The Last Word

by Samantha Hastings

  “Put that mirror down until I am finished,” Persephone bade her.

  Lucinda set the mirror in her lap and closed her eyes. She felt the cool, sharp edge of the scissors brush against her neck.

  “There now,” Persephone said, picking up the mirror and holding it so Lucinda could see. Lucinda gingerly touched the short curls around her head. The haircut was certainly not the prevailing style, but it framed her face and accentuated her high cheekbones. Lucinda shook her head and felt the light, easy movement of her hair.

  “You’re supposed to compliment me now on my excellent haircutting skills,” Persephone said with her usual smile.

  “Thank you,” Lucinda managed. “I like it.”

  “Good,” Persephone said, placing both the scissors and the mirror on the side table. “Next, we must get you dressed.”

  “I don’t want to—” Lucinda began to protest, but Persephone was not listening.

  She opened Lucinda’s wardrobe and selected a tartan day dress with bright reds, greens, and blues. She laid the dress on the bed and adjured Lucinda to lift her arms. Lucinda took off her nightdress and felt the welcome relief of air on the upper part of her exposed arms. Her forearms were carefully wrapped in bandages.

  “Where shall I find a corset and a crinoline cage?”

  “I will never be caged again,” Lucinda said stubbornly. “That blasted contraption nearly burned me alive.”

  “No crinoline, and I’m sure you don’t need a corset to fit into your dresses,” Persephone said. “You’ve lost at least a dozen pounds these last weeks. And no wonder with what you’ve been through! Let’s just slide this dress over your head. Don’t worry, I will be gentle.”

  And Persephone was as she inched the dress over Lucinda’s bandaged arms and gingerly buttoned the back of it. Lucinda carefully shifted her legs off the bed. They felt bruised and stiff, swollen from disuse. Persephone gently pulled two stockings onto Lucinda’s legs and placed two slippers on her feet.

  “A brilliant lady’s maid was lost in me,” Persephone teased.

  “I am sure you will enjoy being a countess much more.”

  “You’re right, I shall,” Persephone said. “Put this arm around my neck.”

  Lucinda did as she was told. Persephone placed her other arm around Lucinda’s back and together they stood up. Daggers of pain shot up Lucinda’s legs, and she gasped. Her friend steadied her.

  “The first step is always the most difficult,” Persephone assured her.

  Lucinda bit her lip and nodded. She lifted one of her sore feet and placed it a few inches in front of the other.

  “You are a strong woman,” Persephone said.

  “I am a strong woman,” Lucinda repeated as she took her next agonizing step.

  “You can accomplish this task.”

  “I can accomplish this task.”

  “You can accomplish any task.”

  “I can accomplish any task,” Lucinda said in a breathless voice. “I can accomplish any task.”

  Persephone helped Lucinda walk a turn around the room before assisting her back into her bed. She swept the hair off the coverlet and onto the floor as Lucinda leaned back against her pillows. Her legs felt afire again, but at least she could feel them. And without her crinoline cage on, she could see her legs too.

  “Yes, rest up,” Persephone said. “We shall walk again in an hour.”

  Before Lucinda could protest, Mrs. Patton returned with a tea tray. She blinked several times. “Lucinda,” she said in a shocked tone, “you are awake and dressed.”

  Persephone stood and took the tea tray from Mrs. Patton’s hands. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Patton. Why don’t you get some rest and I will watch Lucinda for a few hours? I am sure you are exhausted from this last week.”

  Persephone placed the tea tray on the table and gently guided Mrs. Patton out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her. She wiped her hand over her brow. “Whew! I thought she was going to stay, and I’m sure she will not approve at all of what we are going to talk about.”

  “What are we going to talk about?” Lucinda asked in surprise.

  “Have you ever heard of bloomers?”

  “Bloomers?”

