by Kit Pearson
If so, why wasn’t she coming home?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH MAUD?
ON EASTER MONDAY, UNCLE RAND AND AUNT JEAN LEFT to visit Gregor and Sadie in Chilliwack. “Poor Sadie,” said Noni, after they saw them off. “She’s about to receive far more advice than she wants on being a minister’s wife.”
For the rest of the week, Polly and Noni were on their own. Biddy had once again gone to Comox with her family. This time she had taken Vivien with her. They had already left by the time Polly arrived home.
She had seen Alice a few times, but all Alice wanted to do was talk about school. Polly was always happy to be alone with Noni, but her grandmother was distracted by worries about Maud.
“I simply don’t understand why your sister wouldn’t come home for Easter,” she kept saying. “This is the second time she’s stayed away.”
“I guess she just wanted to spend more time with Daddy,” said Polly sadly.
“That must be it, but we’re her family, as well,” said Noni. “It’s as if Maud’s avoiding us. Do you think she’s angry at us for some reason? Can you ask her if anything’s wrong?”
Polly promised she would.
Noni was also fretting about Polly travelling to Kelowna by herself, especially since it was an overnight trip. “If Maud had come home as she was supposed to, you could have gone together,” she said. “Perhaps I should go with you.”
“Oh, Noni, I’ve never gone alone on a train—please, can’t I try it?”
Noni smiled. “That’s my plucky lass! Very well, hen—I don’t want to baby you.”
Polly could tell she was relieved. If Noni came along, she’d have to stay overnight with Daddy and Esther.
Daddy had telephoned and assured Polly she would be perfectly all right. “Just remember you have to change trains in Kamloops,” he said. “The porter will help you. We’ll all be at the Kelowna station to meet you.”
The following Monday, Noni and Polly travelled to Vancouver and spent the rest of the day with friends of Noni’s. The three adults sat in the living room, talking about the past. Polly was so bored she went into their den and read from start to finish the book she had packed for the journey.
Finally, it was time to go to the train station. Noni came on board with Polly and settled her in her seat, fussing as if she were a little girl. When the porter appeared, Noni pressed some money into his hand and asked him to take special care of her granddaughter.
Polly flushed; how humiliating! But the porter, a chubby man named Jim, grinned. “She’ll be in good hands,” he said. “I have a granddaughter the same age.”
“Don’t talk to strangers,” warned Noni, hugging Polly goodbye.
“All aboard!” called the conductor.
Noni hurried off the train. Polly clutched her new purse and waved out the window at her. Here she was, travelling to Kelowna all by herself!
The seat beside Polly was vacant, but a couple sat across from her and asked where she was going. Polly answered so shortly that they left her alone after that.
Since Polly had already read her book, she spent the first few hours looking out the window. After the train left the city, the train went along a wide, muddy river. “That’s the Fraser,” said Jim, walking by. Now they were in lush farmland surrounded by mountain peaks.
Memories flooded back of the last time Polly had been on this route, but going the other way: that miserable journey almost four years ago, travelling with Maud and awful Mrs. Tuttle from Winnipeg to Vancouver.
The river became narrower, rushing between steep canyons. Jim came back and turned Polly’s seat into a bed. Last time, she and Maud and Mrs. Tuttle had had a suite with its own bathroom. This time, Polly had to go to the end of the sleeping car to use the toilet. Then she climbed through her canvas curtain and zipped it shut. She struggled out of her clothes and into her nightgown. The lurching space felt cozy and safe, like being in her own cave.
She lay awake for a long time, worrying about tomorrow. What would Esther be like? What if Polly didn’t like her? Could she tell Daddy that? Would he stop seeing Esther if Polly wanted him to? Finally, her swaying berth rocked her to sleep.
The next morning Polly felt very grown up as she dressed and washed and followed Jim’s directions to the dining car. She ate a huge delicious breakfast of eggs and sausages. People smiled at her and she smiled back. The conductor sat down with her for a while; she told him where she was going and answered his questions about the island.
