Next: The Picnic – Part 4
Frederick Barnstrum watched the goings-on unhappily, wondering What in God’s name am I doing here? That he would not be welcome was a certainty—the only doubt, how violent the reception might be. Thankfully, no one he knew had spotted him yet, or so Frederick thought. He’d caught sight of that bitch, Harriet Phipps, but she’d not seen him, or I would have known about it by now, he anticipated glumly. And as far as he could recollect, he didn’t know anyone else in Chemainus aside from the Phipps.
The rasping of the fiddle annoyed him, almost as if the bow were scraping over an exposed nerve. Frederick knew his attitude was mean-spirited, even petulant, but he couldn’t help it. These people were closer to his daughter than him. She lives amongst them. He scanned the gathering. But they’re below her station. That in itself didn’t make them enemies. But if they knew him and his story, they would certainly side with that farmer Eleanor had chosen to marry.
Catherine, they’d named the girl. He’d made it his business to find out that much and more. Frederick Barnstrum had his means and his ways.
It had been a long-day’s train ride from Victoria, that ended in the disappointment of a cramped room in a place called the Lewisville Hotel the night before. Plebeian cuisine and worse company, he grumped. But that would all be worth it if he caught sight of his daughter and Eleanor, if he could somehow finagle a chance encounter, even an exchanged word or two, a glance. Plant the seed of recognition, and who knows what might come of it?
No matter the outcome, that momentary acknowledgment would make all his travails and expenditures worth it.
~~~
“It was him!” Harriet insisted. “I’d know that ugly mug anywhere.”
“But why in God’s name would he be here, of all places?”
“I didn’t make enquiries, Eleanor. The moment I saw him, I left. But you know, as well as I, the only connection he could possibly have with Chemainus.”
“You take Catherine back to the wagon, dear, and I’ll fetch the others,” Franklin intervened.
“You’re not leaving, surely!” Harriet objected.
“Of course we are!” Franklin kept his voice steady for Catherine’s sake but glared angrily at his sister. “Catherine!” he called. “Come along, dear. You and Mother are going back to the wagon.”
“But I want to see my friends and play. Why can’t I?”
“Something’s come up, sweetheart, and we have to go.”
She crossed her arms and stared, refusing to budge.
“Now, honey, you need to go with your mother,” he warned.
“Franklin?” Eleanor fixed him with an imploring look. “Harriet and I don’t always see eye to eye, especially when it comes to you know who, but I think she’s right in this instance. We shouldn’t let his presence intimidate us.”
“You think we should risk a confrontation?” he pleaded. “In front of the children?”
“He’s a terrier, dear. If he senses fear, he’ll press his advantage with heightened ferocity.”
“How could you have gotten involved with that man?” Harriet steamed.
“Don’t you dare!” Eleanor snapped. “Not now, not ever. You aren’t to judge me… or Frederick Barnstrum, for that matter.”
“Stop it!” Franklin issued a hushed command. “The two of you, just stop.”
“Your right,” Eleanor apologized. “If we fall out, he’ll see his opportunity and seize it. Franklin, Harriet, you two go ahead and find out why he’s here. I’ll follow along with Catherine in due course.”
“All right. But don’t set foot in that field with Cath until I come and get you,” Franklin insisted. “Are we agreed on that, at least?”
“Catherine and I will take our time,” she responded affectionately. “But there’s only so much dawdling can be accomplished on a hundred yards of forest trail with a stubborn, excited four-year-old in hand.”
“Please, El,” he pleaded. “Promise me you’ll wait.”
“I’ll do my best, but do return as quickly as you can.”
~~~
She dawdled and stalled as best she could, and Catherine complied, but their exaggerated fascination with the forest flora and fauna was contrived, and Eleanor knew the girl would soon mutiny.
“There’s nothing new to see,” Catherine complained.
“That’s because you’re not looking into the forest with fresh eyes, my love.”
Fresh eyes? Eleanor thought. Who am I to lecture about that?
She hadn’t seen Frederick Barnstrum for more than four years, and her memory of him hadn’t changed one jot. A grasping, greedy, nasty bit of business was what she thought of him and always would. Although she hadn’t felt quite that way at the start.
All of which made Harriet’s cold accusations the more vexing.
