Deep Hollow Creek by Sheila Watson

Author:Sheila Watson [Watson, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7710-9459-0
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 1992-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

In the cleft of the valley the snow was falling on the roof for which old Adam Flower had freighted shingles from the coast. Over the mountain road which led from the Rock the snow was drifting in swirls and eddies, deepening in the hollows, crust forming on crust. The flakes fell and the cold tightened. Then the flakes stopped falling and the blue weight of a clear sky lay on the valley as the ice lay on the creek.

You just made it in time, said Mockett, unhitching the horse as Bill brushed the frost from his eye-lashes, from the front of his hair, and from the scarf which twisted round his throat. It’s not safe to go out at Christmas. You can’t tell whether or not you’ll ever make it back. Go on into the house where it’s warm. We’ve been waiting for you.

Sam made a great circus, said Mamie, as they plunged from the arctic of the road into the tropic of lace clouds, paper lilies, and flower pied linoleum meadow under old Adam’s tight-built roof.

Christmas had left its debris – paper garlands, a Christmas tree stripped, mocking the outside with its fleece of cottonwool, its frost and hanging icicles, a tea-table set with a white cloth, the brown earth of the tiered cake showing darkly through the heaped snow of confectioner’s sugar.

You brought your friend for company – for protection, Mamie half-asked, half-suggested, looking curiously at the tall girl who stood with Stella.

For social insurance, said Stella. But let me introduce her to you. Miriam Fairclough – Mrs. Flower.

Miriam smiled.

She had said to Stella, let me come with you for a month. I can learn to cook and I can take care of the cabin. I’ve always wanted to really live – close to something – the real sort of thing one reads about. I’ll bake bread and bring water from the creek and wash things in a galvanized tub. One should of course have a baby in a snowdrift.

The tub had come and a black iron camp stove and an air-tight heater, packed in the back of the sleigh.

Mamie looked at Miriam intently.

A new ear to listen perhaps, Stella thought, a new cloth for the imagination to embroider with the swift steel of ceaseless chatter.

Miriam looked back.

She was tall and soft-limbed and, Stella thought, as translucent as a Limoges jar. Her great braids of red hair defied custom and her every movement seemed an affirmation of negation.

Mamie’s eyes moved restlessly, waiting for the new ear alone, watching to see which turn the story should round, what perspectives should be revealed from the slope, which from the rock-ledge, which from the height, what gate should be closed here, what bars lowered there.

She suspects that impressions have been made already, Stella thought, the attitude already set.

Mamie chose the mode of open attack, the candid simple approach of direct inquiry. You know no doubt … You probably have been told. …

Myrtle and Nicholas Farish had come to Christmas dinner, she said.

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