by Pat Bourke
Meredith wondered why they said “Mrs. Butters” and “Mrs. O’Hagan,” but not “Mr. Parker” or “Mr. Forrest.” What others things like that might trip her up and land her in trouble with Parker?
“Now, my dear, have you had any experience?”
Meredith’s stomach fluttered. “This is my first real job,” she said slowly, “but I did a lot of the cooking and housework at home and looked after my sister when Mama was at the store.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Mrs. Butters said. She poured more tea into her own cup. The kitchen was darkening as afternoon slid into evening. “Your Mama runs the store? I suppose your father’s in the army.
“My son, Ben, is in France,” she continued before Meredith could answer. “Terrible sick they’ve been, with this Spanish Flu, but he’s been lucky so far. Is your father overseas?” Her bright, black eyes were full of questions.
“Papa was in the army,” Meredith said, “but—” She blinked hard and focused her eyes on a long scratch across the top of the wooden table.
“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Butters said after a moment. She reached for Meredith’s hand and took it in her own warm one. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. It’s a dreadful time for so many families.”
Meredith nodded. The lump in her throat made it hard to swallow.
“That’s more than enough chatting for one afternoon,” Mrs. Butters said briskly, getting to her feet. “Dr. Waterton likes his dinner promptly at seven.” She carried the cookie plate and her cup-and-saucer over to the sink. “Take that apron by the door, and you can start on the potatoes. My Aunt Hester used to say that busy hands heal troubled hearts, and it’s the best medicine I know.”
Meredith hastily wiped her eyes as she crossed the kitchen. She took a large, white apron off the hook and tied it over her dress—her best dress, but that couldn’t be helped. Mrs. Butters handed her a paring knife and pointed to the basket of potatoes she’d placed beside the sink.
I’d rather sell potatoes than peel them, Meredith thought as she dug the eyes out of a particularly knobby specimen, but peeling potatoes meant she’d be sending money home. She’d think of the potatoes as pennies, magic pennies piling up to pay what they owed. Maybe then, if she wasn’t too old and hadn’t forgotten everything, she’d find a way to finish school and be a teacher. Papa always said anything was possible if you believed hard enough. And no school board would want to hire a potato-peeling pot scrubber who’d left school before she turned fourteen.
Meredith dropped the peeled potato into the pot Mrs. Butters had set beside her and picked up another. Long tails of peel unwound from her hands and mounded into a soggy, brown mass on the counter in front of her as she filled the pot with potatoes that didn’t look one bit like magic pennies.
She’d have to do a powerful lot of believing.
Chapter 5
Sunlight slid over the windowsill early the next morning and illuminated the tiny, pink rosebuds on the wallpaper in Meredith’s room. At first, she couldn’t remember where she was or why Ellen wasn’t in bed beside her, but then she remembered the long train ride the day before.
The washstand that sat at the foot of the bed held a china jug and basin, and a small, white towel hung from the rail across the top. Meredith’s suitcase sat beside the washstand. On the other side of the window, an oval mirror just big enough for her to see her face was tacked to the wall, above a small dresser with three drawers and glass knobs that looked like chunks of ice. Her stockings and underclothes huddled on a wooden chair on the far side of the dresser. Her coat and hat and the dress she’d worn the day before hung from hooks beside the door.
Meredith sat up and hugged her arms close. The fall morning was cold despite her flannel nightgown. She hopped out of bed, snatched her things from the chair and scooted back under the faded, pink coverlet on the bed. She shrugged out of her nightgown and wriggled into her underclothes and stockings in the warm cave underneath the covers, the way she and Ellen did at home.