It was easy enough for her to ask pointed questions; not so easy for Eleanor to answer.
I was only eighteen, she remembered.
But that was no excuse. Many of the girls aboard the Tynemouth had been her age and younger when they set sail from Dartmouth to cross the Atlantic, then round Cape Horn on their dreary, treacherous voyage from England to Vancouver Island aboard that Bride Ship.
She pronounced the label with disgust.
How stupid we were, she grimaced. What childish dreams we preserved in the lockets of our innocent hearts…
Innocent! she scoffed, remembering there were as many hardened hearts and shrewd minds amongst the ‘brides’ of that foundering vessel as there were amongst the mutinous crew. They’d left England in June, endured each other’s company until September, and learned during the perilous voyage how thieving, unruly, and conniving human beings could be.
Then they dropped anchor in their new home.
To be herded through a crowd of jostling, gawking men with less dignity than you’d expect at a cattle auction, ugh! The memory revolted her. And yet, the thought of a return voyage to Lancashire, to the rags and starvation of Manchester, seemed an even worse version of damnation than what they’d already endured in the crossing or faced on their arrival.
“And nothing that has happened since has changed my mind about that,”she muttered.
“About what?” Catherine piped up mischievously.
“Never you mind. You just imagine yourself a young Miss Darwin and see what you can discover about our new world.” To make such a jest to a four-year-old! And for her to appreciate the humour! Eleanor and Franklin marvelled at the intelligence of their Catherine.
Where did she get that from? she asked herself ruefully.
As if in obedience, the child had stooped to observe a banana slug, gliding majestically athwart the trail on its silvery mucus track. “What does a slug think about, Mother?” she asked, and they laughed.
Barnstrum had hired Eleanor as a housekeeper… or, rather, Mrs. Florence Barnstrum had the final say. But it wasn’t long before he made his intentions known. Why she’d let him have his way, Eleanor couldn’t fathom.
Did I love him?
No!
But then she wondered, Did he love me? and remembered a fond sort of pity infecting her.
It just seemed so… inevitable, she supposed. It was either accept his cheap gifts and rough affections, or?
What?
Troublesome memories haunted her still.
Of course, Harriet had diagnosed the ethical weaknesses in Eleanor’s position instantly upon their meeting, and her staunch judgments still rankled like gallstones.
They’d first met when Harriet and Franklin responded to an ad in The Colonist, seeking placement for a housekeeper. Barnstrum had taken out the ad as soon as he’d learned Eleanor was ‘with child’. “We’ll either find you a new position, and quickly, or you’ll be out on the street, my dear. I’ve informed Mrs. Barnstrum of your condition, and she wanted to throw you out immediately.”
How I kept from killing him, I’ll never know, she recalled, still quaking with rage.
Barnstrum’s theory was that she could ingratiate herself with her new employer for a time, then confess to her condition and hope they didn’t dismiss her. “If you remain chaste and make yourself indispensable, they might find it easier to forgive and let you remain in their employ than turf you out,” he’d reasoned.
Cad was not a slimy enough descriptor for such a, such a…
Stop it! Eleanor chastised.
Franklin and Harriet had responded to the ad immediately. Their situation was urgent. He had recently been widowed, with three children to care for and a farm to manage. He urgently needed help. Harriet, who doesn’t have a motherly bone in her body, had taken up some of the household duties, but the sooner a live-in servant could be hired, the better, all agreed.
Harriet had been critical from the start; Franklin, lenient to a fault. Barnstrum gave a glowing recommendation… “Rather too effusive,” Harriet declared with her usual caustic insight, “as if he wants to be rid of her.” From that, she deduced, “There must have been something going on between them.”
Franklin, kind-hearted as always, chided his sister’s suspicious nature, but in the end Eleanor confessed her condition to him in private before she was hired, because I found myself loving this strong, generous, kind-hearted man and could not bear to deceive him.
And so she was hired that very day and came home between them on the bench seat of the wagon. Both she and Franklin knew from the outset that they would marry and have Barnstrum’s child as their own. Not a word of promise had been spoken, but a bond had taken root and drawn them together. From the moment they set eyes on each other, they were in love. One of the things she admired most about her husband, and which constantly annoyed her, was his kindness.
That his heart overrules his better judgment so, so often!
Next: The Picnic – Part 4