The Crimson Thread

by Suzanne Weyn

  Much love from your big brother,

  Finn O’Malley

  Bertie took the letter from Nancy, thanking her.

  “So the men in your family will all be together again,” Nancy pointed out brightly. “Do you miss them?”

  “More than you can imagine,” Bertie said wistfully. She picked up Eileen and fluffed her damp curls. The girl was all she had left of her family, at least for the time being. And she was the only one Eileen could depend on.

  A lump formed in her throat, and for a moment she lost her resolve. Why break off with James? She had no home to return to now. What if Eileen got sick again?

  No. she had to do it. She could not marry a man she had come to despise and one who had not love – not even respect – for her.

  They walked together toward the house. Returning Eileen to the grass, Bertie headed up the porch stairs. She would speak privately to James about breaking their engagement, and then they could both inform J.P. together. They could come up with some reason that didn’t disgrace James in his father’s eyes and just might preserve her position with Wellington Industries. Maybe she could find an apartment in Atlanta and continue to work at the mill.

  “Nancy, I might have to move out of here,” she said.

  “I would miss you,” said Nancy, looking unhappy.

  “I would miss you, too.”

  “Why would you leave?”

  “Maybe it won’t even happen,” Bertie said. “But if I got my own place, do you think you could come take care of Eileen while I work?’

  “Certainly,” Nancy agreed, her face brightening.

  When she went inside and arrived at J.P.’s study, the doors were shut. “Have you seen James?” Bertie asked Mrs. DeNeuve, who was passing by,

  “He’s inside talking to Mr. Wellington Sr.,” she said with a nod toward the study.

  Bertie sat on a chair in the hall, resolved to grab James the moment he came out of his study. Instead of James, though, it was J.P. who stepped out first. “Ah, there you are, Miss Miller. Please come inside,” he said sternly.

  Miss Miller? Why was he being so formal? And what was the reason for the cold tone?

  “Please, have a seat,” said J.P., gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

  Bertie looked to James, but he refused to meet her gaze. What was going on?

  “I came down here to discuss finance with my son. I have noticed irregularities in the company’s bank statements, and now he has explained to me the cause of them.”

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “He has informed me that you have been sending money to your brothers in Boston.”

  “What? Yes, I have – my own money.”

  J.P. responded with a tight, mirthless smile. “You may have thought that because you were about to marry into the Wellington family, the money was yours to take, but I assure you that is not how I view the situation.”

  “I only sent the money that was paid to me in my salary and my bonus,” she objected.

  “There are amounts much more sizeable than that missing from the accounts that you and James have control over,” J.P. countered.

  Bertie looked at James once again, but he still stared straight ahead without acknowledging her. She stood and went to him. “James, tell him that I have not been stealing money!”

  “Bertie, remember the night I caught you writing a check out of the accounts book? You assured me you planned to pay it back. Apparently you didn’t,” he said, speaking at last.

  “You liar!” she exploded. “That never happened!”

  “There’s no sense trying to cover it up. You’ve been caught,” he replied.

  “It is you who have been taking the money, I think,” she shouted. “You have been out every night drinking and probably gambling and fooling around with the factory girls and doing who knows what else!”

  “Is this true?” J.P. asked his son.

  “I’ve been working late at the office, if that’s what she means,” he answered. “She gets insanely jealous when I have to stay late and hurls all sorts of false accusations at me when I come home after a hard day’s work.”

  “You poor boy,” J.P. sympathized. “I had no idea.”

  “It hasn’t been easy, Father.”

  “It’s not true,” insisted Bertie passionately. “just this very day I found him sitting in the office with one of the factory girls on his lap.”

  “See what I mean?” James said to his father. “I was helping one of the seamstresses who had a splinter. She flies into a green-eyed rage if I even speak to one of the female workers.”

  “Miss Miller, I cannot have a thief in my employ,” J.P. said coldly. “Nor can my son wed a young woman with an unstable temperament.” He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out an envelope. “I have some cash here to compensate you for your design work. With it you will be able to afford a train ticket back to New York or wherever you wish to go with your sister.”

  “You’re throwing me out?” she cried.

  “I think it would be best for everyone if you left tonight,” he confirmed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Cast Out

  When Bertie came out of the study, she found two suitcases in the front hall: one bag for her and one for Eileen. Mrs. DeNeuve stood beside them, her face expressionless, but clearly avoiding eye contact with Bertie.

  “Thank you for packing for us, Mrs. DeNeuve,” Bertie said as calmly as she could manage. “I want everyone in the house to know that I never stole a thing from anyone in my life.”

  “As you say, miss, but Mr. Wellington had me do the packing just to be sure. You’re not to return upstairs.”

  “I have to get Eileen,” Bertie protested, anger coloring her cheeks.

  “I will send for her,” the woman said as she ascended the stairs. In moments she returned with Nancy, who held Eileen in her arms.

  “Where we go?” asked Eileen as Nancy tearfully handed her over to Bertie.

  “We’re getting our own place now,” Bertie told her, forcing a smile onto her face.

