Wildwood. Elinor Florence
from her forehead, so stiff that you could have run a broomstick through them.
“Hello, you must be Molly Bannister! I’ve been waiting for you!” She set down her book, a romance novel called Dark Desires. The cover bore an illustration of a bare-chested man staring lasciviously at a modest maiden.
When she came toward us, I saw that her clothes were as dated as her hairstyle — a black leather miniskirt paired with a tight leopard-print top, clinging to her magnificent chest and tiny waist. “And who’s this young lady?”
“This is Bridget. She’s very shy.” I grimaced and widened my eyes.
Thankfully she took the hint and ignored Bridget while we shook hands. “Welcome to Juniper! I’m Lisette Chatelaine.”
“Hi, Lisette. What a pretty name. Are you French-Canadian?”
“Yes, it’s an old family name. The Chatelaines arrived here from France in 1794, and there have been three Lisettes before me.”
“Two hundred and sixteen years ago! Really?”
“Yeah, the Chatelaines were real pioneers. We have a whole room to ourselves at the local museum. The men were voyageurs for the North West Company, and they all married Cree women. The fur trade was big business back then. There’s not as much money in trapping now, but my father and brothers still make their living at it.”
Once again, I reflected on my ignorance about Canada’s origins. I remembered the map we had studied at school, the route of explorers Lewis and Clark inked across the New World. Above the forty-ninth parallel, nothing. Yet the Chatelaines had arrived here ten years before Lewis and Clark made their famous expedition in 1804.
“I’ll see if Franklin, I mean, Mr. Jones, is ready for you.” Her voice dropped when she spoke his name, almost reverently. “Will your little girl stay out here? There are paper and crayons on that little table.”
Without a word, Bridget slipped over to the corner, sat down with her back to Lisette, and began to deliberate over the crayons.
While Lisette was in with the lawyer, I studied the framed map of North America hanging on the wall. Canada looked so big, and the United States below looked so small. I was accustomed to seeing the opposite — my own country large and predominant, with Canada fading off the top. I knew that Canada was larger than the States, but I hadn’t realized how much larger.
“Mr. Jones will see you now.” Lisette showed me into his office and closed the door behind her.
The lawyer, a handsome man with a full head of silver hair, was leaning back in his big leather chair, his tooled leather boots propped on a polished mahogany desk. When I entered, he swung his feet to the floor and stood to shake hands. “How are you, Miss Bannister? Please, have a seat.”
He began to talk immediately as I sat down across from him. He didn’t live in Juniper, but in Edmonton. He had branch offices throughout the north and made a monthly circuit to visit them all. Since the oil and gas industry was booming in northern Alberta, he had his hands full with real estate deals and land leases. I suspected he was reminding me that my own little affairs were inconsequential.
“So you live in Phoenix,” he said finally. “My wife and I fly down there a couple of times every winter to golf. Fabulous climate, just what the doctor ordered.”
I nodded politely.
“I’m afraid you won’t find anything here that’s remotely comparable. The people up here are very, shall we say, unworldly. Some of them have never even been on an airplane. It’s certainly no place to raise a child. And you have a boy, is it?”
“Girl.”
He went on, seemingly determined to paint a dark picture of Juniper. “Of course, farming in the north is like going into battle. It’s a thankless occupation, completely at the mercy of the elements. I’ve seen dozens of farmers wiped out in a single year. If they aren’t dried out, they’re hailed out or frozen out.”
He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on me. They were a pale shade of grey, almost white. The effect was spooky. “I knew your great-aunt very well. My father acted for both her and her husband, and then of course she inherited the farm after George died. You have to understand, Miss Bannister, it wasn’t her intention to cause you any hardship. She had a romantic notion in her head, that’s all. There’s no shame in turning down her offer.”
Mr. Jones didn’t realize that he was suggesting the impossible. Nevertheless, my shoulders slumped a little as he kept talking.
“She would never have inflicted this condition on you, had she known how many years would intervene. The house has been utterly neglected. There’s no way that a young woman could spend a week out there, let alone a year. And of course, you have your boy to consider. You would be risking your lives by accepting this ridiculous offer.”
I didn’t bother correcting him. “It appears from my great-aunt’s will that she loved the place and wanted her heirs to appreciate it as much as she did.”
Mr. Jones made a wry face and cast his eyes up to the ceiling. “Perhaps she wasn’t fully in possession of her faculties when she made the will. That would be impossible to prove, although I did look into it on your behalf. The medical records show no indication that she was mentally incapacitated when she prepared her will in 1988. I’m merely suggesting that she wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.”
“Since she moved into the nursing home, what’s happened to the farm?”
“It was placed in trust and administered according to the judgment of the executor.”
“The executor — meaning you?”
“Yes, that’s correct. I rent the farmland to a neighbour, and the monthly rent is paid into your great-aunt’s bank account. The rent didn’t cover the cost of the nursing home, so her savings supplemented her expenses. Those savings ran out just before she died.”
“What will happen if I refuse to accept her condition?”
“Then I’m authorized to issue a lump sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. Neither Canada nor the United States has an inheritance tax, so the money comes free and clear. I can give it to you right now.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a leather-bound chequebook.
“And what about the farm?”
He reached for a gold pen that was standing upright in a holder shaped like a tiny oil derrick. “I’m legally obligated to sell the farm to the highest bidder. The proceeds would then be transferred to the state, in this case the Alberta provincial government.”
I sat quietly for a minute while I pondered my options. Twenty-five thousand dollars was a big chunk of change. It would buy me a few months, give me a chance to find another job.
But it wouldn’t go far toward the cost of Bridget’s treatment. And it was a fraction of what I stood to gain by staying.
Mr. Jones darted a sideways look at me from his pale eyes. “Look, you have to understand that farms up here are operating at the subsistence level. You won’t get any more rent, if that’s what you’re thinking. The renter has the option of automatic renewal, and he signed the latest contract two years ago. Do you want to see it?”
“Thanks, that won’t be necessary.”
He leaned back in his chair, twiddling his pen. On the small finger of his right hand was a ring shaped like a chunky gold nugget. “Four hundred dollars a month isn’t much, unless you have another source of income. The cost of living up here is very high.”
I suspected he was fishing for information, but I didn’t answer. He frowned at me and clicked the end of his pen impatiently while my brain sifted through the options and reduced them to one. “How would I collect the rent?”
“There’s no mail delivery out there, so you’d have to pick it up here in the office. My girl can give it to you on the first of each month.”