“School is over for the season,” Winny said, “but when I last saw Charlotte she was ever so happy. If you saw her now, you wouldn’t recognize her. She’s so confident, and it’s impossible not to smile when she does. Perhaps next semester I can figure out a way to arrange a visit.”
Mary grinned. “I would love that.”
Remembering her happy expression, Winny reached for the next vine and let out a slow, satisfied breath. The worst was over. They were both safe, and they could both manage four more years of living out here. Maybe then she would go to nursing school. Maybe Mary would go with her.
“Winny?” David called, breaking her reverie.
He was leaning against the fence, a frown on his face. She was so glad David was still at the farm. He was eighteen now, and Master Adams had decided to hire him on at a better wage. Now he was in charge of the other Home Boys as well as a lot of the farm work, and she knew he was happy about it. Today, though, he looked uneasy.
“Mistress Adams asked me to find you. She said to come to the house right now.”
She rose, her basket looped over her arm, and headed to the house. Mistress Adams met her at the door, her face stricken.
“Mistress? Is something wrong?”
“Come inside, Winnifred.”
She entered the kitchen, but Mistress Adams continued into the living room. “In here, please.”
Nerves wriggled in Winny’s chest. She’d never been allowed in that room before, and now her mistress was indicating a chair. She lowered herself carefully onto the seat, apprehension buzzing through her.
“Winnifred, I have to tell you something.” She frowned tightly. “It’s something terrible.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” For the first time, she saw Mistress Adams pick at her own nails. As if she were nervous about something. “It’s your friend, Mary.” She said her name softly, like a sigh. “She’s… gone.”
“Gone where?”
“She—she died.”
All the blood drained from Winny’s head, and a great, yawning hole opened in front of her. She teetered on its edge, lights flickering in her vision. It isn’t true. She had just seen Mary. She was happy. She was healthy. And yet… her mistress was staring at her. Her expression hadn’t changed.
“It was a shocking thing.”
“How?” Winny heard herself whisper. “How did she die?”
Mistress Adams looked at her hands, knotted in her lap.
“Tell me,” Winny said, suddenly frantic. “I need to know.”
“She hung herself,” she said, choking on the words. “My sister’s husband went to her room this afternoon and found her there.”
Rage coursed through Winny’s veins. “What was he doing in her room? He wasn’t supposed to be there!”
Her mistress’s face crumpled, and she met Winny’s eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know! All I know is what my sister told me. She came here earlier, when you were out in the garden. She told the Mounties everything and has reported her husband to them.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Winnifred.”
Winny stared straight ahead, numb. Mary. What happened?
“She wrote you a note.”
Winny stared at the small white paper Mistress Adams had drawn from her apron. She was afraid to touch it, but Mistress Adams placed it in her hand.
“You may read it in here,” she said, then she left Winny alone in the room.
It took a few seconds before Winny could make herself unfold the paper, and then tears blurred her vision.
Dearest Winny,
I never meant to hurt you, and I know this letter will do that and so much more.
I need you to know that I really was feeling much better lately, and that was because of you. You’re the only reason I survived this long. You saved me from the hell I was living in, but I must be honest with you. I never trusted my happiness. I lived in fear of the day my master would come back. For a while, I let myself believe he wouldn’t. I dreamed of the day when I would be free, and I would be with you and Jack, and we would find my son together.
Winny, I am sorry. That day will never come.
He came back today. And when it was all happening again, I saw his strap in my mind. The one he used to leave hanging on my wall as a reminder of him. For the first time, I imagined that strap around my neck. And I realized that there was a way for me to be free of him. I know you won’t believe it, but in that moment, all the fear and anger and hate left me. I don’t have to be here any longer. I know it will be difficult for you to understand, but knowing that I can leave this place has filled me with peace. Now, at last, I feel safe.
The only fear I have is that Jack might someday find out what I decided to do. You know how he is, Winny. He’d blame himself for not stopping me, and it would kill him. If you ever find him, please hold him tight for me. Tell him I loved him and missed him, but never, ever tell him what I did.
Dear Winny, I have one last favour to ask of you. I need you to find my son. Please. It is the last thing I will ever ask. Find my baby. Love him, and raise him like your own.
Your loving sister forever,
Mary
Winny blotted her tears off the paper with her thumb and read the letter again, unable to grasp this new truth: a world without Mary. The letters were scrawled hastily, their lines and whorls inconsistent, except for Mary’s name. It had been written carefully, the rises and falls of the ink as deliberate as every other decision she had ever made, and Winny traced them with a feather-light touch. The precious, beautiful word swam in her vision, and she saw again the tips of Mary’s fingers extended to her that day on the street, so long before. Their warmth and welcome. Their offer of friendship and more. The gentle tail of the final y faded smoothly into the paper, disappearing from sight as Mary had lifted her hand and the pen, and to Winny it seemed almost… right. It was the last thing Mary had ever written. The last thing she had ever done for anyone but herself.
How deep her sadness must have flowed. An underground torrent, wearing away at the fragile ceiling that had become Mary’s foundation. I thought I knew, Winny despaired, tears streaming down her cheeks. But how could I? How could anyone?
