What the Heart Keeps (13 page)

He
saw then that if they had had more time together without the imminence of his departure, their lovers’ quarrel could have been resolved. God! What a fool he had been. He couldn’t live without her. He thought of everything he loved about her. Her liveliness, her beauty, her courage and her unaffected joy in all the fun they had shared. She had looked to him to erase through love the darkness of the past for her and he had failed her.

The
train was ready for departure. All doors were slamming. For a moment he was prepared to let it go without him but he could not desert the horses. There would be no one else to look after them throughout the long journey. With reluctance he boarded the train, deciding he would send Lisa a wire from Buffalo. Then as the wheels began to turn common sense prevailed. He queried how he could convey the regret that assailed him for all he had said to her or tell her of his longing for her to put her arms around his neck and show her forgiveness. For he was sure she would forgive him. With her warm and generous nature she would accept his apology and never hold back from him what he wanted to hear from her. She would wipe out the terrible quarrel that was of his instigation, knowing that the like of it would never occur again.

He
knew what he would do. As soon as he reached Buffalo and had delivered the horses, he would return to her. If time off was refused by his employer, he would quit the job. Nothing was going to stop his reunion with Lisa. When all was well between them again, he would ask her to share his somewhat uncertain future, for he would not risk losing her a second time while he gathered some money into his bank balance, which had been his original intention before asking her to marry him. With what he knew of her character, she would not mind facing hardships at his side. One day he would buy her silk dresses and a shining new automobile to ride in, and in the meantime they would get along somehow. The train was gathering speed. The last lights of Toronto twinkled out of sight like a dying spark.

Lisa
rose from the seat in the railway station where she had been sitting. Right up until the last minute she had hoped that Peter would realise she would not go far from him all the time there was still a chance that he might find a way back to her. She loved him. Nothing had changed that and, strangely, she understood that it was the depth of his feelings for her that had created the awful impasse. If he had not loved her, he would not have cared about any previous incidents in her life. That was why she had hoped right up to the last minute that he would come looking for her and rush her onto the train with him. It had proved to be a foolish dream. Yet she would have gone anywhere with him. Anywhere at all.

F
ive

When Lisa entered the house she saw that Miss Drayton’s study door was open. In the room the desk was a litter of papers and entry books as if Miss Lapthorne had been turning out everything, the drawers left open. Lisa, who had expected to be met by a reproach and was not sure how she would endure an upbraiding for lateness in the depth of her own sorrow, decided she had better find out what was happening.

There
was no sign of Miss Lapthorne anywhere downstairs. Upstairs she found her lying drunk across the bed, an emptied brandy bottle and a fallen glass on the floor. Lisa removed the woman’s shoes, put a quilt over her, and left her for the night.

Lisa,
found it impossible to sleep herself. She had learned a bitter lesson. There were some secrets that should never be told, although if Peter had carried through his obvious intention to make love to her, he would have known anyway that she was not as he had supposed her to be. His reaction would have been the same.

Through
the night hours she sat up in bed, hugging her knees through her nightgown, and rocking sometimes in her misery. Maybe it would have been better if he had found out that way. At least for a brief, halcyon time she would have known his love and his loving body, a memory to cherish and hold, no matter what came afterwards.

By
dawn she was up and dressed again. She set about her house-cleaning chores, cast down by her own listlessness. Normally she went vigorously about her tasks, but today everything was a burden. Her thoughts dwelt on Peter all the time and there was a drumming awareness in her of a new yearning he had created that made her ache for his arms and his nearness. She had glimpsed how it might have been between them and it made the agony of losing him all the greater. For the first time she began to suspect how passionate she might have become in meeting his love-making if only everything had not gone awry.

At
the study door she hesitated. She was never in there alone. Miss Lapthorne unlocked it and remained in the room while she swept and polished, but with Miss Drayton due back in Toronto any day, it would not do for dust to be lying there when she arrived. Entering, Lisa set about her work. When it was done, she looked at the desk. Usually that was dusted, too. It would be impossible to attempt to sort the papers, which were no concern of hers anyway, but at least she could shut the drawers and polish all around it.

She
had given a good shine to most of the carved woodwork and was about to push in the last drawer when she caught sight of her own name on a postmarked letter in it. She recognised Alice’s writing, and it had been posted in Raymond over two months ago, which was shortly after Miss Drayton had last left for England. That meant that Miss Lapthorne had kept and concealed it.