At Kamloops, Jim helped Polly collect her things, get off the train, and board another one for Kelowna. He was switching trains, too, so he’d be with her all the way.
Polly sat in her new seat and watched the dry rolling hills outside. Now she was bored, and her legs were twitchy from sitting for so long. She got up and lurched along the train cars until she reached a lounge. A woman and a little girl were sitting there.
“Are you travelling all by yourself, dear?” the woman asked.
Polly decided to ignore Noni’s instructions. She sat down and chatted to the woman, then helped the little girl colour a picture with crayons. They were also going to Kelowna, to visit the woman’s parents. She was so friendly that surely she didn’t count as a stranger.
After the train stopped at Vernon, Jim found Polly and told her it was time to go back to her seat. The train rumbled beside a long lake. Just as it slowed down, Polly noticed a lot of rough men in a clearing, sitting around a fire and cooking. Then the train steamed up to a small station, and Polly stepped down the stairs into soft, fragrant air.
“Polly! Doodle!” Daddy’s and Maud’s arms both hugged her at the same time.
“And this is Esther,” said Daddy proudly.
“How do you do, Polly?” said Esther, bending down to shake her hand. “I’m so glad to meet you at last!”
Esther seemed even taller than in the photograph. She had wavy brown hair. Her voice was warm but shaky, and she seemed frightened. Frightened of me, Polly realized.
She smiled and said, “I’m glad to meet you, too.”
Daddy looked relieved. “Now we’re all together at last.” He picked up Polly’s suitcase. “Follow me, Doodle. Our house is only a short walk from the station.”
Polly followed him along the wide main street and down a side one. Kelowna seemed a much smaller city than Victoria. “What’s that wonderful smell?” she asked.
“Fruit blossoms!” said Daddy. “Kelowna is full of orchards. The apricots are in full bloom, and the cherries, pears, and peaches have just started.”
They reached the boarding house, an ugly grey building on a corner. Its paint was peeling and some of the roof shingles were missing.
“Look, Polly, there’s the lake,” said Esther, pointing down the street. “We’re lucky we’re so close to it.”
Polly caught a glimpse of the blue water she had seen from the train. She wished they could go there instead of into the dark house, which smelled of cooking and damp. “Show Polly her room, Maud,” said Daddy.
Maud led Polly to a second-floor room with two beds in it. It was just as shabby and musty as the rest of the house, but beyond the large window were green hills, pink and white flowery trees, and the lake.
“Oh, Polly, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” said Maud. “You’re almost as tall as I am.” She made Polly press her back against hers and measured their heads. “Not quite!” she laughed.
Maud looked different, too. She was chubby again, even fatter than she had been at boarding school. Her face was puffy, and her stomach bulged against her loose sweater. Her laughter was strained, and her eyes were as worried as they had been in the days when she had shouldered so many responsibilities.
Something was wrong. Polly remembered her promise to Noni, but there wasn’t time to ask. A bell tinkled, Maud whisked her downstairs, and they joined the boarders for lunch.
Three men lived in the house: Mr. McMillan, Mr. Lane, and Mr. Hirsch. They g
runted hello to Polly and bent over their plates, much more interested in eating the ample meal than in talking. Mr. McMillan was elderly, with a bush of white hair and fierce, tufty eyebrows, like an owl’s. Mr. Lane and Mr. Hirsch were young men who worked in a bank. They were so much alike they could have been brothers, with their sleek, dark hair and thin moustaches. Perhaps the bank requires them to look like that, Polly thought.
She was so busy drawing the boarders’ faces in her mind that she almost didn’t hear Esther ask her if she wanted more chicken. “No, thank you,” said Polly.
A delicious apple pie followed the chicken. After he’d wolfed down a huge piece, Mr. McMillan wiped his mouth vigorously and burped. Polly suppressed a giggle. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, standing up. “Very tasty, as usual.”
He went upstairs, and the two younger men thanked Esther and went back to work.
“That was fast!” said Polly, who had barely started her pie.
Daddy laughed. “They always eat and run. But that means we get more time to ourselves.”
