My One True Love

by Deborah Small

  Margaret didn’t reply. She couldn’t. A hard ball had taken up residence in her throat.

  “But that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, ma’am,” Miss Alma said, the doubt returning to her face. “What I am wondering is...I noticed you didn’t bring anyone with you yesterday, and you haven’t mentioned today that we might expect anyone else to come later.”

  “Because there is no one else but me,” Margaret said.

  “Were you expecting someone?”

  “Well, yes, ma’am. We all did.” Miss Alma nodded as though it were perfectly obvious what she was talking about. “At least one personal maid, if not two. And maybe your own butler and housekeeper, too.”

  “Oh.” Margaret smiled and shook her head. “No. There’s only me. I haven’t employed a maid or any house staff for a few years now. Well, yourself and Mr. Rufus, excepted.”

  Miss Alma nodded and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Would you again consider it, ma’am? Employing a personal maid, that is.”

  Margaret raised her eyebrows. “Do you have someone in mind?”

  “Coral,” Miss Alma said without hesitation. “She’s smart as a whip, and I...I want more for her, missus.” She swallowed. “More than washing up dishes or doing someone else’s laundry. Forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, ma’am, but you seem like a kind and book-smart woman—someone I’d like my Coral to grow up and be like. I thought...I thought maybe she could learn from you.”

  The lump in Margaret’s throat grew bigger. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost Miss Alma to make such a confession about her own profession, especially to a strange and younger woman she couldn’t be sure wouldn’t fire her for her presumptuous favour.

  “Yes,” she said decisively. “I’d be more than happy to speak with Coral about what opportunities she might be suited for. Have her come see me—”

  “She’s right here, ma’am.” Miss Alma reached a hand back and made a hurry-up gesture.

  The butler door, which must have been open a crack for Coral to peek through, swung fully open, and the young woman sidled out to stand behind her great-grandmother, who grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out beside her.

  “Say good morning, girl,” Miss Alma prompted.

  “Morning, Mrs. Sweeney,” Coral whispered, her gaze fixed on the dining chair behind which Margaret stood.

  Margaret stifled a smile at Miss Alma’s boldness.

  Confidence and nerve were excellent qualities in any individual, but especially in someone in a position of responsibility. What truly impressed her, though, was how Miss Alma had drawn her great-granddaughter up next her, sending Coral a firm if subtle message that she was her equal and not subservient to her.

  “Well, Coral,” Margaret said, moving out from behind the chair to inspire more personable discussion. “I understand you’re interested in learning new skills.”

  Coral nodded without looking up. Even with her head bowed, she was taller than her great-grandmother, though she lacked the elder woman’s mature curves. Her white-trimmed, blue cotton day dress, though well made, fit her with schoolgirl simplicity, a look exacerbated by the centre part dividing her French braided hair and white-frilled short socks worn with low-heeled Oxford shoes.

  “Look up, and use your words, girl,” Miss Alma murmured. “Ain’t no one gonna hire someone can’t drag her head and tongue up off of the floor.”

  Coral slowly raised her head, revealing lovely dark—and wary—brown eyes.

  Offering her a gentle smile, Margaret said, “Tell me about yourself, Coral. What interests you?”

  “Interests me, ma’am?”

  “Yes.” Margaret drew out the chair nearest her and sat, then waved for Coral and Miss Alma to do the same. They hesitated, but when she nodded, indicating that refusal wasn’t an option, they each pulled out a chair. When they were seated, Margaret smiled at Coral. “Your great-grandmother believes you’d be interested in learning the ins and outs of being a lady’s maid. Is that something you aspire to?”

  Coral glanced at her great-grandmother, who raised a staunch eyebrow.

