What the Heart Keeps

by Rosalind Laker

  In contrast, the weather changed and the waters of the strait became choppy. It was a wet and dismal evening when Mrs. Grant disembarked with her two charges and took them aboard a small mail-boat for the final stage of the journey. There were no other passengers in the tiny saloon with bench seating for six persons. Through its portholes they saw Quadra Island looming dark and forbidding in the gathering night. Fir and pine made black walls that closed in on either side of the narrows through which the vessel passed into the wide span of Granite Bay, which was their destination. The mail-boat gave a shrill blast to announce its arrival, but no answering response of any kind came from the shore. A solitary house on the rise overlooking the approach had a single window gleaming with lamplight like a watery eye in the rain.

  Mrs. Grant led the two girls onto the deck and looked about in the darkness. No other lights were to be seen in any direction. “What a God-forsaken place!” she exclaimed with a shiver.

  “Is that our new home?” Minnie asked, looking towards the distant window.

  “That will be it,” the woman replied.

  “How can you be sure?” Lisa questioned. “Maybe there are other habitations over the rise.”

  “I doubt it. I was informed by Mrs. Fernley that she has no neighbours at all and her home is quite isolated. That house up there suits her description.”

  The mail-boat was slowing down, and it was time to leave the saloon. The halt would only be a matter of a minute or two to allow mail-bags to be unloaded onto the wharf and the two passengers to disembark. Mrs. Grant was remaining on board to return with the boat to the point where she changed back onto a steamer that was Vancouver-bound. She considered her duty done in delivering the girls to this place, no matter that she had shoved them off her hands sooner than expected. The Fernleys would be in for a surprise anyway when they discovered that they were to have two girls under their roof instead of one, but that was their problem and not hers.

  Lisa and then Minnie stepped onto the wharf, assisted by a seaman. As he jumped back on board to continue chucking down the rest of the mail-bags, Lisa took Minnie’s hand into hers, the rain lashing at them across the exposed wharf.

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Grant,” she said crisply. “I’m certain Quadra Island will look very different in daylight. I welcome being here. Minnie and I are free of you and your kind at last. That’s what this place will always mean to me.”

  Mrs. Grant sniffed contemptuously. “You’ll come to a bad end. That’s all freedom will ever do for you. Good riddance to you both!” She turned on her heel and stalked back under cover. Already the mail-boat was on the move again.

  Lisa called to the seaman still on the deck: “Do the Fernleys live in that house with the lighted window?” She was going to make sure before dragging tired Minnie all the way up to it in the darkness. The seaman shouted back to her as the distance between boat and wharf lengthened, his reply filling her with dismay.

  “No. That’s the Twidles’ place. Don’t know the name of Fernley in these parts!”

  Lisa hurried Minnie along the wharf to shore. The first move must be to call at the Twidles’ house and gather more information. She guessed that a Granite Bay postbox was no indication of the Fernleys’ proximity, since distribution at this point probably covered a vast area. Mrs. Grant would have been well aware of that, but all she wanted was to see the back of them on an island that was as secure as a prison for those without the means to leave it. Yet Lisa’s feeling of being free persisted in spite of this new development. She and Minnie would get through it somehow.

  Rough steps formed by the trunks of trees sunk into the earth gave access up the rise to the Twidles’ residence. They had only managed to get halfway up, having to guard against slipping and sliding backwards in the darkness, when a fan of light showed as the front door of the house was opened and closed again as two men emerged into the night. They were talking together as they approached in the bobbing glow of a lantern. Their voices were unmistakably English.

  “Is Mr. Twidle there?” Lisa called out. There was an exclamation of surprise at the sound of her voice and the two men came hurrying down to where she and Minnie stood.

