Fire Along the Sky
Page 60

But he was looking beyond her when he said it. At Simon, Lily thought, and then she turned and saw the scarlet uniform coats. The sight of soldiers always seemed to take her brother by surprise, though the city was full of them.
When she turned back again, Luke's expression had changed, from playfulness to concern.
The reason she liked these rides so much, Lily told herself as she settled in, was that nothing was required of her in the way of conversation. Simon was busy with the horses; Lily's only job was to stay warm in the piles of buffalo hides and bear pelts and to enjoy the ride and the view. They rushed over the countryside toward the hill that all Montreal liked to think of as a mountain. Mount Royal, they called it, six miles away and a good place to go for a view of the city.
The sky was a clear, hard blue, cloudless, serene, the sun so bright on the snow and ice that Lily must squint. The trouble with blue eyes, her father would remind her, smiling to take the edge off the truth, they let too much in.
A letter from her mother was tucked up Lily's sleeve but it was her father who came along on these sleigh rides. In all of the stories he told, Nathaniel Bonner never spoke of the winter he spent here; and still Lily could imagine him sleigh racing, wild to be off, to be moving. As he must run, sometimes, for the beat and rhythm and rush of wind on his face. Wolf-Running-Fast he was called by the Kahnyen'kehàka, or Between-Two-Worlds. The first name always seemed to Lily the better one.
There were ten sleighs altogether now: bright green, blue, yellow, red. Most of the party were known to Lily, friends of Simon's and her brother's, all younger men, all of them come out with a girl tucked in beside them. In the city young women vied for these invitations, Ghislaine had told Lily, as if she weren't properly appreciating the honor bestowed upon her by Simon Ballentyne, who could fill the spot beside him twenty times over.
Lily had asked about Luke, if he never went out with a sleigh and a girl beside him, and with that earned a surprised laugh from Ghislaine. Luke Bonner, it seemed, was above such things, too much a gentleman, far too seriously busy with all his many concerns.
And had this superior godlike brother of hers never had a sweetheart? Lily wanted to hear, unless of course Ghislaine simply didn't know. This brought a long recitation of the names and connections of those young ladies who had set their sights on Luke without success. Some had wondered if Luke was the kind of man who preferred the company of other men, but then of course Mademoiselle Jennet had come from Scotland and all was made clear. Ghislaine was looking forward to having Mademoiselle Jennet as a mistress; she laughed, and she made Monsieur Luke laugh too, a rare skill indeed.
The citizens of Montreal put a great deal of value on good humor, Lily had noticed that right away, and these sleigh parties were the very best example of their lighthearted playfulness.
The sleighs had been brought to a halt while the men made plans about the route and the women called out in English and French to each other, good-natured challenges and outrageous boasts calculated for laughter. The horses nickered and tossed their heads too, holding their own conversations.
Simon sent Lily a sidelong glance, his dark eyes alive with the challenge, as excited as a boy with his first bagattaway stick. He flicked the reins and they were off, caught up in the scream of the wind. Lily heard herself cry out with it.
All around them the countryside rose and fell like the wings of a great bird, snowy fields crisscrossed by lanes beaten down smooth. But the colors were the thing. White snow, blue sky, Daniel would tease her when she talked of such things. What more is there to see?
This. She wished her brother were here so she could make him understand what white could be. Trees tangled together against the horizon, a web thrown up to hold up the sky and still its color seeped away and into the landscape itself: blue in layers upon layers, melding into shadows purple and copper that faded to rosy golds. The winter sun, too heavy for the sky, moving down and down like a sleepy child, radiating colors that defied pigment and palette and brush, putting every artist who had ever lived to shame.
This, she would tell Daniel. See this.
He would look, out of brotherly love, out of curiosity, but he would not see. It was not in him; it was not in most, it seemed. Daniel had many gifts that she did not, of course: even as a very little boy his talent with animals had been undeniable, a fellow feeling, her father had called it, that allowed him to pick up birds and call wolves to him to stand, watchful, a few feet away. As if he only had to choose between one family and another.
He was a creature of the woods, her brother, alive to them in the way that few could be, but in his world color was just another piece of a larger understanding.
Gabriel Oak, who had been Lily's first drawing teacher, had told her that it would be so, that there would be many who loved her but could not understand this gift she had been given, the seeing. She had been a little girl and not taken his meaning, and just as well; it saddened her now to think of it, that the people she loved best could not share what she valued most.
Nicholas would see. Nicholas had the eye. If he were here with her they would sit and watch and never say anything at all until much later, when they tried to find words to make it last between them, this wonder, this fiery brilliant cold world. He understood why she had come so far, to another city in another country to live among strangers.
Simon turned and cupped Lily's head in one gloved hand, pulled her close and kissed her and she tasted the color there: hot and bright, his joy in the day as plain as salt on the tongue. She kissed him back, in gratitude, at first, and then more.