Josephine’s hair was coming loose from its pins. Strands clung to her forehead, damp with perspiration. She picked crumbs from her sleeve. She felt reckless, the casting off of propriety. Carrie would be pleased. Two woman sitting on the back stairs, sharing their truths.
“I’m sorry, Flora. Sorry that I never took the time to ask you.”
Flora buried her head again.
“We can’t hurry Enid. We have to wait for her to know that she can trust us. Realize that her life has changed. As I have myself been waiting, ever since Simeon died. Waiting for things to change within myself. It’s something that you can’t rush. Like vegetables, you know, seeds…”
Josephine’s voice was uncertain, treading on uncertain ground.
Flora straightened, suddenly. She locked eyes with Josephine, her own pleading, yet firm, forceful.
“I got to keep her here with me, Josephine. I got to. Please don’t send us away.”
Josephine felt a wave of sadness, not grief, but a simpler sorrow, the longing to put things right.
“Flora, not only do you have the right to be here, but your presence has been a necessity. Without you, I might still be huddled in my bed. You make me feel that I am cared for, not because I am a mother, or a…captain’s wife…”
She reddened, treading too close to emotion. Flora was watching, intently. She was listening, Josephine realized, only for assurance.
“I will not send you and Enid away. Of course I won’t.” She drew a breath. “I said to Ellen that we must not ask Enid any more questions. No matter how well intentioned. We will wait for her to tell us her story. Can you…Flora, can you try to teach her some things? Only you should speak to her about her table manners. Only you should teach her how to behave. Teach her politeness. Respect.”
“Yes,” Flora said. “I have been trying but I’ll do more. Ada taught me some of that. I were…I was at that farm for five years. I got the odd smack. Didn’t hurt me none.”
“Any,” corrected Josephine. “We’ll ask Maud to teach her grammar.”
—
Flora and Enid sat cross-legged on their beds, whispering in the darkness, all the summer nights. They told small stories, long ones. At first, in mid-July, the sky was light enough so they could make out each other’s features as silence lengthened between the ending of one story and the beginning of the next. Then August came, with towering thunderheads and the smell of goldenrod. They wore flannel nightgowns and whispered until they realized darkness by loss, their faces without expression, only the hint of eyes and teeth.
What was it like the day after I left? Who took my bed? Who sat next to you at the dining table? Did those three girls keep picking on you? Did that woman still secretly help you, remember how she’d prick the leather with her awl?
They sat listening to the crickets while Enid sifted the contents of her memory. They were mean to me. Yes, she helped. I dunno, can’t remember. The stories released and rose, random as bubbles. Enid told how she had been met by Mr. Mallory at the train station after she had watched the passing farmhouses, all the way from Halifax, and hoped that hers would be as pretty, with red and green trim, rose bushes and apple trees. She said nothing more about the boy other than he was named Freddie, had disappeared, and had something to do with the shovel leaning against the house on the first day that Flora arrived.
—
Flora was snipping carpeting into squares and oblongs, making more miniature rugs.
“You should get your sister to help,” Mr. Tuck suggested. “I’ll pay her.” He spoke with an easy tone, as if he did not care whether she took up his suggestion.
“My sister is too busy in the house.”
She told Enid not to have anything to do with Jasper Tuck. She asked Ellen to give Enid extra sewing in the evening.
—
Tired, Flora walked heavy-footed up the stairs and along the quiet hallway, passing the washroom that smelled of lavender and the crack of light around Ellen’s door. In their room, Enid sat on her bed bent over a lesson book. She had begun to fill out, her cheeks firm. She read a sentence out loud, proud, then slapped the book shut and fell back on her pillow, arms behind her head. She watched as Flora undressed.
“What are we going to do, Flora? You and me going to live here the rest of our lives?”
Flora pulled her nightgown over her head and did up the laces under her chin.
“I have a plan,” she said. “I think we’ll have our own house someday, Enid. I’m saving money.”
She went to the corner beside the dresser, lifted the floorboard, took out the sock and sat on Enid’s bed.
“This is money that Mr. Tuck pays me. He’s got a new plan, now. He’s going to have me go to fancy homes and show off the miniatures and get more people to order them. He got me a beautiful dress to wear.”
“Where is it? Can I see it?”
“It’s…he keeps it in his workshop.”
“Has Josephine seen it?”
“No. It’s something I…I don’t think…It’s a secret, like, this money. It’s because…I saw something.”
Between them, suddenly. A less than perfect understanding.
“Enid, it’s for our own good. I’ll tell you someday, but if you don’t know, no one can make you say. It’s just something that I shouldn’t have seen. For some reason Mr. Tuck doesn’t want anyone to know how much he pays me. It’s only money, I tell him, but…”
She examined the sock, absorbedly, not looking at Enid.
“He wants to have a factory, one day, where he makes the little houses, and he will hire me to work there. It’s all I can
