Bleak Landing

by Terrie Todd

  I stood perfectly still on the rug and tried to grasp the concept that all this was for my own personal use. How was it possible? Suddenly, I didn’t care how hard I might have to work or how early I would have to rise. Even the thought of redeeming my mother’s necklace took a backseat as I contemplated the wealth that was mine to enjoy.

  “Bathroom’s down the hall. C’mon, I’ll show you.” Mrs. Cohen headed back into the hall. I set my things on the floor and followed.

  Along the way, Mrs. Cohen named the people who occupied the rooms, waving her hands toward each doorway as we passed. “Rita and Hannah share this room, they’re housemaids. This is Evelyn’s, she’s a lady’s maid to Mrs. Weinberger, and next to her is Edith—lady’s maid to Miss Weinberger.

  “Cynthia?” I asked, frowning. Why would such a little girl need a lady’s maid?

  “Oh, no. Miss Caroline Weinberger. She’s seventeen.”

  “Oh.”

  Mrs. Cohen kept marching down the hall. “Dolly and Dorothy share this room, they’re sisters. Both housemaids as well. They all take turns serving at meals.” My head was spinning already, but Mrs. Cohen continued. “This is Miss Cuthbert’s. She’s the nanny.”

  “How many children do the Weinbergers have?” I asked.

  “Well now, I already mentioned Miss Caroline Weinberger. She’s Mr. Weinberger’s daughter from his first marriage. Her mother died in childbirth, God rest her soul. Mr. Weinberger’s older son, Carlton, lives here sometimes, when he’s not off on adventures.”

  She waved another hand to her right. “Here’s the women’s bathroom.”

  I poked my head in to see a room very much like a public washroom but with showers at one end.

  We reached a door at the end of the hallway.

  “The male staff live on the other side, and this door stays locked. In addition to Stevenson, whom you’ve already met, there’s the chauffeur, Logan. He brought you home. And two younger fellows whose names I can never keep straight. Reggie and Robert, maybe. Anyway, they keep the grounds mowed and the pool clean in summer. In winter, they shovel snow and keep the furnaces running. Whatever’s needed. And they eat. A lot.”

  She kept up the flow of information as we retraced our steps. “After Mr. Weinberger married the current Mrs. Weinberger in 1928, they added Sol Junior and Cynthia to the family. They are eight and five. Miss Cuthbert would normally have been watching over Cynthia today, but she’s still away on her Christmas break. Fortunately for Cynthia, God sent you along.” She smiled at me. “Like a guardian angel!”

  No one had ever accused me of being sent anywhere by God, and I had no idea how to respond. I wondered how angelic she’d find me if she knew I’d run away from home.

  We descended the stairs to the second floor, where Mrs. Cohen led me down another hallway. This one had doors on one side only, all of them closed. The other side featured a white railed balcony that overlooked the entryway below. From it, I got a closer look at the fancy giant chandelier I’d seen earlier. Even though it wasn’t lit, the hundreds of tiny crystals shimmered in the late-afternoon sunlight pouring in through the windows. I’d have stood mesmerized by the reflected light for hours if not for Mrs. Cohen.

  “This will probably be the only time you’re ever on this floor,” she said. “It has the family bedrooms, the nursery, and guest rooms. The housemaids take care of all this. You and me, we don’t leave the kitchen.”

  She led me back down the servants’ stairs. She stopped in the kitchen to stir her stew pot and looked up at a huge clock on the wall. “We’ve got time for a quick tour of the main floor, and then we really need to finish dinner preparations.” I’d have rather stopped for a bowl of that stew, but I followed obediently. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast in Mrs. Ross’s kitchen, but it wasn’t the first time I’d skipped a meal.

  Mrs. Cohen led me swiftly through a sitting room; a den; a library; a study—I hoped no one would ever ask me the difference between all these rooms—a dining room already set with gorgeous china and crystal, fresh flowers, and candles; and a grand ballroom. My mind was completely boggled that one household could be so wealthy during such lean times. Though the rooms were filled with fancy upholstered chairs and couches, solid tables, and artwork in gilded frames, they were devoid of people. I wondered where everyone was, even though I wasn’t likely to meet them any time soon.

