by Jane Steen
I yelped, pulling out the pin I had driven deep into my thumb. Dropping the half-pinned piece, I sucked hard on the injured digit and scrabbled in my pocket for my handkerchief.
“I think Prudence was talking about the Poor Farm,” Thea said. “There were inmates there who were in an interesting condition; that’s what Poppa said when I asked about their bellies, and they didn’t have any husbands either.” She put her head to one side, smiling. “Were you at the Poor Farm? I don’t remember.”
I was not, categorically not, going to tell the truth to the small, neatly dressed entity who was narrowing its large hazel eyes at me like an embryo Mrs. Calderwood. An outright lie or a burst of outraged indignation appeared to be my only escape routes. The first was indisputably a breach of the ninth commandment; the second would be downright hypocritical. What was I to do? I sought for a middle way.
“I hope,” I said in as even a tone as I could muster, “that your parents have taught you that gossip is wicked and that it’s wrong to interrogate your elders and betters. I am your elder,” I pointed out, trying to inject a note of menace into my voice.
A beatific smile spread across Thea’s pretty face, and she batted her long eyelashes at me. “Of course you are,” she cooed. “I didn’t mean anything at all, Mrs. Lillington. I’m always so curious about everything, aren’t I? Won’t you come have a look at my basting and tell me about clipping curves again?”
Feeling as if a rattlesnake had just brought me a cup of tea, I whipped the handkerchief off my thumb, checked that the bleeding had stopped, and sucked the spot to clean it before inspecting Thea’s handiwork.
“It’s well done,” I said, trying to push the last fifteen minutes into the back of my mind. “You’re a most careful worker.”
“You know what would be wonderful?” asked Thea. “My dress would look so much better trimmed with that dark gray fringe you have in your workbox, wouldn’t it? It would make it look a lot more grown-up than Lucy’s.” She leveled her gaze at me. “A dress like that would make me want to keep all kinds of grown-up secrets.”
“It would be rather ornate for a summer dress,” I began, but Thea only smiled.
“Oh please, Mrs. Lillington. I would be so grateful.”
I had been saving that fringe for my own dress. But faced with this budding blackmailer, a few yards of fringe more or less suddenly didn’t seem all that important.
“Very well.” I hardened my voice. “But no more questions, and no gossiping, you hear?”
“About what, Mrs. Lillington?”
Drat the child. “About anything.”
“I never gossip, Mrs. Lillington. Mamma says it’s wrong. Prudence and Marta gossip dreadfully—if I were to tell them one little thing, just one little thing, they’d spread it all over the county.”
And with this final threat, Thea picked up her needle again.
“Could you finish my dress first?”
8
Commissions
December 5, 1872
Dear Martin,
After nine long months in Kansas, I finally feel as if the new life I so wanted is beginning to happen. And it’s largely down to your generous gift of silk.
Let’s see, I told you—way back in July—how interested Mrs. Calderwood was in the summer dresses I sewed with the cottons you sent me. Thea Lombardi’s dress looked particularly fetching. She’s a pretty girl, and since her parents brought back new boots, gloves, and hats for both young ladies, we were able to fit her out in a style that wouldn’t look amiss in New York. All the more since she managed to cajole my good parasol out of me.
But that was nothing compared to the silk dress, which had its first airing in Springwood on Saturday. I received an invitation to the house of Mr. Joseph Lehmann, Attorney-at-Law, from a student who happens to be his nephew. It was a quiet family dinner, and in truth I felt rather too grandly dressed, but it was worth it to see Mrs. Calderwood’s face when I swept into the seminary later that evening.
She certainly noticed my dress. The Calderwoods plan to give a grand dinner here at the seminary on December 15, and I am invited (perhaps ordered to attend would be more accurate).
I also have my very first real dressmaking commission from Mrs. Calderwood herself. Not that she has mentioned any payment for my services, you understand, and in truth I expect none. She’s as tight as a clam when it comes to money. And yet someone’s bound to ask her where she got the dress, and perhaps it’ll lead to more work.
