They stopped suddenly as they saw a large man cuffing a small boy’s ears. Lily dashed across the street to intervene in the bullying, and Barnaby followed her. “Please stop that,” Lily said firmly to the man.
“The boy sings in the church choir like an angel, but speaks like a clown,” the father said, finally taking his hands off the boy.
“I, I, I don’t m-m-m-mean to,” blurted the boy, who looked to be about seven years old.
“Come see for yourself,” the father said angrily, gesturing to the nearby church.
Curious, Lily and Barnaby followed the pair into church and listened to Bobby’s unhampered voice as he sang.
Several weeks after this incident, Lily began her teaching practicum at Bobby’s school, and the incident of the stuttering boy who could sing so beautifully stayed in her mind.
After a rehearsal one evening, Lily told the drama teacher about the boy’s stuttering. The teacher had studied in Paris for a year and recounted the story of the famous French actor Louis Jouvet, who could act his parts perfectly, yet not speak in a normal conversation without stuttering. The teacher had concluded that a singsong voice allows a stutterer to control his speech. Lily approached the principal to see if she could set up an after-class program for three boys, including Bobby. The principal agreed to let her try, and Lily began her speech classes. The sessions were kept to half an hour as the boys couldn’t tolerate more than thirty minutes of trying to speak properly.
On those afternoons, Lily walked into the classroom with her tools. Using mirrors, feathers, balloons, handkerchiefs, and songbooks, she worked with the little boys on breath control. She had noticed within the first lesson that each boy took a huge breath before trying to speak. She also noticed that they were speaking when almost out of air. Another startling moment occurred when a frustrated boy shouted at Lily without stammering. Lily ended each session with songs, and they would trudge home to their disappointed parents.
Disappointment turned to pride when the stuttering boys sang in the Christmas concert. The seasonal choir was featured on the front page of the local newspaper. At the end of Lily’s practicum, she met with the parents to show them the exercises she had taught the boys. And with this lesson, she extracted with her broad smile and thoughtful brown eyes, a promise: the parents would no longer shout at the boys. “Pressure,” Lily told them, “is the root of a stutterer’s problem.”
Lily won the best teaching practicum on graduation. She and Barnaby exchanged their parents’ addresses, not knowing exactly where they would end up living. Barnaby had accepted a teaching post at a high school in Halifax. They were both filled with uncertainty now that war had erupted. Lily had been disappointed that Barnaby had not declared himself for she was sure that he fancied her. Why else would he have asked her to come to watch him box on Saturday afternoons? The wistful memory of sitting on a front bench and cheering Barnaby on was disheartening. Her heart had taken a flip when he’d looked at her from the ring and winked. He had singled her out, but when the match was over he would leave immediately, saying that he had to finish a carpentry job.
Amelia was frustrated when Lily arrived home without a serious beau. When she admitted she had exchanged addresses with a fellow student, Amelia shrugged. “What good is that?”
“He’s going to become a surgeon,” Lily bleated. “He’s years of studying ahead of him.”
“But he didn’t propose!” Amelia retorted, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
Despite this initial tension, Lily decided she would like to spend a summer month with her parents before leaving to teach. Lily had been offered teaching jobs in Sydney, but she chose a post in Glace Bay to be close to her parents, but not underfoot. Glace Bay was only ten miles from Sydney. The onset of war had made many families closer, with the constant worry and fear of not knowing who might be lost. Robert White was a liberal, bordering on pacifist. He would have enlisted against his beliefs to please his military father, but circumstances saved him. The Sydney Hospital needed a pharmacist, and Robert volunteered his services, thus avoiding the war.
Lily’s sister Beth had joined an amateur acting troupe for the summer that had ended up in New York City. She sent cheery letters home, describing her exciting life in New York and the young crowd of actors she hung out with. The year away from Beth had given Lily a broader perspective on her sister, who was not just their mother’s favourite, but the embodiment of all that Amelia had not been able to do in her life. Lily was now aware of her mother’s unintended pregnancy. As much as she disliked the English family she had never met, the family that had sent Amelia away, she realized that Robert would not have been her father if they had not shipped Amelia off in disgrace to Halifax. Many nights Lily comforted herself with this thought.
While she was at home with her parents for the summer, Lily received a letter from Beth asking her to come to New York. The acting group had disbanded at the end of the summer but Beth had stayed on, telling her parents she had been offered another job in the theatre. In the letter to Lily, Beth had scrawled in large letters: Please come as soon as possible!
Lily decided to tell her parents during the midday meal that she wanted to visit Beth before she left for Glace Bay. She wouldn’t mention the letter because it sounded so ominous. Robert had just come in from the pharmacy and they were all sitting down at the table when Lily announced her plan. “A capon — my favourite dish!” he said, beaming at his wife. He carefully sliced the breast after removing the wings and legs. “I think it’s a good idea that older sister is going to check on Beth,” Robert said, as he placed chicken pieces on their plates. Lily smiled at her dad’s impeccable manners, mentally comparing him with the young men at college who had spoken with their mouths full and didn’t have Robert’s refined etiquette.
“You’ll get to see Beth on stage,” Amelia said, with her usual admiring tone. “We received a brochure for a play at the Playhouse Theatre, although there was no indication Beth had a part.”
“Young actresses aren’t prima donnas,” Robert said, wagging a cautionary finger. “They learn to act by working behind the scenes. These jobs don’t get mentioned in the brochure. Beth would be quite lucky to have a small part alongside a seasoned actor.”
As Lily climbed the stairs, Amelia called out, “Pack something fashionable.”
Opening the closet door, Lily grimaced, pushing aside the plain wool dresses of her teenage years. She frowned, recalling Beth’s superior tone while advising her on clothes that boys would find attractive.
“Look, it’s not enough to have brains,” Beth had said. “A girl has to have style to get the right man. Look at Mom, a poor girl who ends up marrying the son of a naval captain. Why, Dad grew up sailing at the Halifax Yacht Club! He wouldn’t have married her if she had been a bad dresser.”
“Blood must be thicker than water,” Lily muttered as she dragged her suitcase out from the bottom of the closet. Sleepy, she stretched out on her bed, thinking she might never marry. She wondered if Ed Parsons was still in Glace Bay. She recalled that two weeks after the chalk incident she had bumped into him on Rogue’s Row, a forested path where students went to smoke and romance. Lily had gone there to stroll with a friend. She urged him to begin his English lessons again, saying she’d forgiven his rudeness.
He had tossed his cigarette, planted a lingering kiss on her mouth, and then wheeled around and disappeared. The next day, Lily watched in horror as Ed poked his head into the girls’ washroom, knowing the incident would be reported and he would be expelled.
Lily wondered if Ed had gone overseas or stayed at home because of the need for miners. Lily sighed, thinking that Barnaby might soon be at the front as well. She could recall the intimacy of exploring the Truro neighbourhood with Barnaby just as she could still remember Ed’s kiss.
Chapter 3