What the Heart Keeps

by Rosalind Laker

  “They’ve gone!” Gertie squealed.

  “Where?” Lisa demanded.

  “I dunno. Everybody’s gone ‘cept us.”

  “Amy and Minnie, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Lisa flew downstairs again. Breaking all rules she burst through the door that led into the main part of the house. Miss Drayton was about to go out to some social function. She was in blue silk with pearl-drops in her ears and a wrap about her shoulders.

  “What has happened while I’ve been away today?” Lisa cried out. “Where are Amy and Minnie? Where is everybody?”

  “Your companions left today for the prairies in the charge of my representative, Mrs. Grant, whom you have not met, but who is a tower of strength to this organisation.” Miss Drayton smoothed her elbow-length white gloves and fastened the tiny buttons at the wrist, her tone a trifle bored, as if she were in no mood to discuss mundane affairs. “Amy and Minnie are travelling on the train with them as far as a certain point where they will be collected by the husband and wife who are adopting them. They have not been parted.”

  “I don’t understand anything that is happening here! When we first arrived Miss Lapthorne said that some of us were to get work on the strength of our orphanage papers alone, but she did not say everyone. And why have I been left out? Were mine against me?”

  “Due to the delay caused by the fever, Mrs. Grant had extra time to secure employment for everyone of the right age. Some will be in towns, other with homesteaders. As for you, Miss Lapthorne wishes you to remain here as her permanent aide, and I have given my permission.”

  “What are homesteaders?” Lisa was puzzled.

  “They are people who take up government land and farm it. Many of the men’s wives have been used to being waited on by domestic servants before coming to Canada, and Mrs. Grant deals with requests for orphanage girls.”

  Lisa stepped closer, hands balled at her sides in desperation. “I want to see Amy and Minnie with the family you have chosen for them. It won’t be easy for them to settle in, I know!”

  Miss Drayton eyed her dispassionately. “You really are ridiculous. Do you not realise yet what a vast country you are living in? The whole of the British Isles could be swallowed up in this province alone. I cannot afford to pay unnecessary fares for you to go jaunting far across Ontario. In any case, when children are adopted it is a generally accepted rule held by all societies that links with the past should be severed.”

  “That I can accept, but in this particular case you have been cruel! You have sent them away far too quickly!”

  “Do not dare to speak thus to me!” Miss Drayton was shaking with temper, her face patchy with colour as she pointed to the baize door. “Go back to the part of the house where you belong! Never again come in here unless at Miss Lapthorne’s instructions, or with my permission!”

  Raging inwardly, Lisa made no move. “What of writing to the others who have left today?”

  “If they decide to correspond with you, that is another matter. I never divulge addresses.”

  As Lisa flung the baize door shut behind her, she heard a movement at the top of the stairs and caught the flick of Miss Lapthorne’s skirt. The woman had been eavesdropping.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what was to happen today?” Lisa called out accusingly, darting to the foot of the flight.

  Slowly Miss Lapthorne returned to the head of the stairs to look down at her. “I wasn’t allowed to,” she confessed shakily, twisting a handkerchief in her hands as if she would tear it. “It would have been too upsetting for you and the little ones to part knowingly. Miss Drayton was only doing what she thought best”. She smiled with forced brightness. “Never mind, you won’t be kept in ignorance of anything now that you are to be my assistant.”

  When Lisa made no response, merely setting a hand on the newel post and leaning her forehead wearily against it, her shoulders bowed dejectedly, Miss Lapthorne had the grace to look shamefaced. She hastened into her own room and closed the door. There came the clink of bottle and glass.

  During the next few weeks the remaining children were adopted one by one. Gertie went to the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Lawson on College Street and their troubles began. Gertie stole, swore, smashed valuable bric-a-brac, and finally ran away. She was not caught, being well used to scrounging a living on the streets and escaping authority, a way of life only stemmed when she had been taken to the Leeds orphanage a few months before being brought to Canada. Then, unexpectedly, she returned of her own free will to her adopted parents. Being an exceptional couple, they accepted her back as if nothing had happened and afterwards there were no more disruptions.

