The Infamous Miss Ilsa

by Laine Ferndale

  Something had gone wrong with the stove, and it was belching soot and greasy, black smoke. They had needed a new stove for ages, and with Nils nowhere to be found, she didn’t trust anyone enough to fix this one. She shouted the girls and patrons into some kind of order, opened the windows and extinguished the stove with the sand in the fire bucket, but by then, the room was a sooty mess.

  She was helping Annie through a coughing fit when she heard the distinctive three hoots of the SS Minto pulling away from the docks. She had missed Theo, and now he’d be gone for weeks and weeks. Maybe he’d never even come back at all.

  It was probably the smoke that made her need to step outside into the chill before tears started rolling down her face. She took some big gulps of fresh air. No, this was for the best. What would she have said to him anyway? She couldn’t give him the only answer he wanted. Maybe he wouldn’t even have wanted to speak to her so publicly. Dr. Greyson already knew about their meetings. A dockside chat would only stoke the gossip flames. This was for the best, Ilsa told herself, staring at the dead and dying husks of this year’s green beans and tomato plants. It was silly to be sad over something she couldn’t change, when she had so much else that needed doing.

  Chapter 15

  After two months in the quiet of Fraser Springs, the Vancouver streets seemed like a pandemonium of noise and foul odours. Even the fresh dusting of snow did nothing to dampen the assault on Theo’s senses. He stared out the carriage window as dogs barked and tram cars clanged and men argued in the streets. Did civilization really smell like dead fish and horse dung?

  Finally, the carriage arrived in the porte cochere of the Whitacre mansion. It was one of the few structures not destroyed during the Great Fire, and its venerable brick facade and rows of trimmed hedges stood at odds with the more modern wooden edifices on the street. The stained-glass windows blazed with light, casting bright patterns onto the snow below.

  The driver lugged Theo’s baggage onto the wide front porch. Bottles of Restorative Vitality Water, which Dr. Greyson had insisted on sending to his mother, weighed down the bags. Why anyone would want to drink sulphuric hot springs water was beyond him. He’d seen the miners and loggers who bathed in the stuff. Who knew where it all drained to. He felt bad for the poor driver and overtipped him scandalously.

  Theo took a deep breath and knocked. The butler opened the door immediately—he must have been hovering on the other side of it. “Welcome home, Master Whitacre.”

  “Good evening,” Theo said. Instantly, he was whisked into the unchanging world of the Whitacres. Someone took his coat and spirited his bags off to parts unknown. He was escorted to his favourite easy chair in the living room, and a maid arrived with a steaming cup of drinking chocolate and a plate of bland digestive biscuits. The fire was already crackling at just the right temperature. He should have relaxed into the luxury, but it felt strangely foreign to him now: all these people scurrying around, quietly pushing him back into the worn grooves of routine.

  It didn’t take long for his mother to appear at the top of the staircase. “Theodore, my darling!” She enunciated the words as if she were performing the character of A Very Rich Woman in a stage play. Her corset was just as tight as ever, giving her voice a breathless quality, and her face has been powdered into an unnatural pallor.

  “Hello, Mother.” He stood to greet her.

  “No, no, dear! Do not move an inch! I forbid it! You must be so terribly tired after your journey!” Her dramatic staircase entrance complete, she descended slowly, the train of her crepe evening dress slithering along behind her. He smelled her perfume long before she entered the parlour. Had she always been this theatrical, or had he simply been accustomed to it before?

  Theo stood anyway and kissed both of her cheeks. “Good to see you, Mother.”

  She eyed him, frowning. “You are thin. Too thin. I knew I should have sent a chef up with you. Your father said it would be terribly insulting to the St. Alice Hotel, but really, how good can a backwater establishment be? I am sure you must be famished. Sit! No, I insist, Teddy. Sit and drink your chocolate!”

  He sat, and his mother arranged herself on the settee across from him. “Martha! Martha! Fetch me my notebook.” She eyed him again. “My darling, you are positively gaunt. I did warn you that doctoring would be too much for your constitution.”