  “I’m Henry Twidle,” said the man with the storm lantern, holding it high to illumine her features as well as his own. He was around thirty years old and of energetic appearance, his roundish, clean-shaven face well formed, his eyes keen and a lightish blue under thick brows, his brown hair groomed neatly from a centre parting. The line of his mouth and chin denoted determination and a good degree of stubbornness. “You came with the mail-boat?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “We?” He swung the lantern towards Minnie and spoke with the abruptly cheerful tones of those unused to the company of children. “Good evening, young lady. I didn’t see you at first.” His attention returned to Lisa. “How may I be of assistance?”

  “I’m looking for Mr. and Mrs. Alan Fernley’s house.”

  “As it happens, this is Alan Fernley right with me.” He shifted the lantern’s rays again. She looked full in the face of the man who had previously been shrouded in darkness. He appeared to be a year or two younger than Henry and was by far the taller, topping six feet. When he doffed his wide-brimmed felt hat, the raindrops hung in his black curly hair. He was not by any means a handsome man, but a striking one with a fine prominent nose, a strong brow and jaw and a summer-tanned skin. His dark eyes were alert and intelligent, full of golden glints from the lantern light, and his mouth was big and generous as if never far from passion. She found him disturbing and interesting, but was not wholly sure at first sight that she liked him. Neither did it seem that he was prepared to like her.

  “My guess is that you’re Lisa Shaw, the young woman on whom my wife has set such hopes for help and companionship.” There was a definite edge to his voice.

  “That is my name, but I was given no details of what my domestic duties are to be.”

  “I understood that notification by wire was to be sent in order that we should know when to expect you.”

  “Everything happened rather suddenly.”

  “I should think it did! It’s sheer chance that I happened to be here today.”

  “Then I’ll count that as a much needed stroke of good luck,” she replied evenly. “But before another word is said I must tell you that I only came here on one condition.”

  “Oh? What is it?” He did not sound as if he was prepared to accept conditions laid down by anyone.

  “It is that I may continue to act as an older sister towards this orphan who came originally in the same Home party with me from England.”

  “Good God!” he exclaimed involuntarily. “Where do you think my wife and I live on this island? In a mansion? If you do, then you’re in for a shock!”

  His unbridled annoyance had the effect of chilling any remaining traces of amiability towards him that might otherwise have survived within her. “Then perhaps you would prefer us to go back to the wharf and wait there for the next boat to take us away again,” she said stiffly.

  “You would have a long wait. It is a week before a vessel calls again. In any case, I have signed guardianship papers for you since you are still not of age.”

  “Those could be torn up,” she retorted.

  “I assure you nothing would suit me better, but I happen to be a man who honours his commitments.”

  Henry intervened in what was developing into a lively dispute. “Why not let Agnes sort this out, Alan? Take the girls up to the house. They’ll get soaked to the skin if they stand much longer in this rain. Here’s the lantern for them,” he added, handing it over. “I can see to fetch the mail-bags without it.”

  He went on down towards the wharf while Alan Fernley led the way up to the house, holding the lantern low for them to ascend the primitive steps without tripping. The house when they reached it was large and two-storeyed, set amid cultivated trees on a stretch of cleared land framed on three sides by the forest.

  “Is th
e lady mentioned your wife?” Lisa asked Alan coolly as he opened the front door and stood aside for her to enter with Minnie.

  “No,” he replied in the same distant tones, entering the hall after them, “Agnes and Henry were married a while ago at Vancouver. My wife’s name is Harriet. She is at our home on the east coast of the island and some miles from here. The whole purpose of your coming was to keep her company in my absences. She has suffered from spates of melancholia over the past few months, and I’m no longer easy in my mind about leaving her on her own, even though it’s for no more than a few days at a time. However, now that you haven’t come to Quadra Island on your own, the situation is once more in limbo.”

  He had taken her wet coat from her. As he hung it on a peg beside Minnie’s and added his own, Agnes Twidle came hurrying from the sitting-room. “Visitors!” she exclaimed with pleasure. “What a wonderful surprise! Welcome to Granite Bay.”