  “Yes’m,” Coral said to Margaret. “I...like clothes. And I know all the latest fashions. GG—er, Great-Grandmother—gave me a Sears catalogue and a copy of Les Modes for Christmas last year. I really admire Poiret, and Madame Louise Chéruit. She has her own fashion house. I’d love to have my own—”

  “Coral’s an expert seamstress, missus,” Miss Alma interjected. “Taught her myself. She made this dress”—she plucked the white-cuffed sleeve of Coral’s dress—“and more. Sells them at the department store in town for three dollars apiece. She only gets fifty cents from every sale, though, ’cause Mr. West takes half off the top and she gives a dollar from each sale to our church. Hers is a good and pure heart, missus. She only needs a chance, an’ I know she can do very well for herself.”

  Miss Alma’s earnest advocation on Coral’s behalf was endearing. Less charming was the way she had cut her great-granddaughter off just as she was about to reveal what Margaret suspected was her true aspiration: a fashion house of her own.

  Place Vendôme was a considerable distance from Sugar Hill. Not so far that a young woman couldn’t find her way there, however—with a little know-how and a lot of will.

  She met the girl’s anxious gaze.

  “A skilled needle and good fashion sense can get you only so far, Coral,” she said softly but with conviction. “You will also need to invest a great deal of sweat equity, and most importantly, you’ll have to believe in yourself. Even if I were to carve you a path to Madame Chéruit’s door—which I would not, even if a war wasn’t raging over there—what you make of yourself is totally up to you. Still, I will confer upon you a written introduction, which, handled correctly by you, could lead to your meeting her in person—once hostilities have ended, of course.” And provided Paris and Madame survived the German chancellor’s attempt to dominate Europe by destroying everything in his army’s path.

  Casting up a silent prayer for Britain, France, and Belgium’s coordinated strength and concerted effort to drive back the Huns and preserve their autonomy, she raised her eyebrows.

  “What I am trying to say, Coral, is that in order for you to get where you wish to go, you must take the initiative. No number of hand-ups can help you if you refuse to stand on your own feet. Can you do that? Can you invest not only in your dream but in yourself, enough to pave your own path to Place Vendôme?”

  Coral’s dark eyes widened in stunned comprehension and clear wonder that Margaret offered not a dismissal of her unspoken desire but an affirmation of it. And, more, a verbal promise of introduction to one of her fashion idols, with whom Margaret had a fond acquaintance. Mme Chéruit’s avant-garde fashions had complemented fully half of her wardrobe before the Titanic had robbed her of it...and William.

  “I...don’t know, ma’am. I...could try—”

  Margaret shook her head, and Coral clamped her mouth shut.

  “Don’t know. Could try.” Margaret shook her head again. “That combination of words will not get you where you profess to want to go. I will. I am. I can so. Those are the words you must say to yourself. Every day, if you are to achieve what you want in this world. I will. I am. I can so. Can you repeat that for me?”

  “I don’t—” She jerked when great-grandmother’s elbow collided with her ribcage. Clearing her throat, she rasped, “I will. I...am. I c-can so.”

  “Good,” Margaret said. “Now louder, and without hesitation.”

  “I will. I am. I can so.” Coral bit the inside of her lower lip and gave Margaret a look she’d seen many times in the classroom: an appeal for approval.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “I believe you will, you are, and you can so. Join me in my chamber at eight o’clock this evening, and we’ll begin your tutelage. I’m sure you’ll want to pay close attention to my wardrobe—and how you might design something to enhance or improve upon it. Madame Chéruit will want to see sketches of your ideas, sho
uld she agree to correspond with you.”

  A moment later, after accepting Coral’s profuse thanks and Miss Alma’s more subdued gratitude—the dear woman had seemed a little taken aback by Margaret’s support of Coral’s seemingly impossible aspiration—she sagged in her chair.

  Heaven, but she’d forgotten how difficult it was to manage a big house, and all the hope and dashed dreams that went with it. Though in all reality, she wasn’t herself sure how acting as a lady’s maid to her would help Coral chart a course to fulfilling her high-fashion dreams.

