What the Heart Keeps (21 page)

Minnie,
who had been leaning forward to look at the photographs on the first page of the album, gave an exclamation. “Oh, look at that!”

It
showed two men balancing dangerously on a log suspended by a cable far above the ground, one with his arms widespread as if to emphasise the fact that neither was holding on.

“
It’s the spikes in the soles of their caulked boots that enables them to do that,” Agnes explained. “Oh my! But it’s still extremely risky to do!”

She
turned the pages for the girls. It was easy to see that Henry had an eye for a spectacular picture. One of a great log falling into deep water from a chute showed the resulting fountain spraying hundreds of feet high. Another was taken at the dynamiting of a huge blockage of logs in a river and the massive lengths were being tossed aside like matches. There were loggers doing the madman’s work of sawing the tops of the enormously high trees, and Henry had captured one as the tremendous whipping of the trunk resulted. Although the man was no more than a blur, the sense of speed and danger made the photograph thrillingly alive.

“
There’s Mr. Fernley,” Minnie said, as another page was reached.

“
Yes. He’s at work on the maintenance of a steam donkey which pulls the logs to a landing. I think he’s on the next page as well.” She turned it. “There he is with a camera he bought from Henry. See how all the men have stopped work to pose for the lens.”

“
Mr. Fernley is interested in all aspects of photography then?” Lisa commented.

“
He’s interested from a commercial angle. People like to see themselves on a screen and he shows such pictures as lantern slides alternating with hired movies in a hall or a canteen or in a large room, such as the Heriot Bay Hotel, from time to time. Anywhere that a large audience can be accommodated, because these shows are always packed with standing room only.”

When
the last photographs in the album had been viewed, Minnie asked Agnes about the butterflies on the wall. The two of them went from glass case to glass case. Agnes was full of amusing little stories about misfortunes that sometimes occurred in her husband’s pursuit of butterflies. And Minnie was highly entertained. She went eagerly to see some Indian beadwork that was kept in an upstairs room and Lisa could hear them laughing as the child tried on the necklaces and bracelets and headdresses. It pleased her to hear such happiness.

The
two men returned to the house just as Agnes was bringing Minnie downstairs again. As they all re-gathered in the sitting-room, Agnes made her announcement.

“
I think I’ve solved your problem temporarily, Alan. Lisa shall leave with you in the morning while Minnie remains here with Henry and me until such time as you have room to accommodate her.” She tapped the child on the shoulder, “Tell Lisa that you are willing to stay at Granite Bay for a little while.”

Minnie
hesitated for a few moments, her expressive eyes showing in whose company she would have preferred to be, but she nodded firmly enough. “I’ll stay.”

Alan
had fixed Agnes with a surprised stare. “Where do you suppose I’ll find this extra accommodation?”

“
You could divide off a small section of your large photography room.” Seeing that he was about to give a strongly negative answer, she held up an admonishing finger. “Think of Harriet. If she and Lisa get on well together, as I’m sure they will, you wouldn’t want the companionship split up simply because there was no room for Minnie. Remember that Lisa has her obligations, too.”

“
I’ll see what can be done,” he conceded, “but I’ll have to give any alteration to that part of the house a good deal of thought.”

“
Not necessarily,” she argued persuasively. “A dividing screen and a little wall-bed is all that is needed.” Then, to stem further argument, she gave an encompassing smile to the girls. “I’ll show you to your bedrooms now. You must both be tired after your journey. I’m going to retire at the same time. Good night, Alan.”

“
Good night, Agnes,” he replied drily. “I knew I could rely on you to solve everything.”

Agnes
’s eyes twinkled merrily. Ignoring Henry’s scowl at hearing that Minnie was to stay on, she ushered the two girls before her up the stairs. Henry was jealous of sharing her with anyone, even a child, and for that reason Minnie’s sojourn in the house could be for no longer than was absolutely necessary. In the meantime, she would enjoy the little girl’s company. Tomorrow she would write to her sister Jessie at home in Toronto and tell her about the young guest. Her family did not like to think of her being too much alone, which was the fate of women in these parts, but she accepted it.

In
the morning the rain had gone and the sun returned with a blaze of heat to set the whole of Granite Bay asparkle. The giant trees were revealed in all their full splendour in a luxuriant range of greens. Lisa, ready to leave with Alan after her overnight sojourn, came out of the house and looked about her, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun’s brightness. She could see white pines and cedars, maples and firs and hemlock. Across on the far side of the bay a small gap revealed a skid-road made up of tree trunks laid side by side, which indicated the direction in which the logging out of the forest was being carried out in that area. Unlike the previous night when it had seemed that there was not a living soul anywhere but at the Twidles’ home, there were several people about. Down by the shore, two Indians were repairing a canoe. On a bench outside the store some loggers lounged in the sunshine, waiting for Henry to open up there, and they stared across at Lisa, their jaws moving rhythmically as they chewed quids of tobacco, occasionally spitting out the juice. On the bay, in a row-boat, an old trapper enjoying summertime leisure, his dog sitting in the bow, was busy with a line and bringing in a silvery catch that glistened as it came out of the water.

Any
second thoughts that Minnie might have had about being left behind had been dispelled by the discovery that the Twidles’ cat had two five-week-old kittens. She barely took time to say goodbye to Lisa before returning to them.

“
Don’t worry about her,”- Agnes said as she walked down with

Lisa
to where Alan had readied his long, narrow boat in which the journey was to be made. “I’ll look after her and it will do her good to learn not to be entirely dependent upon you. After all, you’re very young to have shouldered such a responsibility.” She handed over a package. “Would you give this to Harriet? There are two novels in it that I’m sure you’ll both enjoy, and a few other things that I think she’ll like to have. I’m sure that you two will be good friends from the start. Harriet is a dear, kind person, as you’ll soon find out for yourself.”