  “I feel quite well, Mother,” he said. “The hot springs are very restorative. Speaking of which, Dr. Greyson sent a gift along for you. A case of some special elixir he’s been brewing at the St. Alice. He says while you certainly don’t need a fountain of youth, this is the next best thing.”

  “Oh that dear man! He really is too good to us.” She raised her voice and snapped, “Martha! The notebook!” without bothering to turn her head. She sighed. “Since your departure, we had to replace Eloise, and the new one is not at all bright.”

  Martha, who was standing beside his mother with the notebook, did not react to this slight. His mother took the notebook and opened it. “Now, dear, I hate to trouble you after your long trip, but we have a busy social calendar. Martha, tell Max that Theodore’s eveningwear will have to be sent out to the tailor. Really, you are so thin. Although your shoulders seem bigger. Like a deckhand.” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, there is nothing at all that a little tailoring cannot fix.”

  She opened the book. Theo sipped his chocolate to suppress a sigh. At least talking about social plans was better than talking about the “lascivious behaviour” she’d referenced in her letter.

  “Now,” said his mother, “in advance of our Christmas dinner, you are to send Emily Morrison a nosegay. If you have any preferences, the florist needs to be informed by noon tomorrow. I have been told that she will wear green, so I think a lovely spray of winterberries, with perhaps something thrown in for fragrance, would suffice. Would you rather gardenias or white roses?”

  “I don’t know the first thing about flowers, Mother.”

  She gave a sharp huff. “I know you do not mean to upset me, dear, but men are positively lining up around the block for a chance to send Emily Morrison a nosegay. I suppose I can have the florist select for you, but what would you like to write on the note? I have worked so very hard to secure this match for you. And, really, there should be no objections this time.”

  Theo set down his cup. “Because?”

  His mother’s face went quite still under the layers of powder. “Because? Because you are a Whitacre, and any decent young woman would jump at the opportunity to make an alliance with this family,” she said quickly. “Anyhow, the Morrisons are very good stock. He owns a shipping company, and dear Emily plays the flute beautifully. I shall just write it for you. ‘Miss Emily, I do look forward to sharing the pleasure of your company during this festive season.’ Is ‘Ever yours,’ too forward? No, of course not. She’ll appreciate the display of sentiment.”

  His mother, for all her theatrics, was a terrible liar. “Mother.”

  “Yes, darling?”

  “Has dear Emily landed herself in a spot of trouble that she needs to marry her way out of?”

  “Theodore!” His mother’s outrage had no heat to it. “How dare you speculate about such a nice young woman? What has gotten into you? Really, I think that horrid little village is turning you coarse. I begin to wonder if it is a good idea for you to even return.”

  So that was what this was all about: Theo leaving again for Fraser Springs. “If I’m to marry Emily Morrison, I should at least know the circumstances surrounding our courtship.”

  The elaborate dresses and makeup, the preening voice: his mother reminded him a little of Mrs. McSheen. Yes, she was wealthier and had better manners (and better hats), but they both had the same forced gaiety tinged with sadness and a little mania. His mother had always loomed so large in his life, but today he could see the effort that went into her persona. The hours she’d spent applying makeup just to greet her own son, the way that makeup settled into the wrinkles on her face and h
ighlighted them instead of masking them, the corsets she reduced her way into, the exaggerated propriety that always seemed to be filling the void of his father’s absence. She’d worn a formal gown to welcome her only child back home. For the first time, he felt almost sorry for her. But not sorry enough to marry dear Emily Morrison.

  His mother sighed. “If you must know, yes. There was a small . . . fuss.” Her bright voice returned. “But it’s all for the best. Perfect, really, the way it will work out. A wife and a child, ready-made. That way, you do not have to bother with—” She made a vague gesture. “You know how you are. And no one could hope to marry into a better family than the Morrisons. Even if the circumstances are a trifle irregular.”

  Theo just stared at her. “My medical training is barely finished. I’m hardly in the position to take a wife, let alone a wife and child.”