  Still, one had to start somewhere, and an introduction to Madame Chéruit was a generously tall first step for any young woman and especially the orphaned great-granddaughter of a woman born on the plantation, who’d never left it. She only hoped Coral’s talent equalled her desire to design fashion. Madame Chéruit was notoriously impatient and famously forthright—as the French often were.

  Turning in her chair to face the window, she folded her hands upon its curved back and rested her chin upon them.

  The wonder and awe she’d experienced during her first stroll along Paris’s boulevards and avenues as a young woman seemed so far away, more dream than memory. The willow trees’ gentle dance with the wind outside the window elicited more vivid recollection, however, of those first few dances with William. And with them, a pang of guilt.

  Why was she remembering her youth and early days with William, especially now, here? Was it simply because she’d been married to him longer—six years versus the six months she’d enjoyed with George—or was it longing for a time when her life had felt less complicated and more...secure?

  Maybe it was both.

  She’d built a greater storehouse of memories with William than she’d had chance to create with George. And she was not comfortable in a place that echoed with people and history that weren’t hers.

  Enough, Margaret.

  She pushed to her feet.

  Regret was an anchor she could not afford to let weigh her down. Not when in a quarter-hour, she had to prove to Mr. Joseph Tomásou Banner that she was fully capable of managing what George had left her. Even if she wasn’t sure she could.

  Inhaling, she set her shoulders back.

  I will.

  I am.

  I can so.

  Chapter 5

  Relief and Respect

  JOE DIDN’T KNOW IF it was her floral perfume softening the acrid pungency of wood oil in the room, or the way the sunlight beamed through the windows, igniting her hair with fiery sparks of gold and copper, but it was the first time he’d actually enjoyed being in the study.

  The room’s dark wainscot and oak floors, blackened with age and turpentine and overlaid with thick rugs of the same deep red and brown as the furniture, usually closed in on him, leaving him feeling as ill-humoured and dour as Sugar Hill’s generational owners, who glowered down at him from a series of gilt-framed oil canvasses hung on the blood-red-papered walls.

  But today...without turning his head, he took in the profile of Sugar Hill’s latest owner.

  Mouth pursed, brow stippled with concentration, auburn-lashed eyes narrowed, like an actuary convinced there was a discrepancy in the numbers and determined to find where, she was perusing the open ledger on the desk, gliding one small and unpainted but manicured fingertip down a column of numbers.

  A few strands of her hair had escaped their combs to spark around the edges of her face. Each coppery flare sent a reciprocating jolt of desire through him, forcing him to fist his hands to keep from tucking her hair behind her ear where it might be less distracting. Though there was nothing he could do to escape her perfume that teased his senses like a feather being traced over his bare skin.

  She paused her finger. “What is the going wage for house servants?”

  He dragged his attention back to the ledger. “Depends. We pay eighteen dollars a month plus board. Most other estates around here pay less, without board.”

  “And field labour?”

  “Twelve to nineteen dollars a month, depending on the outfit and whether board is included.”

  “Yet Sugar Hill is paying double that.”

  “Blame the Germans,” he said.

  She looked at him. “Germans?”

  There were little white striations in the emerald depths of her eyes, like spears of sunlight penetrating deep into a secluded forest glade, a sensation exacerbated by the snug warmth of the room and heady scent of her parfum. He could almost feel himself stretched on his back, cocooned in a fragrant den of woodland grasses as he gazed at a cloudless sky, listening to pine boughs whisper and itinerant bees buzz.

  A tiny dimple of confusion between her brows and faint narrowing of her eyes yanked him from his imaginings and back to her question.

  “Yes,” he said. “Factory jobs pay upwards of forty dollars a month. That’s attractive money to most people around here.”

  “It’s attractive money to most people anywhere.”

  He nodded. “That’s why many of our competitors employ every underhanded tactic in the book to keep their workers and avoid paying wages.”

  “Underhanded?”