When she awoke the next morning, Winny milked the cows and collected eggs and weeded the garden and didn’t say anything to anyone beyond what she had to. A numb, aching grief had wrapped itself so tightly around her she could barely breathe. The next day, when she was out in the garden, Mistress Adams came to the side of the fence.
“Mary’s funeral is this afternoon,” she said gently. “We will leave in ten minutes.”
She was touched by the fact that Master Adams and David went with them to the Renfrews’ farm, and that they offered to ride in the bed of the truck so she could sit inside. But Winny refused, choosing instead to sit alone in the back, the wind whipping her hair. When they arrived, Mistress Renfrew greeted them quietly then led them behind the house to the family cemetery where strands of lazy grass caressed stone markers. A narrow pine coffin had been placed on the ground by a freshly dug grave. Winny could smell the dirt, the cold, the alone, and she hated that Mary would soon be a part of it.
Closing her eyes, she brought Mary’s face to her mind. Not the broken, sad expression of the last year, but the open, friendly smile she had first known in London. The challenge in Mary’s blue eyes whenever anyone dared go after Winny. That’s how she needed to remember her. That’s how she prayed Mary looked right now, squeezed within the narrow confines of that coffin.
A breeze tickled Winny’s face. It touched her eyelids and her lips like a friend, keeping her company in the midst of strangers. Jack should be here, she thought, standing right here at her side. These people weren’t Mary’s family no matter where they decided to bury her body. Winny and Jack were. He deserved to be here, to know what had happened to his sister. But Mary was right. Knowing the truth would only tear him apart.
Two of the Renfrews’ Home Boy
s lowered the coffin into the dirt, and Winny started to shake. Her knees wobbled, and it was Mistress Adams who stepped forward and held her upright.
The minister began to speak. He said very little about Mary herself, and Winny knew that was because he considered suicide to be a sin. In Winny’s mind, it was Master Renfrew who had sinned. He was the one responsible for all of it. But how could a man be punished when a girl took her own life? In a way, Winny was glad the minister didn’t try to talk about Mary. No one knew who she had been, except for Winny. He would have said the wrong thing. When he was done speaking, he looked toward Mistress Renfrew for guidance.
Mary’s mistress stepped to the edge of the hole and looked down. “I should have done more to protect you,” Winny heard her whisper. “I’m sorry.” Then she turned and walked toward Winny. Her expression was thick with grief, hardened by guilt, and Winny was glad of it. So, so glad. “I’m sorry, Winnifred. I really am.”
Winny’s jaw was sealed shut. She had no words for this woman.
Mistress Adams put her hand on Winny’s arm and squeezed gently. “You may go say goodbye now.”
Winny couldn’t stand where Mistress Renfrew had stood. Instead, she knelt beside the grave and stared at the top of the plain wooden box. Her mind flew to the laughter they’d shared, to the times they’d huddled together in the dark, to the dreams they’d shared about their future together. Mary had given her so much, including a final task, and Winny felt a wisp of gratitude for something she could hold on to. Something she could take from this place as she left her heart behind.
I will find your son, she promised her friend and herself. And he will be truly loved, as he should have been all along. Goodbye my dearest, only sister. Goodbye, Mary.
She heard a rustling behind her as the others left the cemetery. It was time to go. Her knees felt anchored to the earth, but there was nothing more she could do here. She rose stiffly to her feet and forced herself to walk away. The only sound she could hear was the gentle thump of the Home Boys tossing dirt onto Mary’s grave.
At the door to her house, Mrs. Renfrew invited Winny to join them for tea. When she’d first come to the Renfrews’ farm so many months ago, Winny had badly wanted to go inside this very house. Now that she sat on one of the woman’s fine chairs, a china cup rattling in her hand, she found she didn’t care for the place at all. And in that moment, it became quite clear what she needed to do. She would go to nursing school with Charlotte, and she would become a nurse. And she would raise Mary’s son as her own.
When she placed her teacup on the delicate, carved table beside her, Winny’s hand no longer trembled. With new purpose beating in her chest, she got to her feet and turned to Mistress Renfrew.
“Excuse me, please, but I need to know,” she said. “Where is Mary’s baby?”
twenty-one JACK
For two years, Jack rode the rails, stopping at small towns where he’d go from door to door, offering to do anything that needed doing. Most of the time he was greeted with the familiar refrain “No jobs here,” but sometimes the locals went a little further and mocked his accent before they sent him packing. On occasion, their sneering turned to worse, and Jack ran off with more than a few cuts and bruises.
“Maybe head west,” someone suggested, so Jack followed the tracks and threw himself into a boxcar as it chugged slowly past.
But it never really got any easier. When the temperature dropped, he couldn’t ride outside the cars, so he had to open the door as he jumped on board then sit close to the other men huddled inside, their arms pressed against each other for warmth. At least with the cold, the men didn’t smell quite as bad, though Jack knew he was part of that problem. Food was even more scarce in the winter, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to go a couple of days without a bite to eat. What tattered clothes he had hung on his shrunken frame.
