By the Cherry Tree

Photographer - Tobi Brun

“By The Cherry Tree”

Prudence Dickson did not mean to be defiant, truly she didn’t. Somehow however, her tone, or her look, or her choice of words always seemed defiant to her father, and Thomas Dickson tolerated no defiance. His wife and his other children soon learned to keep their heads tucked in, especially when he had a mood, but Prudy had never mastered the skill. In truth, in her 17th year, they had clashed more than ever.

“My child, will you never learn that a soft answer turneth aside wrath?” Clara Dickson asked, as she surveyed the results of the latest thrashing Prudy had suffered, dabbing the welts with an ointment of willow-bark, plantain leaves, and calendula. Her daughter hid her face in the pillow and tried not to wince or move too much as her wounds were dressed.“I didn’t mean to,” Prudy answered.

“You never mean to, child,” Mrs Dickson said. “You never did. But it’s never stopped the consequences, has it?” She placed a square of light linen over the belt marks and bound it lightly in place. She shook her head, sadly. 

“How do you bear Father, Mommy?” her daughter asked. “It’s not like he’s never beaten you or the others. How do you stand it?” 

“My parents decided I should wed your father,” Mrs Dickson replied. “He’s a good provider, and well-connected. Yes, he has a bad temper, but he does not drink to excess, or scandalise our family, like some men do.”

“But do you love him?”

“Love is just for novels, Prudy,” her mother said, with resignation in her voice. “It’s fine for the characters in Miss Austen’s books, but in real life...love doesn’t often fit into marriage.”

“That’s awful,” Prudence said, sitting up and turning to face her mother. “I can’t imagine it.” Her mother smiled at the folly of youth.

“In time, you will,” she said. “Your father will find you a good match and, if you are lucky, he’ll be a good man. Who knows? You might even grow to love him.” In truth, Mrs Dickson doubted her words and if she suddenly recalled, fondly, a young man’s face from her own youth, she did not say so.

Thomas Dickson was well-respected in the village of Queenston. Starting with his own land-grant of 300 acres, through connections, luck, and 150 acres Clara had brought him as a dowry, he’d become a wealthy man. His home – the Stone House – was the largest and best appointed all along the frontier. As collector of customs, and the owner of a large estate, he had only a few equals, and no real rivals. His family sat in the first pew at St Saviour’s Church, and even the curate looked to him for approval as he delivered his sermons, rather than the deity he served. No one would have dared call him a petty-tyrant to his face but, in that small corner of Upper Canada, he was never gainsaid.

As the family left the church on the next Sunday morning, Dickson greeted the curate, who was pleased to have received the great man’s approbation; he had wondered why Mr Dickson had requested that particular topic for a sermon, but gathered from his face and handshake that he was not displeased by the result.  After that short delay, Dickson turned aside to address the real goal of his socialising, today.

“Mr Chase! Just the man I was hoping to see,” Dickson said, as he drew aside the older man. Nearly 60, and recently widowed, Uriah Chase had no children who had survived, and Thomas Dickson was not one to miss such an opportunity. Chase owned nearly 400 acres of land, had a grist mill, and a smithy that he ran at a considerable profit.

The two men chatted for a while about assorted local matters, before Thomas Dickson got to the point.

“You know, I was listening to the sermon, today,” he said. “When Reverend Dawson reached the part about ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him,’ I must admit, my thoughts turned to you, in your bereavement.” He smiled at the frail, old man.

“What am I to do?” Mr Chase asked. “I am robbed of my support and succour. I suppose I shall go to my death unmourned and forgotten. Alas.” Chase evidently thought his wife’s decline the most extravagant of self-indulgences, and the resultant loss as a personal attack on himself and his position in the world.

“It’s very sad,” Dickson agreed with him “Have you thought of looking for someone to ease your burdens and gladden your closing years?” He glanced over at his wife and daughters, as if by chance.

