Stone Diaries, The - Carol Shields [10]
Christ is the Head of the House
The Unseen Guest at every
Meal The Silent Listener to every Conversation
It is frightening, and also exhilarating, her ability to deceive those around her; this is something new, her lost hours, her vivid dreams and shreds of language, as though she’d been given two lives instead of one, the alternate life cloaked in secret.
Or does she deceive herself? Dr. Spears, when she met him by accident walking on the Quarry Road, did catch hold of her wrist and speak to her in a most curious and candid manner. "Women need the companionship of other women," he burst out after some polite talk about the weather. "A little laughter is a great comfort, a little harmless gossip. The Needlework Auxiliary or the Mothers’
Union—and I believe, Mrs. Flett, you were once a member of the Ladies Rhythm and Movement Club, that you used to find enjoyment in an afternoon of cheerful company. My own wife tells me the recent talk on the Chinese missions was diverting, as well as edifying."
"I’m very busy at home," Clarentine Flett told Dr. Spears.
"Of course, of course," he nodded quickly. "Or perhaps you’re thinking of a few days’ visiting in Winnipeg. I believe you spend a few days there every year with your son Barker. He is still there, is he not, engaged in his studies? Botany, if I remember, his field of endeavor."
"Yes," she answered. "Flowers. Plants."
"I’m sure he does you credit. A fine young fellow. If you remember, I was one of those who put his name forward for the Epworth Scholarship."
"I do remember, indeed I do, and—"
"Why not surprise him, then, with the pleasure of a visit? We all need a change of scene now and then, especially after a long hard winter. I could mention it to your husband, if you like—indirectly, of course. I could suggest the healthful benefits of a little holiday."
"Please," she’d said. She was thinking of the oval of silence she would enter as soon as she left Dr. Spears’s presence, the smooth pearl gloss of it. "There’s no need of that. I can speak to him myself."
The Mothers’ Union. A few days in Winnipeg. Only months ago these diversions would have held some attraction. She might actually have spoken to her husband, Magnus, about a week away in the city. The words would have come forward—while she was engaged in some ordinary task, drying the supper dishes or taking the dead leaves off the fuchsia that hung by the window. Her husband was not a man who wasted words, but the two of them had managed over the years the simple, necessary marital commerce required for the rearing of three sons, for the ordering of supplies, the discussions concerning weather, illness, what manner of vegetables should be planted in the garden. And she guessed—though how was she to know such a thing? Who in this world would tell her?—she guessed her husband was no rougher in his ways than other men.
"If you’re willing, Mother," he says in the darkness of their back bedroom, one hand working up her nightdress. A thousand times, five thousand times—"If you’re willing, Mother." The words have worn a groove in her consciousness, she hardly hears them. And afterwards there’s silence, like falling down a hole, or a kind of grunt that she takes to be satisfaction.
"Shall we marry then?" These were the words of his marriage proposal delivered some twenty-five years ago, the phrase riding upward in a way she found disarming. At that time he had been less than one year in Canada, eight months working in the old granite quarry at Lac du Bonnet near to where her father farmed; his Orkney accent was pronounced and exceedingly harsh, though she fancied she heard something softer beneath it. He walked her home from a prayer meeting at Milner’s Crossing. It was a warm April night with stars spread thick across the sky. She felt she could gulp the clean air in like a kind of nourishment.