Her Mother’s Hope

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 Solange 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.