  His mother waved that away too. “Your father and I have been very patient in that regard. We allowed you to go to medical school, and we even paid for it, plus we permitted you to muck about with Dr. Greyson. But you simply were not raised to work, my love. Look what it’s done to you. Emily will handle all your social obligations beautifully, and you can always find a nice hospital board to chair. You can still keep up with the doctoring world with no effort at all that way.” She dismissed the doctoring world as if it were simply another genteel hobby, like art collecting or horse breeding.

  No one was ever going to expect anything of him but to occasionally serve as a living, breathing coat hanger for a well-tailored evening suit. He wouldn’t even have to go to the effort of siring his own children, for Chrissakes. Let another man do that for him. Why not, when everything else around here was done by someone else?

  “I can’t commit to anything until after my term in Fraser Springs is complete.”

  At those words, his mother’s eyes turned flinty, like a bird of prey spotting a potential meal. Theo had feared that look his entire life, because it usually meant something unpleasant was about to happen to him. “You will not be returning to Fraser Springs. Dr. Greyson and I have discussed it at length.”

  He wasn’t playing that game anymore. He stood. She stood. For a moment, it seemed as if she might block the door. “It’s been a long day of travel. I’m in no mood to argue with you right now. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll retire for the evening.” The use of contractions alone would earn him a day of silent, disapproving fury. He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Good night, Mother.”

  Once upstairs, he stretched out on his childhood bed. His pajamas and toiletries had been already laid out for him, a glass of water waited on the bedside table, and a ceramic hot water jug was already wrapped in flannels under the covers. It was all delightfully comfortable, and he wanted nothing to do with any of it. It was going to be a very, very long two weeks.

  • • •

  Last year, Wilson’s Bathhouse had treated staff to a Christmas feast, with roast pork and mulled cider and dancing. This year, instead of decking the halls with boughs of holly, the common room was draped with laundered diapers. In fact, Ilsa had forgotten that Christmas was approaching so quickly until a client had asked if Wilson’s would be closing for the holidays.

  Upstairs, infant wailing wrecked the quiet. Again. The poor thing had colic now, and she would scream herself purple. No amount of feeding, cuddling, or rocking would soothe her. Changeling, Ilsa muttered to herself, feeling unkind. To make matters worse, a snowstorm had rolled over Fraser Springs the day after Theo had left, and there had been flurries almost every day since. Nils was still nowhere to be found, so the tasks of shovelling and melting ice to get water had fallen to Ilsa as often as it had to Owen. Many of the girls had left days ago to be with their families.

  The baby’s screams grew louder. Ilsa trudged upstairs. In the bedroom, Jo was rocking baby Sarah. Both were crying.

  “Aww,” Ilsa said, taking the baby from Jo. “It’s okay. You can take a break.”

  Before the baby, Ilsa had never seen Jo cry. Now, it was a daily occurrence.

  “I just don’t know what she wants,” Jo sobbed. “She’s not hungry. She doesn’t need to be changed.”

  “That’s because she doesn’t know what she wants. It’s hard being born, isn’t it, Sarah?” The baby wailed. “Yes, I know. So hard. It’s not easy being a baby.” She reached over with her free hand and rubbed Jo’s back. “You should take a nap. Sarah is going to make herself useful and help me with the dinner. And the laundry. It’s Christmas tomorrow, so we might as well have something a little nice.”

  This made Jo cry even harder. “Oh God, it’s Christmas Eve? We don’t even have a tree. I didn’t get the staff presents.”

  “No one around here needs presents. I’ve already asked Owen to work out the Christmas bonuses for everyone. We’ll have a nice, relaxing day off tomorrow.”

  Jo sniffed. “Sarah doesn’t even have a stocking.”

  Ilsa wanted to say that Sarah couldn’t even focus on objects a few inches away from her face and certainly wouldn’t care if she had a stocking. Instead she said, “We’ll do something nice for Sarah’s first Christmas. I promise.”

  Jo tried her best to smile. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to do all of this for me.”

