a stone pillar to lean against, their arms round each other, kissing. She’d known she would miss him, but the emptiness created by his absence was even worse than she’d expected.
Worse still was the feeling that grew on her every Friday and Saturday night when she came home to spend the evening reading by the stove instead of getting dressed to go to a dance or to the Ritz Cinema. She was amazed how sad she could feel hearing a snatch of dance music on the wireless, flowing out into the street from a café or ice-cream parlour.
Some evenings, when she could bear the dark kitchen and her mother’s continuous monologue no longer, she’d walk down to the forge. There was almost always someone there sitting on the bench inside the door watching her father work. She never felt unwelcome, but unless it was a friend, or a neighbour she knew well, like Charlie Running, or Ned Wylie, she seldom stayed long, aware that her presence might limit the talk of the older men. She knew too that should she appear too often her father would see she was lonely and she didn’t want to add another burden to the cares of his work, heavy and long at this busiest time of year.
She knew it would be almost two weeks before a letter could possibly arrive. Until he docked in Quebec he couldn’t post what he’d written on the voyage. It would then take at least five or six days to reach Stevie McQuaid’s postbag. She probably ought to allow for a Sunday as well. Each night, when she came in from work, she looked up at the mantelpiece, but there was no brightly-stamped envelope poking out from behind the clock.
After two long weeks had slowly passed, only a card of Liverpool Cathedral with a hasty message on the back stood propped up against the mirror on top of the chest of drawers that served as her dressing table. Daisy had begun by asking each morning if she’d heard from George, but as day followed day and still there was no letter, she’d stopped asking…
‘Ah see yer man’s written at last,’ her mother greeted her one evening at the very end of the month. ‘I’m sure you thought he’d fell and forgot, he’s been that long. Sure maybe he’s enjoyin’ himself so much he’ll not come back atall …’
Ellie was too overjoyed by the sight of the airmail letter to pay any attention to her mother’s comments. She reached up to the mantelpiece and clutched the envelope, but before the smile had even spread across her face, it faded like snow off a ditch. The letter was indeed the familiar Canadian airmail, but it was from her sister Mary in Toronto, addressed to both her parents.
Later that evening, when her father had peered at the letter through his Woolworth’s reading glasses, he handed it over to his wife. Both he and Ellie knew what she would say when he passed it to her, but they also knew what she would say if he didn’t. ‘Ach sure ye know my eyes are bad. Let Ellie read it out loud.’
She collected herself as best she could, for her hands had begun to feel damp the minute she’d touched the flimsy blue pages, and began:
Dear Ma and Da,
I’m writing to tell you some good news. I am going to be married in the Fall. That’s what we call the autumn at home, but my husband-to-be is from the States so I suppose I’ll have to get used to their different way of talking.
I have known Franklin, (Frank for short), for over a year now. I met him at a dance held in the Eaton’s Social Club and we’ve been going out a lot. He’s a bit older than I am and he’s been working in the Bank of Canada for a long time, but he says he’s only done it so he can save up to buy a farm. We plan to be married here in Toronto where we both have lots of friends but we will be having a reception for his family in Indiana when we get back there. He lives near a place called Fort Wayne and he has cousins there who are farmers.
Frank also has a sister called Cherry, but it is spelt Cherie. She is much younger, about my own age. It will be nice to have someone for a girlfriend until we get settled.
I will not be giving up my job till the very last minute. As you know the pay is very good and I got a bonus as well last month. I am busy sewing for my trousseau as I expect Ellie is too.
I’ve not been in touch with Polly for some weeks now. I did ring her lodgings but got no reply. Her landlady must have been out. I will try again soon. The last I heard was that she and Jimmy were going to go to Peterborough because there was a house at a low rent with the job, though the pay’s not great. I think it’s a factory that makes breakfast cereal but I don’t know exactly what sort of job Jimmy’s got there.
The weather here has become very hot and humid. Too hot for comfort but Frank says that’s nothing to Indiana. Hopefully it will be cooler living on a farm than in a city like Toronto.
That’s all for now. I hope you are both keeping well and all the family too. I heard there’d been more trouble in Belfast but I know Aunt Annie and her family are well away from all that so you needn’t worry about them. Bye-bye for now.
Your loving daughter,
Mary
When it finally arrived four days later, George’s missive brought Ellie little joy. Despite its generous array of stamps and formidable thickness, which for a few moments she’d thought might explained the weeks of delay, from the firmness of the package she quickly guessed that it contained a pack of postcards. And indeed, as soon as she cut carefully along the top of the envelope with her best sewing scissors, she saw he’d sent a complete set of views of Peterborough.
