"Have Music when I Will"
I won't be my father's Jack
I won't be my father's Jill
I will be the fiddler's wife
And have music when I will
Here I am, little jumping Joan
When nobody's with me
I am always alone
- Mother Goose
Her name was Bertha Willis. For some, that may be enough; to know her name, is to know her. So have you spotted her with your minds eye? Amidst all the translucent creations of your wildest dreams, has a Bertha Willis been sculpted and chiseled from the glittery primordial goo of your imagination? Perhaps the goo is waiting patiently for the minds eye to portray some shadow of suggestion by which to base it's materialization of this young girl.
Here is another hint; Bertha is half Summerside Pringle and half Dartmouth Willis. Two very respectable families which are well branched across the Canadian Maritimes. Both are well-known and extremely well-to-do, not to mention terribly civilized and influential. The two remained untainted by any sort of outrageous scandal or eccentric characters Does this do anything for you?
Maybe it would be more helpful to hear that her father, Jackson Willis, a wealthy heir, owns more land than the average Boilingbroker and his three closest neighbors. Any ideas? Or maybe your goo would benefit from hearing that her mother, Florence, is the queen socialite of Boilingbroke and holds fast the admiration of all lesser social butterflies. Anything? Perhaps to know that her elder sister, Clarence is considered the belle of the sleepy surrounding area would aid you in your quest to become aquatinted with Bertha.
It could be that your goo demands to know about the love life of Miss Bertha before it will judge her and make up its mind as to how your mind will see her. This girl, along with William Ferguson will soon enough participate in a ceremony that involves her blushing as a vision in white, carrying gallantly a torch like bouquet of flaming roses in what the Willises and Fergusons both hope will be the most reproductively successful union of the two powerhouse families of Boilingbroke, Nova Scotia; in recent history.
Has the goo shaped a Bertha for your mind to see yet? I suppose not, for the same reasons why even those close to her did not see her truly, at least not in the microscopic way a reader searches for. These surnames which shaped the destiny and lifestyle of those who bore them in those times, the somewhat burdensome heirlooms of a murky and all but forgotten past bear no virtues as descriptors. Especially to those of us who live in a world that, for the most part, has gotten over the Victorian obsession that ties class to origin.
If you really wish to meet Bertha Willis then we must look beyond that thick curtain. For her heritage fails dismally at capturing the rapturous vivacity of her melodic laugh and girlish smile, or the clear pools of awe that were her sea like eyes, framed with long dark lashes. Not too mention that her name portrays nothing about her bubbly and contagious brightness which beamed from her handsome figure as if she were a beacon. Nor does it tell you about her lovable enthusiasm for language. As all the pupils of her teaching position at Boilingbroke High School will tell you, it is not her name that makes Miss Willis a pleasure to be literally and figuratively enlightened by, but the way she dances nimbly about the room, her honey blonde locks bouncing wildly as she rants and raves about the beauty of Shakespearean literature. And to think, all this sunshine was hidden under many dusty layers of Victorian foolishness.
It was, unfortunately the former description of Bertha Willis, not the latter out of the dark confines of his scholarhood, to darken the doorstep of Idlewood manor during their long and arduous courtship. One particular day, after the lopsided love of the couple had been announced to any who cared, Florence Willis' voice had a sickeningly sweet tone which carried down to where Bertha was dreaming, and shook her awake. Bertha had been experiencing the splendor of idle solitude in her reverie while running and romping quite freely and unladylike about the prim gardens of Idlewood.
"Although," Bertha said to herself wistfully, "Daylilies and violets can never be tamed of their wildness at the hands of mere garden shears, and flowers in their roguish beauty are certainly never be prim."
"Bertha Ann Willis!" Yelled her mother as loud as her prim voice range would allow, in a tone of assured urgency which belonged solely to the relieved mothers who have come to believe that they can finally breathe easy after finally marrying off their tomboy daughter. Her piercing charm cut through the air and echoed off the stone walls.
"And the water, even in the perfection of this fountain, is about as easily tamed as it is contained." Said Bertha calmly to the petunias while letting the gurgling water wash over her outstretched palm, ignoring doggedly the sweet call of her mother which had the distinct pitch which meant that William had come "a courtin'".
"And it's moods are hardly to be called civilized, yet it is lovely and haunting in all it's tempers. 'Nay, I am for all waters.'" She quoted, considering the raging sea on the horizon.
"Oh Bertha Ann! Do come here!" Called Florence once more, her voice in a crescendo of shrillness. Florence was an assertive and apparently independent woman, but she became desperate at the drop of a hat. Her weakness, was shared by the greater- if not better- part of society and was always close to the surface of her thin and translucent moralities.
"Coming mother." Said Bertha in an exasperated mock sweetness, she decided to face the inevitable rather than try and fight in vain against the will of parents. The monotonously dull day she was facing, the dry and predictable life which was being imposed upon her, the "seen and not heard" type children they would have, carbon copies of their father and bred for civility and the coldness of high society, followed by the foreseeable and unremarkable death she would come to, unsatisfied and unfulfilled.