In any event, it’s wonderful to create and sew something out of the ordinary. I’m running out of room to describe it to you, and with the cost of paper out here, I don’t want to use another sheet. But prepare to receive a full description when it’s done.
Yours always,
Nell
I looked around the Calderwoods’ rooms, curious. They were on the second floor, facing north, and like my workroom, they had large windows that gathered the light. But heavy velvet drapes, the color of blood, gave them a dark, brooding air.
Ponderous, highly polished furniture filled the rest of the available space. The Calderwoods were more fashionable than I’d expected. With its heavy red carpets and velvet upholstery, the parlor imparted an air of luxury and wealth. A strange contrast, and a stranger frame, to the winter sparseness of the prairie beyond the windows.
A second room, opening onto the parlor, boasted a grand piano. This was an object of true beauty and refinement, its gleaming wood inlaid with a pattern of tulips. I asked Mrs. Calderwood about it since it seemed much older than the rest of the furniture.
“It was Professor Adema’s. A family piece, I believe.”
She tutted over the skirt I was pinning, fussily rearranging the fall of the fine silk and making it quite impossible to proceed. “We didn’t have the heart to dispose of it, and goodness knows he had little else in the way of furniture. And my dear husband plays.”
I longed to snatch the fabric from her small, grasping hands, but instead sat back on my heels and looked up at her. “I could make the bodice a little longer at the front, if you like, but I think you’ll find I can get the front to fall perfectly once it’s sewn onto the lower piece of the skirt. All I’m doing now is getting a feel for where the upper piece should end. There’ll be a fringe about here,” I indicated a spot just above her knees, “and then the lower skirt will end in a matching fringe so that when you move, the light will catch the front charmingly.”
And the horizontal swagging of the upper piece, combined with the cuirass bodice, would disguise Mrs. Calderwood’s protuberant belly and make her short torso look longer. The velvet-striped silk of her train would end in a heavy velvet ruffle that would lend her dignity. Bustle, neckline, and sleeves were also designed to suit her age and position, being smart but not overly fashionable. A mouse still, but an elegantly dressed one.
Mrs. Calderwood quit fiddling with her dress and let me pin the skirt. She regarded her reflection in the cheval glass we’d brought from her bedroom and gazed at me as I worked.
“I suppose it was quite a coup for you, getting an invitation to dine at Mr. Lehmann’s house.”
“A coup?” I wrinkled my brow, then looked up as her meaning sank in. “I have no designs on young Mr. Lehmann, if that’s what you think. We’re on friendly terms, but—“
“He would be a catch. His father is extremely wealthy.”
“I’m surprised you’d condone any interest you think I might have, then. What would his father think if he fell into the clutches of a—what you think I am?”
Mrs. Calderwood’s small black eyes gleamed. “Do you have another suitor in mind?”
“None at all.”
My astonishment must have been evident in my voice since Mrs. Calderwood smiled a small, secretive smile.
“This dinner must be a great success, Mrs. Lillington. We’re well on our way to achieving what Hendrik Adema never did—the expansion of our school to its full capacity.” She looked over her shoulder into the glass,
and I could almost see her nose twitch in anticipation. “We need more eligible students like Mr. Lehmann.”
“They are serving liquor.”
Mrs. Drummond jerked her chair out of its place, sat down, and pulled the chair forward so fast its feet screeched on the floorboards. She looked with resentment at the far-off head table, where the Calderwoods presided over the usual collection of faculty members.
“They are?” I looked in my turn.
“Bread.” Sarah leaned forward on her cushions, teetering as she made a grab for the bread plate.
“Bread, please,” I corrected her, giving her a slice and pushing her back into her seat.
Sarah’s sharp little teeth tore into the bread. “More, p’ease.”
“Finish that slice first. What do you mean, serving liquor?” I asked Mrs. Drummond. “When?”
“At this blessed dinner.” Mrs. Drummond glared at me.
“Well, don’t look at me. I don’t drink.”