  It was hard to hear her over the baby’s wail. “Oh, it’s all temporary. Pretty soon I’ll be teaching Sarah how to fetch firewood and shell peas. Short-term pain for long-term free labour.”

  Jo finally managed a real, if weak, smile at that. “Well, you girls go have fun.”

  Perhaps it was the rhythm of folding towels or simply being swaddled with muslin to Ilsa’s body, but Sarah finally fell asleep. Not wanting to disturb her, Ilsa continued with her inside chores. At least the snow had reduced the client load. Before long, the house had been swept, the pork was marinating, a stew was simmering for supper, the salve supply was replenished, the tables were wiped down, and she was thoroughly out of chores. Not wanting to risk putting down the baby and waking her up, Ilsa simply sat at the kitchen table and stared out at the falling snow.

  Maybe the snow had delayed a letter from Theo. Mail didn’t always get through when the weather got rough. She sighed, and the baby grunted in her sleep. She needed to stop fooling herself. Did she expect Theo to be her pen pal after she’d refused his proposal? Did she think they were just going back to being friends, dancing and taking long walks? Men were so fragile. At the slightest hint of rejection, they disappeared. Or worse.

  Theo hadn’t thought it through. He’d probably blurted out a proposal because that’s what he thought a gentleman was required to do, not because he sincerely wanted to be her husband for the rest of their lives. The past few weeks had certainly not made the prospect of marriage and children seem any more appealing. In fact, right at this moment, domestic life looked like a particularly devious kind of torture. Even Jo, the strongest person Ilsa knew, had become a crying wreck.

  If she’d said yes to Theo, if they’d skipped down to the justice of the peace and signed their papers two weeks ago, his parents would have disowned him by now, and then what? He’d be trying to set up a doctor’s practice in a gossiping, judgmental little town like this one? Or in a big city, where you barely even saw your neighbours and nobody cared if you lived or died? With a baby like this one and an endless stream of dirty diapers and wailing screams she couldn’t walk away from?

  Maybe she just wasn’t built for domesticity. Either way, it didn’t matter. She had told him no, and that was that.

  • • •

  A week into his stay in Vancouver, Theo felt as if he had become a mannequin in a department store window. His mother kept prattling on about “when you are married to dear Emily” or “after dear Emily’s baby arrives,” and when he would correct her to say that he was not marrying dear Emily, she would ignore him. Day after day, visitors paraded through the front parlour, bringing gifts of fruit, nuts, wreaths, and poinsettias, all of which his mother would fawn over and then distribute to the staff. Tr
adesmen came to erect the Christmas tree and to assemble an elaborate structure of wreaths that hung like a chandelier above the dining room table. Soon, the house was stuffed with paper chains and candles, and the gigantic pine tree in the parlour bowed under the weight of so many glass baubles and gilded walnuts and strings of cranberries.

  He had yet to see Father. He’d knocked at the door to his bedroom four times, and each time had been informed by a pinch-faced nurse that Mr. Whitacre was resting and was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

  Theo drifted. He went shopping for Christmas gifts, but the sight of his pale, bespectacled face laid over the bright storefront displays only depressed him. He bought presents for his parents that they would neither need or want, knowing that a failure to produce gifts for them on Christmas morning would lead to a bout of maternal sullenness that would last well into the new year. That task dutifully accomplished, he somehow wound up loitering in front of a jewellery store window.

  The Whitacres had a personal jeweller who sometimes came to the house to deliver the set of rubies the firm kept secured for his mother. And, of course, to discreetly suggest future purchases in anticipation of a certain happy event. Theo humoured the charade but had never actually taken an interest in the baubles on offer. This year, though, he noticed a simple ring engraved with flowers and inlaid with little seed pearls. Ilsa would love a ring like that. She would find the gift extravagant, he knew. And besides, she didn’t want to marry him. But if she did—perhaps she would prefer a sapphire, to match her eyes. She wouldn’t want anything gaudy, just a small stone that glinted when held to the light. He sat for a half hour mentally designing a ring for a woman who did not want to be his wife, while his mother was probably putting some diamond monstrosity on reserve for Miss Emily Morrison.