That Fatal Night Read online

  We stopped and joined the crowd. Someone said that the photographers were from an illustrated paper. People were talking about what a good man Mr. Wright was, and how when he wasn’t being a businessman he lectured on intemperance and immorality and tried to inspire people to be better. Then the conversation got a bit gossipy and people said that he had no wife and family and they wondered who he had left his fortune to.

  We were just turning to go when one of the photographers suddenly said, “Hold on! Isn’t that Dorothy Wilton from the Titanic?” And then someone else said, “Yes, it is!”

  Then everyone turned to me. Mother said, “Come along,” and took my arm and we started to walk away, but the crowd swarmed around us and one of the photographers tried to take my picture. One called out, “Did you meet George Wright on board?” There was no real reason to feel frightened, but I did. Frightened and trapped. Mother gripped my arm more securely and said quietly, “Just keep moving,” and we walked away. I felt like running but Mother moved like a ship pulling away from the dock and the people parted as she sailed through them.

  We kept sailing, right to Father’s bank, where we went to his office and his secretary brought us cups of tea. Then Father made one of the young men walk us home. By this time I was over my fright and it seemed silly to have to have skinny Mr. Nevin guard us as we went home.

  But now Mother and Father have decided that I must not go out on my own but only with them or Cook or another adult.

  I think about my days in Lewisham, going on expeditions on my own, getting lost, being a musketeer. I only had to be back in time for tea. I wish I could wind the clock backwards.

  Second wish: that Charles were here. He could have been another adult. I know he had to go back to his job in New York, but to be a prisoner and an only child as well is hateful.

  Did I see Mr. Wright? I do wonder if he might have been the man with the pointy moustache who was at Marjorie’s table. But I am not going to write about that.

  There is something else about our visit to the bank. When we went through the outer office I saw the desk where Miss Pugh used to sit. It was bare. If only. If only Miss Pugh had not worked in Father’s bank. If only she had not been going to England to visit her father. If only Father had not asked her to take care of me on the voyage. If only there had not been an iceberg. If only there had been more lifeboats. If only I was never taken over by a temper. There is no end to if only.

  May 9

  Miss Caughey brought over more school work today and commented on how quickly I’m getting on in Math. She is different than she is in school, not so brisk. She brought me a poem that she had copied out.

  It is called “The Jumblies.” She said that it was the cheeriest poem that she knew and a very good one to carry around in your head. Then she said it was written by a man called Edward Lear and I know about him because he’s the same person who wrote the nonsense book that Grandfather had at Mill House. Miss Caughey knew about it too. She even knew some of the poems by heart, like the one about the young lady whose chin resembled the point of a pin. She said she would bring me her own copy.

  I am to memorize “The Jumblies.” That is hardly like school work.

  She asked me if I am writing in the notebook and I said I was. Which is true. She did not ask me if I was writing about the disaster. Which I am not.

  May 10

  Today I have decided that I am going to wind the clock backwards. I am going to write about what happened, but not what happened on that horrible night, just what happened in England.

  But first, school work.

  THEY went to sea in a sieve, they did;

  In a sieve they went to sea;

  In spite of all their friends could say,

  On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,

  In a sieve they went to sea.

  And when the sieve turn’d round and round,

  And every one cried, “You’ll all be drown’d!”

  They call’d aloud, “Our sieve ain’t big:

  But we don’t care a button; we don’t care a fig:

  In a sieve we’ll go to sea!”

  Far and few, far and few,

  Are the lands where the Jumblies live:

  Their heads are green, and their hands are blue;

  And they went to sea in a sieve.

  Just writing out the first verse in good handwriting, I know it almost by heart. This will be an easy task.

  May 11

  Now that I am home, England seems like a play, a play that I was in, day and night, for two months.

  The reason that I know about plays is that Grandfather and Grandmother put on plays in their house. Their friends come to visit and they all dress up in costumes and push the furniture around to make the places in the play. The first Saturday I was there they put on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I got to play the part of a fairy called Cobweb who has four things to say: “And I.” “Hail.” “Cobweb.” and “Ready.”

  I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I describe that little play I am going to introduce the big play which is called A Canadian Girl in England. You have already met some of the dramatis personae (that’s characters). They are Grandfather and Grandmother (their real names are Henry Wilton and Augusta Wilton), Mrs. Hawkins (who takes care of the house), Owen Hawkins (age 12, her son), Millie Hawkins (age 12, her daughter), Fabian and Bernard (the inside cats), and Brownie (the dog). Other characters in the play are Mrs. Bland (a book writer), the Rev. Drysdale (a vicar), and many chickens and more adults without names. Oh yes, and a Canadian girl, the daughter of Mr. Stanley Wilton who is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wilton. This character will be called The Canadian Girl or the CG.

  The play takes place in a house called Mill House near a village called Lewisham in the county of London in the country of England where The Canadian Girl is staying because her grandparents wanted to get to know her and because her older brother, Charles (23 years old and acts like a man), had the same opportunity when he was a boy, and girls should have all the opportunities that boys have.