  When we returned to the kitchen, Mrs. Cohen instructed me to set the table.

  I hesitated, confused. “In the dining room?”

  “Oh, my. You do have a lot to learn, don’t you?” Mrs. Cohen shook her head. “No, dear. Only Stevenson sets the family table. You’ll set the servants’ table. Over there.” She nodded toward one end of the kitchen, where an arched doorway opened into a room containing a large table with benches and a hutch filled with pewter plates. “There’ll be twelve of us. You and I serve the others at six. While they eat, we put the finishing touches on the family’s meal and, if there’s time, grab a bite ourselves. Then they serve the family at seven. After that, you’ll be in here with me for the rest of the evening, cleaning up and preparing for tomorrow.”

  I hadn’t realized the stew was for the staff, while the family and their guests would be dining on prime rib. Nor that I’d have to wait even longer to taste that stew.

  As I served the other staff members, I listened intently to their conversation around the table. I was surprised to realize they were all immigrants from one country or another. Their varied accents interested me as they chatted through the meal. For the most part, they ignored me. I didn’t mind. I had no desire to tell them my story, though I was curious to know each of theirs.

  The two lady’s maids, Evelyn and Edith, captured my attention more than the others. They held their heads higher, spoke more genteelly, and clasped their spoons with more grace. As I watched them, I found my chin automatically lifting a little, too. I wondered what it might take to become a lady’s maid and whether getting such a job was possible for someone like me.

  When Mrs. Cohen finally gave me the go-ahead to sit down with a bowl filled for myself, I ate it with gusto.

  The family dinner hour felt like being in a wild beehive, with uniformed servants constantly coming and going with various dishes and trays. I followed Mrs. Cohen’s orders as best I could, and after dessert was sent out, she insisted the two of us sit down for a cup of tea while the other servants dispersed.

  Tea was followed by one hour of washing dishes that felt like fourteen. Then Mrs. Cohen had me break eggs and chop onions for breakfast the next morning. When the day was finally over, I climbed the two flights of stairs feeling wearier than I had ever been after a day at the garment factory and thankful that I still had plenty of hand cream. The cozy little room to which I fled already felt like home. I curled up in bed with a glad heart. Was it really only this morning that I’d woken up in Maxine’s bedroom in Pinehaven? Now, here I was in an entirely new life. How could it be?

  As I drifted off to sleep, Mrs. Cohen’s words about me being a guardian angel returned to mind, and I replayed the incident with Cynthia on the street. That bus could have easily hit us both. What if we had both been killed? An entire city would be in mourning for the child of a wealthy, influential family, while an unknown factory worker would be quietly laid to rest in a pauper’s grave.

  Chapter 14

  Bleak Landing. Autumn 1938

  Victor Harrison sat at his mother’s kitchen table flipping through an outdated copy of the Winnipeg Free Press his father had brought home. His little brother, Bobby, sat at the other end of the table with the funny pages. The paper had already been passed around the community, and his ma had said the coffee stains, rips, and cut-out coupons gave it character. Much of the news Victor already knew, like the Chicago Blackhawks defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs and taking home the Stanley Cup—to his immense disappointment.

  More and more, the headlines blasted news about Europe, where the National Socialist German Workers’ Part
y was making itself famous for its mistreatment of Jews. Meanwhile, Frederick Blair, the director of Canada’s Immigration Branch, was making himself famous for his determination to keep the Jews away. In a letter to Prime Minister King that became public, Blair had bragged, “Pressure by Jewish people to get into Canada has never been greater than it is now, and I am glad to be able to add that, after thirty-five years of experience here, it has never been so carefully controlled.”

  Where would it all lead? Most of the people Victor knew were too busy trying to feed their families to worry much about the rest of the world. But the news articles troubled him. Was there another war brewing, as rumors suggested? His father had served in the Great War. While Pa rarely shared any specific experiences, Victor would never forget that day in the barn when the topic had come up.

  “A man who is spared the horrors of war will never be a real man, Vic. And it’s just as well,” Pa said, hefting a pitchfork of manure. “You and your generation are such pansies, you’d surrender at the first threat.”