  “Mrs. Amelia Bloomer is an American who advocates reform in women’s dress,” Persephone explained. “She wears pantaloons, which are just like men’s trousers, but looser and come in at the ankle with lacy fringe.”

  “She doesn’t wear a skirt?”

  “No, she does wear a skirt over the pantaloons,” Persephone said as she handed Lucinda a cup of tea. “But the skirt is much shorter and barely past her knees.”

  “Did she start a scandal?”

  “Yes!” Persephone said excitedly, placing her own cup of tea back on the table with a clatter. “And lots of New York society ridiculed her and the other women who followed her in dress reform. They nicknamed her pantaloons ‘bloomers,’ but she wears them anyway. She does not seem to care what others think, and neither should you.”

  “I wish I didn’t care what others think,” Lucinda admitted, “but I do.”

  “Well then, I suppose pantaloons are not for you after all,” Persephone said.

  “You think I should wear bloomers?”

  “I thought you no longer wished to be caged.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then stop caring what other people think. That’s the greatest cage of all,” Persephone said. “The only person’s opinion that matters is your own. And mine. Of course.”

  “Of course,” Lucinda said, accepting a plate laden with more food than she had eaten in a week. “Aren’t you going to help me? My hands are bandaged.”

  “You’ll never get better until you start to learn how to do things for yourself again,” Persephone said, laughing wickedly as she added, “or you’ll starve.”

  Lucinda pushed the biscuit off the plate with her bandaged hand and onto her skirt. She pushed it a bit more before she was able to pick it up and take a bite. “You are a wretched nurse.”

  “You are a wretched patient.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you enough—” Lucinda began.

  “Silly Lucinda. This is what friends do,” Persephone said, taking a large bite out of a biscuit.

  * * *

  Lucinda looked at herself in the mirror without a stitch of clothing on. It had been over a month since the fire, and she no longer needed to wear her bandages. Her arms showed dark pink blots of discoloration where she’d been burned. The backs of her hands were roughened with countless scars. She turned over her hands and looked at her palms. On her left hand, she could see branded into her palm the grapevine decoration from the doorknob of her father’s office. Oddly enough, the doctor said this burn might have saved her hand; it had cauterized the cut from when she fell through the window. She moved each stiff finger one at a time. It still hurt, but it was getting easier.

  The two angry, reddish-pink blots on her neck had faded, and the doctor told her that in time they could fade further. Or they could remain the same.

  I am a strong woman.

  I can accomplish this task.

  I can accomplish any task.

  Lucinda pulled on her shift, ignoring the pain of moving her arms. She put on her undergarments, then stepped into her pantaloons and tied them at her waist. She pulled the shortened dress over her head and sighed in satisfaction. She had dressed herself. Mostly. Nearly covering all of her scars.

  She pulled the cord for a servant and saw Silas Marner, the book David had brought her, sitting on the table. She carefully picked it up in her scarred hands. She couldn’t turn the pages yet, but Mrs. Patton had kindly read it to her while she was recovering. Silas Marner was followed by East and West, and finally She Knew She Was Right.

  “Don’t you want to know which suitor Eurydice picked?” Lucinda had asked her when Mrs. Patton read the last published words.

  “Anyone can see that Eurydice would have picked Lord Dunstan. She was practicall
y penniless, and he was wealthy with a title,” Mrs. Patton stated as if it were fact.

  “But you don’t know for sure. Eurydice never showed a decided preference for either suitor,” Lucinda had pressed. “Won’t you please write to Bertha Topliffe’s brother, the rector of St. Ivy’s parish, and ask about her final papers? I would do so myself if I could hold a pen.”

  Mrs. Patton had shaken her head resolutely. “There is no need to waste the good rector’s time over a silly little thing like a fictional novel.” And once Mrs. Patton’s mind had been made up, there was no persuading her otherwise. She even told Lucinda it was unladylike to persist in asking her.

