Nine fifty-five, Monday morning, May 27th, 1880…

… Julia obediently followed her father down the long central aisle. Beside her, Ruby's hand snug in her own, their three shadows obliterated soft pools of colour poured down through the stained glass. Outside had been painfully bright, the imposing neo-gothic white brick edifice glaring down at them while white lilies of the valley outlined the circular garden in front of wide steps leading up to a stone-trimmed arch. Her father had opened one of the heavy oak doors then left her and her sister at the threshold. The inside of the building was just as white, but at least it was dimmer, cooler and less pressing on her senses than outside had been, with street noise replaced by low, slow moans of music.

Julia bit her lip and tugged Ruby's hand to bring her along, her sister's nine-year-old legs being naturally shorter than Julia's own coltish limbs. Over the last year, Julia had no trouble matching her father's stride, yet Lionel Ogden was putting determined distance between him and his daughters as he proceeded. Julia barely lifted her eyes to the back of his coat. At first, the separation made her heart race, but now she was grateful her father abandoned them at the entrance and went on ahead, because his tall, stiff figure blocked her view of what lay at the end of their short journey.

Her thoughts balked. Concentrate! she ordered herself. And slow down or you'll drag Ruby off her feet trying to keep up.

As she moderated her pace, Julia's unruly mind wandered to her left shoe escaping the hem of the black bombazine skirt she wore. She knew she was supposed to keep her head up, back straight, eyes forward like a well-bred and proper young lady… but her courage failed her. She could only cast her gaze downward. Her left shoe appeared…only to be swallowed in fabric again then replaced by her right shoe, which in turn vanished with a silent sway of skirt. She discovered if she just looked at the floor, she could focus on those tips of her high-buttoned shoes as she walked - and avoid glimpsing the too-near future.

The cadence was mesmerizing: Left shoe. Right shoe. Left shoe. Never really escaping anything at all…she noted, tears threatening her eyes.

…And neither shall I.

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

…THREE DAYS EARLIER….

"…3/22 Wednesday: That Reginald Forbush is insufferable, parading around in his new Argonaut sweater, thinking that meant he could bully the younger boys. Serves him right if he did not realize the spar varnish on that shell was not completely dry. All that sticky goo on his pretty blue wool. I don't feel bad at all that I knew about his habit of running his arm over the shells on the way out of the boat shed! Miss Cordelia Wright was none too pleased, either, to get it on her linen dress. Mother chided me for being unkind. A lady is never unintentionally rude, she said. I will strive to do better (at least when she is observing me!)

…3/23 Thursday: Father is being so unfair! Again! If I can't go to Sommerbank, then at least I should be able to go to Bishop Strachan School. Even Dennie has talked her family into letting her go next year as a boarder, so I'd finally have a friend at school… And why…"

"Roo-beeee!" Julia screeched in a most unladylike fashion, dashing her schoolbooks on the floor to frantically snatch away what her annoying little sister was reading. "Ruby Ogden! That's private and that's mine!" It was bad enough she just had another row with her father: Now this, the little sneak!

Unfortunately, Julia set her toes on an edge of the counterpane, draped too low over the bed, sending her foot sliding across the polished oak boards and Julia down onto the floor in a loud, painful lump. Bedclothes tangled her legs but did not stop her from getting a fistful of her sister's skirt to yank on. "Give that here!" she demanded with her other hand.

Ruby merely smiled sweetly, unruffled by the outraged mess at her feet. "I told you I would find it, Jules." Her voice was high and clear. "And if you keep pulling my hem, the lace will come off. I must say I was hoping for something more adventurous…" Ruby offered a dramatic sigh.

"What is going on in there?" A sharp knock on the door and an inquiry from Mrs. Hastings hushed them both immediately.

"Nothing!" both girls chorused. As much as they squabbled, there was solidarity when it came to keeping secrets from the adults in the household. It was only after Mother asked about the red marks on their arms that Julia confessed what the last governess had been up to, tying their hands behind their backs to force the girls to keep corsets on all day and night.

Julia stood up awkwardly, huffing over her sister. Her recent growth-spurt was making her clumsy, she complained to herself. In the dressing table mirror, she saw a flaming red face and frizzy braids atop a long, slim body, all elbows and no hip, which contrasted sharply with little Ruby's smooth blond ringlets and her petite, cherubic form. There was no doubt Ruby took after their mother in appearance and that she, Julia, had the patrician, angular lines of their father.

