After Tennyson, Lady Daisy told Marta to select something. After one afternoon of listening to Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, Lady Daisy brought A Tale of Two Cities with her. Sometimes Marta would read to her in the evening. Lady Daisy selected Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe next and followed that with Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent. Sometimes Miss Millicent became so bored or distraught, she came along to listen.
Marta continued reading whenever she had a moment to herself, often keeping a book tucked in her apron pocket.
Rosie wrote with surprising news.
Your father married a woman from Thun the summer after your mother died. I didn’t know how to tell you. She manages your father’s shop, and if I dare say it, she manages your father as well. Apparently, his wife has connections. She saw that he had two men assigned to help him.
After the initial shock, Marta felt numbed by the news that she had a stepmother. How would Mama feel if she knew she had been so easily replaced? Did Papa ever grieve over her or Elise? She considered writing to him and congratulating him on his marriage, then decided against it. Though she felt no ill will toward the woman, she didn’t want to extend good wishes to her father. Instead, she hoped his new wife would be as great a trial to him as he had been to Mama.
Marta continued to take Lady Daisy to Kew Gardens every day. Lady Daisy knew the name of every plant, when they bloomed, and which had medicinal value. She would lose herself in thought at times, and she’d be silent. They went often to the Palm House with its Pagoda and Syon Vistas and the steam rising from underground boilers into the ornate campanile. The steamy heat soothed Lady Daisy’s aching joints and reminded her of India. Marta preferred the Woodland Glade with its deciduous canopy, flowering shrubs and hellebores, primroses and red poppies.
Every season had its delight; winter with its witch hazel and ordered beds of viburnums along the Palm House pond, and snow covering the lawn with white. February brought thousands of purple crocuses peeking up through the grass between the Temple of Bellona and Victoria Gate, and bright yellow daffodils along Broad Walk. In March the cherry trees bloomed and left a carpet of pink and white on the path. April filled the dell with red and purple rhododendrons and magnolias with their plate-size white, waxy blossoms, followed in May by azaleas covering themselves in shawls of peachy-pink and white. The scent of lilacs filled the air. Roses climbed the Pergola and giant water lilies spread out across the pond while laburnum dripped sunlight-yellow streamers in celebration of spring. The tulip and mock orange trees hinted scents of heaven, before autumn came in a burst of color, fading by late November with the advance of winter.
“It’s a pity I can’t be buried here,” Lady Daisy said one day. Death seemed to be on everyone’s mind these days, ever since the “unsinkable” Titanic had hit an iceberg and sunk on its maiden voyage. Over fourteen hundred lives had been lost in the frigid Atlantic waters. “Of course, I’d rather be buried in India beside Clive. India was like another world with its strange architecture and jungles. It had a scent of spices. Most ladies I met longed to return to England, but I would’ve been happy to stay forever. I suppose that had everything to do with Clive. I would’ve been happy in a bedouin tent in the middle of the Sahara.”
Lady Daisy hardly said a word the next afternoon as Marta pushed her along in the Broad Walk in Kew Gardens.
“Are you feeling all right, Lady Daisy?”
“Sick at heart. Let’s rest by the lily pond.” She pulled a thin volume from beneath her blanket and held it out to Marta. “Lord Byron used to be Millicent’s favorite poet. She doesn’t read him anymore. Read ‘The First Kiss of Love.’” When Marta finished, Lady Daisy sighed wearily. “Again, and with a little more feeling this time.”
Marta read the poem again.
“Have you ever been in love, Marta?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Why not?”
It seemed an odd question. “It’s not something that can be ordered, ma’am.”
“You have to be willing.”
Marta felt her face heat up. She hoped silence would end such personal inquiries.
“A woman should not go through life without love.” Lady Daisy’s eyes grew moist. “It’s why Millicent is so desperate and bitter now. She thinks all her opportunities are gone. She could still marry, if she had the courage.” Lady Daisy sighed heavily. “She has a good education. She’s still lovely and can be charming. She has friends. But she has always set such high expectations. Perhaps if she had had Clive’s mother to help, but you see, she would have nothing to do with me. I was a pub owner’s daughter, nothing more. Millicent thought the lady’s heart might soften for her only grandchild. I warned her, but she went anyway. Of course, she was not received.”
Lady Daisy fell silent for a long time. Marta didn’t know what to say to give her comfort. Her mistress smoothed the blanket over her legs. “It’s a pity really. Millicent is like her grandmother in some ways.” She gave Marta a bleak smile. “She doesn’t approve of me either.” She lifted her shoulders. “And, in all truth, no one knows that better than I. But Clive saw something in me and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I am sorry about Miss Millicent, ma’am.” Marta couldn’t deny what she had seen with her own eyes. “You are a remarkable mother.”
“Less than what I should’ve been. It’s my fault things turned out this way, but if I lived my life all over again, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I wanted him. That’s how selfish I am. Besides, if I had done things differently, Millicent wouldn’t even exist. I comfort myself by remembering how much Clive loved me. I tell myself he wouldn’t have been happy behind a desk overseeing his father’s landholdings or sitting in Parliament.”
