What the Heart Keeps (9 page)

“
Now it’s your turn to tell me what has happened since you left Liverpool,” he urged. “Where are you working?”

“
I’m still at the Distribution Home. I’ve never left it.” She described how it had all come about and said what a strange existence it was for her. She was either passing the time quietly alone in the house with Miss Lapthorne, or else she was being rushed off her feet trying to do a dozen chores at once. It did happen more frequently that there were spells when the children for direct adoption stayed much longer than they had done previously. The Canadian authorities had tightened a number of restrictions and Miss Drayton was not able to place them quite as speedily as before, which Lisa thought was all to the good. She had never seen any one of them who had left Sherbourne Street, with the single exception of Gertie Lawson, whom she sometimes glimpsed from a distance. She paused for a few moments, compressing her lips in an almost secret smile before she spoke again. “It hardly seems possible that I’m sitting here talking to you. I’ve wished so often that it could be.”

His
whole face showed pleasure. “Do you mean that you’ve actually thought about me sometimes?”

She
almost told him about the flag she had cut out of the magazine, but decided against it. “Yes, although I never thought we should meet again.”

“
Maybe I find it less surprising.”

“
You do?”

He
grinned. “It’s a national trait on my part. We Norwegians are not so many in number, but wherever we go in the world we always meet a neighbour from home or someone else we know. Therefore I find it perfectly natural that you and I should find each other again.”

Then
suddenly it seemed natural to her, too. She realised that deep in her heart there had always been an unacknowledged conviction that their paths would cross again, however briefly. It was as if the knowledge had existed since the time of her birth that there would be one man to find and love and lose, only to find again. For it had been love that he had awakened in her on that far away dockside. She had not recognised it at the time, but she had cherished the tenderness ever since and now being with him was like a home-coming.

“
Have you found the place yet where you want to strike roots?” she asked.

“
Far from it,” he answered firmly. “America is still my oyster. Jon, my brother, has moved from Oregon to the neighbouring state of Washington and says Norwegian settlers are everywhere there. It must be that the mountains and the forests remind them of the old country.”

“
Will your brother stay there, do you think?”

“
No, he is still set on returning home one day to take over the family farm. He wrote in one letter that nothing gladdens him more than when he receives a lumber season’s wages in golden dollars because each one is going to enrich the soil of his own land for himself and his son one day.”

“
How old is his boy?”

“
Three. He has never seen him.”

“
That must be hard. And it is surely a lonely life for Jon’s wife.”

“
Not exactly lonely. In some ways the pattern of Ingrid’s life is akin to yours. She is kept extremely busy for weeks at a time and then there are lulls. She either has a houseful of my brothers to cook for or else it is just she and my father and her child at table. Then there is all the farm work she does, outside all day at harvest time and back to tranquillity in wintertime with her spinning wheel and knitting needles and snow up to the windows.”

“
All without the man she loves.”

“
That is the fate of many Norwegian women whose men come solely to make their fortunes in the New World. Some wait many years for their husbands to return. Not long before I left Norway, a man from our valley returned after seventeen years away.”

“
Had he become a rich man?”

“
No, but he had enough in his pockets to strut about and boast a great deal,” Peter answered wryly.

“
Shall you do that if ever you go back on a visit?” she teased.

He
shook his head, amused. “No. The truly successful never boast and that’s what I intend to be. Shouldn’t you be thinking of breaking away from your present job?” His glance flicked admiringly over her. “With your nice appearance you could start working in a store or hotel or a restaurant where there would be a chance of promotion.”

She
looked down at her hands in her lap, lacing her fingers together. “I have thought about it,” she admitted frankly, “but it’s out of the question.” Briefly she summed up everything for him. “I’m not being a martyr. Please don’t think that. I just happen to believe that money isn’t everything.”

He
had been of the same mind about money during the months after leaving New York when he had gone around taking whatever casual work came his way, but basically it had been for the sheer enjoyment of total freedom and not for any commendable purpose such as hers. She was no ordinary girl. Somehow he had known it when he had singled her out of the crowd in a teeming embarkation shed, even though his interest had been aroused out of the boredom of waiting to go on board ship and not from the far more agreeable sensation he felt now in her presence.

“
Do you know many people in Toronto?” he questioned, more sharply than he had intended. He had a sudden fear that she might have a romantic entanglement that would leave no room for him.

She
turned her face quickly towards him in mild surprise at his tone. “I’m acquainted with many. I belong to a youth group and a sewing circle at the church, although there is only time for those gatherings when the centre is empty as it is at the moment.”

“
No special beau?” he probed.

Her
eyes gave her away, showing that there had been those who had aimed to monopolise her company. Still more had had ulterior motives simply because the stigma of her being a Home girl suggested she would be easy game. She had avoided all of them. That came through in her ringing reply. “No one.”

He
saw he had embarrassed her and sought a diversion. “Are refreshments available anywhere in these gardens?”

They
strolled to the pavilion, an ornate building with much white-painted ironwork, which dominated the gardens. They sat at one of the tables on the veranda and were served ices in rose-china dishes and lemonade in frosted glasses. Already it was late afternoon. He could not bear that the time was flying past with such speed. After they had talked generally for a while, she revealed that she was also aware how the minutes were ticking away.