"Ruby, the next time you take money from Father's coat I will tell on you!" Julia calculated that a threat of secret-spilling would do the job. By now, Ruby had read whatever she wanted to, so limiting the damage was most necessary.

"Oh, Jules…Father knows I search his pockets occasionally…I have seen him wink at me, more than once." Ruby sighed and made a face, surrendering the diary. "You always argue with him about pin-money; I do not. That is why he does not give it to you, because you are unpleasant about it. In fact, you are always unpleasant with him lately." She looked more serious. "I don't like it. It upsets Mother."

Julia set the diary on her pile of schoolbooks she collected and stacked on the bedside table. She'd find a new hiding place for her diary when Ruby was not around. "You don't understand. You're too young. But Mother is on my side; I know she is."

"Why ever would you want to go for more schooling? Most girls and boys leave school at age thirteen." Ruby sounded genuinely puzzled. "Well, I cannot wait until I am done. Then I can have adventures!"

"Like those silly stories you read? And the ones you write?" Julia jabbed, pleased to see her sister's face colour. "You leave your notebooks open; if you did not want someone to read them then do not leave them out for all to see."

"At least I will use more imagination in hiding it than you!" Ruby shot back, before turning to the mirror to primp. "Any way, our tutor says I write very well, and read almost as well as you do, even if you are older. He encourages me to find out about something and then write about it, for practice. That is better than any stuffy old school. Father says it is not as if girls can attend University, after all."

"I like to learn, for the sake of learning…it does not have to be a means to and end."

Ruby swung around to look at her sister. "Besides, what boy would court you then?"

"I don't much care about boys, any more than you do." That was not entirely true: there were a few boys at the rowing club she liked, but they took no notice of her at all, even when she intruded in their games.

"Mother says I will like boys later, like she likes Father," Ruby pronounced dubiously.

Julia cast a critical eye towards her sister. Unlike her own rather flat, sexless person, the woman Ruby will become was forming, even at the tender age of nine. "I imagine boys will also like you later," she mumbled. "And Father is wrong!" Julia was animated now. "Mother says that Queens permits females to attend chemistry and logic lectures and Methodist Victoria in Cobourg admitted female students two years ago."

"Co-bourg? King-ston, of all pla-ces?" Ruby snorted in a singsong voice. "They are not hardly as nice as Toronto. If you are going to go away, why not Paris? Or London? Or somewhere more exotic, perhaps Hawaii like that Miss Isabella Bird did. They sound much better." Ruby smoothed her skirts daintily with a grin. "Or Rome, then I could visit! Mother keeps talking about how beautiful the museums are abroad. In fact, think shall go there, with or without you…" she giggled, "and pay careful attention to the sculptures…"

Julia laughed. That was so, Ruby: one minute a child and the next moment more worldly than I. Ruby was included in their Mother's instructional trips to see male and female nudes at the museum, and her little-sister teasing about it never stopped. Julia was also reminded that Mother expected her, Julia, to be an example of decorum to her younger sister, and that laughing along with the observation was not going to accomplish those expectations.

She tried to look stern. "Now, Ruby! You will shock the ladies when they come to tea if you keep up with those remarks and embarrass Mother in the process."

Ruby stuck her tongue out.

Arms akimbo, Julia thought furiously what she could say back, and came up blank. If she said what she really wanted to say, then she would be the pot calling the kettle black, as Mrs. Hastings was wont to say. It wasn't the first time Julia suspected that Mother's admonitions regarding her duties as the older sibling were as much to curb Ruby as to put a reign in Julia's own impulsive nature. Being responsible, she thought, even if it came with perquisites, was not a blessing.

Julia knew when she was defeated. "Ruby, you are impossible! Now fix your ribbons while I wind my hair so we can be presentable for tea. The ladies will be here to visit Mother in ten minutes."

"You are going to apologize to father for being so harsh, and to Mother for upsetting her?" Ruby asked tentatively. "I so hate it when everything is disagreeable, and Mother is already feeling out of sorts from being laid up."

Their usually active mother badly twisted her ankle coming out of a carriage and was confined to bed since the previous Wednesday. The whole household's nerves were somewhat stretched due to the upset in routine.

Being chastised by her little sister was galling. "Of course, I will apologize for my tone with Father, but not for my sentiments. And, of course I will speak with Mother, but you know she has been the one encouraging me…." Julia smiled, dropping her eyes slyly, "but perhaps I should take her other advice about diplomacy?"

Ruby made a face then both girls broke into giggles. Julia needed a minute to catch her breath from the laughter. "All right, Ruby. I deserved that!"