  Lucinda turned over the book in her hands, feeling a pang of regret. David had not come back to see her since the day he brought Silas Marner and she’d refused to look at or speak to him. She’d been embarrassed by her appearance, and she was still angry at him for refusing to help her. But she thought he’d come back. And the more she recovered, the more she wanted him to come and see her. But he hadn’t.

  The servant opened the door, and Lucinda set down the book. Her maid buttoned Lucinda’s dress and helped her put on stockings and slippers. Then, she carefully arranged the front curls of Lucinda’s hair and hid the rest of the short curls underneath a lacy snood.

  Lucinda heard a knock at her door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  Mrs. Patton entered the room. Her disapproval of Lucinda’s clothing choices was apparent from the thin line of her mouth. “Your father is waiting to speak with you, as you requested. He is in the sitting room.”

  Lucinda stood gingerly, letting her skin ease into a different position. She pulled on her gloves, thanked the servant and Mrs. Patton, then bowed and left the room. She held the banister lightly as she slowly navigated the stairway. Lucinda stopped when she reached the bottom of the stairs, took several deep breaths before continuing down the hall to the sitting room, and then another as she opened the door.

  Her father was standing at the windows with his back to her, but he turned as he heard Lucinda approach. Like Mrs. Patton, his eyebrows lifted as he took in her pantaloons.

  “It’s an American fashion Miss Merritt told me about,” Lucinda explained. “A reform movement in women’s dress to make it more practical, yet still pretty.”

  “It is interesting,” her father managed.

  Lucinda sat on the settee and looked up at her father. She could see his discomfort in the stiff way he held his shoulders and turned his head.

  “I have wanted to talk to you, Father, for some time,” Lucinda began. “In fact, the reason I was in Tooley Street during the fire was so I could say something that I have wanted to say for many years.”

  Her father blanched at the mention of the fire. “My poor Lucy. I wish I had burned to ash instead of the pain and anguish you have suffered and will continue to suffer.”

  “I knew the risk when I saved you,” Lucinda said. “And I am not a child anymore, and I do not wish to be treated as one.”

  “You are a young woman.”

  “I am a human being,” Lucinda countered. “With a knowledge of numbers and mathematics that few possess. And as heir to your share of the business, I wish to be a part of it. To use my skills.”

  “I sent you to finishing school to rid you of this nonsense,” he said, still standing above her. Looking down at her.

  Lucinda stood and looked down at him. “You sent me away from everything I knew and loved, to people who despised me for my birth.”

  “Everything I have done,” her father said, “I have done for your good.”

  “No, you have done it for yourself!” Lucinda cried, and then added in a quieter tone, “Because you never took the time to ask me what I wanted. What I want now.”

  “Lucinda, you can’t fight the way of the world.”

  “The world is changing,” Lucinda said.

  “It has not changed that much.”

  “And it never will change until brave people stand up for what they want and fight against foolish rules that have no reason behind them.”

  “If you were a man—”

  “It was not a man who saved you from a burning building,” Lucinda said, pressing a scarred hand to her breast. “It was me. Your daughter.”

  Her father slumped down into a chair. Lucinda sighed loudly and sat down again on the settee.

  “If you were to work at the office,” her father began, “you would lose all opportunity to find a suitor from a good family. To be included in a society that your mother and I could never dream of.”

  “My mother,” Lucinda said, unable to stop the tears from falling from her eyes. “Why did you take her from me?”

  “She died.”

  “You obliterated her from our existence. You removed everything that reminded me of her from our home, and then you made us move,” Lucinda said.

  “The reminders were too painful.”

  “She was my mother,” Lucinda said slowly. “I deserve to know who she was and where she came from.”

  “There isn’t much I can tell you,” her father said, shaking his head.

  “Then tell me what you know.”

  Her father looked down at his hands and didn’t speak for over a minute.