“Oh, I’ve no time for courting,” Mr Chase said. “Such a foolish waste of time is suitable to the young, but, an established man, a man of business, can’t be engaged in such frivolity as paying calls, and taking women to dances, and the like.” Dickson knew that Chase had been making inquiries, but his disagreeable and miserly nature had led to him being rebuffed by many of the older women – spinsters and widows both – that might have afforded him a suitable match. No one with a modicum of independence would likely yoke themselves to such a man, and those with no dowry or inheritance stirred no passion in his avaricious heart.

“I do understand,” Thomas Dickson said. “If only such matters could be conducted like a business transaction.”

“As they were, in the old days!” Chase said with some vigour. “The parents would decide such matters, the partner would be chosen, and the matter set to rights on a proper basis.” Mr Dickson, certain Mr Chase meant on the basis of the property each partner brought to the altar, smiled to himself.

“I hear your wisdom, sir,” he said. “And having only daughters left, I am much concerned that they marry into substance. I have not been well myself, and worry lest all I have built up be scattered on the winds.” This last was a total invention, but he suspected an intimation of his own frailty might bait a trap for the older man.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Uriah Chase said, insincerely. “But I’m sure your eldest girl  – what’s her name – doesn't lack for suitors. Half the bucks along the frontier must be vying for her hand.” He gazed at Prudence, appreciating the view of her slim waist set off by the full skirts of her dress. Thomas Dickson did not miss this glance.

“Silly boys, wastrels, mostly,” Dickson said. “I’ve seen several off. No, I would have her wed a man of substance, someone with judgement. Someone who’s demonstrated sound sense in cultivation and business…Well, in short, someone like yourself, Mr Chase.” Mr Dickson gave a deep sigh, as if the frustration of finding such a match weighed heavily upon him.

So it was that Mr Chase was invited round for Sunday dinner at the Stone House. He lingered afterward and, between sips of port, appraised the four young daughters of his neighbour: Prudence, Charity, Emma and Maud. The last two – 13 and 11 – were, of course, too young to be marriageable, nor would it do for Mr Chase to make his suit for the 15 year old before her 17 year old sister was wed or, at least, engaged. As it chanced, Prudence had a bosom that he found most pleasing, especially when set off by her slender waist. The prospect of a fat dowry –  and a fourth of Thomas Dickson’s worldly goods should he die, God forbid – was even more pleasing to Uriah Chase.

If Clara Dickson was surprised when Uriah Chase was invited to stay for supper too,  she did not say so. Only Emma noticed the funny way in which she looked at her daughters that afternoon, but she did not know the reason until later. After dinner, the two men concluded their arrangements in Thomas Dickson’s office.

“Mommy, I will not marry that man,” Prudence said, when her mother told her. “He’s so old! And he looks at me as if I were a prize pig that he wished to fatten for slaughter.” Clara had not known, and did not commend what Thomas had decided, but there seemed little chance to evade it. She stroked her daughter’s hair as Prudence buried her face in her shoulder. 

“My child, you had to know that your father would pick you a husband, soon,” Mrs Dickson said. “And though Mr Chase is older, well, that means he will not trouble you so very much, as a younger man might. He will not stray with others, and you will be a rich widow, soon.” She realised that might not have been the best thing to say, when Prudence began to sob again.

“I do not wish to be a widow at all!” Prudence said. “And I would rather be a poor widow, and have been truly loved, than a rich man’s widow who never loved her husband.” 

Mr Dickson, however, was unreceptive to any such arguments. He had made a good match, one which would see his eldest daughter well settled. Then, should Mr Chase happen soon to die – which event Thomas Dickson fully expected – then his daughter, knowing little about land and business, would of course turn to him, and he would gather all that Uriah Chase had scraped together over 60 years, into his own hands and to his benefit, although he would never say such a thing, openly.

The next Sunday, which was as pretty as a May Sunday can be in that part of the World, Mr Chase sent a carriage round to fetch Prudence to visit him. Mrs Dickson went to chaperone but, taken with the pretty day, and the blossoms on the trees, she did not seem to notice that her daughter and the young driver exchanged looks, both going and coming.