She took them out, turned them over and found to her amazement there was nothing at all written on the back. What he had written was on both sides of the two small sheets of paper in which he’d wrapped them. As she searched in vain for something to set against the anxiety of the last long weeks, her heart sank further and she was glad she’d found the letter on an evening when her mother had retired to bed.
Dear Ellie,
You’ll know by now from Uncle George’s letter home that we had a good trip across, great weather and good company and we arrived safely in Quebec. It is a very nice place. Jimmy and I had time to look around as Uncle George had some business there for a couple of days.
I wanted to send you a card from there but unfortunately everywhere I went people were speaking French and I couldn’t find what stamps to use. Uncle George said I was unlucky, most people in Quebec speak some English, but that he should have warned me.
Anyway we are now settled in Peterborough and as you can see it is very up-to-date. The Quaker Oats factory on the Otonabee is one of the biggest in the world. I have marked with a cross the house in George Street where Uncle George lives. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it? But I can go one better than that. Peterborough was founded by people from two families called Robinson and Scott. (That’s us!) I’ve been reading up all the history of Peterborough as Uncle George is back at work.
He has shown Jimmy and I round the saw mills and the warehouses but I am really looking forward to going north tomorrow with some other young men that have just arrived from Scotland. Did I tell you or did I forget to say that my cousin Jimmy from Portadown did decide at the last minute to take up Uncle’s offer. He was waiting for our train at Portadown Station and was able to get across to Liverpool on deck. There was no difficulty with his passage to Canada. The ship was not very full except First Class where the cruise passengers go.
Now I must stop and get ready for tomorrow. I hope you are well and not working too hard in the shop. I’ll write again when we get settled at camp. Give my best regards to your mother and father but keep all my love for you.
A large, swirling signature took up most of the final quarter of the fourth side of paper. The remaining space he had filled with kisses.
‘Ah don’t care what ye say, Ellie, yer not right at all,’ Daisy announced, as they sat down together on their usual bench under the trees. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong forby George bein’ away and you bein’ lonely.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I’m just tired, Daisy, that’s all. I’ve been cutting remnants all morning and you know how it gets your back.’
‘I might know if I ever had to do it, but you’re so good at it yer man never lets me near it,’ Daisy retorted sharply.
Ellie smiled, amused by her friend’s vehemence, but she had to admit that Daisy was probably not far wrong. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to lift her spirits.
‘Why d’ye think it took George so long to write? Why didn’t he write on the boat an’ post it first thing when they landed?’
‘I think maybe it just didn’t occur to him.’
‘Well, maybe you should tell him that it shou’d have. Have you written to him yet?’
‘Do you mean a reply to his, or the other letters I wrote before it came?’
‘Before it came? You mean you’d already written to him for when he arrived?’ Daisy paused dramatically. ‘One letter or more?’
‘Three,’ she admitted sheepishly.
‘Ellie Scott, you are far too good-natured. You’re not fit to be let out on your own …’
Daisy waved her half-eaten sandwich so vigorously that a piece of cheese fell out, dropped to the ground and was promptly swallowed by one of the sparrows keeping a watchful eye on them.
They both burst out laughing.
‘That’s about the first time I’ve heard ye laugh in weeks,’ Daisy declared, when they’d recovered themselves. ‘Now you listen to me. You helped me when I was in a bad way. I know this is different, but yer not goin’ the right way about it. If he’s not thinkin’ about you here at home missin’ him, then you hafta tell him. An’ if he’s not much good at writin’ letters, then he’ll just hafta learn, won’t he? He’s not the first man went to Canada to make his money. And if he doesn’t catch on, then there’s still a few men left around here, though not that many I hafta admit.’
‘Oh Daisy, now don’t say that. I love George. I don’t want anyone else.’
‘Wou’d ye have gone out with him if he’d asked you?’
‘Yes, of course. But he couldn’t ask me, could he, given where he’s going to get started?’
‘And did he ask you was him goin’ away what you wanted?’
‘He didn’t have much choice, Daisy. It was a good offer. He was only doing what he thought best for us.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Daisy doubtfully, polishing off the last of her sandwich. ‘What happened about the motorbike? Did he sell it?’
‘Yes, he must have done. I didn’t ask him.’
‘That money’d buy a quare nice ring and have plenty left over.’