Maybe Ellen was getting dressed now, too. Mama would be making breakfast. Soon, Ellen would come racketing down the stairs and Mama would have to remind her to set the table like she did every morning—
Better not think about home too much. Meredith slid down to the end of the bed, the coverlet tucked around her, and reached for her suitcase. She’d been so tired last night she hadn’t unpacked. One of her everyday dresses would be better for kitchen work. She pulled out her favorite with its green-and-brown stripes, glad it still fit even though she’d grown so much this year. She didn’t mind that the twelve, tiny buttons down the front took forever to fasten, but finally they were closed and she pulled on the soft, green sweater Mama had knit for her last winter. Meredith had loved hearing the clickety-clack of Mama’s knitting needles every evening after the dishes were done. The sweater would keep Mama close to her all day.
Meredith felt under the bed for her clunky brown school shoes. She shouldn’t call them “school shoes” now that she’d left school, but calling them something else wouldn’t take away their ugliness.
“Never mind,” Mama had said while Meredith polished them the night before her trip to Toronto. “You’re to take your very first wages to Mr. Eaton’s store and buy yourself a brand-new pair.”
Mrs. Stinson had said Meredith’s wages would be paid on Fridays. Would she have earned enough for shoes in four days’ time? Just as soon as she could, she’d go to Mr. Eaton’s store and look at shoes anyway. That way she could take her time deciding on what she wanted, like any grand lady in Rosedale.
She quickly made the bed, arranged her few things in the dresser, and placed her Bible on top, wishing she had a book to set beside the Bible so she could lose herself in a story at bedtime. She’d ask Mrs. Butters if there was a lending library nearby.
Meredith shook her hair out of its nighttime braid and tugged her wooden-handled hairbrush through her thick curls. She bundled it into a knot at the back of her head with the hairpins that reminded her of the long-legged herons that stalked the marshy shores near Port Stuart.
Meredith studied the serious face looking back at her from the mirror: eyebrows like smears of black paint above brown eyes flecked with gold, a nose peppered with freckles, black hair that snaked its way out of imprisonment no matter how securely she pinned it. A wide open face, Papa had called it.
“I miss Papa,” she whispered to the girl in the mirror, “and now I miss Mama and Ellen, too.” But the girl in the mirror couldn’t offer any comfort and there was no point wishing things were different.
Meredith moved to the window. Her room was on the third floor and it really was like sleeping in the treetops! Tree-lined streets wound in all directions, thin columns of smoke marking where houses sat under the canopy of colorful leaves. Church spires poked into the sky: big ones nearby, small ones in the distance. Pigeons pecked companionably at the ground below her window, their throaty noises like the voices of the women back home tidying up after a church supper.
That sparkle in the distance had to be Lake Ontario. From Port Stuart, you could sail all the way along the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario to Toronto. She really wasn’t so far away if she could follow the shoreline home.
A knock sounded on the door. “Meredith? Are you awake?”
Meredith hurried to open it. Mrs. Butters stood panting in the hallway; her rosy cheeks making her look even more like a gingerbread lady. “Good gracious, all those stairs! I don’t come up here as often as I should. I forgot to give you an alarm clock—Alice took the old one with her, if you can believe it.”
“Am I late?” Surely not on her very first morning.
“Don’t fret. I’m sure you needed the sleep, but tomorrow you’ll need to be up early to stoke the stove so it’s hot when I arrive at seven.” Mrs. Butters led the way down the narrow staircase, puffing a little, her carpet slip
pers scuffing on the wooden stairs. “You’ll need to go quietly in the mornings so you don’t wake the family,” she said as they reached the second-floor landing, “although today everyone’s up ahead of you.”
Meredith vowed silently she’d be on time tomorrow as they descended the last flight of stairs to the kitchen, where an argument was raging over the remains of breakfast.
“Listen to this,” Forrest quoted from the newspaper on the table in front of him, “There is altogether too much made of the seriousness of this Spanish Influenza.” His face was florid under white hair that stood up in spikes as if he’d just run his hand through it. “Can you believe the cheek?”
Meredith remembered the newspaper man calling out something about the Spanish Flu the day before, and Mrs. Butters had mentioned it, too. In Port Stuart, letters from the men overseas had told of it, but no one she knew overseas had fallen ill so far. She slipped into an empty chair at the other end of the table.