With
a rush of anger, Lisa picked out the letter and saw that there was another addressed to her underneath it. And another below that. All three were unopened, but that was no commendation. It was obvious that they were being kept for Miss Dray-ton’s perusal and censure and her ultimate destruction of them. It certainly explained to Lisa why correspondence had been so sparse over the years. The post was caught in a closed box when it came through the door. It could only be unlocked by a key that Miss Lapthorne kept on a ring. Lisa had never considered this to be unusual, for it had been the same at the orphanage, and she understood that in many strict households the husband kept the key in order to keep check on whatever mail came aimed for his sons and daughters. On the two occasions when she had been handed a letter by Miss Lapthorne, it was when she had happened to be working close at hand, and no doubt the woman was not going to risk her having glimpsed her name. No wonder they had vanished again from her drawer afterwards. She had been wrong to think it was anyone other than Miss Lapthorne who had removed them.

Footsteps
were shuffling down the stairs. Lisa went to lean against the desk and face the door with the three letters displayed in her hand in a fan shape. Miss Lapthorne, appearing in a silk kimono and slippers, was already so pale and sickly-looking that her reaction at seeing the discovered letters made little difference to her haggard expression.

“
Oh dear,” she said weakly, sitting down in the nearest chair. “I have always been afraid you’d find out one day.” She peered in disbelief at the desk. “Did I really leave everything in such a mess? I couldn’t remember whether or not I had locked up again, which is why I came straight down here.”

Lisa
shook the letters angrily. “Why did you withhold my mail?”

Miss
Lapthorne pressed fingertips to her throbbing temples. “I was only obeying rules. Miss Drayton discourages correspondence for her girls’ own good. If one wrote of discontent it could upset others unnecessarily.”

“
Particularly if they should write of being sent out West primarily as brides, having had no previous notification! Some of the girls are only fourteen and fifteen!”

Miss
Lapthorne clapped her hands over her ears. “Mrs. Grant is entrusted to put the younger ones with families.”

“
You have no proof that she does that,” Lisa retorted.

“
Don’t let us talk about it any more now,” the woman implored. “My head is splitting in twain. Please fetch me a nice cup of tea and one of my headache pills.”

While
Lisa was waiting for the kettle to boil she opened her letters. Alice wrote that she was expecting a second child and was full of praise for her husband who cared for her first-born as if the boy were his own. The other two letters were from young women whom she had never met, both having passed through the Distribution Home a long time before she had come to Canada. Each had been given her name by a former companion of hers from the Leeds orphanage, who had heard indirectly that she was still at Sherbourne Street. The girl in question was Teresa Dutton, with whom Lisa had grown up and whom she had always liked, although they had never been close friends. She recalled that Teresa had been the only one to give her a helping hand with the young children in organising games on the ship’s deck, and more than once on the train journey had taken over in keeping them amused to give her a rest. From the letters it appeared that Teresa was now living in Calgary, Alberta, and since both correspondents travelled a great deal she had offered her address and would forward Lisa’s replies on to them. Both young women, although they had probably conferred, had written independently to put the same request to Lisa. As their letters to Miss Drayton and Miss Lapthorne had gone unanswered, they wanted to know if she had access to the files and could give them any guide at all to the present whereabouts of their sisters, from whom they had been parted through the Herbert Drayton Memorial Society. The names were enclosed, and each writer, in spite of the poor writing and ill spelling, conveyed a desperate longing to find her own kin again. One was a twin, and it was easy to discern that the cruel separation had left a scar.

Lisa
carried the tea and the headache pills into the study. Miss Lapthorne was seated at the desk, making an effort to tidy up the papers into order and put them away. As she closed an entry book to lift it from the desk, Lisa startled her by slamming a hand down on it and holding it under pressure.

“
How far does that book go back, Miss Lapthorne?” she demanded furiously. “Ten years? Twelve? Does it record where Miss Drayton sent a twin named Esther Hastings or the whereabouts of the five Hamilton sisters ruthlessly separated from the eldest, who still seeks for news of them?”

The
woman groaned faintly in exasperation and made a dismissive gesture. “Is that what your letters were about? Silly girls bother us sometimes with inquiries about their families, wanting to know if their parents are still alive or if we know where their brothers and sisters are to be found and so forth. Often those placed in this country by other charities write to us—grown women with children of their own—all with this mad desire to trace kith and kin.”

“
I consider it perfectly natural.”

“
Do you?” It was said with sarcasm. “Your opinion is not rated very highly in this house. Every Home child is given a new chance in life in this country and hankering for past associations is not to be encouraged. Letters of that kind are thrown away.” She reached out for her tea, which was on the desk, but Lisa stayed her wrist, determined to see this issue through.

