What the Heart Keeps

by Rosalind Laker

  Whatever Lisa happened to be doing and wherever she happened to be, whether in the house or out of it, Peter was never far from her thoughts. She tried to keep her memories dormant, resigned to the fact they could never be banished, but time and time again they would flare into her heart and mind without warning, making her catch her breath despairingly.

  After that first occasion at the piano she was called upon to play at other times, her rendering of the popular tunes of the day being easier on the ear than the wheezy note of the phonograph. To familiarise herself with the latest sheet music provided for her, she took to practising on an ancient piano relegated long ago to the basement. Madame Ruby grudgingly paid to have it tuned. From the start Minnie showed a keenness to learn and Lisa began teaching her. Before long she was playing simple pieces quite ably. As the child’s talent developed, Lisa played little duets with her. Sometimes the other girls would drift down to the basement and sit around listening until Madame Ruby chased them out again.

  Out of the first savings from her wages, Lisa bought Minnie some warm clothes and a pair of strong boots. She bought nothing for herself, having brought with her to Calgary the winter garb she had had in Toronto. Yet that did not stop her looking longingly at frocks and coats displayed in the store windows, which were always enhanced by hats with crowns deeper than ever before and an abundance of trimming. Sometimes she was asked to make purchases of chemise ribbons or similar small items by Madame Ruby’s girls, who did most of their buying from dressmakers and clothes travellers who came to the house with cases full of wares. It was always a pleasure for her to go into a good store and look at everything before conducting her business there.

  The first blizzard of the winter came on the second day of November. From then onwards, apart from the welcome Chinook winds that for a brief spell blew warm and dried everything on the clothes lines in no time at all, the freezing weather took full possession. Icicles fanged every roof, ledge, and porch, and the distant Rockies were as white as the surrounding landscape, magnificent and awe-inspiring. Plenty of social events lightened the winter months for those free to attend them, but in her own way Lisa was as tied to Madame Ruby’s house as any of the girls following their age-old profession there. The ratio of two men to every woman in Calgary meant that the plainest of females in the city had a wide choice of beaux, and Lisa with her good looks had to fend off persistent attention wherever she went. For that reason she avoided all social gatherings. She would not take the risk of being picked out as a new face in the community and having questions asked about her. Although for the first few weeks she scanned whatever local newspapers she could get hold of, nothing was reported of a body on the railroad line. She soon learned that it was not uncommon for a drunken railroad bum to fall out and break his unfortunate neck. Yet even with the anxiety of a police investigation removed from her, she knew no peace. Fear of a chance sighting by somebody in league with Mrs. Grant was always with her.

  She registered at a domestic employment agency run as a sideline by a storekeeper’s wife who happened to have been born in Leeds. On the basis of this link, the woman was most helpful to Lisa and promised to let her know if anything came up to suit her requirements. Lisa had asked specially to be considered if there was a chance of good employment with anybody passing through to the Pacific coast. The woman also gave assurance that she would answer no stranger’s enquiries as to Lisa’s present whereabouts. It was not an unusual request that had been made to her. She had heard it before. Many people who came West were seeking to leave something in their past behind them. Only prospective bona fide employers should interview Lisa.

  Spring came at last, banishing the last icicle and turning the streets into a mire. Lisa had a sharp moment of anxiety when she thought she was being followed one day. A sly-looking man appeared to be dogging her footsteps, keeping a steady distance all the time. As a precaution she doubled back through a side street and reached Madame Ruby’s without further sign of him. The incident unnerved her, for she could not convince herself that Mrs. Grant would not have sent out spies in an attempt to track her down. Her instinct was to take Minnie and flee from Calgary, but she decided she should keep her head and remain on the alert for any more danger signs. Then as each trouble-free day went by she began to breathe a little easier. Some weeks later when she was taking in washing from the line in the warmth of a late May evening she saw the same man being admitted to the house by the side entrance. She almost laughed aloud in her relief that her fears had finally been put to rest. Far from his being a spy as she had suspected, he was just a client who had happened to be taking the same route to Madame Ruby’s as she had been taking that particular spring day.