“She doesn’t,” Tess said, and Mrs. Drummond’s wide mouth decompressed a little. She had unbent toward me somewhat of late, but not for the same reason the Calderwoods had. It was her friendship with Tess that had led her to tolerate me and Sarah, just a little.
Sarah carefully picked up her cup with both hands and took a large swig of water, some of which went into her mouth. “Want milk, p’ease.”
“There isn’t any, darling. Miss Netta’s sent for a goat for you, but you’ll have to be patient.”
Tess got up to remove Sarah’s bib and help with the mopping operations. “I’m not invited,” she informed Mrs. Drummond. “But Nell will look very pretty in her green dress.”
I felt myself redden. “I’m needed to make up the numbers of women. Isn’t the serving and consumption of alcohol against the rules?” I knew it was, but I wanted to distract Mrs. Drummond from my own failings.
“Dr. Adema must be spinning in his grave,” the older woman said, grinding her teeth. “To think that this should come to pass.”
“Won’t it reflect badly on the seminary that they break their own rules?” I leaned forward and plucked a small, wrinkled apple from the bowl. It was December, and our diet was even more monotonous than usual, but the apples were sweet. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to stick to their principles?”
“One of the guests is Augustus McGovern, a grain merchant with a large fortune. Dr. Calderwood anticipates a substantial donation.” Mrs. Drummond relaxed so far as to bestow a tiny smile on Tess, who was nuzzling Sarah’s neck and making her laugh. “Mr. McGovern has expressed the opinion that the Eternal Light Seminary is unnecessarily restrictive on what he calls minor matters. So they are throwing good sense and good rules to the wind.”
“Papple.” Sarah’s giggles gave way to fascination as the apple peel slid over my fingers. “Want papple, p’ease.”
“How we’ll ever be able to enforce the rules with the students if the staff break them, I don’t know,” Mrs. Drummond went on. “There’s that blamed Professor Wale and his pipe, and now this. And of course, the boys always find out about such things.”
I shook my head. “I think it’s ridiculous.” This earned me an approving nod from Mrs. Drummond—one good thing to come out of the latest step in the seminary’s march toward worldliness, I supposed. “Especially considering Springwood’s a dry town.”
I handed Sarah a piece of apple. “Take small bites, and chew it.”
“Hmph. I wouldn’t be too sure about that either. I’ve heard things,” said Mrs. Drummond. “Dr. Calderwood says the atmosphere of the dinner should be relaxed and cordial and that he’s already spoken to the Springwood guests.”
I’ll bet he has, I thought. No doubt Dr. Calderwood wanted his guests to be tipsy when the time came to ask them for money. I wished, for the thousandth time, that Professor Adema were still alive. There was something trustworthy about a man who had principles.
Sarah had stopped chewing her apple. An interested look came over her face, and she concentrated for a moment. “I did poo-poo.”
“It’s about time you started telling me beforehand so I can put you on the pot. You’re almost two.” I scooped up my sticky and now smelly child. “Would you excuse us, please, Mrs. Drummond?”
I left the housekeeper with Tess, who had thriftily commandeered my abandoned apple. Mrs. Drummond simmered, a look of concentrated fury on her face as she stared in the Calderwoods’ direction.
“There’s going to be an explosion,” I murmured to Sarah as we left the room.
“‘Splosion,” she agreed.
“It’s all right for you.” I planted a kiss on the top of her head, the only clean part of her. “You don’t have to be there.”
9
Mary Celeste
“. . . Full of alcohol, you see.”
Mr. Yomkins, the Springwood postmaster, put down his own glass and smirked at the assembled diners. “I’m downright convinced that the crew got liquored up and mutinied. Captured the captain and his family and set off to row them out to sea and drown ‘em.”
“Leaving no one aboard to steer the ship?”
Mr. Poulton’s eyes were bright with amusement. Mr. Yomkins was in a state of mild inebriation, a condition that clearly provoked the ire of his lady wife.
“Whoever they left on board obviously drank to the point of insensibility and tumbled over the rail,” growled Mr. McGovern, who held his liquor well. A lady he referred to as his fiancée sat next to him. She was a morose personage who had eaten her way through the soup, the fish, the turkey and oysters, and the ham and salad with silent application but never, apparently, with enjoyment.