Parker’s eyes traveled from Meredith to the big kitchen clock and back again. He wasn’t about to tell her not to fret. Maybe if she got up extra early all week, he’d forget about her being late today.
“The epidemic is not so serious as measles,” Forrest continued, “and while a few deaths have occurred among the Poles at Camp Niagara, everything possible has been done to prevent the spread.”
“That’s exactly right.” Parker calmly buttered a piece of toast. “This so-called Spanish Influenza has been confined to the army overseas and the odd case at the training camps over here. It hasn’t yet been reliably reported in Toronto. We’re in no danger.” His bald head bobbed as he spoke, like the pigeons Meredith had seen from her window upstairs.
“But some have died from it, man!” Forrest persisted. “What’s more dangerous than that?”
“Hush now, you two,” Mrs. Butters said, spooning something into a bowl from a pot on the range. “You’ll scare Meredith if you keep on like that.”
Parker plucked the newspaper from Forrest’s hands and studied it. “And if you’d kept on reading,” he said, ignoring Mrs. Butters, “you’d have seen this: ‘As far as I can learn, there is no pathological difference between plain influenza and the so-called Spanish variety,’ said Dr. Hallowfield.” He dabbed his napkin at the corners of his mouth. “I see no need to panic.”
“Dr. Waterton says it’s only a matter of time before it spreads into the city.” Forrest reached for a piece of toast.
“Then I’m afraid he’s wrong,” Parker said, cutting his toast into neat squares.
“And just where did you do your medical training, Parker?” Forrest asked.
“Don’t listen to them,” Mrs. Butters said to Meredith as she set a steaming bowl of porridge in front of her. “They go on like that all day. It’s enough to make your head spin. There’s toast on the table and tea in the pot.”
Meredith reached for the teapot and filled her mug.
“I trust you will not make a habit of sleeping in,” Parker said, frowning at Meredith as if she’d woken up late just to vex him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Serious and responsible, she reminded herself. And polite. Especially to Parker. “I’ll be on time from now on.”
“Leave the girl alone,” Forrest said, winking at Meredith. “She’s only just arrived.”
“I prefer to nip bad habits in the bud.” Parker leaned toward Forrest. “Remember Alice,” he said in a voice that painted Alice as something very bad indeed.
“Let’s not remember Alice!” Mrs. Butters exclaimed, pausing between the stove and the pantry. “Meredith is here now, and she’s a nice, polite girl and a hard worker.” Her black eyes flashed a challenge that made Parker look away.
He doesn’t want to get on Mrs. Butters’ bad side the way Alice clearly had, thought Meredith. All the same, she wasn’t going to waste her sympathy on him. She looked for the sugar bowl only to see it disappear over the edge of the table, seemingly under its own power. She slid her chair back and peered underneath the table.
Harry Waterton was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rapidly spooning sugar into his mouth, his eyes closed in utter bliss.
“Stop that!” Meredith whispered fiercely.
Harry’s eyes flew open and the spoon clattered to the floor.
Mrs. Butters’ head appeared below the table top. “Mr. Harry! Come out of there at once!”
The little boy crawled out slowly. Sugar coated the front of his navy-blue sweater.
“You’ve no business hiding in my kitchen, young man. How long have you been down there?” Mrs. Butters shook her finger at the little boy.
Meredith bit back a giggle. Forrest laughed, and even Parker managed a pained smile.
“And sugar is scarce, as you well know,” Mrs. Butters scolded, barely pausing for breath. “If you take more than your share, our brave soldiers don’t have what they need to win the war. You should be ashamed of yourself. Don’t let me find you hiding in here again!” She marched the small boy to the door. “Now scoot back to the dining room. Did no one notice you were gone?”
Meredith caught Forrest’s eye. He grinned.
“Good gracious, he’s a handful,” Mrs. Butters said, shaking her head. “Always at the sugar. Boys will be boys, I suppose.”
