What the Heart Keeps

by Rosalind Laker

  Lisa listened intently. She thought him fortunate to have been taught in the main, albeit inadvertently, by those who were mastery of the English tongue. She loved the flow of orderly speech unadulterated by bad grammar or ugly obscenities. On that basis she had tried to improve her own vocabulary for a better understanding of all she read and to express herself articulately.

  “Why are you leaving home?” she asked him. It would be interesting to know what had prompted his willing departure, which was entirely different to her own.

  He pondered how he should answer her without giving away personal reasons. In a nutshell, he could say he had fallen victim to the emigration fever that had been sweeping Norway over the past decade. Many of those leaving home intended only to make their fortune and return again to buy businesses and land that they could never afford otherwise. On the strength of this notion, a number of men became betrothed or married to the girl of their choice before departure, fearful of losing her to someone else in their absence. Or, on a more mercenary level, they wanted to ensure that their interests at home were being watched over on their behalf.

  His eldest brother, Jon, was one of these. After marrying Ingrid, a childhood sweetheart, he had impregnated her on their wedding night and left for America the next day. Jon was presently working as a logger in the state of Oregon, saving money towards the day when he had accumulated enough to return home and take over the farm from his father to run it on more profitable lines. Ingrid had moved in to keep house for her widowed father-in-law, as well as her bachelor brothers-in-law when they were home from the sea. Near her time, depressed at having received only one letter from Jon since his departure, she had looked worn and weary when Peter had gone home to his place of birth to say goodbye. It had been distressing when his father had broken down at the moment of farewell, despairing that a faraway land which had swallowed up his eldest son was now about to consume his youngest, with whom he had always shared a special bond of affection. At least Jon had promised to return within three or four years, but Peter had made it clear he intended to become a citizen there—a Norwegian-American, like so many others, gone from their homeland never to see it again.

  None of this was anything to be divulged to someone barely met in an embarkation shed. Yet Lisa Shaw should receive a straightforward reply. “I could see no future for myself in Norway.”

  That was the stark truth of it. He had always known that the Namsos farm was entailed to the next in line on his uncle’s side of the family, and he did not intend to remain a farmhand to the end of his days. His uncle was disgruntled at his going, but his aunt approved his decision, having always hoped for him to have a chance in life. She wanted to pay his passage out of her own savings, but he would not let her. Instead, he did a hard season with his fishermen brothers in the Arctic seas, which provided him at the age of eighteen with his fare to America and just enough to keep him from starvation until he was settled in work of one kind or another.

  “What do you plan to do in America?”

  “First and foremost, I aim to become my own master,” he answered cheerfully. “That will take a little time, I daresay. Meanwhile, I’ll work at anything and everything, whatever comes my way. I’ll travel around, too. I want to see as much as I can of that big country. How else will I know which is the best place when the time comes for me to strike roots there?”

  Unexpectedly, Lisa found herself greatly touched by his words and did not know why. It could be that he had unwittingly given her a measure of encouragement towards her own future, for his optimism shone out of him, melting away some chill from her heart. For the first time her serious, rather concentrated expression relaxed and she gave him a full smile. Nobody had ever told her that she had a singularly beautiful mouth, and when she was smiling her whole face took on its radiance.

  “I wish you luck, Mr. Hagen.”

  A look had come over his face, half pleasure, half surprise. “I thank you. I trust all will go well for you, too.”

  There was a sudden interruption from a few yards away. “Lisa Shaw!” screeched an unpleasantly familiar voice. “What are you doing? Come away from that barrier at once!”

  Lisa had turned with a start of humiliation. Miss Drayton was bearing down on her, thrusting aside viciously the children of other parties to get through to her. Her approach acted like a signal for pandemonium among Lisa’s charges. Amy began to cry again, while the rest, the instinct of their origins being to scatter at the first sign of trouble, dived in all directions into the crowd.