  Lisa had no knowledge of the fate of the rest of the orphans, all of whom went farther afield. No word reached her of how Amy and Minnie had adjusted to their new surroundings. Miss Drayton kept such information locked in her files and not even Miss Lapthorne had a key.

  When Miss Drayton left Toronto, it was to sail for France and take a short holiday on the Riviera before returning to England for some fundraising and to collect a further consignment of children. The house on Sherbourne Street became a quiet place. Lisa was given the task of cleaning it from attic to basement, laundering every blanket and item of bed linen and airing every mattress in readiness for the next influx.

  Miss Lapthorne rewarded her hard work by allowing her to go for walks on her own, which gave her the chance to get to know Toronto as once she had known Leeds. She would have welcomed the privilege of being allowed to play sometimes on the grand piano in the drawing-room, for she had been taught by one of the teachers at the orphanage, who had spotted that she had some musical talent. But the piano lid at Sherbourne Street was kept locked and remained that way. She could only

  assume that the fine instrument was there to give an additional touch of opulence to the over-decorated room, and to set off the silver-framed photographs of Miss Drayton’s father that were displayed upon it.

  On Sundays Lisa accompanied Miss Lapthorne to the Baptist Church on Bloor Street. The congregation was quite grand, arriving in fine carriages, the gentlemen in silk hats. A few people looked down their noses at having a Home girl in their midst, but on the first Sunday the minister had made a point of welcoming her from the pulpit, and the friendly smiles and nods of others made up for the slights she received.

  Although Miss Lapthorne was usually amiable, somehow Lisa could not trust her. It was not just the deceit over the banishing of Amy and Minnie. The woman was too indecisive and lacking in character to be relied upon at any time. It was in keeping with everything else that the spinster should constantly uphold the pretence of abhorring alcohol, saying that she only kept brandy in the house for medicinal purposes. Yet it was ever her refuge, for she could not endure any kind of tension without it. A drinking bout always followed a government official’s routine call at the house. She would fly into a flurry of agitation, getting Lisa’s assistance as soon as he appeared on the doorstep, entrusting her with carrying the books of entries from the specially unlocked drawers in Miss Drayton’s study into the drawing-room where he awaited them.

  Everything would be in order, and the official would always approve the spotlessness of the house when looking over the attic quarters waiting in neat order for the next batch of new arrivals. He never left the house in anything but an agreeable mood, but Miss Lapthorne was completely distrait when Lisa closed the door after him. That same night the spinster always shut herself away in her room with a bottle and did not emerge until noon the next day, looking pale with a headache that was troubling her.

  Lisa once asked her why these official visits upset her. Her gaze shifted as she blinked nervously. “I’m merely anxious not to let Miss Drayton down on any count. We are old friends from our schooldays. I have her interests always at heart.”

  That was apparent. It explained why somebody as efficient as Emily Drayton should tolerate Mavis Lapthorne as her deputy. At least when sober, which could be for weeks at a time when
Lisa smoothed out minor domestic troubles for her, she kept the records and housekeeping ledgers in a beautiful hand. She also had the kind of prim looks and general appearance in public that only reflected good on the reputation of the Distribution Home if anyone should have any doubts about its reputation.

  Autumn came. Everywhere the trees were scarlet, crimson, orange, and yellow, the violence of colour tinting the interior of houses and filling Lisa with wonder at their splendour. Then suddenly Miss Drayton returned, disrupting the quietness with no fewer than fifty girls to be placed in domestic service, all between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. Mattresses had to be placed on floors to accommodate them in the attics, for Miss Drayton would not have her own part of the house invaded, and meals had to be taken in shifts at the kitchen table. Some of the girls were orderly, but most were on the wild side, quick to quarrel and, on occasions, fighting and hair-pulling.

  Miss Drayton lost no time in shipping them out. Mrs. Grant, of whom Lisa had heard previously, arrived to escort them. She was a tall, grim-faced woman, and her authoritative manner quelled even the most unruly. Lisa tried to gain some information from her about Amy and Minnie.

