Mrs. Kentucky had declared that the most important thing was to radiate confidence and keep her family’s spirits up to help them through their troubles. She had to bring light and sunshine where all hope seemed gone. That was at least as important as the work itself. Solveig Lindström had nodded in agreement.
Wanda heaved a sigh. She would do her best!
She had already realized while her mother and Aunt Johanna talked on the telephone that her aunt was at her wit’s end. Was that any surprise, though?
Even if it meant poring over the accounts books from morning till night, she would take some of the weight off Johanna’s shoulders. Granted, she had never learned anything more advanced than basic bookkeeping at the young ladies’ academy—the kind of thing the girls would need to manage a house later on—but she could learn how the business worked. Somebody would show her what had to be done, and once she’d gotten used to it, she would surely be able to satisfy everyone.
Wanda sat up and walked over to the porthole. She stared out, trying to recognize something, anything. But fine droplets of fog clung to the window and drenched everything in featureless gray.
Well, she didn’t want to fritter the journey away in romantic reveries anyway. She turned away abruptly.
She would take care of Anna as well, who was probably angry at herself for having sprained her ankle while out dancing. The obvious question was why Anna had gone dancing at a time like this. But people sprained their ankle in all sorts of places, didn’t they? Wanda decided that if Anna blamed herself, she would talk her out of it.
She would spread good cheer wherever she went—if nothing else, she was sure of that.
Then she frowned. Why was it that total strangers like the couple from Kentucky or the Lindström sisters had more faith in her than her own mother?
“For heaven’s sake don’t poke your nose in where you’re not needed. Just take a moment to look and see how Johanna and Peter do things. And don’t expect special treatment,” her mother had said, before adding that the best thing would be for Wanda to do what she was asked and no more than that.
Wanda felt a pang of bitterness. Did Mother feel she had to be ashamed of her? After she’d spent a lifetime already telling Wanda how a young lady should behave and what was appropriate?
Wanda clenched her fists in a most unladylike manner.
Damn it all, she would behave just as she had been told, and more than that, she would show them all what else she was capable of!
6
By the time Johanna got to Coburg it was twenty of two. Wanda’s train was due at two o’clock. Johanna muttered a hasty farewell in French to Monsieur Martin and flung open the door to his hansom cab before the cabbie could even climb down from the coachman’s seat. As she hurried through the railway station’s grand front door, she heaved a long pent-up sigh of relief. She’d made it!
That morning it hadn’t looked as though she’d be able to meet Wanda’s train. One of her most important clients, Monsieur Martin from Lyon, had turned up at the door quite without warning to place the Christmas orders for his chain of five department stores. By the time Johanna had gone through the whole catalog with him, there was no chance of catching the train to Coburg. Of course she had made contingency plans, and in her last letter to Wanda before her departure, she had explained in detail how to catch every train connection from Hamburg to Lauscha, changing at Braunschweig and again at Coburg. All Wanda needed to do for the last leg of the journey was ask for the train and then climb aboard. But Peter and Johanna had agreed that they ought to meet Ruth’s daughter in Coburg if they possibly could manage it. Johanna felt that it was her duty. If one of her children were making such a long journey, she would be reassured by the idea that someone was waiting at the other end. So she was all the more upset when Monsieur Martin took half the morning to place his order. She had done her best not to let it show, but Martin had noticed that she was on edge. When he heard that she was due in Coburg, he insisted on giving her a lift in his carriage. Johanna hesitated at first; she still had trouble trusting strange men, no matter how honorable they appeared. But her desire to meet Wanda overcame her doubts. Once they were on the road, Monsieur Martin told the coachman to drive the horses as though the devil were after them. Johanna felt rather queasy throughout the breakneck journey, but at least they had got there on time.
In addition to her, there were two men in black coats standing on the platform, their collars turned up against the cold, while the other passengers had taken shelter in the waiting room. An icy wind blew the fallen leaves of a mighty chestnut tree across the tracks; although it was early afternoon, the dark seemed to be drawing in already. Johanna wished the weather were better for Wanda’s arrival.