“And if the mutineers did drown poor Captain Briggs—and his wife and child—why did they not then return to the Mary Celeste?” This was from a pompous-looking elderly man whose name I did not know.
“Couldn’t find it,” sang out Mr. Yomkins. “Stands to reason. Big place, the Atlantic. Crossed it myself, y’know. With m’lady wife. Very big piece of water. Ever been to London, Mr. Polson?”
“As a matter of fact, I studied in Cambridge. Cambridge, England, that is.”
Mr. Poulton was at his most charming despite Mr. Yomkins’s failure to remember his name aright. He cut a distinguished figure in a tailcoat of English cut, with a frilled shirtfront and pale yellow gloves.
“The quality of your teaching staff does you credit, Dr. Calderwood,” purred one of the other Springwood ladies. I stifled a smile as the president straightened his back and shook out his mane of hair in acknowledgment of the compliment.
“The point is,” Mrs. Yomkins interjected, “the Mary Celeste was undoubtedly abandoned because the crew fell prey to the demon drink.”
“You surely cannot assert that, with all due respect, dear Mrs. Yomkins,” Dr. Calderwood said, showing his teeth in an uncertain smile. “They have probably arrived at a nearby port by now. And there is no evidence whatsoever as to what actually happened.”
“I feel in my heart that the tragedy was due to drink, Dr. Calderwood,” said Mrs. Yomkins. I liked her; she was horse-faced and long-nosed but for all that, there was beauty in the lively animation of her features and, above all, the intelligent twinkle in her deep blue eyes. “Drink makes a man foolish,” she continued, rolling those eyes in the direction of her husband.
“Tarnation it don’t,” said Mr. Yomkins, making an attempt to pinch his wife’s lean cheek. “I was sober enough when I married you, and I—“
“George!”
I picked up my napkin and placed it in front of my treacherous mouth, trying hard not to look at Reiner Lehmann. He was just as studiously not looking at me. Our eyes had met several times over the course of the dinner, each time with disastrous consequences. We were both trying to remain silent and politely attentive, as befitted the youngest members of the dinner party.
The conversation had worked its way through the re-election of President Grant without too many mishaps. Until Mr. O’Healey had gone off into a tirade against �
�Useless Grant”—he was clearly a Liberal Republican. He had gotten into an argument with Mr. McGovern that lasted through the turkey and baked oysters and had seriously endangered the vegetable platter. And now the Mary Celeste was steering us into yet more dangerous waters.
“Mrs. Lillington,” said Mrs. Yomkins, turning away from her husband in a pointed manner, “I understand you made that splendid dress yourself.”
I coughed and put my napkin down. Here was the opportunity I had been waiting for.
“I did.” I reached for my water glass so that the silk caught the light and sat up straighter. “As you know, I’m employed as a seamstress here—but I have much experience in fine dressmaking.”
Was I being too blatant? Or not blatant enough? It was hard to tell. I didn’t want to sound like a shopgirl looking for a job; nor did I want to give the impression of a well-to-do lady with a dressmaking hobby.
“Do you—I don’t want to imply—that is, Mrs. Calderwood suggested you may be open to a commission.”
Mrs. Yomkins had a trim figure and wore a striped silk, possibly, I suspected, a reworking of last season’s styles. That might suggest thrift or a shortage of ready cash; I hoped for the former. Of course, as a matron she should not wear such light colors as I was sporting, but—
“You would look wonderful in royal blue,” I told her. “To match the color of your eyes. I have an idea for a blue bodice falling into deep, straight pleats at the front, with some kind of bold pattern—perhaps in black and white—in panels, do you see? And trimmed with a vivid contrast, perhaps even red if we could find the right shade.”
I had hit on her tastes exactly; I could see it in her eyes. “Perhaps,” I hesitated, “I could bring a sketch or two to your house? I am obliged,” I lowered my eyes demurely, “to support myself by my own efforts. A little extra work would help me build my reserves.”