  What kind of a play is it? Is it a mystery or a thriller or the sort of play in which people sit at dinner and say clever things? Does it have beautiful costumes? Does it have music and dancing? Do people jump down from walls and fight with swords? Does one of the characters turn out to be somebody else?

  Yes.

  Oh bother. It is lunchtime. Already? I have not done any lessons.

  Try Sums or Jumblies? I choose Jumblies. It is such a good poem that when I write it out it goes directly from my fingers into my head.

  They sail’d away in a sieve, they did,

  In a sieve they sail’d so fast,

  With only a beautiful pea-green veil

  Tied with a ribbon, by way of a sail,

  To a small tobacco-pipe mast.

  And every one said who saw them go,

  “Oh! won’t they be soon upset, you know:

  For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long;

  And, happen what may, it’s extremely wrong

  In a sieve to sail so fast.”

  May 12

  The play begins when The Canadian Girl wakes up in a little whitewashed attic room where the ceiling slopes down to the floor. Brownie is lying across her feet. (The grandmother of The Canadian Girl told her the night before that she might have the dog to sleep in her room in case she was homesick. The Canadian Girl’s mother, who would never let Borden upstairs, would have been fit to be tied to have a dog in a bedroom, but The Canadian Girl liked it very much, even though she was too tired to be homesick. When she did wake up she loved the weight of the dog and hearing it breathe.)

  You might wonder why the play does not start earlier. What about the ocean voyage? What about the train to Lewisham? What about meeting her grandparents for the first time? I have one word to tell you:

  SEASICK

  I was so sick on the voyage to England that sometimes I thought the whole world had disappeared and all that was left was up,
up, up … (horrible pause) … down. The stewardess tried everything. Ginger beer. Salty crackers. Mint tea. Parsley to chew. Even Mothersill’s Seasick Remedy. She also tried singing to me to take my mind off my stomach. But nothing worked except that now I don’t care for ginger, crackers, mint, parsley or “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

  (I see that The Canadian Girl has become “I.” But you knew that already. Not like in a very good book called The Story of the Treasure Seekers, where the person who is telling the story is Oswald but he pretends it isn’t and you don’t figure out for quite a while that “I” is Oswald although when you look back later you see that “I” praises everything about Oswald. Well, Owen said he figured it out in chapter one but I think he was just bragging.)

  So back to the play and the CG.

  Act one. Scene one. Whitewashed bedroom. The curtain rises and the CG is woken up by voices yelling: One for all and all for one.

  The CG, gets up and looks out the window. There is a garden like a room, with brick walls. Rain is dripping off the trees but there is a little weak sunshine. Suddenly, enter two hats at the top of the wall, black hats with red feathers. Then two heads under the hats, then two bodies under the heads. With swords and capes. Then the two bodies jump off the wall with their capes billowing out behind them and they run across the lawn, holding their swords above their heads.

  The two characters: All for one and one for all.

  (They say this sort of by themselves and sort of together. Hard to explain but easy to understand.)

  As they disappear inside, the CG notices two things. One is that the floor and the windowsill are not going up, up, up, and (horrible pause) down, but just staying in one lovely, heavenly, glorious, still place. The other is that she is so hungry that she could eat a moose.

  Oh. Play.

  The CG, to Brownie the dog: I’m so hungry that I could eat a moose.

  Brownie: Woof.

  (The CG didn’t really say that she could eat a moose but she thought it. The CG does not think she can stand to wait to get washed and dressed and eat breakfast and to find out about the cape people. And she doesn’t have to.)

  Enter, Grandmother: Just come down to the kitchen in your nightgown and robe, Dorothy. The porridge is ready and waiting.

  (The CG’s Mother would never let the CG eat in the kitchen OR wear her nightgown to breakfast.)

  The CG: This is like all the good parts of being sick without the being sick to spoil it.

  (The CG didn’t really say this out loud either. And the CG’s mother isn’t even in the dramatis personae. It is quite hard to write a play. I’m going to start again tomorrow.)

  May 13

  Act one. Scene two. A very tidy kitchen. A woman is standing at the stove stirring a pot. The two cape people are sitting at the table without their hats.

  The CG: This kitchen smells delicious.

  Grandmother: Dorothy, this is Mrs. Hawkins.

  Mrs. Hawkins: Welcome to Mill House, Dorothy. We’ve been looking forward to this for ages. That’s Owen. That’s Millie. They are my barbarian children. They’ve already eaten but they don’t want to miss any time with you. They’ve been looking forward to the Canadian for months. Don’t let them talk your ear off before you’ve had your breakfast. Here’s your tea. Do you take sugar with it? (Mrs. Hawkins’s voice has a smile in it.)

  Millie: We’re not really Owen and Millie.

  Not-Owen: I am Athos.

  Not-Millie: I am Porthos. We’ve been waiting for you so you can be …

  Not-Millie and Not-Owen together: Aramis.

  (The CG does not know what they are talking about but she doesn’t care because of the porridge. At that moment it is the best thing the CG has ever tasted. She did not stop to say, “This is the best thing I have ever tasted,” because she was so busy eating. In the play the actress playing the CG will have to look very happy. It was the thick kind, with little chewy bits that just make your teeth happy. There was thick yellow cream in a blue and white striped jug and brown sugar. The CG has two bowls full and then a small bit extra, not because she is hungry but just because her mouth wanted it.)