“
Did you say you were leaving the day after tomorrow?” she asked quietly.

He
reached out his hand and took hers into his, looking seriously at her. “I have no choice. Whatever horses I buy have to be shipped without delay. My employer will not tolerate extra stabling fees.” There was a pause. “But we have the rest of today and tomorrow evening when the sale is over. If I’m lucky you might even come to the train and wave me goodbye!”

“
I did that once before from the deck of the S.S.
Victoria
, although there was no chance that you’d see me.”

“
I think I knew. Anyway, I waved until your ship was out of sight.”

A
tremor went through her. “I don’t like partings. I’ve had so many of them.”

The
pressure of his hand increased, firmly and surely. “It won’t be goodbye this time. I’ll come back to Toronto again to see you, if you’ll let me.”

Her
response was eager. “Oh, yes!” Then she added on a more subdued note: “But it is a long way away.”

“
There will be other sales to bring me here on business and I’ll get a vacation sooner or later. In the meantime, we can write to each other.” He whipped out a notebook from his pocket and took down her address as she gave it to him. Then he wrote down his own before tearing out the page to hand it to her. “Now we shall never lose touch again.”

She
took the page and folded it away carefully into her purse. Letters were rare events in her life, although during the past few months she had received two of special significance, one from the town of Lauder in Manitoba and the other from Raymond, Alberta, a place that had been recently settled on the prairies. She had looked them up on a map.

On
the strength of the contents of the letters, she had written to Mrs. Bradlaw at the old orphanage in Leeds, unable to think of anyone else to whom she could communicate on the matter. No reply had been forthcoming.

She
realised she had counted too much on that brief spell of mutual respect between them. Her, letter had most surely ended up in a wastepaper-basket. But in Peter Hagen she had someone at last to listen to her. Already he had shown compassionate understanding when she had explained why she did not feel able to leave the Distribution Home.

“
Would you be surprised,” she questioned keenly, “if I told you that Miss Drayton supplies brides to western Canada?”

He
gave her a long look. “My brother has mentioned a sad shortage of women in some areas where he has been working. It would be the same on this side of the border. If the girls are willing I see no harm in such an arrangement.”

“
I agree with you there. While I was at the orphanage I heard about a society taking brides to Australia, but they were properly chaperoned and looked after until married to the man of their choice.”

“
Then where is the problem? The law these days prevents any female from being forced into a marriage.”

“
But officially Miss Drayton sends the girls as servants. The men out West pay her a thousand dollars each in advance as a domestic agency fee. It seems that Mrs. Grant, who is Miss Drayton’s representative, delivers the girls haphazardly to whoever happens to meet the train as it crosses the prairies, or takes them direct to a given address where supposedly employment is awaiting them. If the man is refused when he proposes marriage, he is the loser on two counts, whereas Miss Drayton is always the winner, with his money safely in her grasp. The inspectors are always entirely satisfied with the records whenever they call and so on the surface at least there is nothing illegal to be pin-pointed.”

“
It still sounds entirely crooked to me.”

“
Oh, I’m so glad you share my opinion. Apart from any more serious aspect, it is entirely unethical as well. You see, funds raised in Great Britain for the Herbert Drayton Memorial Society should be divided equally between finding homes for orphans and securing good employment in a family environment for older girls. That is the published aim. All too often the older ones outnumber the younger children, except when there is a spate of infants, and even babes in arms, which is a sign to me that Miss Drayton is covering her tracks for a while.”

“
When did you first suspect this state of affairs?”

“
I began to notice that although Toronto people came to the centre with a willingness to take an immigrant servant, which is what we had all been led to expect, there were never any girls available. They were all going to the West.”

“
Do you have any proof of what you believe to be happening?”

“
Out of all the girls only two have ever written to me. One appreciated my forewarning her of what might lie ahead, and she had found out about the fee-paying. The second girl, named Alice, found herself alone on a prairie homestead with a brutal man who already had a wife somewhere. When the travelling threshers came for the harvest, she ran away with a thresher-man. He deserted her in a small town somewhere. She was near her time with the homesteader’s child and without a cent. She was begging in the streets when a covered wagon came through. A Mormon widow was on her way to make a new home in Raymond in the same province. The kind woman befriended her, tended her at the birth, and drove mother and baby with her to the new settlement. Alice has since married a Mormon herself and wanted me to know she has found happiness with a good man.” Lisa paused thoughtfully. “Although she was lucky in the end, it is impossible to measure the misery and hardship that many of the other girls have surely had to endure.”

He
spoke bluntly. “Has it occurred to you that some might have ended up in sporting houses?”

She
had not heard the expression before, but she understood its meaning. “Yes,” she replied with equal frankness. “The tragedy on that score is that remarkably few of those whom Miss Drayton brings are of a wayward nature. Although occasionally there is a rough group, they are on the whole quite ordinary girls, as nervous and upset by the strangeness of everything as the young children that come to the centre.”

“
Do you still have the letters?

“
Not anymore. They were stolen from my drawer.”

“
By whom?”

“
This is difficult to say. I fear there is pilfering by some girls and I lost a scarf and a blouse at the same time.”