That Forgetful Shore Read Free Page B

three children of their own to provide for. “They put a roof over my head and food on the table,” Trif explains. “That’s more than they got to do. They don’t owe me no more.”
    â€œPop’s going to talk to her, all the same.”
    â€œTell him not to, please. It won’t do any good.” And it might do harm; Aunt Rachel might take it out on Trif, thinking she had put Kit up to asking.
    If Kit’s father talks to Aunt Rachel or not, Trif never knows it. Plans for Kit’s departure continue and Trif’s life continues too, unchanged, the routine that will shape her days till they marry her off. She tries not to think of Kit leaving, of the Point without Kit. Strange to think they have known each other barely three years. All of Trif’s life seems to have happened in those three years.
    â€œI wish you were going with me, Posy,” Kit says. They are sitting on the rocks of the Long Beach, three nights before Kit leaves for St. John’s. “I’m afraid of it all – everything will be so strange and new, all people I never met before. Townie girls with their fancy airs. It wouldn’t be so bad if you were coming with me.”
    â€œWill you write me letters? You won’t forget me, Peony?”
    â€œI’ll write every day. I’ll never forget my Posy, my twin sister.” Kit throws her arms around Trif and they share a long, delicious embrace.
    This is the moment Trif wants to remember: she and her Peony in each other’s arms, vowing to let nothing part them. The truth is that in after years she will have forgotten their farewell on the beach. What will stay with her always, what lingers in her mind, is the vision of Kit walking away from her on the last day of school, walking down the road side by side with Joe Bishop. It’s that moment that will come to haunt her. It haunts her already, as she and Kit stand on the beach, faces buried in each other’s hair, while the salt wind blows in off the water.

Kit
    St. John’s
October, 1904
    My darling Posy,
    How I wish you were here with me! How different it would be, living in my cold, bare boarding house, walking the busy streets of town, if Peony and Posy were again entwined in one bouquet. How cruel of Fate ( or   your   Aunt ) to sunder us!
    My lessons are progressing very well and I have determined to be ready for my Preliminary exam in one year instead of two. Miss Shaw (the finest teacher here by far!) says it is possible if I work very hard. The other scholars are all very dull and I do not think I shall have any particular friends. Indeed, what friend could take the place of the One who has been torn from me? Peony shall be a flower that grows alone, until we are together   again , my darling.
    The teachers here are very good, clever and mostly kind, though distant. How I miss the gentle words of our Dear Pedagogue, who would speak so kindly to me when I worked at my Mathematics! My only comfort is that he will soon be here in St. John’s too, for he has written that he must come to Town in October, and will call on me. I long to see him, for he is my only link to the old life I have left behind.
    How I longed to be out in the great world, and how glad I am to be here, yet … how lonely I am at nights, when the moon rises over the ships in St. John’s harbour (I can see it through the trees from my window) and I imagine it shining down on the calm, still waters of our cove! How grand to go on to new adventures, but how sad to have to face them alone, without the ones we love!
    Ever and always your own,
Peony
    For Kit, all her life, first in Trinity and then in Missing Point, “schoolroom” has meant a crowded room with hand-made benches pulled up around the stove, huddled close for warmth. Now her schoolroom at Bishop Spencer College is a large, airy room with tall windows, separate desks for each scholar, and more books than she has ever