Galore - Michael Crummey [45]
The two women barely acknowledged one another, even as the winter closed them inside. Virtue attended to the needs of the household and cooked the meals and retired to her own room early each evening. John Tom talked about Virtue regularly while they ate, sitting back in his chair with both hands on his belly, as if he were the patriarch of the house. —That’s a good woman going to waste is what that is, he said. —She twenty-three now and so many unattached men in the harbor. John Tom seemed unaware he might be implying the same about Lizzie across the table.
In November, John Tom began bringing a fellow from Harbour Grace along for supper, a single man spending his first winter in Paradise Deep. John Tom introduced him to Virtue and sat back then as if a match had been made. The man appeared to assume as much as well, arriving on Sundays to sit with Virtue in the kitchen while she worked dumbly at the fingers in her lap. He talked of wedding dates and children and cutting lumber for a house in the droke at the base of the Tolt Road. Virtue refilled his tea without offering a word. She assumed she’d said or done something to encourage the man’s assumption but could not for the life of her think what it was.
John Tom White was delighted with the arrangement. —You won’t find no better man the length and breadth of the country, he told Virtue. —A horse of a man you got there.
He let it be known far and wide the two were engaged and Virtue could only nod helplessly when visitors called at the house to congratulate her and wish her well. She went at her work with a furious energy, scouring the walls and floors and windows, cauldrons of water at a full boil to scour bedsheets and curtains and their clothes, as if all the activity would free her of the obligation she’d somehow contracted.
On Boxing Day, John Tom White organized a dance in one of King-me’s stores. He convinced Daniel Woundy and Jabez Trim to play together and word of the entertainment made its way to every household on the shore. Lizzie had no interest in attending but Virtue was in a torment about facing her fiancé in public and begged for her company. —Perhaps your man Callum will be there, she said.
It was a sly tactic that Lizzie couldn’t help admiring. She said, Who was it asked you to spy on me, Virtue?
—Spy, ma’am?
—When you first came out here. Following me when I left the house.
Virtue looked at her feet. —I didn’t know a soul here is all. I thought maybe … But she stopped there and backed out the door. —I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, she said.
Lizzie entered the dance arm in arm with Virtue, sitting against a wall while the floor shook beneath them. There was no sign of Callum, but Virtue’s intended was waiting and he approached her with his hand extended. He was a good-looking man, there was no denying the fact. Dark hair and most of his teeth still and he looked like he had never gone hungry. Virtue hadn’t stepped on a dance floor in her life but he made her look a natural.
Lizzie danced only once, forced to her feet by Father Phelan who seemed to have made a pledge to dance with every woman present. Bowed low when he returned her to her seat. —Your man Callum, he said, leaning close. —He asks you not to wait for him. The priest straightened and looked down on her while she searched his face. —I wish I had news more suited to the season, he said.
Virtue stayed on the floor hours before she took note of Lizzie watching the dancers blankly from her seat against the wall. She excused herself from her partner and walked over to ask if there was anything wrong but Lizzie could only shake her head. Callum had given her up and she wished now she’d gone over the rail of the vessel after the porcelain brooch. Virtue helped her to her feet and the two women slipped out of the dancers’ heat to make their way home. The servant settled Lizzie into her bed and left her staring out the window, the stars