It was the loneliness that got to him the most. He wrote Edward and Cecil when he could, and when he met fellows his age, he asked if any of them had ever heard of a girl named Mary Miller, or one called Winnifred Ellis, but the answer was always no. Sometimes he wondered if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life, leaving the farm. What were the brothers up to now? Was Edward at school? And what about Mary? What if she was looking for him? That was a question he preferred not to think about, because despite his promise to find her, here he was, far away from his responsibilities.
When he met Toby, he’d been somewhere outside Regina in a boxcar, dozing off. All at once a stranger had landed in the car, skidding across the slippery floor and grabbing hold of a crate to stabilize himself. The fellow looked older than Jack, his beard thick and black, his temples streaked by lines, but it was hard to tell ages out here. He eyed Jack, gave him the customary nod, then settled down next to him and pulled his wool scarf higher.
“Nitherin’ out there, ain’t it?” he muttered, grabbing Jack’s attention with his English slang about the extreme cold.
“It is,” Jack said, cautious. “Where you from?”
The man spat to the side. “Yorkshire to start. Then some wee farm in Ontario. Most recent was the Winnipeg train station where the Mounties wouldn’t do me the kindness of locking me up for a night or two. I need to break more laws, seems like.”
“Yorkshire? Are you a Home Child?”
“I was.” He lifted his chin. “What of it?”
Jack broke into a rare smile and held out his hand. “I am as well. I’m Jack.”
“Toby.”
“When did you come over?”
“Back in twenty-two. I was nine.”
Jack lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t know there were Home Children back then.”
Toby chuckled, rummaging through his pack, and Jack saw he was missing an eye tooth. “Aye, lad. They’ve been sending us over here nigh on a hundred years. From what I’ve heard, there’s thousands of us.”
Jack was so stunned by the news he didn’t notice the crust of bread Toby was offering. “I haven’t seen many.”
“Aye, well.” He gave Jack a cheeky grin and kept the crust for himself. “We don’t go around talking about it, do we? ‘Good morning, sir, the name’s Toby and I’m a useless piece of garbage. How are you?’ I dunno about you, mate, but I’m not fond of the subject.”
True enough, Jack thought.
“Where you heading?” Toby asked. “Anywheres in particular?”
“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “I want a job, but—”
“Nah. You’ll never find one. There’s too many of us,” Toby said, talking a mile a minute. “They used to have the relief camps, you know. That was during the worst of it. The Depression, right? They stuck the camps out in the bush in the middle of nowhere so’s the regular people wouldn’t be bothered by the likes of us. Here’s the thing. You didn’t have to go, but if you didn’t, you’d be jailed for being a bum. Someone’s got a sense of humour, I reckon. Anyhow, we cleared bush, built roads and bridges, did whatever they told us to.” He shook his head, remembering. “So-called room and board and twenty cents in your pocket for a hard day’s work.”
“Sounds like a grown man’s orphanage.”
“Not so different. Forty men trying to sleep in a space for half as many. Government was daft for putting us all in there together, though. The relief camp’s where I first heard about the unions and all that. We was like a load of dry wood that kept on sparking until we finally caught fire.” He grinned. “What a time that was. Couple of years back I hopped a train along with hundreds of others to protest in Regina, and I’ve been riding the rails ever since.” He studied Jack. “You read the manifesto yet?”
Jack was having a hard time following what Toby was saying. “The what?”
“That’s a good read for you, mate,” he said, digging in his pack. He produced a well-thumbed book and handed it to Jack. “It’s a hundred-year-old book with all the answers.”
“The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,” Jack read. “What’s it about?”
It had been a long time since Jack had picked up a book, and he found it slow going at first, but the more he read, the more righteous he felt about his anger. The word proletariat was new to him, but the idea of the poor working for the rich was not. He, Mary, Winny, Cecil, Edward, and the others were the proletariat, the lowest level of humanity. They had been born in poverty because the government had ignored the plights of their parents and grandparents. They were fated to suffer while others prospered. When the numbers of the poor soared and chaos took over the streets, the government corralled them into workhouses and orphanages, establishing control and forcing them to work for everyone but themselves.
Thomas Barnardo might have believed he was doing what was best by taking them from the streets and abusive homes and orphanages, but by selling children to Canada by the thousands, he’d made money off them, too. People like him and Warren, Jack realized, were pure capitalists. Warren’s farm did all right because it depended on the backs of boys like Jack, boys who stayed on the bottom rung of a greasy ladder.
Toby’s words stayed with Jack long after Toby went his own way, somewhere along the line. More and more Jack joined in on conversations in the railcars, talking about unions and solidarity. He became one of them, and he shared their feverish convictions that someday men like him would no longer suffer. Someday he would have what others had.
twenty-two WINNY
Mary’s final request weighed on Winny throughout the summer. Mistress Renfrew had given Winny all she knew, which was the name of the home where Mary had given birth. Beyond that, Winny didn’t have anything to go on. But the more she thought about it, the more she hoped Charlotte might be able to help. On her first day back at school, Winny could barely concentrate on her lessons, she was so anxious to speak to her friend at their secret spot.
The Forgotten Home Child Page 17