“Girls, too,” Meredith said. “My little sister is always trying to sneak some sugar.”
“All the same, I’d choose Harry’s escapades over Maggie’s tantrums any day,” Forrest said. He got to his feet, brushing crumbs from his trousers.
“I will agree with you on that point, Forrest,” Parker said with an odd little cackle that made Meredith wonder if he was making a joke. “Harry may be a handful, but Maggie’s a menace.”
“Finish up, Meredith,” Mrs. Butters said as the men put their jackets on, “and then you can clear the dining room.”
Meredith quickly spooned up her porridge, making sure there was sugar in every spoonful. Even though she liked the way it smelled, porridge was just plain nasty without sugar.
It seemed to her that Glenwaring was like the harbor in Port Stuart with vessels of all kinds passing through. Mrs. Butters was a cheerful tugboat chugging this way and that, looking after all the other boats. Forrest was a ferry, of course, taking people here and there. Harry was a cheeky little rowboat, and Jack could only be a plane—an airship—soaring over Lake Ontario.
Her imagination stopped short at Parker. It almost spoiled the game to include him. But then it came to her: a battleship—all cold, gray iron, and laden with rules and procedures.
And I’m a raft that’s floated safely all the way to Toronto, Meredith thought. I’m not going to let myself get swamped by that baleful old battleship.
Chapter 6
A few minutes later, tray in hand, Meredith waited in the hallway outside the dining room. Through the doorway, she could see Jack and an older man, who could only be Dr. Waterton, sitting at a table that could have easily seated twelve. Meredith thought it must take hours to polish the curlicues on the ornate chairs set around the table.
The rich red of the dining room walls glowed in the morning sunlight streaming through the large windows. There was no sign of Harry—or Maggie, Meredith realized, disappointed. She was eager to get a glimpse of the one thing Parker and Forrest agreed on.
“The official word,” Dr. Waterton was saying to his son, pointing to the newspaper, “is that there’s no cause for alarm. But I’m afraid it may be more serious than anyone realizes.”
Meredith was close enough to see that the doctor’s plate of eggs and bacon looked untouched. Should she knock? Enter without knocking? Mama would say she shouldn’t be listening like this, but Mrs. Butters had sent her to clear the dishes. Did that mean she should start clearing right away or wait until they left the room? She hadn’t thought to ask.
“I don’t know w
hy you’re telling me this.” Jack’s back was to Meredith, so she couldn’t see his face, but the tone of his voice was sulky.
“Because you’re nearly sixteen, Jack. It’s time you took an interest if you’re going to be a doctor.”
“I’m not going to be a doctor. I’m going to be a pilot.”
“Not that flying nonsense again!” The doctor dropped the newspaper onto the table, knocking over his coffee cup.
Meredith darted forward. Her tray clattered to the floor as she grabbed the empty cup that was rolling toward the edge of the table. For a scary moment she thought she was going to end up in the doctor’s lap.
“Good heavens!” Dr. Waterton drew back as Meredith righted herself.
Jack laughed. “She was upside down in the flowerbed yesterday!”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Meredith set the cup back onto the saucer and stepped back. Her dratted hair had come loose and she could feel herself blushing. “Mrs. Butters sent me to clear the table. Should I come back later?”
“And spoil that entrance?” Dr. Waterton chuckled. His sandy hair was thinning on top, and his eyes looked kind behind their gold-rimmed spectacles. “You’re a definite improvement over the last one. What’s your name?”
“Meredith Hollings, sir.”
Dr. Waterton got to his feet. To Meredith’s relief, he didn’t seem angry in the least. “Pleased to meet you, Meredith.”
She was so delighted he’d got her name right that it took her a moment to realize he’d extended his hand. She hesitated, and then shook it shyly.
“Finding your way around all right?” Dr. Waterton removed his spectacles and tucked them into a pocket in his gray silk vest.
“Yes, sir. Everyone’s been very kind.” Almost everyone, she amended silently as she stooped to retrieve the fallen tray.