  In the curious isolation that centred her daily existence in the region of the wash-house and the kitchen, she had no way of knowing that a search she would have welcomed was still in progress for her. Had she been free to take a stroll whenever she wished, she might have come face to face with a tall, strongly built Norwegian-American, who had spent several days in Calgary in the hope of finding her, a quest he had pursued unstintingly since handing in his notice to his horse-dealer employer after finding that she had gone from Toronto.

  Peter, strapping up his single piece of luggage in the rooming house where he had stayed on Eighth Street, grimly faced the fact that he had failed again. Every enquiry had drawn a blank. He was sick and tired of Canada. He had nothing against the Dominion itself, which he would have found agreeable in other circumstances, but he had not left his homeland to live like a hobo, riding the rails in a country not of his choosing and doing labouring jobs for a few dollars to see him on to the next place. Not that he wouldn’t do it all over again if he thought there was the slightest chance of finding Lisa. But optimism had gone for the time being, stamped out in Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon, in addition to many other towns and some settlements not yet on the map. Calgary was the last straw. For some unknown reason he had pinned high hopes on the place and they had come to nothing.

  For all he knew Lisa had read and tossed aside the notices he had inserted in the “Lost Trails” columns of various newspapers, asking her to get in touch with him at his brother’s address. Who could blame her for hating him after what he had said to her? On reflection, he knew she would never hate anybody, not even him, but such was his depressed and disappointed state of mind he was gradually becoming convinced that the damage he had done to their love would have destroyed all feelings she had had for him.

  He picked up his leather valise and went downstairs to pay his bill. Out in the street he turned for the railway station. He was on his way back to the States to earn a man’s wage in a trade that was his own until such time as he had re-girded himself to continue his search. He had not given up. He would never give up. It was Lisa that he loved and wanted. That was reason enough to go on looking for her.

  Seven

  With a note from the domestic employment agency in her hand, Lisa went to the Albert Hotel on Eighth Street. She had been told that a lady there was in urgent need of a travelling companion willing to stay on as house-help when the destination was reached. It sounded promising, and Lisa was full of hope as she gave her name at the reception desk. On this July day she had been ten months at Madame Ruby’s and she longed to get away from the laundry tubs quite apart from any other reason.

  “You are expected, Miss Shaw,” the reception clerk informed her. “Room 10.”

  Lisa went up the red-carpeted staircase, a mirror on the wall reflecting her neat appearance. She wore a new dress she had made of sprigged blue cotton with a band of trimming around the ankle-length hem, a straw sailor hat adorning her pinned up pompadour hair-style. Eagerly she traversed the corridor and found the door she was seeking. She knocked and was told to enter.

  Stepping into the room, she barely had time to register that whoever had spoken was nowhere to be seen when she received a savage push in the back that sent her staggering for-ward. Behind her the do
or was slammed and locked. She spun round to see that she had walked into a trap. It was Mrs. Grant in grey-coloured travelling clothes, who had been lying in wait for her and who now barred all escape by pocketing the key. “You!” Lisa exclaimed in angry dismay.

  “I’ve caught up with you at last.” Mrs. Grant’s heavy features were smug with satisfaction. “At this very moment, Minnie is being removed from that dreadful den of iniquity by the police. She will be brought here and handed over into my charge.”

  “I won’t let you take her away from me! She’s become a normal, happy child again.”

  “There is nothing you can do to interfere with my authority. I have the necessary papers giving me the legal custody until such time as Minnie is given over to new adoptive or fostering parents.” Mrs. Grant shook a bony finger viciously at her. “As for you, I’m making sure you get what you deserve. The place you’re being taken to should keep a smile off your face for a long time to come.”