  “Don’t question me,” the woman retorted. “My reports are not for the likes of you.”

  Before the girls left, Lisa was able to gather that the majority had been in domestic service in workhouses and institutions, and she could guess how glad the authorities were to get rid of them in order to fill the vacancies with others desperate for work. She gave several of them a list of the names of those with whom she had come to Canada, requesting that if they met up with them to say how much she would like a letter. She had long since come to the conclusion that those who would have written had decided she had gone to work elsewhere as they had done. She could well imagine Rosie in particular, supposing her to be favoured because she had sought to educate herself by extensive reading. How wrong that supposition was.

  The irony of it came home to her still further when she found the state of the girls’ quarters after their departure. Filthy rags and unemptied slops and rubbish of all kinds had to be cleared away before she could start washing and cleaning the rooms. It made her more grateful than ever for the tiny box-room that Miss Lapthorne allowed her to occupy as a mark of her promotion to deputy’s assistant.

  Everything was spick and span again when she was giving a final polish to the attic windows and saw Miss Drayton departing once more for England, with Miss Lapthorne bidding her goodbye. Caught off guard, Lisa was suddenly assailed with a longing for a glimpse of English hills and an English sky, but she crushed it down and diverted her mind elsewhere. From the time she had first been taken into the Leeds orphanage, she had learned to live each day as it came and not to waste time in useless regrets.

  Winter set in and the snows came. On the first day of the New Year of 1904, Lisa reached her fifteenth birthday. Miss Lapthorne kindly made her a cake. It was the first celebratory delicacy she had ever had.

  Miss Drayton returned in the spring with a party in tow, and the pattern of coming and going was resumed. Lisa knew by now that the majority of the children went to faraway rural areas in Ontario. According to Miss Lapthorne, Mrs. Grant was responsible for checking the homes into which the children were to be received, but as it was impossible for her to meet every family personally, because of the distances involved, others were designated by her and the collective reports presented for Miss Drayton’s final approval. The fact that there never seemed to be any delay in the distribution of the children caused Lisa much anxiety. From all she had seen and observed since being drawn into the Herbert Drayton Memorial Society, she felt they were simply being got rid of as quickly as possible. The thought of their being exploited or treated cruelly haunted her.

  In desperation she went to see Mr. Lawson, who had adopted Gertie and whom she knew to be a good man. He listened to her patiently and then dismissed her worries out of hand, having implicit faith in the society.

  “Take my own case, for example,” he said. “My wife and I were extremely disappointed not to be able to adopt Amy. Mrs. Lawson had taken the child to her heart. But when it was explained to us that Amy had the chance to rejoin a sister, already adopted, we had no wish to stand in her way.”

  “But that wasn’t true!” Lisa burst out. “Amy had nobody in the world! Her whole family was wiped out by cholera.”

  “All except one sister,” he corrected pedantically. “You cannot be expected to know the complete background of every child passing through the society for adoption. Be assured that everything is being done for the best. I shall not mention your visit if I should see Miss Drayton again. It would hurt her feelings to know she was being doubted. At the same time I commend your concern for the weak and helpless. I thank God there are no grounds for such misgivings.”

  She returned to Sherbourne Street in a fury of frustration. Not long afterwards she had cause again to rage against dubious circumstances. A widower came to collect an exceptionally pretty child for adoption. Well dressed, and with a cultured voice, he made a generous donation to the society in appreciation of its charitable work, but Lisa felt an instinctive abhorrence for him. Shut out by Miss Drayton, she implored Miss Lapthorne to intervene on the child’s behalf and not let her be taken away by him.

  “Don’t be foolish, Lisa. He’s a gentleman,” Miss Lapthorne replied inanely. “He has a fine home in Ottawa and our fortunate orphan will lack for nothing. There’s no need to worry that he has no wife. He has assured Miss Drayton that his housekeeper is a most motherly soul.”

  Lisa trembled for the fate of that child. She had not grown up in an orphanage without learning a great deal of life through the experiences of other inmates. Her loathing of Miss Drayton increased, knowing that the woman must have closed her eyes to the obvious. Miss Lapthorne, on the other hand, was curiously innocent. For that reason alone, Lisa was able to forgive her for many stupidities.

