Charlotte asked, laying aside her book and giving her niece her attention, more absorbed with her niece’s proper clothing and shining, well-trimmed hair than with her words.
“I mean her grammar, Aunt Charlotte. And she can’t read!” Not reading was a shame of massive proportions to Kerry.
“Does she need to?” Charlotte asked. “Olga reads, and Finch, and they are quite capable of directing her in all things.”
“But, Aunt! Think of all the things she’s missing!” Throwing caution to the winds, Kerry burst forth with, “She was ahungered, and you gave her no meat!” Only a child herself and lacking in words, Kerry couldn’t adequately express herself aside from a portion of Scripture.
“Ahungered? Why, though she’s thin, she’s very well fed!”
“Not food hunger, Aunt Charlotte! She’s hungry to learn. I know, because she hangs around when lessons are going on,if she possibly can. And once I found her trying to sound out some word . . . from the Bible,” she finished lamely.
Charlotte was made uncomfortable by the little that was said and the much that was hinted at, and Gladdy, to her happiness and Kerry’s joy, was included in the study time for one hour each day.
As the years passed and Kerry “grew in favor” with the adults in the family, Aunt Charlotte trusted her with certain errands and responsibilities that called for excursions into the city, always a time of excitement and pleasure. On all such outings she was accompanied—at first by Miss Beery, then by Gladdy, who was judged a fit companion by this time. If Charlotte Maxwell had known the adventures they experienced together, she would have shriveled up and slunk away from proper society, never to be seen or heard from again. If occasionally during “at homes” she noted certain ladies lowering their voices, looking her direction, hiding behind their fans, and gesturing strangely, she failed to make the connection with her niece who was growing up, it seemed, into a biddable, polite, even discreet young woman.
Only Franny knew the true Kerry and, at times, sighed to find her so little changed from the waif who had first come to live among them. Unchanged at heart where the true Kerry dwelt, Kerry went through all the intricacies and niceties of proper decorum as expected of young women just before the end of the century and learned to do it very well. Eventually even the ladies at the society functions ceased their pointing and whispering and head shaking.
And so the outings abroad increased, until Kerry and Gladdy felt themselves to indeed be women of the world.
And what a world it was! What a time in which to live! Something called the motion picture had been patented; a hydroelectric plant opened at Niagara Falls; L.C. Rivard became Montreal’s first owner of a motor car—a Locomobile; and a Dr. Henri Casgrain of Quebec became the first known Canadian to drive a motor car—top speed, 18 mph; vaccination of school children was compulsory (setting off a storm of protest); the Imperial Penny Postage (2 cents) was inaugurated throughout the British Commonwealth; gold was discovered in the Klondike by George Carmack, Skookum Jim, and Tagish Charlie; and immigration to the Canadian West began to boom in earnest.
Though still honored and perhaps revered, the 1890s witnessed the sunset of the good queen’s influence. “Britishness” reached its peak with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and began its decline. Something new, something different emerged: As the swarm of immigrants tasted freedom and grew accustomed to the heady diet, they were to become confident, ambitious, expectant of even better things. They were, to put it into one word, silently but real-ly becoming Canadian.
The freedom that Gladdy and Kerry experienced—Kerry in her mid-teen years and Gladdy nearing nineteen—was not shared by Frances except on rare occasions when she was deemed strong enough to go along—usually in the carriage—for an
“I mean her grammar, Aunt Charlotte. And she can’t read!” Not reading was a shame of massive proportions to Kerry.
“Does she need to?” Charlotte asked. “Olga reads, and Finch, and they are quite capable of directing her in all things.”
“But, Aunt! Think of all the things she’s missing!” Throwing caution to the winds, Kerry burst forth with, “She was ahungered, and you gave her no meat!” Only a child herself and lacking in words, Kerry couldn’t adequately express herself aside from a portion of Scripture.
“Ahungered? Why, though she’s thin, she’s very well fed!”
“Not food hunger, Aunt Charlotte! She’s hungry to learn. I know, because she hangs around when lessons are going on,if she possibly can. And once I found her trying to sound out some word . . . from the Bible,” she finished lamely.
Charlotte was made uncomfortable by the little that was said and the much that was hinted at, and Gladdy, to her happiness and Kerry’s joy, was included in the study time for one hour each day.
As the years passed and Kerry “grew in favor” with the adults in the family, Aunt Charlotte trusted her with certain errands and responsibilities that called for excursions into the city, always a time of excitement and pleasure. On all such outings she was accompanied—at first by Miss Beery, then by Gladdy, who was judged a fit companion by this time. If Charlotte Maxwell had known the adventures they experienced together, she would have shriveled up and slunk away from proper society, never to be seen or heard from again. If occasionally during “at homes” she noted certain ladies lowering their voices, looking her direction, hiding behind their fans, and gesturing strangely, she failed to make the connection with her niece who was growing up, it seemed, into a biddable, polite, even discreet young woman.
Only Franny knew the true Kerry and, at times, sighed to find her so little changed from the waif who had first come to live among them. Unchanged at heart where the true Kerry dwelt, Kerry went through all the intricacies and niceties of proper decorum as expected of young women just before the end of the century and learned to do it very well. Eventually even the ladies at the society functions ceased their pointing and whispering and head shaking.
And so the outings abroad increased, until Kerry and Gladdy felt themselves to indeed be women of the world.
And what a world it was! What a time in which to live! Something called the motion picture had been patented; a hydroelectric plant opened at Niagara Falls; L.C. Rivard became Montreal’s first owner of a motor car—a Locomobile; and a Dr. Henri Casgrain of Quebec became the first known Canadian to drive a motor car—top speed, 18 mph; vaccination of school children was compulsory (setting off a storm of protest); the Imperial Penny Postage (2 cents) was inaugurated throughout the British Commonwealth; gold was discovered in the Klondike by George Carmack, Skookum Jim, and Tagish Charlie; and immigration to the Canadian West began to boom in earnest.
Though still honored and perhaps revered, the 1890s witnessed the sunset of the good queen’s influence. “Britishness” reached its peak with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and began its decline. Something new, something different emerged: As the swarm of immigrants tasted freedom and grew accustomed to the heady diet, they were to become confident, ambitious, expectant of even better things. They were, to put it into one word, silently but real-ly becoming Canadian.
The freedom that Gladdy and Kerry experienced—Kerry in her mid-teen years and Gladdy nearing nineteen—was not shared by Frances except on rare occasions when she was deemed strong enough to go along—usually in the carriage—for an
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