  “Some lease convicts from the state and treat them worse than barn rats, barely feeding them, whipping them for not making quota. Others accuse their workers—or average citizens—of theft or vagrancy and then show up in court to kindly offer an opportunity for the accused to work off the loss in exchange for having charges dismissed. George’s father, Cyril, forced Rufus and Miss Alma into a labour contract that essentially amounted to life for each of them, after he accused them of colluding to steal, and stealing, a Qing dynasty tea set he told the judge was valued at thirty thousand dollars.”

  “He did?” She flicked a troubled glance at the study door as if expecting Rufus and Miss Alma to be standing there.

  “That, and much worse,” he said. “When George inherited, we cancelled the convict leases and started paying wages to direct hires. We let sharecroppers keep more of their cotton harvest, too. That improved our numbers, contrary to Cyril Sweeney’s assertion that money given was money lost. With more product to sell, and thus income to feed themselves and their families and to keep oxen and mules and tools in good repair, our sharecroppers ended up more productive than ever. At least until last year, when a boll weevil infestation killed the tenant crops. Those fields are fallow now, and ripe for turning over to tobacco. I noted that in last month’s report,” he added with a nod to the array of papers scattered on the desk, one of which he presumed was his report.

  She ignored the paperwork, instead regarding him with a mixture of horror and disbelief. “Mr. Rufus and Miss Alma are working here under fraudulent conditions?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Shortly after George inherited, he found a box of his father’s belongings, and inside it was that stolen tea set. He paid them each forty years’ back wages and tore up the contracts Cyril had made them sign.”

  “Forty years’ back wages?” Her eyebrows winged upwards.

  He dug out a slim black volume from the pile and set it on top. “With interest, it amounted to more than twelve thousand dollars each. Rufus hasn’t touched a dime of his—George put it the bank for him, and I check on it periodically—but Miss Alma manages her own.”

  Mrs. Sweeney splayed a hand on the ledger and stared at it. “I always knew he was generous man, but...I can’t believe he never told me.”

  “That was George,” he said. “More doer than talker.”

  She was still a moment before lifting her gaze to offer him a tender smile. “He was, wasn’t he?”

  Fresh guilt clenched through him.

  She was thinking of her late husband while he was swimming in her depthless green gaze and basking in the warm glow of sparks from her auburn hair and freckles as the sun played over them, something he wouldn’t be doing if George were alive.

  If George were still alive, they’d be going over the numbers together, while she’d be...What would she be doing? />
  He couldn’t conjure any image but the one in front of him, that of a forthright and intelligent woman frowning in contemplation of all he’d told her. He certainly couldn’t envision her swanning around a tea room somewhere, tossing coquettish smiles over her shoulder between bouts of bashful eyelash batting. Bashful and coy fit her about as well as tea rooms and swanning fit him.

  “But why haven’t they retired?” she demanded. “They’re of age, and they clearly have the means.”

  “George and I suggested that, a few times. But Miss Alma refused every time, claiming George needed her. And maybe he did, at one time. While Rufus...” He shrugged. “He says he has nowhere to go and wouldn’t know what to do if he did. I admit, neither George nor I argued the point very hard with them. It was easier to have people we trusted taking care of the big house. And with Cyril dead and George away much of the last decade, they’ve been more or less semi-retired anyway.”

  “I suppose they have,” she mused. “Miss Alma expressed concern to me just this morning that her culinary skills might have slipped. I assured her they have not.”

  “Her skills couldn’t slip on a frozen lake if they wore ice skates.”

  That brought a smile to her mouth. “You’re fond of her.”

  “I’m fond of everyone here. We’re family.”

  She nodded, and her smile faded to one so poignant it sent hot spurs of guilt raking across his heart. He booted the guilt aside.

  His first duty was to Maisie. His second was to Sugar Hill and the people who lived and worked here, some, like Rufus and Miss Alma, who’d been here a hundred times longer than Mrs. Sweeney had been wedded to George. A couple of wistful glances and wobbly smiles weren’t going to deter him from his obligation to ensure they were protected.

  With a soft clearing of her throat, she asked, “Is there anything else I should know about them or anyone else here?”