“
I think it is simply that your records don’t go beyond the first week or two of any foundling’s placement. On paper, Mrs. Grant’s check-list looks excellent to the inspector, but neither you nor Miss Drayton have ever seen for yourselves whether things are well with the waifs and strays you’ve scattered indiscriminately throughout the land. That’s why you’re always in such a state of anxiety whenever he comes. You’re afraid that one day he might pounce on some small point you’ve overlooked.”

“
How dare you!” Miss Lapthorne’s flurry of outrage was short-lived for her head ached too much. As Lisa released her wrist, she put a limp hand to her brow. “I have enough to think about without you becoming obstreperous, Lisa. Worse still are these delusions about the integrity of your benefactresses, because I include myself in that category with Miss Drayton. If it had not been for me, you would have left here long ago, as I have mentioned on many occasions, and now it seems we are all to move West together.”

“
Move? What do you mean?”

“
I mean that I had a wire from Halifax yesterday in your absence. Miss Drayton sent it upon disembarking there. I’m to have papers and books packed up together. She thinks that in future the Distribution Home should be in Regina, Saskatchewan, where she owns some property. That is prairie country, you know. Very different from anything you have seen so far.” She took up her tea at last and drank it thankfully as if it were a restorative. “You shall continue to be my assistant, Lisa. I’m prepared to overlook your impertinence to me.”

Lisa
decided, not for the first time, that Miss Lapthorne was quite impossible. “Do you want to leave Toronto?” she asked her, greatly taken aback herself by the prospect.

The
woman lowered her teacup. “Upheavals of any kind disturb me,” she admitted carefully, in the pretence that her listener was not aware of it. “I was quite distraught yesterday when I received the wire and you were not here to run errands on my behalf, such as telegraphing Mrs. Grant from the post office and so forth.” Then her whole face softened on inner thoughts and she spoke tremulously and sentimentally. “But I go wherever my dear friend, Miss Drayton, goes. I left England to come to Canada with her. It is a much smaller step in every way now to go from Toronto to Regina. Home is where the heart is, Lisa.”

“
I’m sure you’re right,” Lisa agreed quietly, thinking in terms of an entirely different relationship.

Miss
Lapthorne had found sufficient stimulation in the tea to start issuing orders. “Now as much as possible in the way of preparations to leave must be done. Get your belongings packed in readiness. Afterwards pack mine into a large trunk you will find under the stairs. It’s not seen the light of day since I first arrived in this country fifteen years ago. I expect it will be dusty.”

Upstairs,
Lisa crossed the floor of her little room to hold back the lace drapes at the window and look out. She could see as far as the corner where Peter had waited for her. It was as well that she was leaving Toronto, for otherwise memories of those three wonderful days would meet her everywhere, and the like of them would never come again. The lace became crumpled in her grasp as she covered her face briefly, fighting back the anguish that kept engulfing her.

It
did not take her long to pack her possessions into a tapestry valise she had made herself during one session of church sewing evenings. Last of all she took the cut-out Norwegian flag from the frame on the wall and tucked it into a book of poems which she placed on a folded piece of tissue paper that held the blue satin ribbon from the chocolate box.

Miss
Drayton arrived the next day. As always prior to her arrival, when known, Miss Lapthorne was almost beside herself with excitement, going constantly to the window to look down the street and fussing over the final preparations. In the early days she had gone running down the porch steps to welcome her friend before the hackney cab had drawn to a halt, but Miss Drayton had put a stop to that, saying it was unseemly and undignified. Now it was with carefully maintained restraint that Miss Lapthorne moved out onto the porch after Lisa had opened the front door as the usual cavalcade of hackney cabs from the railway station drew up outside.

It
was easy to see at once that Miss Drayton was in a savage mood. She barely tolerated Miss Lapthorne’s fond kiss and gave her quite a forceful thrust in the direction of the thirty girls alighting from the cabs.

“
Get those creatures settled in as quickly as you can, Mavis. Then come to me at once. There is much to talk about and arrange.” She stalked into the house. It was rare for her to give as much as a glance at Lisa, and today was no exception.

Miss
Lapthorne saw the girls up to the attic rooms, explaining they would only be there overnight and left them to Lisa’s charge. They were from workhouses and institutions in south London, and were friendly and eager to talk to Lisa as the groups usually were. It always came as a relief to them to find someone young in the house to whom they could put their questions. The buzz of chatter continued down the stairs as she led them to a prepared meal in the kitchen.