Over the following weeks, Prudence took many long walks out to the edges of Thomas Dickson’s fields, and lingered beneath the black cherry tree, along the road to Durrand – a hidden spot that the girls had often visited when avoiding their father. If Emma discovered her older sister’s visits there,  she never breathed a word to her parents. Thomas Waters, the young drivere who worked for Uriah Chase, came often to the spot, and brought flowers he picked for Prudence. Their meetings seemed to Emma like a scene from one of the novels she loved to read. And Clara, if she learned of them, did not hinder Prudy’s frequent trips to the cherry tree, though she wondered if her daughter had ever noticed the initials and heart carved into the bark, almost hidden after many years, and forgotten by all but her.

One morning in June the household woke to find that Prudence had left a letter at her father’s accustomed place at the family table. What it said, exactly, none of them were sure, but the scowl on Thomas Dickson’s face as he tore the missive to shreds was one they long remembered. Emma was not surprised by the event, but Clara Dickson’s curiously dry-eyed weeping managed to distract the ire of Thomas Dickson from noticing any conspiracy.

“I’ll thrash the girl until she cannot sit for a week,” Dickson thundered. “How dare she throw herself at trash like this Waters? I’ll have that young puppy put in the pillory! How dare he sully my name?”

“You will have an apoplexy, if you do not calm yourself,” Clara Dickson told him. “No one has been put in pillory since before Prudence was born.” Even though this was true, Thomas Dickson did not wish to be calm. He swore out a warrant for the arrest of Thomas Waters and, as justice of the peace, he signed it. He sent men after the pair but, as they had set sail from Newark in a schooner, there was no prospect of apprehending them. A disappointed Thomas Dickson realised that, by the time he could find Prudence and bring her back, she would be ruined; Uriah Chase was not the sort of man to accept his hired man’s leavings.

So, with the blackest ink he could find, Dickson crossed the name of Prudence out of the family Bible. He tore the silhouette and pencil sketches her sisters had made of her to fragments, and burned the family portrait he’d once hung with pride over the dining room fireplace. He forbade his daughters – his three and only daughters, as he said – to ever mention the name Prudence again. When, in due course, a letter with familiar handwriting  arrived for him he consigned it to the fire, unread.

It was the same when other letters came, whether sent to him, or Charity, Emma, or Maud, he inspected them closely and, if there was the slightest suspicion in his mind as to who had sent them, the letters were burned. If any letters that came to Mrs Dickson, she kept that secret to herself and read them in some quiet moment, committing them to heart, before disposing of them.

It was not possible to forbid all mention of Prudence by those outside the Dickson home, of course. The girls heard from others that their sister had married Thomas Waters, and that they were living in Durrand. If Thomas Dickson also knew, he never mentioned it, but he did send letters to every substantial man in that district and beyond, traducing the name of Thomas Waters, and enjoining them never to give him gainful employment. 

Thomas Waters had guessed that his father-in-law’s wrath would be exceedingly great, and had made such plans as a young man with little money and few connections could. His strong back served him well, and he managed to persuade the Board of Police in Durrand to take him on as the new gravedigger before he had even run away with Prudence. A cabin went with the position, since the burial ground was some distance from the village. A relic of fortifications from the late war with the States, it was rough, dirt floored, and small, but sturdy enough.

Prudence might not have been used to such rude surroundings, but she did not complain. She took in sewing, and from scraps of material her patrons did not wish to claim, she made little curtains for the paper windows, and a quilt for their marriage bed. She walked the three miles to the village, and the three miles back daily; sometimes more than once. She swept the floor and did the cooking and the laundry, carrying the basket of clothes and such linen as they had down the steep banks to the creek and washing  them on the  stones. Had she married Mr Chase, such chores and many more besides, would all have been done for her, but she did not dwell on it.

Over the months, rumour had come that Uriah Chase had wed, and she worried it might have been Emma who was forced to be his bride. All Prudy’s letters went unanswered, and she needed to know more than the rumours occasional travellers brought. In due course, little Thomas Waters was born, yet still no word came from Queenston. When May had come again, and the boy was three months old, Prudence decided that she could bear the silence of her family no more. She kissed Thomas Senior and, carrying little Thomas on one hip, with a pack of needful things on her back, she set out to walk the 50 miles; they had no extra money for her to take a stagecoach nor a schooner.