She shook her head sadly. “Millicent met a fine young man when she was sixteen. He was absolutely mad about her. I advised Millicent to marry him. She said he didn’t have the proper connections and therefore would never amount to anything. He’s in Parliament now, and married, of course. She saw him with his wife and children in Brighton last summer. That’s why she came home so soon. One poor decision can change the entire course of your life.”
Marta thought of Mama and Elise. “I know, Lady Daisy. I made a decision once that I will regret for the rest of my life, though I don’t know what I could have done to change anything.”
Lady Daisy looked pale and upset. “Clive was always the one to call me Milady Daisy, and Welton called me Lady Daisy when he came. I’m not a lady at all, Marta. I’m just plain Daisy. I never knew my father. I grew up in Liverpool and worked in a theater. I was Clive’s mistress for a year before he took me off to Gretna Green to make an honest woman of me. Millicent knows enough about my past to think I have nothing good to teach her. I may be lower than a guttersnipe under my nice clothes, but at least I knew quality when I saw it, and I wasn’t afraid to grab hold. I knew what I wanted, and what I wanted was Clive Reginald Stockhard!” She gave a broken sob.
“You are a lady. You are as much a lady as my mother was, ma’am.”
Lady Daisy leaned forward and grasped Marta’s wrist tightly. “What are you waiting for, Marta Schneider?”
Marta started at the question. “I don’t know what you mean, ma’am.”
“Of course you do.” Her hand tightened and her blue eyes glistened with angry tears. “You didn’t come to England to be a servant for the rest of your life, did you? You could’ve done that in Switzerland. A dream brought you here. I knew that the minute I saw your application. I saw in you a girl driven by something. I thought you would only stay for a year or two before you set off to get what you wanted.”
Marta’s heart pounded heavily. “I am content, ma’am.”
“Content. Oh, my dear.” Lady Daisy’s voice softened and became pleading. “I have watched you grieve and punish yourself for nearly six years.”
Marta felt the punch of those words. “I should’ve gone home.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Because S
olange needed her. Because the winter snows had piled up outside the door. Because she had been afraid that if she did, she would never be able to escape.
“Don’t come home again,” Mama’s words whispered in Marta’s mind. She pulled her wrist free and covered her face.
Lady Daisy sat beside her on the park bench. “You have served me faithfully for five years. Soon it will be six. Even with the little you have told me of your mother, I doubt she wanted you to spend the rest of your life as a servant.” She put her hand on Marta’s knee. “I am very fond of you, my dear, and I’m going to give you some advice because I don’t want you to end up like Millicent. She puts a shawl of pride around herself, and life will pass her by.”
“I’m not looking for a husband, ma’am.”
“Well, how could you when you spend six days a week working in the kitchen or taking me on outings and then most of the night reading? You never go anywhere other than church, and you never linger there long enough to meet any young man who might be interested.”
“No one has ever been interested. Men want pretty wives.”
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty never lasts. A man with sense knows that. You have strong character. You are kind. You are honest. You work hard and learn quickly. You left home to better yourself. You may not have formal schooling, but you’ve read the best books in my library. These are qualities a wise man will value.”
“If my father could find nothing about me to love, Lady Daisy, I doubt any other man will.”
“I beg your pardon, Marta, but your father is a fool. Maybe you aren’t beautiful, but you are attractive. A woman’s hair is her glory, my girl, and besides that asset, you have a very fine figure. I’ve seen men look at you. You blush, but it’s true.”
Marta didn’t know what to say.
Lady Daisy laughed. “Millicent would be appalled to hear me speak so bluntly, but if I don’t, you may go on for another five years before you come to your senses.” Lady Daisy folded her hands. “If you want to marry and have children, go to an English colony where there are more men than women. In a place like Canada, a man will see the value of a good woman and not care whether the blood in her veins is blue or red. These are things I have said to my daughter, but she won’t listen. She still dreams of meeting Mr. Darcy.” She shook her head. “Be wise, Marta. Don’t wait. Go down to Liverpool and buy passage on the first ship heading for Canada.”
“And what if my ship hits an iceberg?”
“We’ll pray that doesn’t happen. But if it does, you climb into a life raft and start rowing.”
Marta laughed. She felt exhilarated and afraid at the same time. Canada! She had never even thought of going there. She’d always thought she would return to Switzerland. “I’ll leave at the end of the month.”
“Good for you.” Lady Daisy looked ready to cry. “I’ll miss you terribly, of course, but it’s for the best.” She took out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes and nose. “A pity Millicent hasn’t the sense to do it.”
11
1912
Four days passed in abject misery, but gradually, Marta gained her sea legs and felt well enough to leave her bunk in steerage, venturing onto the deck of the SS Laurentic. Her first sight of the vast open sea with waves catching the sunlight filled her with terror. The ship that had appeared so enormous in Liverpool now seemed small and vulnerable as it steamed west toward Canada.
She thought of the Titanic, so much bigger than this humble vessel, and how it had gone to the bottom of the ocean. The owners of the Titanic had bragged that the ship was invincible, unsinkable. Who in his right mind would make such a boast? It flew in the face of God, like the foolish people who built the tower of Babel, thinking they could climb to heaven on their own achievements.