  “Come back! Gertie! Minnie! Cora! Hold fast there, Bridget! Lily, do you hear me?” She managed to grab one child and the unbuttoned coat came away from the fugitive into her hand, an old trick of the back streets. Her exasperation increased, more with the society’s organiser than the children themselves. It would take time and patience to calm them down again. The woman should have known better! Admittedly one of the society’s rules was that there should be no flirting with the opposite sex. Not that a plain conversation across a dividing barrier amounted to dallying. It should have been obvious enough that nothing was amiss.

  Two runaways were ensnared. Miss Drayton, further outraged by the children’s flight, made no attempt to help with the rounding up. She simply grabbed them in turn’ as Lisa brought each one to her, threatening a severe whipping if any one of them dared to move an inch away from her.

  Finally only Minnie was missing. Lisa’s searching became desperate. Uniformed officials in peaked caps at the entrance door and the exit onto the dockside assured her that no child had run past them. Then, when it seemed to her that Minnie must have vanished into thin air, she saw Peter signalling to her.

  “Over here! I’ve found her.”

  He was holding the wriggling, kicking Minnie by the arm. She had squeezed through the rails of the barrier and he had spotted her taking refuge in a corner. Picking her up, he handed her back into Lisa’s care. She clutched the child tight in her embrace, her relief as genuine as her desire to quieten a nigh-hysterical fright.

  “It’s all right, Minnie. Nobody is going to punish you. Your Lisa knows why you ran off and you’re safe now.” Her soft tones eventually took effect. Disengaging Minnie’s clutching arms from about her neck, she set her down on her feet again. Stooping herself, she tidied the child’s appearance, still talking all the time until she could be sure there would be no more darting away. Rising up again, she took the child by the hand and moved close to the barrier with a smile, eager to thank Peter for his help. But she was given no chance. She was whirled around by the shoulder and shaken furiously.

  “You brazen creature!” Miss Drayton’s drawn-back lips were tight in her temper-ridden face. “Men, men, men! That is all your sort thinks about. The opportunity to make a decent life for yourself is wasted on a gutter girl like you. Get back to the rest of the party!” To give further impact to her words, she gave Lisa a violent push to send her on her way.

  Lisa stumbled. If she had not had a tight hold on Minnie she would have fallen. She was burning with shame at being publicly disgraced; heads everywhere turned in her direction and all within the hearing of the Norwegian friend she had made. Unable to look back and meet his eyes, she took Minnie quickly away to join with the others as ordered. It did not matter that she and Peter Hagen had shared the briefest of encounters and would never meet again. She would have liked to part from him in amiable circumstances and not in her degraded state, for the woman’s vile abuse had recontaminated her in her own eyes with the physical defilement she had suffered with such pain and anguish in the barn. Her teeth bit deep into her lower lip, which was trembling uncontrollably. It would never do to let the little children see her weep. In any case, Amy, who had rushed forward to meet her, was shedding enough tears for both of them.

  It was not long afterwards that the signal came to start going aboard. Lisa had hoped to keep away from the dividing barrier, but the press of the crowd brought the Herbert Drayton group alongside it. Yet she need n
ot have worried. The space had been vacated, everyone there having already gone out to join the other ship. By now Peter Hagen would be safely out of range and she was spared any look he might have given her, curious or otherwise.

  At a slow pace, Lisa and the rest shuffled forward. Soon the warm April sunshine, which had only penetrated the shed through skylights, fell full on her face. The ship loomed high before them. S.S. Victoria. She felt her pulse quicken. The feeling of encouragement she had received from Peter Hagen had not ebbed, in spite of what had happened in between.

  If her gaze had not been set on the gangway that she was soon to ascend, she would have seen he had retraced his steps. As he had hoped, the ill-tempered organiser was at the head of the party while Lisa was more to the rear. Leaving his travelling box where he had set it down on the cobbles, he ran to her. As he plucked at her sleeve to draw her attention, her eyes widened and she looked as if she might faint at seeing him there.

  “Miss Shaw! Lisa! Forgive me for being the cause of some trouble for you.”