“I should go with you,” Thomas Waters told his wife. “It’s cowardly for me to not face your father.”

“If you leave,” Prudence told him, “Then you might lose your job. It will take days to walk so far – longer, carrying little Thomas. People will complain if their dead go unburied for a week or more.” Thomas knew she was right; people had complained in the Winter, when the ground was frozen, and the bodies had to wait in the brick charnel house for a thaw to come. 

“Could we not wait?” he asked. Thomas Waters loved her dearly and the idea of Prudence being gone for five days or longer bothered him. He did not fear she would stop loving him, but he was not sure what Thomas Dickson might do; he’d seen the marks her father’s belt had left on Prudy’s back.

“It will be hotter in the Summer,” Prudence told him, her eyes steady and her chin slightly tilted upwards to look at him. “And the baby will weigh more. It’s better to go now.” Thomas kissed her and watched her as far as he could, until the road took a sharp bend around the earthworks of the old forward battery, and he could see her no more.

Prudence had walked the distance from her cabin to the centre of the small village of Durrand more times  than she could remember, and it was not long at all before it was behind her. From there the King’s Highway ran out generally eastward, although it wandered a little from south to north, on occasion, to find a footing on the driest land between the escarpment and Lake Ontario. It had been a well travelled route even before the first settlers had arrived and, although but a dirt road, it was the best and quickest way to walk the long distance.

Twice a day, stagecoaches passed along the highway, from Queenston all the way to York, or the reverse. The whole journey took some 17 hours, but none could not stand the bumping and lurching that far, and horses and drivers were both changed at Durrand. Half such a trip on Upper Canada’s roads was no joy for travellers in those days. A barefoot walk would spare Prudy and the baby an ordeal, nor would the girl be much wearier at the end of it.

At Big Creek Prudy faced her first real challenge; ’til then, the road had been mostly level, but that stream lay at the bottom of a deep gorge, about a quarter of a mile wide. The road ran steeply down to the water, and then climbed again quickly on the far side of the ford; she felt a little breathless by the time the road levelled out again. Less than a mile to the east lay the Gage’s farm; a fine piece of land, their front garden marked the high-watermark of the American invasion that was beaten back just before Prudence was born. Their house lay on the far side of the Stoney Creek, as they called it, but the Gages had built a bridge across the small stream.

People had begun to plant fruit trees on the farms that lay beyond that, and the road was scattered with fallen blossom; the scattered petals and fragrance were some relief on the long and dusty walk to the next hamlet. It was called Fifty, since it stood on the banks of the fiftieth creek between that spot and the great Niagara River. Prudence was a little worried that she might be recognized and handed over to the justice of the peace there, to be returned to her father. John Willson knew Thomas Dickson well, as both sat on the bench, and in the Legislature, but Prudy’s fear was childish. The pampered young lady who had fled the Stone House a year before little resembled the barefoot mother in homespun cloth who was trudging along the King’s Highway. The gossip as she passed through Fifty, was not about her, for that was old news, but about Willson’s son, Hugh; John had his own family troubles to attend to, without getting involved in her father’s.

By the time she reached Grimsby, it was late in the day. She had no money for lodging, so she found a spot beneath some bushes at the edge of Robert Nelle’s fine farm, and spread a blanket there. There was water from Forty Creek to drink, and the baby nursed quietly; Prudence ignored her own hunger. In the morning, she rose at first light and walked on. 

Prudy’s resolution to walk the whole way wavered when a passing farmer and his wife offered her a lift on the back of their wagon. She hopped up in back of the buckboard, which rattled and bounced along the road until they reached Thirty Creek, where the couple turned toward their destination. Prudence thanked them for their kindness as she set out, again. Though little Thomas had not enjoyed the rough ride, she was less footsore than she had been, and the farmer’s wife had given her some bread to eat. 