Marta gazed over the rail, passengers lined up on both sides of her like seagulls on a pier. The air felt cold enough to freeze her lungs. She was afloat on a cork bobbing on the surface of a vast sea with bottomless depths. Would this ship come near any icebergs? She had read that what was seen on the surface was a mere fraction of the danger hidden below.
Stomach queasy, Marta closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the rise and fall of the horizon. She didn’t want to go back inside to her bunk. The accommodations had turned out to be far worse than she had expected. The cacophony of voices speaking German, Hungarian, Greek, and Italian made her head ache. People fresh off farms and from small villages submitted with docile ignorance to being treated like cattle, but Marta minded greatly. If two hundred people had paid passage in steerage, then two hundred people should have a place to sit and eat and not have to find space on the floor or the windblown deck. Rather than be served, a “captain” was chosen to fetch the food for eight to ten others. And then, each passenger was required to wash his own “gear”—the tin saucepan, dipper, fork, and spoon she had found on her bunk the day she boarded the ship.
She breathed in the salt air. Despite her attempts to keep clean, her shirtwaist smelled faintly of vomit. If it rained, she might just take out a bar of soap and wash right here on the deck, clothes on!
The ship surged up and dipped down, making her stomach roll. She clenched her teeth, refusing to be sick again. Her clothes hung on her. She couldn’t go forever on so little food and still have her health when she arrived in Montreal. After spending an hour waiting to use one of the washbasins so she could clean her gear and then finding it in such fetid condition, she had almost lost the cold porridge she had managed to get down that morning. She lost her temper instead. Shoving her way through a group of Croatians and Dalmatians, she marched to the gangway, intending to take her complaints to the captain himself. A master-at-arms blocked her way. She shouted at him to move aside. He shoved her back. Sneering, he told her she could write a letter to management and mail it when she arrived in Canada.
At least the boiling anger helped her forget the misery of mal de mer.
Now, clutching the rail, Marta prayed God would keep her on her feet and keep what little food she’d eaten in her stomach. Please, Lord Jesus, bring us safely across the Atlantic.
She cast any thought of ever getting on another ship into the undulating sea. She would never see Switzerland again. Tears streaked her cheeks at the realization.
By the time the ship entered the Saint Lawrence Seaway, Marta felt rested and eager to find her way around Montreal. Handing over her papers, she spoke French to the officer. He gave her directions to the International Quarter. Shouldering her pack, she took a trolley and walked to the Swiss Consulate. The clerk added her name to the employment register and gave her directions to an immigration home for girls. Marta purchased a newspaper the next morning and began looking for employment opportunities on her own. She bought a map of Montreal and began a systematic exploration of the city. She spoke to proprietors and left applications, and she found a part-time position in a garment shop in downtown Montreal a few blocks from the Orpheum Theatre.
Expanding her exploration, she came across a large house for sale on Union Street near the railroad. When she knocked, no one answered. She peered in the dirty windows and saw an empty parlor. She wrote down the property agent’s information and then walked up and down the street, knocking on doors and asking neighbors about the house. It had been a boardinghouse for women, and not the sort of women who would be welcome in any decent home. Railroad men came and went. The roof had been replaced four years ago, and the house had solid foundations as far as anyone knew. A woman had been murdered in one of the bedrooms. The house shut down shortly afterward and had stood vacant for eighteen months.
Marta went to the Records Office and learned the name of the property owner, who now lived in Tadoussac. She spent Saturday walking and thinking. Excitement welled up inside her at the thought of her goal being within reach. On Sunday, she went to church and prayed God would open the way for her to buy the house on Union Street. The next morning, she went to the property agent’s office just down the street from the garment shop and made a
n appointment with Monsieur Sherbrooke to see the inside of the house later that afternoon. He seemed dubious of her intent and said he had little time to satisfy someone’s idle curiosity. Marta assured him she had the resources to make an offer, if the house turned out to be what she wanted.
She hired a ride to Union Street and found Monsieur Sherbrooke waiting at the front door. As soon as he ushered her in, Marta thought of Mama. She had been the first one to believe in her. “You have set your heart on a mountaintop, Marta, but I have seen you climb. You will use everything you are learning to good purpose. I know this. I have faith in you, and I have faith in God to take you wherever He wills.” She had laughed and cupped Marta’s face. “Maybe you will run a shop or manage a hotel in Interlaken.”
Monsieur Sherbrooke began talking. Marta ignored him as she walked through the large parlor, dining room, and kitchen with a sizable pantry with empty shelves. She pointed out the rat droppings to Monsieur Sherbrooke.
“Shall we go upstairs?” He walked back toward the entry hall and stairs.
Marta ignored his lead and headed down the hallway behind the stairs. “There should be a room back here.”
He came quickly down the stairs. “Just a storage room, mademoiselle.”
Marta opened the door to the room that would share a common wall with the parlor. She gasped at the red, green, and yellow chinoiserie wallpaper covering all four walls. Monsieur Sherbrooke stepped quickly around her. “The servant’s quarters.”