“They’re so easy,” said Esther. “But men are always easier than women. Mother and I had a widow once, and my, how she complained! I had to wait on her as though I were her servant. After she left, we decided we’d have just male boarders. The only problem is that they eat more.”
“Where was your mother from?” Maud asked her. “Did she always live in Kelowna?”
“Oh, no, Mother was from Vancouver. That’s where I grew up, but when my father died ten years ago, she and I moved here to live with her brother. Then he died and we inherited this house—and now it’s mine.”
Maud kept asking Esther questions in a brittle voice Polly knew from the past. It was the falsely polite tone she put on when she was nervous and wanted to cover up how she really felt.
Polly pondered her sister as Esther talked and Daddy made comments. Perhaps Maud didn’t like Esther and was trying to conceal it for Daddy’s sake. It was hard to find anything not to like about Esther, though. She was shy with them, but her manner was open and friendly.
“What do you think of Kelowna?” Polly asked her.
Esther flushed. “The lake and the hills and the orchards are so beautiful. But I’ve always felt isolated. In Vancouver we had a close-knit circle of family and friends, but until I met your father, I didn’t have anyone like that here.”
“Why not?” asked Polly.
“Because Esther is Jewish,” said Daddy quietly. “People can be incredibly narrow-minded, Doodle. They’re polite to Esther on the surface, but she’s never asked to any of the ladies’ functions. Neither was her mother.”
Polly squirmed as she remembered how Noni had barred Mrs. Osaka from the Kingfisher Women’s Auxiliary just because she was Japanese. Why were people like that? Polly had never met anyone who was Jewish, but Esther seemed just like everyone else.
“I think I must be the only Jew in Kelowna,” said Esther. “But enough about me. We haven’t even heard how Polly’s journey went. Did you enjoy travelling on the train all by yourself?”
Polly told them all about it. “There were a lot of men eating outside near the station,” she said. “Who are they?”
“That’s what’s called a ‘hobo jungle,’” said Daddy. He sighed. “The poor fellows can’t get work, so they have to subsist on what they can find. I lived like that once.” Then he grinned. “But not anymore!”
Polly answered their many questions about the family and school. Just as in her letters to Daddy and Maud, she tried not to complain about St. Winifred’s. She told them how the Guppy sat with her legs spread apart, and was relieved when Maud laughed.
“This afternoon I’ll take you to the lake,” Maud said.
“Too bad it’s not warm enough for swimming yet,” said Esther.
“You’ll have to come back in the summer and try it,” said Daddy. “Isn’t it swell that we can visit each other whenever we want?”
Daddy seemed as happy as Polly remembered from her early childhood. He’d lost the haunted look he’d had when he didn’t have enough money to take care of them, and he no longer acted as guilty as he had in January. She grinned at him.
“Get over here, Doodle,” he said, opening his arms.
Polly climbed into his lap, even though she was thirteen. She lay back and breathed in Daddy’s familiar smell of clean cotton.
“There, isn’t this nice?” said Daddy, smoothing her hair. Esther smiled warmly at them, and Polly melted. She was back where she belonged, in Daddy’s embrace.
But then she glanced at Maud. She had tears in her eyes: not happy tears, but tears of misery and terror.
Okanagan Lake was as vast as a small sea. Its colours shifted constantly, from bright blue to dark blue to almost black. Polly longed to capture them in paint.
She tried to find a chance to ask Maud what was wrong, but Maud strode ahead of her as if they were in a race. The path went under huge pine trees that smelled like honey. Polly wanted to linger, but Maud hurried them back to the house. Then she went upstairs to study.
Polly helped Esther peel carrots for supper. “Tell me about Kingfisher Island,” Esther said.
Unlike many adults, she was a good listener. Her face was rapt as Polly described the deer and ravens and whales.
“It sounds like paradise!” Esther said. “You must really miss it at boarding school.”
“I do,” said Polly sadly. “The worst is being inside so much. But I—” She closed her mouth. Esther was so easy to talk to Polly had almost told her she wasn’t going back in the fall.