Julia's mood was brighter as the two of them went downstairs. Ruby raced ahead, leaving Julia an opportunity to visit with Mother privately before tea, and before facing her father. By the door to the salon, she overheard her parents talking. She was going to pass by, until she heard her name amidst the discussion. The temptation to eavesdrop was too much, so she hovered just out of sight.

"Damnit Lucy! She can be so willful. And insubordinate. And maddening! Why can't Julia be more biddable, like Ruby?" her father asked.

"Lionel - don't swear. You know… I… do not… approve." Her mother seemed to have trouble with her breath, gasping a little. "And I know the reason you and your oldest daughter clash…it is because she is so much…like you, I like to think of it as… determined…. Lionel…I... oh, my chest..I can't…breathe...Oh my…"

"Lucy?" Her father's voice was alarmed. "LUCY?... LUCY?"

Julia raced into the room to see her father bending over her mother, pressing his ear to her chest.

Her mother still had a surprised look on her face…

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

Ten o'clock, Monday May 27th, 1880…

Julia installed Ruby next to their father, then took a place on the other side of her sister as music began swelling the vaulted space. That is one of Mother's favourites: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, she was surprised. A blush of shame crept up her neck along with tears: somehow, she did not expect that her father, a man who never went to church, to have known that.

The Reverend Dr. William Briggs entered garbed in a purple stole, briefly acknowledged her father, then took his place up the steps in the chancel while others finished filling pews behind her. Julia thought the crowd would have embarrassed her mother, as well as secretly please her. When Olave Hastings finally arrived, she placed a kindly hand on Julia's primly folded ones. "Faith and courage, Miss Julia," she whispered, and Julia nodded to accept the kindness. Then the housekeeper assumed a seat with the family to wait. Julia stared straight ahead, even when Ruby's face hid in her shoulder to sob. It seemed like an eternity passed before Dr. Torrington, the Metropolitan's bravura organist, finally silenced his pipes after a long, sonorous "C."

Rev. Briggs stepped to the pulpit, pitching his mild Irish lilt into the balconies so the two-hundred or so mourners could hear. "Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

He paused for only a moment. Julia finally forced herself to look at the plain wooden coffin resting in the aisle, a shaft of sunlight decorating its lid. It was still too hard to understand. A blood clot in the lungs. There was no mark on Mother's body. How can merely being bed-bound kill a healthy, vibrant woman…just like that? What kind of God permits that?

"We are gathered here this morning in the presence of God to commend the soul of Lucinda Ogden to her eternal rest…" Rev. Briggs commenced her mother's funeral.

-It was Julia Ogden's fourteenth birthday.

-END-

Dear Reader, thanx for coming along for the ride! Reviews/comments/ideas/feedback encouraged….for this story and for other writers-keep those cards and letter coming, it keeps us writing more stories for you...

Authors Note:

I like stories that explain turning points in a character's life. Why does a person choose/get on the life path they lead? How do events shape them psychologically? It was pointed out to me there are not many "Origins" story for Julia's past, and the episodes are very sparing in what they give us—we don't even know how old Julia is, her birthday, and not even exactly how/why she decided to be a doctor. I wanted a small story to foreshadow a few things (Thanx to Dutch for the suggestions), like Julia's attitude towards her sister, her dad, religion. So…perfect for one's imagination to fill in the blank with a FF story. I worked backwards from her becoming the coroner to give me Julia being 3 years younger than William. They are a little loose with the historical facts about women in college and medical school so I picked 4 years secondary school at Bishop Strachan, 4 years at McGill and 3 years at Bishops in Montreal for Medical School, then a year of not finding a job before landing at the morgue. I chose Helen Joy's birthday for Julia (because, why not?) Sarah Gadon is 9 years HJ's junior, but that does not work for the episodes where the sisters were girls together, so I thought a 5 year span was plausible and also good for psychological dynamics between the sisters. I have always thought of Julia's father as Unitarian and mom as Methodist-and the Metropolitan Church was the center of Methodist congregation in 1880's. The Reverend Dr. William Briggs & Dr. Torrington were in place at the Metropolitan Church in 1880 (and that is the church W&J's wedding was filmed at). I used my tour of the church and old pictures to describe it.

For Further reading on Victorian women and colleges: McCargar, Marilla, "Femininity and Higher Education: Women at Ontario Universities, 1890 to 1920" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3765. . /etd/3765

Thank you to JH for the inspiration…more might be coming. -rg