  “I’m so sorry you’re leaving,” Nancy said, her face flushed with agitation. She hurried to Bertie’s side and took hold of her arm. “I wish you weren’t going, but I’m glad you’re not marrying that James Wellington. He is not a nice man.”

  Bertie laughed bitterly. “No, he is not. You are right about that. I’ll be in touch when I get my own place.”

  She realized that her impulsive desire to taunt James, to make him squirm as he wondered what she would tell his father, had backfired badly. He’d decided not to risk having his derelict ways exposed and had vilified her so that anything she might tell J.P. would be suspect. She wouldn’t have thought he’d do anything this low. But it made sense, in a way. The new fabric was woven, and the dresses had been cut and pinned and were being sewn. He didn’t need her anymore.

  “John will take you down to Mrs.Linny’s Inn, about ten miles down the road,” Mrs. DeNeuve informed Bertie.

  The next day she hired Mrs. Linny’s adolescent daughter to mind Eileen and a coach to take her into Atlanta, where she would look for work. There was no sense buying a train ticket back to New York, since her family was no longer there and she had no place to live. It seemed more sensible to save the train fare and seek work right there in Atlanta.

  But when she began making the rounds of dressmaking shops, one question stood in her way: Where was the last place she had worked? They were all impressed when she said it was Wellington Industries, but as soon as potential employers checked this reference by messenger, they learned from someone – probably James – that she had been let go for stealing. That rendered her instantly undesirable,

  In the second week, the money was running low. Bertie could no longer afford to par Mrs. Linny’s daughter to watch Eileen, and so she began taking her along on her job search. She tried saying she had just arrived from New York City, but without references and with a toddler in tow, no one would take a ch
ance on her.

  If only she could find Da and her brothers, they’d send her money and even a train ticket to join them. But if they had written to her, the letter would have come to the Wellington estate, and there was no way she could ever go back there.

  In the third week, Bertie ate only enough to keep from fainting and gave the rest of her meals to Eileen. Her clothes began to hang loosely on her frame. She came down with a deep, hacking cough so powerful that it sometimes made her clutch her side in pain.

  “If that’s the whooping cough, I’ll have to ask you to leave,” Mrs. Linny told her when she came upon Bertie holding her side after a particularly bad bout. “I can’t have that contagion in my inn. Everyone will leave. Have you seen a doctor?”

  Bertie shook her head as she struggled to catch her breath. “If it doesn’t go away soon, I will.”

  “See that you do.”

  The next morning Bertie sat at the edge of the narrow bed in her small room at Mrs. Linny’s Inn and sighed deeply. She couldn’t think of another place to seek work, and there was not enough money left for a train ticket. She now knew she’d made a mistake in staying. If they’d gone back, she might at least be staying with Maria now. Here she was completely friendless.

  “What are we going to do, Eileen?” she asked her sister, who sat beside her.

  Eileen imitated Bertie’s sigh and shrugged her slim shoulders. “Iduhknow,” she replied.

  “Neither do I, sweet pea,” she said, just as another round of fitful coughing seized her. It rocked her frame so violently that it brought tears to her eyes.

  This coughing was only getting worse. What if it was whooping cough and she couldn’t work? How would they live? Who would take care of Eileen?

  “Maybe I have to swallow my pride and go to the estate to see if there is a letter for me. I’d rather cut off my arm than go back there, but I think it is our only hope.”

  Eileen seemed alarmed. “Don’t cut your arm. It would have blood.”

  Bertie laughed wanly. “No, I only mean I do not want to go back there. Don’t you worry.” She took a napkin off the nightstand and unwrapped the crescent roll she’d saved from last night’s supper. She bit off the end, handing the rest to Eileen.

  Eileen gobbled most of it down but then put the end piece back on Bertie’s lap. “Now you dome more,” she offered.

  Bertie gazed at her fondly. She had been so busy she’d hardly noticed how much Eileen had grown. She was definitely taller than she had been when they’d arrived in America in late summer. “Eileen, you have a birthday coming up soon, don’t you, at the end of the month. Do you know how old you will be?”

  Eileen held up four fingers.

  “Oh, you are a smart girl!” she praised her little sister.

  Eileen nodded happily. “Eila four fingers soon.”

  Bertie took the envelope of money from J.P. off the dresser. There wasn’t much left. She should save it for food and rent. “We can walk, Eileen. It’s only ten miles.” And ten miles back, she added silently to herself.

  “Eila can walk very good,” her sister replied gamely. It was true that she had become much more confident and steady in her walking, having recently shed the toddler’s lurching gait.

  Outside, the day was overcast with a bitter wind. Despites Eileen’s steadier steps, she still couldn’t keep up, and it wasn’t long before Bertie put her sister on her own back and carried her. Three hours later she trudged up the long driveway to the estate trying to ignore the agonizing blister that had formed at the back of her heel.

  On the front porch, Bertie put Eileen down beside her and took a deep breath. “Wish us luck, Eileen,” she said as she grasped the door’s gleaming brass knocker.

  Mrs. DeNeuve answered the door, scowling when she saw Bertie. “Good day, Mrs. DeNeuve. Have any letters come for me since I’ve been gone?” Bertie asked.

