Helen Forrester - The Lemon Tree

‘I’ve asked him, dear. But he either won’t or can’t. And I can’t let him go.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I love him very, very much.’

This silenced Helena. Falling in love was something that occurred in books. It had never occurred to her that it might happen to her mother – or, possibly, to herself. In Lebanon, you accepted gratefully the husband chosen for you by wise parents and then hoped he would be kind to you.

Emboldened by her daughter’s sudden quiet, Leila said, ‘Consider, my darling, how very poor we are. Where will I get the chance again to meet a really nice man – and he is nice.’

Stifling a desire to cry, Helena nodded dumbly. Their current life was very hard and seemed to lack all hope of change, at least until her mother’s command of English improved. She could understand that, to her mother, Tom Harding offered an escape from total penury. But to what?

‘Has he told you about where he lives?’ she asked dully.

‘Yes, he has. And it sounds possible, with a good future for you.’

Three weeks later, a numbed Helena found herself in a Registrar’s office, standing behind her mother and acting as her bridesmaid, while next to her was Glenn, a rotund version of Tom Harding, acting as his brother’s best man. Behind them stood Sally and Mrs Ghanem and one or two friends of Tom and Glenn. Seated in a chair specially set for her was Tom’s scary old mother, anxiously attended by plump, harassed Ada Harding, Glenn’s wife.

Old Mrs Harding had already told her besotted son, in front of his new fiancée and her daughter, that he was a fool and always had been one; these women would be no use to him in a pioneer settlement. She had been a pioneer herself and knew what it was like.

Helena had listened to her with growing disillusionment. Leila had been as terrified as if she had been cursed by a witch, and it had taken all Tom’s cajolement to assure her that his friend Joe’s mother lived on the homestead and would come every day to help her. To beguile her, he said he had a little sleigh which she could learn to drive in winter, and that Helena could go to school, either in St Albert, where there was a Roman Catholic Mission, or in the Fort.

On the eve of the wedding, Helena had sat with her mother in their bare, tiny living-room, while Leila unpacked a beautiful, embroidered head shawl, delivered by Mrs Ghanem’s eldest son, with the family’s good wishes for the marriage. Helena, seeing the fine Lebanese handiwork of the shawl, had put her head down on the table and wept.

‘Couldn’t we go home to Beirut, Mama? Please, Mama.’ She spoke, as usual when addressing Leila, in Arabic, and the words seemed all the more poignant because of the language used.

‘Darling child, you know I’ve thought of that often, but the times are bad. Even if we weren’t murdered by either the Druze or the Turks, a widow woman, with no family to protect her, wouldn’t stand a chance.’ She put down the shawl and moved round the table, to hold Helena in a warm embrace.

With her head resting on her child’s thick black hair, she said frankly, ‘I don’t know what life holds for us, my love. But I feel Tom is honest and kind; and he has high hopes of giving you a better life. He says there is a great shortage of women round the Fort, so you should be able to make a good marriage when the time comes.’ Her voice trailed off, but she continued to hold the girl close to her. She was herself very nervous. She was also desperately in love – and she had no conception of wilderness barely touched by human hands.

Helena did not reply to her mother’s assurances. She wept for her father. Through her tears, she looked down at her hands. Her left forefinger was raw from constant pricks from blunted pins and needles at the tailor’s workroom, and she remembered the long, dreary days she spent penned up there. If she stayed in Chicago, would that go on forever?

She raised her head. ‘How do we know he’s even got a farm?’ she asked, as she fumbled in her skirt pocket for her handkerchief.

‘Well, I’ve done my best to confirm it. You know that young lawyer on Main Street? He’s originally from Lebanon. I asked him if he could inquire for me.’

Surprised at her mother’s temerity, Helena glanced up at her. ‘What did he find out?’

‘Well, he confirmed that Tom’s brother has a good reputation – it’s been known for years that he had a brother homesteading in Canada. There’s nothing to prove it, of course, but a neighbour told him that a few years back Tom asked his mother to join him. She didn’t go because her health’s so bad. The neighbour also said that the old lady is all against the marriage, because she says I won’t be able to work hard enough; I’ll be a burden to him.’

A small smile curved Helena’s mouth. ‘I doubt that, Mama. I think you’ll make him very happy.’

Her mother bent and kissed her. ‘Thank you, dear.’ She paused, and then said, ‘The lawyer also advised that Tom should make a Will, to be signed at the end of the wedding ceremony, leaving everything to me, if he should die – which God forbid. Tom’s going to do this, so at least we’d have a farm, dearest.’

Though Tom agreed to the Will, he omitted to tell her that he was, as yet, still a squatter and that the Hudson’s Bay Company still owned the land; he hoped sincerely that he would gain ownership before he died.

Later on that evening, when Tom came to spend an hour or two with Leila, he tried to reassure the girl.

‘The Fathers will teach you school,’ he told her. ‘And Joe Black or me – we’ll teach you how to skate and ride. And you can have a pup if you’d like one.’

She replied heavily, ‘I can already read and write in French and Arabic. English is coming. And Papa taught me arithmetic and how to keep accounts – some geography, as well. And how to buy and sell – and judge silk.’

‘Then you’re a very accomplished young lady,’ responded Tom patiently. ‘I could use your help, if you’d give it me.’

Though he had caught her interest, Helena looked at him with suspicion. ‘Help you?’

‘Sure. I can get folks to do all kinds of chores – but Joe and me – neither of us is good at accounts, keeping records and such. And, one of these days I reckon the British Government’s going to reach out and take over from the Hudson’s Bay Company, which rules us now – and we’ll have a pack of Government officials on our backs – and we’ll need everything down in pen and ink.’

Helena smiled involuntarily. ‘Just like the Turks?’ she asked with sudden interest.

Tom did not understand what she was referring to and turned to Leila for enlightenment. Leila told him about the avaricious tax collectors of the Turkish Emperor, and he laughed. ‘You’ve hit it right on,’ he told Helena, which made her smile again.

Realizing that much of his and Leila’s happiness depended upon Helena being reasonably content, he spent until midnight telling her about the Fort and his homestead. He also told her that he had married a Cree wife, and that the loss of her and of his son had been hard to bear. ‘Cree women know how to preserve meat, and how to make clothes out of skins – and how to cure sickness,’ he said. ‘Joe’s Ma is a Cree, and she came to help us when my wife died – and she’ll help your Mama, so that it won’t be too hard for you.’ In the back of his mind, he fretted that two more mouths to feed that winter could be a problem, and he hoped the pig had produced a good litter.

Watching the man as he spoke, Helena felt a sense of pity creep into her. He, also, had lost people he loved, she realized, and she felt a hint of kinship.

He was saying to her, ‘I can’t make up to you for your pa – I wouldn’t presume to. But I’ll take care of you as much as I can. You could be the only youngster your mama and I’ll have.’