  The CG: This is so much better than moose.

  Brownie, who is the only one who understands what she is talking about: Woof.

  (The cape people sit like dogs who have been told to “stay” and are just waiting for the word.)

  The CG, puts down her spoon.

  Mrs. Hawkins: All right then. Now you can talk.

  Millie and Owen are twins and they have a way of talking which is hard to describe and tiresome to write in a play, but easy to understand. It is like they share the sentence, each saying one part of it. Later Mrs. Hawkins tells the CG that when they were wee ones they had their own language. That first morning the CG cannot figure out if they felt younger or older than her. In Halifax twelve years old is much too old to be playing with swords and costumes, so in that way they seemed young, but the CG doesn’t know if that is just because they are English. But then they tell the CG all about the story of The Three Musketeers, which they had read in French. Their French is much better than the CG’s and in that way they seemed older. They had also read some adventure books set in Canada.

  Twins: Do you know how to make a birchbark canoe?

  The CG: No.

  Twins: Dry whortleberries?

  The CG: No.

  Twins: Build a log cabin?

  The CG: No.

  Twins: Make a broom out of cedar boughs bound together with a leathern thong?

  The CG: No.

  Twins: Make a bowstring out of the entrails of a woodchuck?

  The CG: No.

  Twins: What DO you do?

  The CG: I can crochet. I can make jam, with help. I go to school. We learn Geography and French and Elocution and Calisthenics. I might be on the basketball team next year.

  Twins: Oh.

  (This conversation and three bowls of porridge — that sounds like Goldilocks and the Three Bears — lasts until midmorning and the CG is still in her nightgown.)

  The CG: I can see that life at Mill House is going to be different from life at home.

  (Of course she doesn’t really say this. Nobody would say such a thing, but they might think it and she did.)

  CURTAIN.

  May 14

  Programme Notes! I’ve just remembered how you can put things into a play that everybody needs to know but you can’t get somebody to say or act out. The plays at Mill House always had a programme with notes.

  Programme Notes for A Canadian Girl in England.

  (You can’t understand this play unless you know about The Three Musketeers.)

  There is a fellow called D’Artagnan but he isn’t one of The Three Musketeers. (In this play D’Artagnan, when he is needed, is played by Brownie the dog, who also plays many other roles.) The real three musketeers are Porthos, Athos and Aramis and they are D’Artagnan’s friends. D’Artagnan gets into lots of trouble, mostly because he is in love with Constance who is married to somebody else. The Three Musketeers help him out. For example, The Three Musketeers have to rescue Constance who is kidnapped by Cardinal Richelieu, who is hired by the King of France to keep an eye on his wife, the Queen, who is also in love with somebody else and has given him the jewels that her husband gave to her and now she needs them back so the King doesn’t find out about it.

  This is too hard. The Three Musketeers is a very long, complicated book.

  This is what you really need to know:

  1. One of the characters is usually in prison. We set up a jail in the back of the small stone barn with an old rusty bedstead. Whoever was in jail lived on bread and water from a tin cup.

  2. When we needed to have women, Millie was Constance and I was Milady De Winter, which meant that I got to have a fleur-de-lys (the mark of a criminal) drawn onto my shoulder with pen and ink.

  3. Many people are murdered. Sometimes they are mown down in sword fights. Sometimes they are knifed. (You just slide the k
nife in under the arm and it looks very real.) Sometimes they get their heads chopped off. They best thing is when they are poisoned, like Constance. (Millie sip-sip-sips from the jewelled goblet that Milady gives her and then falls on the ground, or the floor if it was too wet outside, writhing, in the arms of her beloved D’Artagnan — played by Brownie.)

  May 15

  Scene: The garden. The Three Musketeers lie in wait on top of the garden wall.

  Enter, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu. He walks by, unsuspecting.

  Athos: For King and Cardinal!

  Porthos: We brook no insult!

  Aramis: Prepare to die! (With a roar the musketeers leap off the wall, their capes rippling behind them, their swords held high. They stick a knife in the agent.)

  Agent: (death gurgle)

  The Three Ms: We live to fight again!

  (In this performance the role of the agent is played by a barn cat.)

  This scene could not have happened in Halifax. In Halifax I am a young lady (who does not slouch). But in Lewisham I am Aramis. In Halifax twelve years old is much too old to be playing such games, but in Lewisham twelve is different.

  In the evenings or if it was really too rainy out we did a different play, inside. It was called Lost in the Bush in Canada. Millie hid under the bearskin rug and pretended to attack Owen and me. It wasn’t as good a play as The Musketeers.

  A few days before I left to come home we acted out the wall-jumping scene one more time. The thought of me leaving made us all wilder than usual and somehow Owen tripped as he sailed off the wall and he ended up ripping his arm open on his broken sword. There was a lot of blood. But he was very brave and said that it had always been his heart’s desire to have a manly scar.