From Thirty Creek it was a long walk to Glen Elgin. That stream ran down the valley, from the mills at the edge of the escarpment into the broad and safe harbour that opened onto Lake Ontario. People had started to call that pretty spot Jordan, and Prudy wished she could tarry there to enjoy the Spring day, but whatever balm or gall awaited her in the Gilead of her fancy, it lay beyond Jordan’s shores. 

Beyond Glen Elgin, the several creeks that flowed down into the Black Swamp were a bigger obstacle; all of them had to be forded, and they swarmed with biting flies that tormented Prudy and little Thomas. Twelve Creek – the largest of them, more like a river than a stream – ran down, deep and wide, from the escarpment to the Great Lake, and the bridge over it had a toll which she could not afford. To cross over Prudence had to make her way up to the village of Beaver Dams, a steep climb to the top of the escarpment. Weary at the end of a long-day’s walk, she lingered in the village and watched a woman beating her rugs outside a substantial house.

“That’s a big job,” Prudence said, with sympathy, for beating rugs is dirty and tiring work. The woman looked Prudy over; seeing a barefoot young woman with a child, both dusty and tired from the road, she guessed that the girl might be in need.

“If you help me finish beating the rugs, you might have supper and a place to spend the night,” she offered. Prudence was quick to agree, although she had never done such work herself. Still, she’d seen the hired girls at the Stone House do it twice a year, and she knew what to do, and the dust of the task added little to the dust of the road. Thomas lay on a mossy spot and watched his mother work, not understanding in the least why she was doing something so funny.

In the morning, Prudence and Thomas set out once more. From Beaver Dams, it was an easy, downhill walk along the Limestone Heights, past Stamford and St Davids.  It was only 13 miles to Queenston, but Prudence found she was walking slower as she neared her destination.

“Thomas,” she said to the baby, “I don’t know how your Grandfather will act when he sees us. It would be wrong not to give him the chance to meet you, or to deprive you of your grandparents but…” She struggled to put her fear into words, while little Thomas gurgled and paid no attention. 

It was just before 11 in the morning when she first saw the Stone House. Her memories of growing up there flooded back; although she loved her mother and sisters, it had never been a happy place. It did not feel like home, the way the cabin did. It might have fine floors, glass windows, and a grand staircase, but she did not envy those who lived under Thomas Dickson’s roof. She stopped and put on her shoes; she was not going to stand before her father barefoot. Then, bracing herself for any storm, she walked up the long drive to the door. 

It was time for luncheon Prudence realised as she knocked. It would take a minute for someone to come from the dining room to answer the door, so she waited patiently. She expected it might be one of the hired girls and, since they never stayed long, it was likely that whoever answered might not know her. But it wasn’t a stranger whose face appeared; it was her sister, Charity.

“Prudence!” Charity said, her hand rising to her mouth in shock. Her wide blue eyes took in her sisters’ road-worn appearance, and the small child she was carrying. Behind her Prudy saw Emma, Maud and her mother crowding the door from the dining room, and staring at her. Their expressions ran through surprise, wonder, shock, envy, joy, and worry, but no one dared to say a word before Thomas Dickson passed sentence.

Then, pushing past the women, her father appeared. His face was expressionless as he approached. Prudence moved slightly, holding up the baby as if in offering; showing her father his namesake. Thomas came to the door and Charity stepped aside. Without a word he closed the door in Prudence's face.

Prudy Waters took a deep breath; later there would be weeping, but she would not do so here, not on the doorstep of the Stone House. She would not give Thomas Dickson the satisfaction of driving his wayward daughter from his door in tears. She held her head high and walked down the drive. Her steps were firm, and no one watching would guess that she was worn from the long road she had walked, and heart-broken from her reception. 

The road could be seen from Stone House for some way, and she kept her pace steady but, as Prudy came over a small rise, Emma was waiting for her by the cherry tree, where once they had hidden from Thomas Dickson’s rages. Down in that hollow, they could not be seen from the house, but they were not too far to hear if Emma was called. Prudy smiled as her sister came toward her, carrying a loaf of bread in her hands. Emma’s presence was a comfort; the sisters had always been close.

“Mother told me to bring it,” Emma said. There was a slight hesitation in the younger girl’s voice, as if she wasn’t sure if the gift would be accepted. There was a steel in Prudy that was new-tempered, an edge she did not recognise.