The
Twidles stood side by side on the wharf to wave to Lisa as Alan started up the engine and turned the boat in the direction of the narrows. Although Henry went to open up the store almost at once, Agnes was still waving when the trees finally shut her out of sight. Granite Bay was left behind, and ahead, beyond the narrows, lay Kanish Bay.

“
There is something I should like to ask you, Alan,” Lisa said. His attitude towards her was polite enough, but no less chilly than it had been the evening before.

“
Yes?” He turned his head to glance at her, his eyes shaded by the wide black brim of the hat that had dried out since the rain of the previous evening.

“
I was told by Mrs. Grant that she had sent a severe report on me to you and your wife.”

“
Didn’t you deserve it?” He was faintly mocking.

Her
shoulders straightened and she stiffened on the thwart where she sat. “No, I did not. I just wanted to know why you both still agreed that I should come here.”

“
The explanation is simple enough. Harriet’s reasoning was that if we were going to open our house to a stranger, then it should be to someone in need of a good home. Her natural choice was a Home girl. The fact that we were informed that you were a deserving case in need of moral guidance sealed the issue. She is prepared to ignore the advice given that we should deal harshly with you.” His mouth twitched sideways in faint amusement.

“
I find it humiliating to be dogged quite unjustly by disgrace.”

He
shrugged. “Forget it. My wife will accept you as she finds you.

“
What of you?” she challenged. “You have made it plain that you resent the intrusion of an outsider in your home.”

“
Two outsiders eventually,” he pointed out sharply. “I’ll remind you that you didn’t come alone to Quadra Island. Since we are speaking frankly, I admit that I resented you before you even arrived, but I’ve managed to keep that from Harriet. If you and I are to get along at all with each other, I trust you will keep up my harmless deception for her sake.”

“
Such possessiveness appals me!” she burst out. “Can’t you bear to share your wife’s company with either kith or kin, no matter how lonely she might be?”

His
expression became fierce, his nostrils dilating dangerously. “As it happens, my wife has no kin. She grew up in the care of her late mother’s sister, and that lady has since died. Do you imagine that it pleases me to commit my wife to a hard and lonely existence? In normal circumstances, in a house in a town or city, I probably wouldn’t even notice you under the same roof, but in the present confined quarters of our home I resent the prospect of never coming home to a meal alone with her and being unable to share a winter evening without the constant presence of another person!”

“
I’ll stay in the kitchen. I’ll keep out of your way.” She was as fierce as he.

“
Wait until you see the house before you make any more such offers,” he replied brusquely. His profile was towards her as he looked across at the passing shore where the seemingly impenetrable forest pressed down to the water’s edge from the high slopes above. Its green luxuriance moved outwards across the surface in floating logs and twisted branches and mossy driftwood, which sometimes bobbed away in the wave created by the boat’s bow. “This island and these forests would never be my permanent choice of habitation, although I appreciate the grandeur of it all. It’s because at heart I’m a city man, having been born and bred in London. Harriet, on the other hand, is a country girl from a Connecticut farmstead and is happiest in the depth of nature. Because I believed it to be therapeutic for her to recover from a miscarriage amid surroundings of her choice, I agreed to try to recoup our finances by putting my, engineering skills at the disposal of a prosperous lumber company as a means to an end of getting a cinema of my own again.”

“
You had a cinema? I didn’t know. Agnes mentioned your interest in moving pictures.”

“
As so often happens, I had followed my father’s footsteps into engineering, but from the start I was drawn to the bioscope and the technicalities of film projection. To gain wider knowledge I went to France to investigate the Lumiere cinematographic equipment, and then came via Germany and the developments there to New York, which is the main centre of film-making and a magnet for anyone interested in that fast-moving industry. Harriet was working in one of the offices. We met and married within a matter of weeks. By that time I had designed and patented my own film projector, but so had a good many other people. Naturally I considered mine to be the best on the market. The one I’ve built more recently in my workshop outstrips the first, which I used when Harriet and I left New York. After a few months of putting on travelling picture shows, we set up our own movie house.”

“
Where was that? In the United States?”

He
shook his head. “Nickleodeons had sprung up everywhere there in the wake of the earlier Kinetoscope Parlours and the Vitascope Halls. Canada had not expanded with the same rapidity and I felt the whole country was ready to be opened up on a grand scale. From my first beginnings in Winnipeg, I was already looking to the day when Fernley cinemas would be spread right across the continent. Then disaster struck in a fire and we lost everything. It was through shock that Harriet lost the baby she was expecting. That’s why, through her choice, we came to British Columbia and to Quadra Island.” His eyes hardened angrily on her. “So in future, Lisa, you may keep to yourself any other inaccurate suppositions you care to harbour about my attitude towards my wife, possessiveness included.”

She
coloured uncomfortably and forced herself to give a nod. No good would come of constant friction with him. Somehow she must try not to let him rile her. Perhaps it would be easier in Harriet’s presence.

“
Look!” he exclaimed suddenly, pointing ahead. “The whales are running.”

There
appeared to be a school of them. She could see them clearly as they rolled above the surface of the sparkling water and dived again, bursts of spray accompanying their harmless passage, for they were far from the boat and there was no danger. Somehow the sighting eased the tension and for a while he talked quite amiably, telling her of the salmon and other fish that abounded around the island as in neighbouring waters. Deer and grouse were to be had by any good shot in the forest, and fortunately the wolves and bears had long since gone from Quadra. Only the occasional cougar prowled in the deepest wooded depths as yet not approached for logging out by the lumber companies. As for shellfish, clams, and oysters, they were easy to come by along the boulder strewn shoreline.