‘Oh Daisy, he couldn’t do that. He probably gave the money back to his uncle.’
‘Well, we’ll see,’ the younger girl said dubiously. ‘But you write an’ tell him he’ll have to do better than this, or I’ll start lookin’ for a man for ye here. I could do with one fer me’self as well so it’ll be no extra bother.’ With that, she stood up and swept the crumbs from her dark skirt to the waiting sparrows.
Whatever Daisy Hutchinson’s weaknesses might have been, and Charlie Freeburn could certainly have listed some, Ellie Scott knew that she was no fool. Without her practical approach when her mother was so poorly the family would have been split up long ago. True, she’d not seen a way through the problem with the landlord, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t shrewd about other matters where she had some experience.
She thought over all that Daisy had said and made up her mind she’d have to say something to George. Quite what, she’d not decided when a letter arrived from Polly responding to her own in which she’d poured out all her distress.
Thankfully, Ellie closed her bedroom door behind her. No one would interrupt her now she’d said her good-nights. She sat on the edge of the bed and took the letter out of her pocket. The June nights were so long, the sky so clear, she could still see to read it yet again, even though it was after ten o’clock and the window was half-masked by heavy sprays of pink, climbing rose.
My dearest Ellie,
I’m so sorry you’re so worried about George. I’d have thought you would have heard by now indeed, but remember NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS. If anything had happened to the ship it would have been all over the newspapers. If anything had happened to George himself then his uncle would have cabled right away to his parents. He’s maybe a bit through himself with all the excitement of going away from home and him never been further than Warrenpoint before. I’m sure you’ll have heard by the time you get this.
Well, we are settled at our new address. The house is very small but there is a garden (a yard, they call it here) at the back, and just down the road there’s an enormous park with a lake and trees. I have never seen so many trees in my life as I did on the train journey here. No wonder Peterborough is one of the biggest lumbering centres in Canada. No doubt George will tell you all about that.
There is some furniture here in the house which belongs to the company, but it’s all a bit bare. I have to confess I shed the odd tear when I remember the lovely new furniture we had when we first came out, but there’s many much, much worse off than us.
Davy and Eddie are well but they are naturally a bit upset with the move. Davy has a bad habit of throwing stones when he finds them and I keep scolding him. Of course, Eddie copies everything Davy does. I hope it will help when Davy goes to school and perhaps I can get back to my sewing again. The money would be a great help. Ronnie is fine and is no trouble at all. I can’t understand how this child is so different from the other two!
Jimmy is so glad to have a job. It’s not what he wants but he says it’s a foot in the door. It’s just maintenance which is a bit of a comedown for a skilled mechanic, but we mustn’t complain.
What has been quite lovely though is the welcome we’ve had from the Quaker Oats Social Club. There are an awful lot of people from home, North and South, and Scotland as well. The day we arrived there was a wee basket of cake and biscuits and a bunch of flowers on the table waiting for us, and a whole folder of information about Peterborough. It really is a very go-ahead place, but I had to laugh when I got the boys to bed and Jimmy and I sat down to read all the history and the details of the way the industry has come on.
It seems that the place used to be called Scott’s Plains and the very first wee girl born there that wasn’t native was a Scott. This was in 1820, three years before our house at home was built … that’s according to Charlie Running who is well up in these things as you know! Then apparently in the Potato Famine a man called Peter Robinson sent for people to come from Ireland. There was 50,000 wanted to come but he could only take 2,024. I could hardly believe what I read about those families arriving with nothing. But according to the leaflet each family was given a cow, eight quarts of Indian corn, five bushels of seed potatoes, a hammer, handsaw, a hundred nails, three hoes, a kettle, frying pan and an iron pot. I wondered what they lay on at night, no blankets or work clothes. They hadn’t a table or a chair. They must have cooked on a campfire and ate sitting on the ground. Children and all.
But what was wonderful, Ellie, was what they managed. Good, brave people they must have been. In 18 months they had cleared 1300 acres with those trees that grow all over the place. I’ve never been quite sure what an acre looks like but Da once said Robinson’s biggest field in front of us on the far side of the road is five acres and you could get lost in it!
It makes me so grateful for a wee house and beds with mattresses and a table and chairs and a stove to cook on. I have bed linen and clothes and one or two precious things from home, wedding presents that were small enough to bring. I think Jimmy has a hammer and a few nails. But after I read that, Ellie, I just couldn’t feel sorry for myself.
Apparently it was to honour Peter Robinson that the name was changed from Scott’s Plains to Peterborough. And quite right too. That’s something really worth doing. Isn’t it amazing?
