Helen Forrester - The Lemon Tree

The inference that her mother could have more children shocked Helena. She looked up at her mother, who smiled quietly back. It could happen, she realized. She turned to Tom. His expression was quite sad. He said suddenly, ‘I’d like to give you an extra name, in memory of my little boy. Then you’d be real special to me. I’d like to call you Wallace Helena.’

She was immediately offended. ‘That’s a boy’s name.’

‘It’s a boy’s or a girl’s. We called the baby after my mother – she’s Wallace Harding.’

‘I don’t need another name.’ The wide mouth compressed in disapproval.

‘Aw, come on, now. Indulge an old man’s fancy.’

Helena looked up at her mother again. ‘Do I have to, Mama?’

Her mother’s mouth began to tremble, as it always did when she was in doubt. Helena saw it and remembered suddenly how close her mother had come to a complete breakdown after her father’s death. She considered warily what might happen if she refused Tom’s absurd idea. For a moment, she thought that if she raised a tremendous fuss about it, the whole engagement might be broken off, something she had been praying for for the last four weeks.

The silence between the three of them became tense. Helena’s hands were clenched, her mother’s eyes wide and despairing.

She understood her mother’s passion for this man, and that if the couple married she herself would be dependent upon Tom’s goodwill – not something she desired at all. But if she succeeded in breaking the liaison, what else was there? A dreadful servitude, unless she herself could marry decently – and she, like her mother, had discovered that in Chicago she ranked as a coloured girl, not suitable for marriage to a white man. She bit her lips as she bitterly considered this fact, and that there were few boys of her age within the Lebanese community and probably none who would want a penniless girl. She was poor and plain and yellow, she told herself, and without any alternative future worth having.

She took a big breath, and said unsmilingly, ‘I don’t suppose it makes much difference.’

‘Well, that’s nice of you,’ Tom told her, thankful that he had not alienated her; he had regretted his impulsive request the moment he had made it. Leila had, however, been strangely silent when he had casually mentioned the children they would have.

When pressed, she had said, with a faint smile, ‘Let’s not worry – see what God sends.’

He wanted another son, but it seemed suddenly possible to him that he would not have one. At the thought, he had urgently wanted to perpetuate the memory of the small brown innocent buried with his mother in the black earth of the north pasture. It had occurred to him that he could give the child’s name to his stepdaughter and make her Wallace Helena.

When he was leaving, he shook the girl’s hand, then held it for a moment, as he looked down at her. ‘You won’t regret it, honey,’ he said warmly.

Wallace Helena smiled up at him wanly. He seemed to her a simple, honest man – but she wanted to cry.

Glenn and Ada Harding provided a modest wedding breakfast in their back garden. Since it was a second marriage, only a few neighbours had been invited over to join the party. All of them were curious to see the bride. The men thought she was very pretty and congratulated Tom; the women tended to side with old Mrs Harding in saying that she was not strong enough to be the wife of a homesteader – and they whispered disparagingly that she looked like a Jewess. Acutely embarrassed by their stares, Leila held the soft brim of her summer hat close to her face and stayed very close to Tom.

The bride’s daughter sat, almost unnoticed, on a bench under a tree. Sally, who was herself totally ignored by the other guests, saw the forlorn young girl, and came over to join her. She saw tears on Wallace Helena’s cheek and she immediately handed her the glass of wine she was carrying. ‘Drink it down, hon. You’ll feel better.’

As Wallace Helena silently drained the glass, Sally carefully arranged the skirts of her dress; she had made it out of the bits of black silk Wallace Helena had given her. She looked over at the bride, who was also wearing black silk. ‘Gee, your mama looks pretty,’ she exclaimed, as if she was seeing Leila for the first time.

‘Yes,’ agreed Wallace Helena, without enthusiasm. Far more astute than her mother, she foresaw problems arising like thunderclouds – and probably considerable hardship in an unexplored country like Canada. Yet, what could she do?

When she had suggested to Sally that perhaps she should remain by herself in Chicago, try to earn enough to keep herself, Sally had been very explicit about what was likely to happen to a fourteen-year-old left alone in a city.

Sally had added sharply, ‘You be thankful your ma’s found a decent man to take care of you both; I wish I could find someone like him. There isn’t nothing to fear about Canada; slaves run away to it, so as to be free.’

‘Do they? Could you come with us, Sally? Could you?’ Her voice was suddenly wild with hope.

The black woman had laughed down at her. ‘That Mr Harding don’t need another mouth to feed, baby. And I got my mother to keep. I’m no slave – I’m free.’ She had given Wallace Helena a playful shove with her elbow, as she said the last words. ‘He’s O.K. Be thankful he’s willing to take you in.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘He’ll take care of you; he’ll never touch you, I truly believe.’

Wallace Helena did not understand the import of Sally’s last words; she was still overwhelmed at having to face another new country.

Old Mrs Harding did one very sensible thing for them. Realizing that she could not talk sense into Tom, as she put it, she persuaded Leila and Wallace Helena to buy a solid pair of flat-heeled boots each and enough veiling to attach to their hats, so that they were protected in some degree from blackfly and mosquitoes – and she ordered Tom to pay the bill.

In the course of their journey, which took weeks, both Leila and Wallace Helena had reason to be thankful to her: mosquitoes and blackfly plagued them most of the way. They went by train to La Crosse, then by stage to the Red River, and, despite the threat of yet another Sioux uprising, by paddle steamer to Fort Garry. There they rested for a couple of days, while Tom made inquiries. They were not very impressed by what they saw of their first Hudson’s Bay Fort, and awaited with anxiety Tom’s decision as to how they were to proceed. Their landlady, the wife of a miner who ran a small general store, was aghast when told where they were going; as far as she knew, only one white woman had ever travelled that far, and she was the wife of a Hudson’s Bay man.

Leila wept, and Wallace Helena begged Tom to take them back to Chicago. Tom laughed, cheered them up and said they would travel by York boat. Several expeditions had gone out recently from Fort Garry to Fort Edmonton by land; but he was not going to chance such a dangerous journey.

The sail up Lake Winnipeg was not unpleasant. But the rest of the journey was done by York boat up the Saskatchewan River, a long dreary drag with little but pemmican to eat, cooped up in a tiny boat, one of a Company brigade returning to Fort Edmonton with stores.

To Leila’s horror, the boats were from time to time dragged out of the river, their cargo unloaded and transported on the backs of the voyageurs, to bypass waterfalls or rapids. The boats themselves were hauled along rough tracks, sometimes made of tree trunks and sometimes a well-trodden path. During these portages, Leila and Wallace Helena stumbled along as best they could, following the crew for mile after mile. Despite the heavy veiling protecting their faces and necks, they were badly bitten by mosquitoes and blackfly, which rose like a fog around them at every step; Tom and the other men seemed to have a certain immunity – their bites did not swell so badly. The crew were Metis, short, tanned, muscular men who cursed in fluent French, as they waged their usual battle against the flow of the huge river.