Chapter 29

That very evening Nathaniel went down to the village with Simon to see to his lodging, and it was five full days before Lily saw him again. Five days in which she barely knew what to do with her frustration and anger, all made worse by the fact that no one seemed to see her side of things. Her first hope had been her father, but he had only laughed at the suggestion that she was being ill used.

“You can always send the man back to Montreal,” he had told her after listening to Lily explain just how wrong this whole situation really was, how unfair, how demeaning. “Just tell him there's no hope, you've made up your mind. Then you'll be shut of the whole mess.”

Curiosity was no better. “Didn't I tell you your ma would wake up and take note? That Elizabeth, I got to hand it to her. She got you trussed neat as a Christmas turkey. Now this is what I'm wondering: if your Simon don't seem to mind, why are you struggling so hard?”

It was a question Lily did not like to contemplate, because there was no clear answer except the obvious: her mother had joined forces with Simon, and she could not prevail against the two of them. It was childish and petty of her to resent that, but she did. While she was trying to think of a way to admit that to Curiosity that didn't sound quite so terrible, the old woman was watching her with the expression that meant she pretty much understood what was going on without being told.

Without any warning she put a thin arm around Lily's shoulder and hugged her, hard. “What is it exactly that you want that they ain't giving you? When you got an answer to that question, child, then you halfway home.”

Twice Lily sat down to write a letter to her cousin Jennet, who must understand what no one else seemed to want to see, and twice she gave it up as a bad job. She threw the paper in the fire, and took some small satisfaction in its burning. Her mother, who used every scrap until it could be used no more, would be outraged.

Except it seemed that Lily had lost the talent of rousing her mother's anger. Elizabeth, relieved now of her worry for her son and nephew, was infused with an almost otherworldly energy and unshakable goodwill. When she was not teaching or doing housework, she was down in the village, consulting with one person or another about the new schoolhouse or writing to everyone who might have an opinion on the undertaking. Her letters to Ethan and her cousin Will alone made the post rider's stops in Paradise worthwhile.

“I thought she didn't like the idea of a new schoolhouse,” Lily said to her father, who had looked surprised at the idea.

“What she didn't like was Richard Todd's part in it. But she got over that and I'm glad to see it. She needs the distraction. Your brother's on her mind a lot, and you are too.”

No doubt that was true, but Lily, feeling contrary, decided that she would not take part in the schoolhouse plans; she had her own work, after all, and must get back to it. She made this announcement over supper and got only agreement: more frustration, and guilt too; she knew how childish she was being, but not how to stop.

She would not ask questions about Simon or the schoolhouse project, but then she didn't have to. Gabriel and Annie took great pleasure in bringing her a daily report on the particulars: what Curiosity had fed Simon for dinner, how long he had sat with their mother and Peter Dubonnet over plans, how he had come to an agreement with the Camerons about the hauling of timber, how he had helped old Missus Hindle with her lambing, what each and every resident of the village thought of him. All of which, it seemed, was positive, something that annoyed Gabriel so much that Lily was a little discomfited.

“Because I'm put out with him doesn't mean you have to be,” she told her little brother. “You might like him, if you gave him the chance.”

“Do you want me to like him?” Gabriel had demanded, and Lily was honest enough to admit that she did. “At least be fair,” she said. “Give him a chance.”

“Even Missy Parker likes him,” Annie told her.

“Missy Parker likes anybody in britches,” Gabriel said, in the worst of moods. Their mother would have scolded him, but Lily could not.

She took more comfort from her aunt, who seemed to be the only person in the world with nothing to say about Simon, good or bad.

Many-Doves said, “You must make up your own mind what it is you want.” And: “Help me with this doeskin.”

For Many-Doves it was that simple. Curiosity had said the same thing, of course, but once Many-Doves had spoken she rarely repeated herself.

In the end Lily couldn't stay out of the village, and so she went. Not to see Simon or hear about him—she stayed away from Curiosity's kitchen and the trading post, the two places she was most likely to find him—but to sit in the old meetinghouse with her breath billowing cold around her and look at her own work covering the walls. All the years of her girlhood up in plain sight for anyone to examine. The world looked very different to her now.

The next day she got her father's help to haul what she would need to the meetinghouse: firewood and kindling, buckets and tools, and all the materials she had brought back with her from Canada. She spent a satisfying morning arranging it and then stood back to consider the neat row of pigment pots, the crocks filled with the things that she would need to mix her paints.

What she wanted to do next was to bring her mother here to see it all. Her mother would ask sensible questions, thoughtful questions that made her think, and they might spend the whole day talking about color and shadow and shape.