Now, my dear wee sister, this letter has taken three days to write in bits and pieces and I’m sure I’ve repeated myself or forgotten half of what I was going to say but I do want to post it today. I promise I will write again soon. Your letters are so welcome. Jimmy reads them over and over again. I think by now he knows the friends and neighbours round home near as well as I do and he asks after you.
Give all the family and friends our love and tell them we never forget them. Maybe it won’t be too long before you and I are able to go for a walk together again. It won’t be Annacramp or Church Hill but this is a lovely place in its own very different way.
With love and kisses from your big sister,
Polly
Ellie folded the pages carefully, slipped them back in their envelope, put the letter down on her chest of drawers and started undressing. She shook out her skirt and brushed it, hung it over the back of the chair for the morning, then examined her blouse. She noted the dried out marks of perspiration under her arms and caught the stale odour. It would have to be yet another clean blouse tomorrow.
It was always like this before the July sale. The top back room at the shop got the sun in the afternoon and that was where she prepared stock for the sale, labelling garments with reductions and cutting and folding remnants of the fabric brought in especially. The room got so hot, she could often smell her own perspiration, but she couldn’t open the window because the sash cords had long since perished.
She didn’t think she’d like the heat in Indiana. She wasn’t sure she’d even like the heat in Toronto or Peterborough, but she was sure she’d get used to it if that’s where she and George were to make their home.
She felt steadier now. She hadn’t realised how much she’d come to rely on Polly’s letters. It was just a stroke of bad luck she’d been too busy with the move to manage more than a few lines in the very weeks she’d been waiting for George to write.
For five years now they’d been writing to each other almost every week. They’d always been open with each other even when Ellie was a little girl and her big sister really did seem so very much older. But the gap between them had shrunk to nothing over the years and though Polly was a married woman with children, only a month ago it seemed Ellie would soon be married too and the first wee one on the way. Now all that had changed so rapidly she still couldn’t take it in.
But what hadn’t changed was that Ellie did have someone she could talk to. She gave thanks yet again that she had someone with more experience than her dear Daisy. Polly wasn’t all that good at sorting out her own problems and Ellie had long thought she just wasn’t firm enough with her two little boys, but that didn’t stop Polly seeing someone else’s problem quite clearly.
Ellie unhooked her bodice, slipped off her knickers, stepped out of her slippers and walked up and down the tiny space between the chest of drawers and her wash stand. She stretched her weary body from side to side and rubbed the marks the waistband of her skirt had left behind. She smiled to herself as she slipped on her nightdress. It wasn’t often you could stand naked in this room. For most of the year she tried to get into bed quickly before she got cold, or frozen.
She pulled the curtains back before she got into bed. There was not a wisp of cloud in the clear sky, the air perfectly still. It would be fine again tomorrow. She had always hated dark rooms, waking in the night and not knowing where she was or what time of night it might be. She climbed into bed, stretched out between the cool sheets and lay on her back looking up at the pale, whitewashed ceiling, every knot and vein in each individual board familiar, all twenty-nine and a half of them.
Polly, Mary, Florence. They had all gone away and none of them ever spoke of coming back. To see new places, find out about a whole different world. Was that what she wanted too? She’d never really thought about it before. She’d just assumed that a woman went where her husband could find work, enough to support her and their children and keep a roof over their heads. Just like Polly, she assumed wherever it was she would make the best of it.
How many hoes was it Peter Robinson gave to each family? Three. One each for a man and his wife and perhaps the oldest child. Or perhaps the man worked on the land alone, so hard he’d wear out one hoe after another. Grain and seed. But what would they eat until the crops grew and they had a harvest? Birds and wild animals. Rabbits, perhaps. Wasn’t it turkeys the Americans found when they first came to North America and now ate for that very reason at Thanksgiving?
Back and forth her mind moved in the gathering dusk. Polly walking along by a lake under trees with Davy and Eddy and little Ronnie in the pushchair. Perhaps she would walk there too with her children and George and Jimmy would talk together about their work and their bosses … all the things men talked about …
She’d read Polly’s letter again in the morning and tell Daisy about Scott’s Plains and Peterborough. She’d enjoy that. It would make up to her for the letter from George where there was really nothing very much to share with anyone.
She turned on her side, her arms folded across her chest, the way she’d slept since she was a little girl. And tonight she slept peacefully, some deep anxiety resolved though she had no idea at all what it had been and what had resolved it.