“Why didn’t Mommy come, herself?” Prudy asked.

“She’s making sure Father is distracted,” she answered. There was something in the way she said it that made Prudy realise the source of her hesitation.

“Has it been worse since I left?” Prudy asked; she could not keep a note of fear from her voice. The question hung for a moment, and Emma’s eyes looked bright with tears.

“Yes,” she answered. “His temper is worse, and he demands greater obedience.” 

“I didn’t know, I’m sorry,” Prudy said.  She wondered if she was telling her sister the truth; she knew her father well enough to know her defiance would goad him. The guilt she felt was relieved, a little, by the knowledge her sister wore no wedding ring.  “You didn’t have to marry Mr Chase?” Emma shook her head.

“Father spoke of it, but Mommy said she was not going to lose a second daughter,” she answered.

“I was afraid Father might make you,” Prudy said. “I wrote to ask, but never heard a word.”

“You wrote?” Emma asked; she’d thought her sister had forgotten her. Prudence nodded.

“Whenever I could find paper, and a coin to pay someone to fetch a letter to you,” she said. Emma looked at Prudy and realised that could not have been as often as she wished. Emma relaxed a little, then hugged her sister. 

“I’m glad you escaped,” she said.  “He’s wrong to drive you away.” 

“I never expected he’d welcome me back, but I had to give him the chance to see his first grandson,” Prudence said. Emma came closer and looked down into the boy's eyes; he looked back with the thoughtful gaze of a child seeing someone new, but still safe in his mother’s arms. “Does he know you’re here?” Emma shook her head. 

“He went into the study and locked the door,” she said. “Mommy gave me the loaf, and told me to come. I didn’t know she knew this spot.” Prudy looked at the old tree; there were many initials she did not know carved into the trunk, her sisters’, too, and her’s and Thomas’, set into a heart. 

“You must have run, to catch me” said Prudence. “I wasn’t walking slowly.” Emma grinned and Prudence knew her sister had hiked up her skirts and torn across the fields to arrive ahead of her. Then the smile faded.

“Does he hit you?” Emma asked, and they both knew whom she meant.

“He’s never hit me,” Prudence replied. “Thomas isn’t perfect, but he loves me, and I, him.” Prudence looked in the direction of the Stone House. The rough cabin she shared with Thomas was not a fine house; no one riding out on the York Road would ever stop and admire it as passers-by admired the Stone House, but within it dwelt no heart of stone. It had something her birthplace would never know.

“Mother worries that you’re penniless,” Emma said.

“I am,” Prudence replied. “But I have a roof over my head, my husband has a job despite Father, and I can sew or do laundry. We get by.” Emma ran her hand down her own silk dress as she looked at Prudence’s rough homespun; it looked the worse for the dirt of the long road on it but Prudy did not seem embarrassed by it. The younger girl watched her sister sit on the dirt to take her shoes off; she could tell that Prudy’s feet were most often unshod, these days. Emma wondered whether she could make such sacrifices.

“Will you come back?” Emma asked. She put the loaf – still warm from the baking – into her sister’s bag. Prudence smiled at her; she appreciated the kind gesture.

“No,” she answered. “Never, as long as Father is alive. But you can write to me. So can Mommy, and Charity, Maud too, when she’s old enough to keep a secret. Mrs Waters, in Durrand, on the York Road. Just don’t let father know.” Emma hugged Prudy, a strong embrace that ended in a sob, before she turned away.

Standing still under the cherry tree Prudence watched Emma, until she disappeared back toward the Stone House. The tears she had feared just a little while before did not come; there was no longer a cause for them. Prudence Waters looked up into the tree’s leafy boughs; there would be many cherries, this year.

Peter McGuinness recently retired after teaching History, World Religions, Philosophy and Visual Art for nearly 30 years. Before becoming a teacher, he was an editor and a journalist. He have a B.A. in History and Politics, a B.A. and an M.A. in the History of Art, and a B. Ed. He recently had a story published online in Grim & Gilded.