  Lisa felt quite overwhelmed by her warm greeting and immediate friendliness after so much bleakness everywhere. Agnes was of medium height with pleasing features, brown wavy hair, and a wide smile. Her accent, unlike her husband’s, announced that she was Canadian-born, and everything from her manner of speech to her movements proclaimed her to be well educated and gently reared. Briefly Lisa wondered at the romance that had transported Agnes from busy Vancouver to the isolation of Granite Bay. The sitting-room, with its plain and unpretentious mahogany furnishings, bore evidence of the couple’s shared cultural interests by the number of books that crammed many shelves. Photographs abounded and glass cases of a collection of butterflies made bright splashes of colour on the walls. The single lamp in a silk-fringed shade gave a creamy interior glow that was far different from the dismal gleam the rain had made of it from the mail-boat.

  “There is an unexpected complication,” Alan explained after introductions had taken place. “Lisa has no wish to stay on Quadra Island without this child for whom she feels responsible, and naturally I wouldn’t want to separate them. But, as you know, Harriet and I simply don’t have room for a fourth person at our log house. If it means my making arrangements for them to be elsewhere, Harriet will be bitterly disappointed. That’s the last thing I want.”

  Agnes gave a nod, summing up all aspects of the situation. “It’s my opinion that no hasty decisions should be made. Lisa and Minnie can stay here if need be until another home is found for them. I suggest you leave matters to me for the time being. Henry will have taken the bags of mail on a hand cart up to the post office by now, and you were going to give him a helping hand with the sorting. Why not do that? I promise you I’ll think of some way to solve this dilemma.”

  He thanked her. “It’s no wonder that Harriet values your friendship as she does.”

  When he had gone again Agnes smiled, shaking her head. “Men are best left out of things like this,” she said. “First of all, I’m going to give you both a good supper. Come into the kitchen and give me a helping hand.”

  They did it gladly, both liking her. “Where is the post office?” Minnie asked.

  “It’s in the store that my husband runs here for a Vancouver lumber company. Obviously you couldn’t pick out the building in darkness when you came ashore. He is postmaster and deliverer of the mail in addition to being storekeeper. Granite Bay is a logging and fishing community, almost exclusively male, except for the Indian squaws. There is a large lumber camp four miles inland and a boom outlet in the bay — that’s where the logs are floated out to the sawmills. Alan also works for the Hastings outfit — which is the local name for the lumber company. He is a highly skilled engineer and such qualified men are greatly in demand. His wife is an American. Recently she has been unwell. Therefore, you must not take too much notice if Alan seems short-tempered. It is only his concern for his wife that is the cause.”

  Lisa decided she must try and be more charitable towards Alan. It was odd to think of him as her guardian, quite apart from it being a ludicrous situation. If she had chosen to marry during her time in Calgary, nobody except her husband would have had any claim on her. Whatever the outcome, she hoped to meet Harriet. It would be interesting to see the other half of the Fernley partnership.

  Since Agnes had already dined with her husband and Alan, she merely sat at the table with them while they ate, making sure they had plenty and listening while Lisa explained the circumstances of her own unofficial guardianship of Minnie. Afterwards, while Lisa washed the dishes, Agnes helped Minnie to dry them and the task was soon done. When they returned to the sitting-room, Agnes found some picture books for Minnie to look at while she and Lisa talked together. They learned that Agnes was Toronto-born and her family still lived at Brook Street, which Lisa knew well. Agnes had met Henry while visiting relatives in Vancouver. He was a photographer by profession and had worked in the city since coming from Brighton in England to Canada, but upon marrying her, his aim had been to whisk her away somewhere on their own.

  “It caused a great commotion at the wedding reception,” she confided. “Just as we were about to leave on our honeymoon Henry announced that we should not be returning to Vancouver, but would be off to live far away at Rock Bay on Vancouver Island! A logging camp! I think my poor dear mother nearly fainted away!”

  So Henry Twidle was possessive, Lisa concluded. And selfish? That was too early to say. His wife appeared to be a happy and contented person. Perhaps she did not miss city life. Yet she had spoken with such deep fondness of her parents and two sisters and brother that if a secret ache were there, it would be in having to live such a great distance from them.

