The Progress of Love

too unlike the young men who went into politics. A fine voice and a good profile did no harm.
    Locked eyes. Kisses at the door of Violet’s boarding house. The cool, nicely shaved, but still slightly bristling and foreign male cheek, the decent but promising smell of talc and shaving lotion. Soon enough they were slipping into the shadows beside the doorway, pressing together through their winter clothing. They had to have serious talks about self-control, and these talks were in themselves inflammatory. They became more and more convinced that if they were married, they would be having the kind of pleasures that nearly make you faint when you think about them.
    Soon after Violet got back from her Christmas holidays, they became engaged. Then they had other things to think about and look forward to besides sex. A responsible and important sort of life lay ahead of them. They were asked to dinner as an engaged couple, by older ministers and rich and powerful members of the congregation. Violet had made herself one good dress, a cranberry woolserge with box pleats—a great improvement over the Roman-striped crêpe creation.
    At those dinners, they had tomato juice to start with. Pitchers of iced water sat on the tables. No one in that church could touch alcoholic beverages. Even their Communion wine was grape juice. But there were great roasts of beef or pork, or turkeys, on silver platters, roasted potatoes and onions and slatherings of gravy, then rich cakes and pies and divinely molded puddings with whipped cream. Eating was not a sin. Cardplaying was a sin, except for a specially created Methodist card game called Lost Heir; dancing was a sin for some, and moviegoing was a sin for some, and going to any kind of entertainment except a concert of sacred music for which one did not pay was a sin for all on Sundays.
    This was a change for Violet after the easygoing Anglicanism of her childhood, and the rules—if there were any rules—at home. She wondered what Trevor would say if he could see King Billy downing his tot of whiskey every morning before he started out to do the chores. Trevor had spoken of going home with her to meet her family, but she had been able to put him off. They could not go on Sunday because of his church services, and they could not go during the week because of her classes. She tried to push the idea of home out of her mind for now.
    The strictness of the United Church might have been something to get used to, but the feelings of purpose and importance about it, the briskness and energy, were very agreeable to Violet. It was as if the ministers and top parishioners all had jobs in some thriving and important company. The role of a minister’s wife she could see as hard and challenging, but that did not discourage her. She could see herself teaching Sunday school, raising money for missions, leading in prayer, sitting nicely dressed in the front pew listening to Trevor, tirelessly pouring tea out of a silver pot.
    She didn’t plan to spend the summer at home. She would visit for a week, once her exams were over, then work for the summer in the church office in Ottawa. She had applied for a teaching jobin Bell’s Corners, close by. She meant to teach for one year, then get married.
    The week before exams were due to start, she got a letter from home. It was not from King Billy or Aunt Ivie—they didn’t write letters—but from the woman on the next farm, the owner of the sewing machine. Her name was Annabelle Wrioley and she took some interest in Violet. She had no daughter of her own. She used to think that Violet was a terror, but now she thought she was a go-getter.
    Annabelle said she was sorry to bother Violet at this time, but thought she should be told. There was trouble at home. What the trouble was she didn’t like to say in a letter. If Violet could see her way to coming home on the train, she could go to town and meet her. She and her husband had a car now.
    So Violet came home on the train.
    “I have to tell you straight out,” said Annabelle. “It’s your father. He’s in danger.”
    Violet thought she meant that King Billy was sick. But it wasn’t that. He had been getting strange letters. Terrible letters. They were threats on his life.
    What was in those letters, Annabelle said, was disgusting beyond belief.
    Out at home, it looked as if all daily life had been suspended. The whole family was frightened. They were afraid to go to the back pasture to get the cows,