  “No,” replied Mrs. DeNeuve, moving to shut the door.

  “None?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Can I speak to Nancy?”

  “She’s been let go. Her services were no longer needed.”

  “Where is she now?’

  “I’m sure I have no idea.”

  “Did they fire her because of me?” Bertie asked urgently.

  “Not at all. With no child in the home, there was no further need for a governess,” Mrs. DeNeuve said as she closed the door firmly in Bertie’s face.

  Bertie blinked back tears of disappointment and anger. She had walked so far and for nothing! What was she to do now?

  A hard wind blew through the front porch, and she pressed Eileen into her side to shelter the little girl from the blowing sticks and leaves that swirled around them. The maelstrom set off another episode of the choking cough that was plaguing her.

  The door reopened just as Bertie caught her first breath, and Mrs. DeNeuve stepped out. “I just recalled that there was one letter two weeks ago.”

  “Did you see who it was from?” Bertie asked hopefully.

  “I did. The return address was from some Irishman named Finn O’Malley in Chicago,” Mrs. DeNeuve informed her. “I gave it to young Mr. Wellington.”

  Her hopes soared! Finn had written to her! He’d left a return address!

  “Thank you! Where is James now? Is he at the office in town? I only want my letter, I promise you.”

  “He’s at the mill,” Mrs. DeNeuve told her. “But don’t go down there. There’s trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I’m not sure, but John told me that an angry crowd was forming.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Trouble

  It took Bertie an additional two hours to get to the town of Wellington. Her weary steps grew slower and slower. Several times she had to stop altogether and put Eileen down until her coughing subsided.

  When she got into Wellington, it seemed curiously deserted. “Where all the peoples?” Eileen asked from her perch on Bertie’s back.

  “I don’t know,” Bertie admitted. Then, though, she spied a crowd milling around in front of a tavern called the Copper Penny. Approaching it, she saw a sign in the window. With a surge of pride, she realized that she could read it: JOIN THE STRIKE! SOME INSIDE! HEAR ALL ABOUT IT! FREE LUNCH!

  A man barreled out the front door, talking animatedly to another man. “Excuse me,” Bertie interrupted them. “What is a strike?”

  The man looked her up and down as if he recognized her from the mill, and then decided that this thin, pale woman couldn’t be the same one who had managed the mill. “The workers are organizing,” he told her. “We’ve walked off the job until they offer us better pay and decent working conditions.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Bertie said.

  “It’s long overdue,” said the other man. “The United Mine Workers have come down to help us organize. The Amalgamated Society of Tailors is here to support us too. Wellington threatened to fire anyone who walked off, but we’ve banded together: He can’t fire everyone in town.”

  Bertie wanted to say something encouraging, but she was suddenly overtaken with another fit of coughing. The first man she’d spoken to steadied her as she listed to one side. “Say, miss, why not put the tot down and go inside for some of that free lunch? They’ve got big pots of corned beef and cabbage going. At least you’ll be able to sit.” He helped lift Eileen from her shoulders and held the door open for them to enter.

  Holding Eileen tightly by the wrist, Bertie pushed her way into the crowded tavern. Inside, a wall of heat and the mingled odors from the tightly packed throng assailed her, causing her empty stomach to lurch.

  The striking workers were shoulder to shoulder, listening to a fiery speech from a man who stood on a table. Bertie couldn’t see over the people in front of her, but she heard the words “organize”” and “human rights” and “union,” spoken with an accent.

  The voice was familiar.

  Standing on her toes to see better, she caught sight on the speaker.<
br />
  It was Ray who was speaking to the crowd!

  Bertie jumped up, waving her arm as best she could in the tight quarters to attract his attention. He didn’t notice her, so she jumped again.

  There was a sharp whistle at the door. Four uniformed police officers strode in forcefully. “This is an illegal assembly for the purposes of promoting civil unrest and a conspiracy to riot!” the tallest officer barked. “You are all under arrest!”

  All around her, panicked people began to run. Bertie was pushed in the stampede.

  “Stand your ground!” Ray shouted, but it was no use; the need to escape overpowered the crowd, and they were desperate to avoid arrest.

  Hanging on to a table to keep from being swept along, Bertie regained her balance once again and stood Eileen on top of the table so she wouldn’t be crushed by the crowd.

  In the next second, she lost her grip. The moving throng of fleeing people carried her along like a relentless ocean current. “Stay there!” she shouted at Eileen as she struggled to keep her head above the flow. “Don’t move. I’ll be back for you!”

  She was carried out the front door into the street. Outside stood three horse-drawn police wagons. The struggling strikers were being collared by police and forced inside. In the confusion, many others were running.

  Bertie found a clear space to break from the crowd and staggered around the corner away from the mob.

  All at once, the miles of walking, the lack of food, the persistent, rib-quaking cough, the crush of the moving crowd – all these debilitating factors converged. Her knees caved and another wave of coughing caused her to buckle forward, holding on to the outside wall of the tavern. The ground below lurched up, tipping her backward.