  “You can’t make me go anywhere against my will!”

  “Indeed I can. You are only eighteen and not yet of age. Until you are, you are subject to me, since I am Miss Drayton’s representative. Documents handing you into her charge were signed a long time ago by the orphanage governors in England. I have shown them to the local chief of police and if you dare to try any more tricks I’ll have you arrested.”

  “You have no grounds.”

  Mrs. Grant glared at her in furious exasperation. “No grounds? What about abducting a child and endangering her morally by introducing her into a house of ill repute! I have been given all the proof I need.”

  There flashed into Lisa’s memory the stranger whom she had originally suspected of being a spy, only to later dismiss the likelihood. So she had not been mistaken after all. He must have questioned whatever girls he had consorted with, but without arousing their curiosity or else she would have heard in their gossip that someone had been asking about her.

  “Your informer must have told you that Minnie and I were employed there domestically, and she will tell you herself that I never allowed her to venture once into the other part of the house.”

  “What I might know and how it will appear to the police are two entirely different aspects of the situation.” Crossing impatiently to the window, Mrs. Grant held back the lace curtain to look down into the street. Apparently Minnie and her police escort were in sight, for the woman watched steadily for a few moments before turning back restlessly into the room. “If you should wish me to elaborate on your crimes, Lisa, there is also your withholding from Minnie her right to the education she is bound to receive under Canadian law.”

  Lisa held back the retort that Mrs. Grant had not been unduly worried before about the children she had cast out into uncaring households. “I’ve been teaching her myself. She’s quick to learn and is clever at most subjects. I don’t think you will find that she lags behind anyone of her age who has been receiving formal education.”

  “Your gall is really astounding,” Mrs. Grant said sneeringly. “Not the slightest sign of repentance.” She threw up her large hands expressively. “When I think of the trouble you caused me by leaving the train as you did.”

  “How long have you known I was in Calgary?”

  “Long enough to make arrangements that will ensure there’ll be no more running away for you! The couple taking you into their home are in the full understanding that your moral salvation is in their hands. I spared nothing in my report on you. They are Mr. and Mrs. Fernley and true saints to take you, in my opinion.”

  “Where is this couple’s home?”

  “Many miles from here off the coast of British Columbia on the island of Quadra. Ever heard of it? No, I don’t suppose you have. It lies at the back of beyond and can only be reached by boat.”

  “I’ll go there on the one condition — that Minnie goes with me.”

  Mrs. Grant’s complexion went patchy with angry colour. “You’re in no position to make any conditions. You’ll go there by yourself or you’ll go to prison!”

  “I think not. I’m prepared to lay a charge of my own before the police. It is that four years and two months ago, in May 1903, you took a fourteen-year-old girl named Rosie Taylor to Madame Ruby’s house in the full knowledge of the nature of the business carried on there. You are a procuress, Mrs. Grant!”

  “How dare you!” It was sheer bluster. The woman looked thoroughly alarmed.

  “I can produce witnesses. Rosie herself will testify, I know. She did not like you and she is one who bears a grudge forever.”

  There came an authoritative knock at the door. Mrs. Grant hesitated uncertainly. “If I allow you to take Minnie with you, this nonsense about Rosie will be forgotten?”

  “I’ll not accuse you now, but if ever I’m called upon to give evidence I shall do so.”

  The knock came again. With a jerk of speed, Mrs. Grant went to the door, returned the key to the lock and opened it. Minnie stood there, white-faced with fright, the police officer’s hand on her shoulder. She screamed out and cowered back at the sight of Mrs. Grant. Quickly Lisa ran forward.

  “I’m here, Minnie!”