  “She was born in Lisburn, Ireland, but she didn’t like to talk about her life there,” he said at last. “Her family had been spinners and stockingers for centuries, but their handloom products could not compete with the new water-powered loom machinery. They lost almost everything before her parents sold their home in Lisburn and immigrated to England. Her parents died of typhus soon after arriving. Your mother tried to find work in London, but she was despised for her poverty and for being Irish. She was finally lucky enough to obtain work as a nursery maid, where she worked long hours for little pay and no respect or appreciation from her employers. Did you want me to tell you that? Jane would not have wanted you to remember her that way.”

  “I don’t even know her maiden name,” Lucinda said.

  “Johnston. Jane Johnston,” he said. “She liked alliterative names. That’s why she named you Lucy—Lucinda Leavitt. She loved you so much. She wanted you to fit into English society like she never could. Like I never could.”

  “You could be a part of that society,” Lucinda countered. “You could come with me to Miss Merritt and Lord Adlington’s wedding. And if a suitor does not approve of my working in a countinghouse, I would not want him.”

  Her father covered his bearded face with his hands and then ran them through his gray hair. “You are stubborn, like your mother was.”

  “I am strong, like my mother was.”

  Her father heaved a large breath. “If working at the office is what you truly want, then I will not stand in your way any longer. Randall told me he thought you’d make a fine chief financial officer, and I believe he’s right.”

  Lucinda’s chest felt suddenly tight. David hadn’t forgotten her. He’d even talked to her father about her working for the business.

  She stood again. Not quickly. She couldn’t stand quickly. She walked over to her father, put her arms around him, and kissed the top of his bald head. He flinched, and Lucinda released him and stepped back.

  “I love you, Papa,” she said.

  He stood and patted her on the head. “I love you too, Lucy.”

  Twenty

  DAVID STRAIGHTENED THE LAPELS OF his jacket and walked down the steps of his cousin’s house. He was nearly at the bottom of the stairs when he heard a slight groan. He turned to see Lucinda standing at the top of the stairs. She was dressed in an outlandish fashion—a shortened dress, baggy pantaloons that tightened at her ankles, and a contraption that covered most of her hair in a white net, leaving only her front curls exposed.

  She barely touched the railing with a gloved hand. She made a slow step down. And then another. He could tell each step pained her, but it didn’t stop her. David regained his senses and ran up the stairs by twos until he was close enough to
touch her. But he didn’t. He just stared at her in tongue-tied wonder. He wanted to tell her so many things but was unable to come up with even one coherent sentence.

  So he took her into his arms and hugged her close, never wanting to let go of her again.

  Lucinda carefully returned his embrace, moving slowly to not aggravate her healing injuries. They stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms for what felt like an eternity and yet not enough time at all.

  Then, David wordlessly scooped her into his arms and began to carry her down the stairs. She smelled of roses, and her dark curls tickled his chin.

  “I can walk,” she said, settling her arms around his neck. “I don’t need any assistance. I burned my hands, not my feet.”

  “I know,” David said, clutching her closer to him.

  “Then why did you pick me up?”

  “Because I wanted to.”

  Lucinda laughed and looked up at him. “When did you arrive?”

  “Late last night,” David said. “Took the last train. Had a few tasks I needed to accomplish before coming today.”

  “Business, no doubt,” Lucinda said. “I hope you did not bring any business papers to the wedding.”

  “Only one,” David said, grinning at her. “I will show it to you later, if you’d like.”

  David reached the bottom of the stairs, but he did not put Lucinda down. Nor did he continue toward the breakfast room. Instead, he made a sharp right and carried her down a corridor toward a small private parlor that had been his grandmother’s favorite room.

  “You can put me down now,” Lucinda said.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “This is a rather pleasant arrangement, after all.”

  “Extremely pleasant,” Lucinda agreed, biting her lip to hide a smile. After a few moments, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

  “A place where we can talk.”

  “Are we not talking now?”

  David placed a light kiss on Lucinda’s head. He was delighted to see her blush.

  “Oh, that kind of talk!”