What the Heart Keeps

by Rosalind Laker

  Gradually the novelty of city life began to pall. He was a countryman at heart and he had not come to the United States to turn into a New Yorker without keeping to his resolve to see as much as possible of the country before striking roots. His brother, Jon, with whom he was in spasmodic correspondence, suggested he go out West to join up with him, but he was not yet ready to leave the East. He packed his good clothes into his travelling box and donned some practical wear, his emigrant suit long since thrown away. He said goodbye to his cousin’s cousins and left the city. During the next two years he worked on farms and in forests, never staying long in any place. The wages fluctuated, sometimes little more than a pittance, but he was breathing pure air, liking the experience of new horizons, and went cheerfully about the most arduous and back-breaking tasks. Travel never cost him anything. He became expert at judging the right moment to leap a wall or break the cover of a bush as one of the great trains began to pull slowly out of a railway station, or from a coal and water halt. On reaching one of the unlocked boxcars, he would shoot back the door and throw in his travelling box before heaving himself up and aboard. Sometimes the car would be occupied already by one or more men, and although there were always the villains who had to be watched, there was on the whole a curious camaraderie among those who rode the rails. Many boxcars were padded with wads of paper and from the others he learned how these could be pulled off and used as wrappings for warmth when the weather was cold. At junctions they sometimes all jumped off and made a short camp, brewing coffee over a fire. Those with nothing begged a hand-out from local people and usually returned with something to eat or drink. Peter made sure he was never in those straits and, as a precaution against thieves, kept his money in a wallet-belt inside his shirt.

  He had worked in areas of New England and Ohio before he arrived on the outskirts of Buffalo and secured employment in a large stable where horses of every type were bought and sold. His uncle in Norway had kept a pair of carriage horses for the English visitors, and a number of gentlemen had always brought their own riding horses with them, which meant there was nothing he did not know about grooming and caring for fine bloodstock. On the farms and in the forest work he had done more recently, he had dealt with big draught horses. At a stud-farm he had met up again with some of the fine shire horses that had aroused his admiration when he had first seen them on the streets and in the fields of England.

  It was his good fortune that the stud groom was a gnarled old Englishman who warmed to a shared interest in the magnificent animals and was willing to pass on knowledge to a keen young stable lad. From him Peter learned the points to look for in order to judge quality of breeding in addition to working ability. Not only did these great horses have to have a commanding appearance, but the well-balanced head must be lean with a certain breadth between large, docile eyes, the ears sharp and sensitive and necks slightly arched. Shoulders were all-important, as were full-muscled hindquarters and legs with sinews like fine cords. Girth was anything up to eight feet, and the weight of a good horse varied between seventeen and eighteen hundredweight.

  His knowledgeable approach to horses and his energetic attitude soon earned him promotion at the Buffalo stables. He began to accompany his employer to sales. Now and again they went to New York to meet special shipments. After deals were completed, it became Peter’s responsibility to ship anything from a hundred to two hundred horses on a special Wells Fargo Pacific Express train to Nebraska and elsewhere. Before long, he was being entrusted to buy and sell on his own, earning himself commission on top of his wages.

  He was representing his employer on a mission to Toronto when he emerged from the portals of the railway station and looked about him. If any one from his native land could have seen him in his well-cut suit, a heavy gold watch-chain looped across his waistcoat, and a wide-brimmed Panama hat shading his eyes from the August sun, they would have thought he had become a millionaire. Recently he had had his photograph taken for his aunt, knowing it would please her to see him looking well and prosperous. He could imagine it framed and set in a place of honour, probably beside a picture of the new King Haakon of Norway.

  Remembering directions he had been given, he walked along to book in at Walker House, a hotel on the corner of Front and York streets, which had been recommended to him. His only luggage was a leather valise which he carried whenever he went on business trips. At his Buffalo lodgings his old pine travelling box, much battered by its rough journeyings, was handy for storage. He did not expect to use it again until travelling some far distance after leaving his present employment, for already he was forming plans for going into business on his own. He expected to learn a great deal about the Canadian trade in heavy horses when he attended a sale on the morrow. His employer wanted some good Percherons shipped in via Montreal from France, which meant that his own preference for English shire horses would have to be put aside.