  “It wasn’t your fault!” She was frantic, fearful that at any second Miss Drayton would glance back and spot him keeping pace with her as she moved along with the rest.

  “I want to make amends. Please accept this token.” He thrust a sizeable paper cone at her. “There’s a pedlar selling these caramels on the dockside. I thought they would help you to keep the children happy. Farewell!”

  He dashed off before she had a chance to thank him. The sun flashed across the surface of the travelling box as he hoisted it up onto his broad shoulder. Holding it secure, he hastened away in the opposite direction towards his own waiting ship. All her good wishes went silently with him as well as something more than gratitude. It was a strange feeling, poignant and tender. She did not recognise it for what it was. To her it was simply as if her heart were destined to retain its own special memory of him, linked forever to this day of endings and beginnings.

  Three

  On board the S.S. Victoria, Lisa experienced a deep dismay at her first sight of the dormitory accommodation allotted to steerage passengers which included every one of the children’s parties. None of them was used to comfort, but these poorly lit quarters in the hold of the ship below the water-line were far worse than anything she had expected. Row upon row of tiered bunks took up most of the space, leaving narrow passageways in between. The one in the centre was slightly wider to allow space for the collapsible tables erected at mealtimes. A canvas sailcloth, fastened from a crossbeam to walls and deck, separated male from female passengers, in sight if not in sound.

  Only in these depths was it possible to see what an old ship it was. Lisa guessed it had probably been named after the late queen when steam had first begun to dominate the scene at sea. Although the whole area appeared to have been recently scrubbed throughout, the damp smell of suds failed to subdue certain peculiarly unpleasant odours. The toilet arrangements were decidedly primitive. Chipped and rusty enamel sinks in a row would allow twelve people at a time to wash publicly. A screened-off section offered more private facilities, but after waiting such a long time to come aboard the children soon strained these to the limits, causing many of the younger ones to wet themselves before their turn came in a long line to reach the wooden-lidded buckets.

  Yet on the whole everybody was remarkably cheerful. All the adult escorts were experienced in accompanying parties of children overseas, for the scheme itself had been in operation in varying degrees for over thirty years. Lisa was one of those briefed earlier on the train by Miss Drayton in the procedure of claiming bunks from the numbered label of each child, and she and Teresa and Myrtle became busy making sure that the younger ones knew in which end they would be sleeping, for not all would have a bunk to themselves.

  As soon as the small bundles of possessions were stowed away under the bottom bunk where boards would prevent their sliding away when the ship rolled, the children throughout the quarters obeyed orders to stand by their sleeping places. Then the escorts came along with large paper bags containing currant buns, and there was one for everybody. Miss Drayton was the exception in not personally handing out this welcome treat to stem immediate hunger, but she preceded Lisa, to whom she had allotted the sticky task, and glanced back constantly over her shoulder to make sure that nobody was getting more than one bun, since she had purchased only the exact amount.

  “Our buns ain’t as big as what the other groups ‘ave got,” Minnie commented, eyeing critically the small one she had received.

  “Shush!” Lisa said quickly. “Eat it up and be thankful.” Apart from the danger of Minnie’s bun being forfeited if Miss Drayton caught what was said, Lisa had no wish for the woman’s ire to be spiked again that day.

  Gradually it grew near the time for sailing. The escorts began to usher the children up the companionways in order for them to have a last view of England. Lisa, keeping hold of Amy’s hand with Minnie tagging close behind, stepped out into the sunlight again to find the steerage area of the deck jam-packed, most of the bigger boys having grabbed the best places at the rails. The escorts, men and women, Miss Drayton among them, gathering together to renew acquaintance, were paying no attention, and discipline was being relaxed for the time being.

  Lisa drew breath. She had fought too often for the bullied and oppressed at the orphanage to let a few hulking boys block the view for her charges. “Hang on to my waist, Minnie,” she instructed, “and tell the rest to follow suit in turn to form a snake. Right? Here we go!”