  As much as Victor would have loved to prove him wrong, Pa was probably right. The thought of going to war terrified him, and it wasn’t just the idea of dying. Dying he could handle. The afterlife, he could handle. Though he’d done his share of troublemaking, he’d always believed the words his parents taught him from the Bible, that Jesus had died for his sins and that he could trust God for eternal life. “To live is Christ, to die is gain,” and all that.

  It was the possibility of surviving that worried Victor. Surviving and having to live another fifty or sixty years with wounds, visible or invisible. With memories of things too horrific to speak about stuck in his mind, images that could never be erased. War did awful things to people. And yet the God to whom he wanted to remain faithful instructed men to defend the defenseless, to stand up against injustice. What on earth did that look like for an almost eighteen-year-old farm boy in Manitoba, thousands of miles from Germany? He didn’t even know any Jews!

  His buddy Bruce had finished high school and was off to university in Winnipeg, working to become a lawyer. Victor figured maybe guys like Bruce could make a difference in the world. Education was influence, people said.

  Victor’s mother disagreed. “Whoever holds the most hope carries the most influence, Victor,” she told him. “Don’t forget that.”

  It was one of her favorite things to say, and in her little world, it seemed to be true. It wasn’t that she was perfect. She had her moments. But she was probably the most hopeful person he knew, given the way she trusted God for things and managed to be kind to almost everyone. Still, he figured her influence in Bleak Landing, where she’d taught Sunday school to nearly every kid he knew, was small potatoes. Her prayer territory didn’t extend beyond the four square miles surrounding the Harrison farm. Did it?

  His mother still prayed faithfully for Bridget O’Sullivan, though the girl had disappeared well over a year ago. Victor didn’t know what disturbed him more, Patrick O’Sullivan’s apparent lack of interest in finding his daughter or his steady decline into drunkenness. He’d become the town lush, a pitiful sight even in this sorry little community. Ma called him a sad, hurting man with a painful past and hoped his daughter had found a better life for herself somewhere. Victor hoped so, too, but feared that might not be the case. He’d heard about the desperate things girls sometimes did to survive. As much as Bridget had gotten on his nerves with her stubborn meanness, he wouldn’t wish that awful life on anybody. Either way, the thought of her freckled face and her flaming red hair still brought a smile to his lips.

  Rebecca Olsen brought a smile to his lips, too. They’d been dating for three months now, and Victor knew Rebecca was already looking at magazines filled with pictures of wedding dresses. Not that he was anywhere near ready for that. Still, it felt fantastic to have a pretty gal like Rebecca interested, and he reckoned he probably would marry her when the time was right.

  “Are we ready to throw this paper in the fire, Ma?” he asked after he’d scanned the last page.

  “No, Mr. Berg hasn’t seen it yet. Can you please take it over to him?” His mother held out her hand, and Victor spotted two dimes and a nickel in her palm. “Here. I want you to bring home as nice a chunk of ham as he’ll sell you for that. And then come straight back.”

  Victor ran the errand as requested, carrying home a piece of smoked meat that smelled so delicious he would have delved into it all by himself if he hadn’t feared the wrath of his family.

  When he walked into his mother’s kitchen, he nearly dropped the ham.

  Bruce Nilsen was seated at the table, and Victor’s parents and sisters filled the other chairs. Bobby stood watching from the living-room doorway. What on earth?

  “Bruce? I didn’t know you were home! It’s the middle of the week!”

  Bruce and Mr. Nilsen often rode home to Bleak Landing together, but only on weekends and rarely more than once a month. Bruce had just been home the previous weekend.

  Bruce glanced up at Victor, then stared at the center of the table. Everybody looked deadly serious, and his ma was wiping her eyes with a hanky.

  “What’s going on?” Victor laid the meat down beside the sink. “Ma?”

  When Bruce remained silent, Victor’s mother spoke up. “Bruce has come home because he’s had some bad news. Very sad news.” She paused, but Bruce still didn’t speak. “His father has passed away.”

  Victor felt frozen to the floor.

