Flora’s eyes, unblinking, glistened with tears. Maud flipped a butter knife over and over, eyes sending encouragement to her mother.
“I was the only woman there, I believe. Have any of you ever attended our annual pauper auction? I bid against three men for Flora.”
Josephine’s voice ceased its trembling and she felt, suddenly, like a teacher she remembered at the Sackville academy. What is the meaning of écrasement? When was the Treaty of Utrecht? How would you compare the Renaissance to the Middle Ages? She slid into the truth of the remembered moment, her horror at the mechanisms of the sale, her anger at seeing frightened people being treated like animals at market.
“This should never happen again, not in the heart of our quiet town, nor anywhere else. The province should build almshouses and take on the care of people who for any number of circumstances find themselves homeless. It may mean higher taxes. But Mr. Fairweather told me that this is not a certainty, and may in fact prove to be untrue in the long run. It is not the dollar that we must have our minds on, in any case. It is our humanitarian impulse.”
She finished to applause. She made her way to the table and lifted a glass of water to her lips with shaking hand. The women had listened with grave concern. No man had risen to interrupt her, nor whispered to another man behind a hand. She felt a new sense of herself, dignified not by a husband but by grief and the knowledge that she must make her way alone.
Mrs. Smith went to the front of the room.
“I would like to introduce Flora Salford, who, to our great sorrow, had to endure standing on our station platform and being bid for at auction.”
Flora took her place by the piano and told her story simply, a slight tremor in her voice. The audience leaned in to hear the Queen’s English, even if marred by a country accent.
“I was alone after they died and then the Overseer came. He took me to some people just for Christmas. I wanted to be sent back to England. No one told me anything. One day a wagon came. It were filled with…paupers. I wasn’t no…I wasn’t a pauper. We were made to sit up on the station platform. Then one by one the names were called out and the people all got sold. I stood up when he called my name and Mrs. Galloway, she put her hand up for me.”
When Flora was done, Mrs. Smith asked if she would take questions. Flora’s eyes turned to Josephine’s, pleading, and Josephine shook her head—no. The meeting was concluded.
Josephine sensed an air of suppressed excitement as the women gathered at the coat rack; it was as if, should someone say one funny thing, delighted laughter would burst from one woman, for sheer pleasure of the evening just passed; and it would be like fire—kindled, catching, flaming.
“It was an excellent talk, thank you, Josephine.”
She pulled her collar up, flushed. “Thank you.”
“You opened our eyes, you certainly did. You and Flora.”
“Thank you.”
The door opened to the frozen trees and a moonless night, the Milky Way netting stars and planets. Josephine stepped outside, hearing her own voice in her head—may prove to be untrue in the long run—knowing she would not sleep all night long.
Josephine, Maud and Flora turned into the street. They strode fast, bent by the cold.
At the corner, a street lamp glimmered, lighting ice-glazed picket fences.
“Thank you, Mr. Sprague,” Maud remarked. “Mr. Fusspot.”
Flora spoke through her scarf, muffled. “How that man ruins his collars I don’t know.”
Josephine laughed. Her heart lifted and she felt Simeon, somewhere in the cloud of stars, relax his hold.
ELEVEN A Man’s Kindness
FLORA STOOD BEFORE THE house gazing up at the lindens. The sky was the chill blue of a winter evening, the branches so still they did not seem part of growing trees.
She went to the back of the barn, let herself in. There was not a sound from the workshop, yet Jasper Tuck must be there, since she’d seen him crossing the lawn, breath scarfing the air.
She listened.
The opening of a drawer.
A click.
She tiptoed to the wall that separated the workshop from the rest of the barn. She put her face to a crack, making a frame with mittened hands.
She could see him only from the shoulders down. He knelt at a tool chest with many shallow drawers. The lowest drawer was half-opened. It was filled with handkerchiefs, perfectly folded, laid side by side. His hand passed over the contents, back and forth, as if deciding which one to pluck out.
She could not understand why he would keep clothing in the barn.
Not handkerchiefs. Banknotes! Twenty-five-cent notes. One-dollar, two-dollar, four-dollar notes. Orange, grey, green.
His hand paused, as if he had heard her thought. The fingers, outstretched.
She held her breath until his hand resumed its soft to and fro.
—
Ellen frowned, a streak of flour on her forehead and her mouth in a knot as she kneaded dough with stiff arms. Flora, chopping carrots, listened as Josephine and Ellen continued an argument, about herself both in its particulars as well as its unspoken underpinnings. Flora felt her position in the house shifting. Much of the food Ellen prepared would not be there unless Flora had grown it, or bargained and bartered, or sold mittens. Ellen was oddly in her due but would neither acknowledge this nor show gratitude, clinging to her authority over Flora, her only remaining “girl.” Josephine often came to Flora with questions about the house’s running; and Flora responded with caution, thinking that to rise above her station put her in a precarious place whose dangers she could not