  With a cry of relief the child rushed to her. Mrs. Grant had a few words of conversation with the police officer and then closed the door. “Your belongings have been packed up for you and will be taken to the railway station,” she snapped at Lisa while pulling on gloves, her purse dangling by a strap from her wrist. “Things have gone through quicker than I dared hope. We can get the train leaving in ten minutes if we hurry, instead of waiting until tomorrow.” It suited her to ignore completely that the situation was not entirely how she had planned it should be. The lack of delay was due entirely to Minnie’s not having to be shipped elsewhere.

  Teresa was waiting at the station with the valise. She looked anxious and became even more concerned when she saw them in the company of Mrs. Grant, whom she recognised instantly. “What’s ‘appening?” she questioned Lisa. “Where are you going with that old crow?”

  “I’ve the chance to take Minnie with me to a new place of work. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be at Quadra Island.” “Where the ‘ell is that?”

  “When I have found out exactly I’ll write and tell you. Goodbye, Teresa. Thank you for all you did to help us.”

  They hugged each other in farewell. Then Teresa embraced Minnie quickly, for the last passengers were boarding. Forbidden by Mrs. Grant to stay and wave them off, Teresa nevertheless defied the order and was still in sight when Lisa and Minnie were shoved away from the window by their hostile keeper.

  There followed for Lisa a journey of breath-taking beauty. The train took them through the full grandeur of the Rockies and there were glimpses of azure lakes and tumbling rivers and snow-capped peaks that she watched tirelessly. Minnie was less interested in the scenery, but she was excited to glimpse a bear, an elk, and some mountain goats. If it had not been for the presence of Mrs. Grant, Lisa would have considered it a perfect journey. But the woman never left them alone for a second, even to the point of making Minnie accompany her to the convenience in case Lisa should make a break for freedom with the child if the train should make an unexpected stop.

  At night, when the boards of the seats were pulled out into primitive beds, which was all the comfort available in a colonist car, Minnie had to sleep beside her against the wall. Lisa thought these unnecessary precautions quite stupid. They were indicative of the woman’s own untrustworthy nature that she was unable to grasp that Lisa, having given her word that she would go to Quadra with Minnie, would never break her side of the agreement, no matter how easy a chance to get away might be.

  When they arrived at Vancouver, there was no lessening of scenic splendour. The city lay in a setting of mountains with the blue waters of the strait asparkle in the summer sun. Lisa would have liked the chance to walk through the streets and look at everything, but she and Minnie were taken by cab directly from the station to the harbour. On the way she was struck by the pred
ominance of men everywhere. Women seemed even scarcer by comparison than they had been in Calgary. Some of the men were well dressed, with the nonchalant air of having plenty of money to spend and a sophisticated knowledge of the best way to do it; the rest were clad in everything from flashy new suits to crumpled garments that had probably been slept in, judging by the drunken state of many reeling along the street. Some of the latter, in copper-riveted dungarees and spiked boots, made Lisa aware that she was in logging country. The men she saw everywhere were those who made their living in the lumber camps of British Columbia.

  At the harbour, drunkenness was rife among those about to board ship to return to ports of call along the coast. Mrs. Grant explained that the steamship companies kept the cabins for women passengers, but should there be none aboard, which was more usually the case, then the accommodation would be let to the loggers wanting a bunk on which to lay aching heads, once the vessel had sailed. She was able to secure a three-berth cabin at the ticket-office and hustled Lisa and Minnie before her up the gangway. A seaman cleared a way for them across the deck and down companionways crowded with drunken loggers. Whistles and shouts and applause followed their route, much to Mrs. Grant’s annoyance.

  She kept the two girls in the cabin all the way up the coast, locking the door after her when she left it and having their meals brought to them on trays. Through the porthole they watched the passing shoreline of Vancouver Island, but had no glimpse of the mainland on the starboard side as the steamer sailed northwards. Drunken revelry prevailed at night, disturbing sleep, but Lisa preferred the cheerful noise to Mrs. Grant’s heavy snoring. As the voyage progressed and men alighted at wharves and jetties on their way back to sawmills or to camps deep in the forest, the steamer became quieter by night and day.