  In his hotel room he unpacked a few things before setting off to an address in Shuter Street. There he spent a long time viewing the horses for sale, making notes for reference during the auction on the morrow, and gradually making up his mind which of the horses should earn his bid. Afterwards, with time on his hands, he decided to have a look around the city which he had never visited before. Soon he found himself in the busy commercial area of Yonge Street. When he paused to look at some pens in the window of a stationers’ store, he had no idea that inside a customer, waiting for her change after making a purchase, had sighted and recognised him. As he strolled on again, he did not pay any attention to footsteps running after him until his name was spoken.

  “Mr. Hagen! Peter!”

  He swung around in astonishment, acquainted with no one in Toronto and at a loss to suppose who might know him by name. It added to his bewilderment when he saw that the girl who had addressed him was a complete stranger as far as he could tell. Or, on second thoughts, was there something vaguely familiar about her that was striking a chord at the back of his memory? Politely he raised his hat.

  “You have the advantage of me, Miss — er — ?”

  “Shaw. Lisa Shaw. Don’t you remember me? We met at Liverpool docks when you were sailing to New York and I was bound for Canada.” She smiled. It was a beautiful, happy smile that gave an additional sparkle to her fine hazel eyes. “I never had the chance to thank you for the candies you gave me for the children.”

  It all came back to him. He recalled his compassion for the ill-clad waif saddled with the responsibility of looking after far too many children on her own — in his opinion. Then a sour-faced woman had attacked her for talking to him. “Yes! I remember. Of course I do!” He took her hand and shook it in reunion. “What luck to meet you again, Lisa.”

  He meant it. She was no longer so painfully thin, and although still slender, she had filled out into soft curves of breast and hips with a narrow waist. Her hair, no longer straggling, was pinned up prettily under a hat of coarse straw, a curling tendril or two by her ears. Her dress was of cheap cotton, indicating that her circumstances had not vastly improved in the interim of their two meetings. But she was one of those fortunate girls who made anything they wore a natural enhancement of figure and grace and sexual allure.

  “I was in that stationers’ store,” she said, half turning from the waist to indicate the location, “when I spotted you. What are you doing in Toronto?”

  “It’s quite a tale,” he said, “and I want to know what has been happening to you. Here, let me take your parcel from you. That’s better. It’s too heavy for you to carry. Tell me where we can sit and talk without interruption.”

  Lisa thought for a moment before suggesting the Horticultural Gardens. Although Sherbourne Street flanked one side of its ten acres, Miss Drayton was back in England doing some fund-raising and collecting another consignment of children, which meant there was no danger of abuse through being seen in his company.

  They found a park bench in the shade. He rested an arm behind her along the back of it as they s
at down. All around them were colourful flowerbeds and the air was fragrant. He inhaled deeply in appreciation.

  “That scent reminds me of the Molde rose,” he said nostalgically.

  “What rose is that?” she asked, removing her hat and combing her fingers into her hair to lift it slightly where the crown had flattened its softness. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  He smiled. “It’s a dark red bloom with a heavy fragrance that grows exclusively in a little place of a few hundred inhabitants on the south facing slopes of the Molde fjord. Town of the Roses is the name most commonly used. I know it well. It lies only a matter of miles from the valley where I was born.”

  “It must be a beautiful spot.”

  “Once seen, it can never be forgotten.”

  She tilted her head inquiringly. “You’re not homesick, are you?”

  He laughed. “No! There’s too much to see and do all the time. In any case, I can say truthfully that I feel I belong to this part of the world now. My whole attitude has changed. I’m a Norwegian-American. What about you? Have you settled down?”

  She considered carefully. “I miss the gentleness of an English spring, but then, nothing can surpass a Canadian autumn. I suppose I still have divided loyalties.”

  “Tell me about yourself, Lisa.”

  “Not yet.” She was adamant. “You first.”

  He made no protest and related his adventures, describing the work he had done and mentioning the distances he had travelled. He concluded by explaining his purpose in coming to Toronto. She listened attentively, his manner of speech still enhanced for her by his Norwegian accent. Her gaze never left his face. She had thought him fine-looking when she had first set eyes on him. Now she found him truly handsome. How very relaxed he was, and how quick to smile and chuckle. It was easy to see that all was going well for him, and she would have liked to have matched his new worldliness with some poise and sophistication. But she always had to be herself, just as she was. It never occurred to her that therein lay her particular charm.

  “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.”