  Propelling Amy in front of her and with elbows flailing like the wheels of a paddle-steamer, she reached the rails. With a few shoves, she managed to secure some space, ignoring pithy comments.

  “There we are!” she exclaimed triumphantly, taking her place protectively to the rear of her band. “Now each one of you can see when we leave old England.”

  There was a great bustle of activity prevailing on the dock-side. A few latecomers among the more affluent passengers were ascending the gangway reserved for First Class, the women in feathered hats and soft furs, the men agleam with gold tie-pins and silver-headed canes. Porters ran with their baggage, two, and sometimes three, needed to trundle the huge cabin trunks, all of it of finest leather and clearly monogrammed.

  “All visitors ashore!” The call echoed in every part of the ship. There were no visitors in the steerage quarters, but the announcement electrified the air. The time of sailing was imminent!

  Quite a number of people streamed off the ship to join those that had already collected on the dockside to see relatives and friends sail away. Judging by the merriment of some of those that had been aboard, it appeared that earlier arrivals in First Class had been holding champagne parties in their cabins.

  Slowly the gangways were swung away. Ropes were released from bollards and the deck vibrated underfoot from the ship’s engines. Suddenly there was a scuffling somewhere at the back of the crowd on the quayside and a shrieking woman burst into view, her hat awry from the physical struggle she had had with the officials to get through, her lanky hair streaming from its pins.

  “Wait! Wait!” she screeched, running towards the ship. “My kid’s on board! I want ‘er off!”

  At the rails, Minnie gave an exultant yell. “It’s my Ma! Ma! I’m ‘ere! I don’t want to go no place! I want to be with you!” In her eagerness, she attempted to climb the rails. When Lisa restrained her for her own safety, she waved frenziedly through them to catch her mother’s attention. Six months had gone by since her father had died and her mother, left with twin babies and no means of support, had taken her to the orphanage, sat her down on a bench in the hall and told her that she had to stay there, for there was no money to feed her at home any more. She realised she should have known that one day her mother would come back for her.

  “Mal Ma!”

  “Minnie! Minnie!”

  Her mother had seen her and was darting along to come level with the soaring spot on the ship from which she looked down. Minnie be
gan to feel frightened. Before her eyes her mother appeared to be going crazy, simply crying her name over and over again in the midst of breast-beating and hair-tearing. All the time the cobbles of the dockside seemed to be moving away beneath her parent’s ill-shod feet. Then Minnie saw a gap was widening between ship and shore. The blast of the ship’s siren drowned her panic-stricken shriek, and when the reverberating notes faded away she was stretching out her arms between the rails, sobbing pathetically. By that time the cheers and last farewells being exchanged between the more well-to-do passengers and their well-wishers was at its height.

  Minnie’s mother dropped to her knees, sat back on her heels, and threw her arms over her head, rocking in despair. Then, as those waving to the ship moved along in front of her, she was lost to sight. Lisa drew the sobbing child away from the rails, letting others crowd forward, and held her tightly in comfort.

  As they stood there, locked in the press of those excitedly unaware of the drama that had taken place, Lisa watched the roofs and towers of the port buildings sliding away at a steadily increasing pace.

  “Goodbye, England,” she whispered emotionally in farewell. “God bless my homeland.”

  As the ship continued to head out along the Mersey estuary, she was able to see that Peter’s vessel was in the last stages of departure on the tide. She wondered if he was at the rails watching the S.S. Victoria sail away. Just in case he was, she raised an arm and waved. He could never have seen her, but it pleased her to do it.

  That night as she lay awake, her thoughts drifted to him again. He would be in a bunk exactly like the one in which she was lying and amid similar surroundings. Probably he was asleep and untroubled. She was more than grateful for the candies he had given her for the children. He must have learnt to call them caramels from gentlemen with a sweet tooth who went salmon-fishing on the Namsen. It was an elegant name for good, plain toffee. One had been wonderfully effective in consoling Minnie, at least for the time being.