  “When did you move to Granite Bay?” Lisa inquired.

  “Early this year.”

  “Did your husband take these splendid photographs?” Lisa glanced about the room. A number were of Agnes in picturesque settings; others were dramatic forest and river scenes. The exception was one of the Twidles’ first home at Rock Bay.

  Agnes nodded proudly. “His collection runs into hundreds. Personally I think his best ones are those he has taken when delivering mail and supplies to the lumber camps. He has captured exactly the hardships and dangers that those men endure every day of their lives. Would you like to see some of them?”

  “I would indeed.”

  Agnes fetched a large album from a cupboard and placed it on the table, telling Minnie to draw up her chair to view them as well. “Alan Fernley is interested in photography, too,” she said as she opened up the first page, “but not in quite the same way as Henry. He has built himself one of those cinematograph apparatuses for showing moving pictures. In fact, it is the second one he has made. The first was lost with everything else he owned in a fire during a performance of movies he was showing to an audience. That nitrate film is highly inflammable, you know. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt, although poor Harriet suffered greatly afterwards through the upset of it all. Troubles never come singly, do they?”

  Minnie, who had been leaning forward to look at the photographs on the first page of the album, gave an exclamation. “Oh, look at that!”

  It showed two men balancing dangerously on a log suspended by a cable far above the ground, one with his arms widespread as if to emphasise the fact that neither was holding on.

  “It’s the spikes in the soles of their caulked boots that enables them to do that,” Agnes explained. “Oh my! But it’s still extremely risky to do!”

  She turned the pages for the girls. It was easy to see that Henry had an eye for a spectacular picture. One of a great log falling into deep water from a chute showed the resulting fountain spraying hundreds of feet high. Another was taken at the dynamiting of a huge blockage of logs in a river and the massive lengths were being tossed aside like matches. There were loggers doing the madman’s work of sawing the tops of the enormously high trees, and Henry had captured one as the tremendous whipping of the trunk resulted. Although the man was no more than a blur, the sense of speed and danger made the photograph thrillingly alive.

  “T
here’s Mr. Fernley,” Minnie said, as another page was reached.

  “Yes. He’s at work on the maintenance of a steam donkey which pulls the logs to a landing. I think he’s on the next page as well.” She turned it. “There he is with a camera he bought from Henry. See how all the men have stopped work to pose for the lens.”

  “Mr. Fernley is interested in all aspects of photography then?” Lisa commented.

  “He’s interested from a commercial angle. People like to see themselves on a screen and he shows such pictures as lantern slides alternating with hired movies in a hall or a canteen or in a large room, such as the Heriot Bay Hotel, from time to time. Anywhere that a large audience can be accommodated, because these shows are always packed with standing room only.”

  When the last photographs in the album had been viewed, Minnie asked Agnes about the butterflies on the wall. The two of them went from glass case to glass case. Agnes was full of amusing little stories about misfortunes that sometimes occurred in her husband’s pursuit of butterflies. And Minnie was highly entertained. She went eagerly to see some Indian beadwork that was kept in an upstairs room and Lisa could hear them laughing as the child tried on the necklaces and bracelets and headdresses. It pleased her to hear such happiness.

  The two men returned to the house just as Agnes was bringing Minnie downstairs again. As they all re-gathered in the sitting-room, Agnes made her announcement.

  “I think I’ve solved your problem temporarily, Alan. Lisa shall leave with you in the morning while Minnie remains here with Henry and me until such time as you have room to accommodate her.” She tapped the child on the shoulder, “Tell Lisa that you are willing to stay at Granite Bay for a little while.”

  Minnie hesitated for a few moments, her expressive eyes showing in whose company she would have preferred to be, but she nodded firmly enough. “I’ll stay.”

  Alan had fixed Agnes with a surprised stare. “Where do you suppose I’ll find this extra accommodation?”