  “Girls, Bobby, let’s go to the other room,” Ma said. They filed out to the living room, where Victor could hear Ma still speaking softly. Already organizing some sort of support for Bruce’s family, he supposed.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Pa said, giving Bruce a pat on the shoulder and heading outside. “Give your ma our sympathy, son.”

  Still Bruce said nothing, and Victor hadn’t moved from his spot in the middle of the room. He cleared his throat. “Aww, man. I’m so sorry, bud. What happened?”

  Victor had rarely seen Bruce as anything but Mister Confidence, ready to tackle the world. It felt strange to see him like this, hunched over and fragile looking. He stepped over to Bruce and placed a hand on his shoulder. Bruce looked up.

  “I found him.”

  Victor knew Bruce had been sharing a boarding room with Mr. Nilsen in Winnipeg, but between his university classes and his part-time job at a gas station, Bruce spent little time at the boardinghouse except to sleep. Victor took a chair and leaned toward his friend.

  “He died in bed, and I found him. I didn’t know what to do, Vic. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. I didn’t want to touch him, but I . . . I finally did. He was already cold.” Bruce paused. “I’d been on a date. A date, Vic! I could have gone straight back to our room from my work shift, but no, I had to go and let some stupid girl distract me. Now my father’s dead, and it’s my fault.”

  “Whoa. Bruce, it’s not your fault, bud. You couldn’t have known.”

  Bruce sat quietly for the longest time. Finally, he let out a sigh. “They say it was his heart. We had no idea. Ma’s devastated.”

  Victor nodded and tried to imagine what it would be like to suddenly lose his father. “I’m sure you all are.”

  Bruce sniffed and wiped his cheeks with his sleeve, then stood. “Well, I just wanted you to know. The funeral’s on Saturday. I hope you’ll come.”

  “Of course. We’ll all come, Bruce. I’ll support you any way I can.”

  “Actually, Ma and I were wondering if you’d read the eulogy. Can’t believe I almost forgot.” He fished for something in his pocket.

  “Me?” Victor felt he hardly knew Lars Nilsen. The man had been around so little.

  “I know what you’re thinking—you weren’t really acquainted with my pa. But that’s just it, nobody was. You were in our home more than anybody else over the years.” He pulled out a sheet of paper. “And you read well. We’ve got it all written out.”

  When the paper came out of Bruce’s pocket, so
mething else did, too. The object fell to the ground with a quiet clink, and Bruce bent quickly to retrieve it and stuffed it back inside. Victor caught only a brief glimpse, but it looked for all the world like a necklace. And not just any necklace. A locket. A silver Celtic knot surrounding an emerald shamrock.

  He realized this was not the time to bring it up with Bruce, but he recognized that locket. He’d seen it around Bridget O’Sullivan’s neck so many times, he’d know it anywhere.

  Chapter 15

  Winnipeg. Autumn 1938

  Maxine hugged me so hard I had no choice but to hug back. We’d both been so busy, we hadn’t been able to see each other in ten months. We’d written several letters and even managed a few telephone calls, and now at last she’d made her way to the big house. She stood at our kitchen door, hugging the stuffing out of me.

  “Oh my goodness, look at you!” she gushed. “Bridget, you look so much older and more sophisticated!”

  I didn’t think I should tell her she hadn’t changed a smidge, so I said nothing. I suppose she was making note of my uniform and new hairstyle. I’d been promoted to housemaid just two weeks earlier, when Hannah left, and now wore a crisp black dress with a white collar and frilly white apron. I filled it out much better than I would have last time Maxine saw me, thanks to the abundance of food available to me. Bruce Nilsen wouldn’t call me a skinny stick now. I’d even figured out how to put my hair up in a French twist by watching Evelyn, Mrs. Weinberger’s personal maid.

  “You’re beautiful, my friend!” Maxine wiped her feet on the welcome mat. “Am I too early? Are you off duty?”

  “I just got off. Come in.”

  I showed Maxine around the place as if it were my own, enjoying her gasps and sighs at the opulence of it all. I even sneaked her up the grand staircase, which I was now allowed to use as long as I was in uniform.