  Another year dawned. Lisa passed her sixteenth birthday. The mirror in her room had reflected changes in her face and figure. She put up her hair into a knot at the top of her head. She sewed her own clothes. Although officially she still received no wages, Miss Lapthorne, perhaps fearful that she might leave for fully paid employment, made sure she received a small amount of money regularly out of the petty cash. If Lisa had not known herself to be a comfort and a refuge to many of the bewildered children who arrived at the Distribution Home, she would not have stayed. In moments of depression, she could see herself ending her days as another Miss Lapthorne. At least she had no desire to marry. Her single terrible experience had closed such doors for her.

  She often wished she had someone to talk to about everything and knew whom she would have chosen. In her little room she had a small Norwegian flag tucked into the corner of a framed text on the wall. She had cut it out from an old magazine illustrating in rather gaudy colours the flags of all nations. It kept Peter Hagen in the forefront of her mind. Not that she thought that she would ever forget him. More than that, the proximity of the flag to the words of blessing seemed to her to be a means of ensuring his safekeeping wherever he might happen to be.

  Four

  Peter Hagen had been in the United States for more than three years on the late August day in 1906 when he alighted from a train that had brought him to Toronto from Buffalo. If there was any difference in his appearance, apart from his being much better dressed, it lay in his muscular development, the last trace of the ranginess of youth lost in the full physique of a powerful man. There was little that he had not done in the way of heavy work since being pushed around and kept waiting and hustled along in the sheds of Ellis Island. His fierce Viking pride had made it difficult to tolerate the arrogance of officials, but once he was on the mainland he forgot his resentment in his interest in all there was to see. He had thought Bergen a big city, but New York was the size of many Bergens, and noisier by night and day than any avalanche he had ever heard.

  With his box on his shoul
der, his homespun attire marking him out as a newly arrived immigrant, he had stared at everything from the windows of the stores to the handsome mansions on Fifth Avenue. He had an address in his pocket. There probably was not a Norwegian anywhere who set out on a journey, either at home or abroad, without a list of hospitable anchorages where he would be given a meal and a place to sleep by a relative, friend, or somebody recommended by either of the former. It was hospitality that was gladly returned in full measure when the opportunity arose, and Peter did not have the slightest doubt of his welcome when he knocked on the door of a third-floor apartment in a tough-looking section of the city.

  The family who lived there were cousins of his cousin, their origins in Sognefjord, and his hand was nearly shaken off his wrist in their joy at seeing someone from the old country. They sat him at a table, plied him with food and strong coffee, and all sat around to watch him eat while they fired a ceaseless barrage of questions. He wondered if in them he was seeing himself in the future, well satisfied with life in America but unable to lose a gut-wrenching homesickness for what had been left behind. For the second generation, American-born and regarding him quietly with the natural good manners of contented children, there were the links of heritage, but never would they know an unappeased yearning for the breath-taking beauty of a fjord-riven land.

  He slept the night on the sofa and the next day took a room of his own in the neighbourhood. His cousin’s cousin was a carpenter and told him where to apply for work. For six months he worked on a building site in downtown New York. Mountains had given him a head for heights and from the first day he had walked along scaffolding without a qualm. He bought himself a good suit of clothes and enjoyed himself in hours of leisure. Pretty women were attracted to him and he lacked for nothing in his personal life. It irritated him that he was frequently taken for an Englishman by the way he spoke the language with what was called an English accent. No one could be more thoroughly Norwegian than he. Nevertheless, his fluency was admired and he was invited to teach English to two Scandinavian immigrants who were finding it hard to make themselves understood. When he arrived at the place of venue, he found that six more had come along to take advantage of the opportunity. When the numbers swelled to twenty-six by the next session, he divided them into two classes on separate evenings and soon had the same number again in each. He charged them a small fee, which helped his finances, and before long he was giving lessons for five evenings of the week. Saturdays and Sundays he kept free for his own affairs.