Once again, the three boarders rushed through their meal and fled to their rooms. Maud and Polly and Esther did the dishes. Then they all sat in the living room and listened to the radio while Daddy fixed a lamp and Esther mended. At ten o’clock, Daddy kissed them good-night. Polly hesitated in front of Esther; then she kissed her, as well.
“Is anything wrong, Maud?” Polly asked as soon as they were in bed.
“Of course not!” said the brittle voice.
“You seem so … different, as if something’s bothering you,” persisted Polly.
“I’m absolutely fine, Poll.”
“But why didn’t you come home for Easter? Noni was really upset.”
“I’m sorry she was, but I needed to study.”
“You could have studied at home.”
“Polly, would you please leave it! Go to sleep now.”
Polly had wanted to talk about Esther, but now she didn’t dare. There was no way of penetrating Maud’s armour when she got this stubborn. She seemed to feel she had fulfilled her sisterly duty by showing Polly the lake. For the next few days, she stayed in her room except for meals.
Daddy and Esther were too busy to spend much time with Polly. On some days Daddy laid bricks for various people in town, and on others he repaired the house. Esther shopped for food, prepared meals, and cleaned. Polly realized how little money the two of them had. There was no one to help with the constant work, their clothes were clean but shabby, and everything in the house was threadbare.
She thought of her comfortable life in Noni’s house and felt guilty. Some people, like Daddy and Esther, had to constantly struggle for money. Others, like those poor men she had seen, had none at all. Yet Noni had too much! It was so unfair.
Polly kept offering to help, but Daddy and Esther told her she was on holiday. She wandered along the streets and looked in store windows. She spent her allowance on trinkets for her family and bought postcards that she sent to Eleanor and Daisy and Biddy. The rest of the time she sat by the breezy lake and sketched or painted. Daddy told her to watch for Ogopogo, a twenty-foot monster with three humps that was supposed to inhabit the lake. Polly drew a picture of it that made him laugh.
Maud appeared for meals blotchy faced and red-eyed. “She must be very worried about her exams,” Esther told Polly. “She’s done nothing but study since she arrived.”
Polly had never known Maud to worry about exams. She wa
s so clever that she learned things fast. Last term, she seemed to have spent the whole time either with Robert or playing bridge at the sorority, and she’d still received high marks.
“I think she must also be missing her young man,” said Esther. “We were sorry to hear that didn’t work out. Did you ever meet him?”
Polly told Esther about Robert. “I didn’t like him much,” she confessed. “But I didn’t really know him.”
Every day that week, the radio broadcast reports of a mining disaster in Nova Scotia. On Thursday, Daddy, Esther, and Polly sat riveted as they heard that two of the three trapped men had been rescued. But Maud didn’t even come downstairs to listen.
“Polly, is something the matter with your sister?” Daddy asked Polly that evening after supper as they were walking by the lake.
“I don’t know,” said Polly.
“She’s so quiet and reclusive and sad—not like our Maudie! Do you think she doesn’t like Esther and is afraid to tell me? When I ask her if anything’s wrong, she just gets irritated.”
“I don’t know,” said Polly again. She smiled at Daddy. “I like Esther. I like her a lot.”
Daddy put his arm around her shoulder. “I can tell you do. I’m so glad, my Polly-Wolly-Doodle! Thank you for telling me. But what about Maud? Could you ask her and let me know? And if that’s not the problem, could you try to find out what is?”
Polly nodded reluctantly. Now two people expected her to quiz Maud! But how could she, when Maud barely spoke to her?
The next morning Daddy said firmly, “No studying today, Maud. You’ve been cooped up with your books far too much, and you’re not spending enough time with your sister. Esther and I have to lay a new carpet in the hall. It’s such a gorgeous day. Why don’t you two take a picnic to the lake?”
“But—” began Maud.
“No buts. Let me be the boss for once, Boss.” Daddy grinned.
Maud had no choice. Esther packed a basket of food and they put on their hats and set off for the lake.
