Mercer Girls

by Libbie Hawker

  “Don’t go emulating me,” Sophronia warned. “I don’t care how much I awed you. It was the silliest thing any of us could have done, offending those well-connected women when their opinion of us was already poor. We must work all the harder now to make a good impression.”

  “I still say it was bully. And that pompous hen Mrs. Garfield got just what was coming to her.” Dovey turned to Josephine. “If you’re not hungry, can I have your porridge? I’m starved.”

  Dovey ate with youthful energy and enthusiasm, talking all the while. She had seen several of the other girls in the hall, or passed their open doors, and gave a ready description of what each was wearing to the reception, and how she’d fixed her hair. The girl’s plucky spirits did keep Josephine from getting entirely lost in her fears.

  “What about you?” Josephine asked when Dovey’s chatter slowed. “What will you wear—the green dress, or the blue?”

  “The blue, for certain. It’s the better of my two dresses. But I’m afraid the hem might be all off now. I’ve made friends already with the girl who cleans the hotel rooms. She lives here all the time, you know, in a room just down the hall. She was happy to loan me this crinoline—her spare. But it’s not quite the same as the one I left in Lowell. I’ll need to tack up the hem of my dress.”

  “Bring it here, and I’ll tack it for you,” Josephine said. She would be glad of the needlework—a distraction from her anxiety.

  “That’s awfully nice of you, Jo. I’ll go fetch it now.”

  It was the work of only a few minutes to place a few well-hidden stitches in Dovey’s hem while the girl stood on a footstool before the room’s mirror. Dovey examined her reflection with no small air of approval, turning her face this way and that to admire how the pearl-gray light of her first Seattle morning complemented her coloring and the cheerful tint of her dress. When Josephine rose from her knees with a needle still held between her lips, Dovey’s satisfied smile turned into a pout of speculation.

  “Let’s make you up, Jo,” the girl suggested.

  “Make me up? Whatever do you mean?”

  “Put some color into your cheeks,” she said. “Liven up your complexion.”

  Josephine, who had pulled her hair tightly into a bun before her impromptu tailoring began, stepped away from Dovey as if the girl were a snake in the grass. “I’m made up plenty. Besides”—she dropped her voice, as if the other girls in their separate rooms might hear—“you know I’m not out to catch a man. I’ll take a post as a teacher and live alone, and that will be that.”

  “I doubt that will be that,” Sophronia said darkly. “There are at least two hundred men in Seattle, all of whom want a bride. And there are only fourteen of us. You’ll be bombarded with flowers and poetry and all kinds of sweetness, Josephine. You’ll be courted, all right—make no mistake. What will you tell those men? You’ll have to give some plausible reason for putting them off, at least until you can convince Clifford to let you go.”

  Josephine sighed. “I know. I’ll just have to pretend my suitors don’t suit me. What other choice do I have?”

  “You could find a man who does suit you,” Dovey suggested. “What Clifford doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

  “What the Lord knows will hurt you,” Sophronia shot back as she smoothed the wrinkles from her own sapphire-blue silk. “And anyway, if Clifford was angry enough to follow you all the way to San Francisco, he might come to Seattle, too.”

  Josephine folded up her packet of needles and closed the lid of her sewing box, more energetically than she’d intended. The thought of Clifford’s recent attack made her want to shiver, yet she would not allow one muscle to twitch or tremble. Clifford had spent their entire marriage working hard to intimidate Josephine. Now that she was away from him, she would not give in to fear. Not anymore.

  “Don’t give Clifford more reason for anger,” Sophronia advised. “You’ll have to write him letters, and work with him patiently until he sees the sense in granting you a divorce.”

  “I suppose you’re right about that. I just hope it doesn’t take him long to see sense.”

  “Well,” Dovey said, “when Clifford does let you go, you’ll be free to accept any suitor you please. And there’s no better time to start attracting their attention than now.” She pulled one of the high-backed chairs away from the table. “Sit down. I’m going to make you up proper.”

  Josephine turned to Sophronia with a silent, pleading stare. She was sure the woman must have a lecture against face paints and fripperies in her vast repertoire of disapprovals. But to Josephine’s surprise, Sophronia joined in, consigning the contents of her own toilet case to the effort.

  “You, Sophronia?” Josephine pressed against the chair’s hard back, shrinking from the little vials and jars her friends brandished like weapons. “I never would have suspected that you would paint your face. Aren’t cosmetics in the realm of fallen women?”

  “Only if they’re gaudily applied,” Sophronia said. “Now close your eyes. I’m going to brush castor oil on your lashes.”

  The oil had a thick, cloying smell, and slowed every blink of Josephine’s eyes with its unfamiliar cling. Sophronia drew a blackened hairpin from her toilet case, lit a candle on the nightstand, and stuck the pin into the flame until the acrid scent of burnt metal filled the room. Josephine flinched when the pin neared her eyes, but Sophronia’s hand was steady, and in no time, Josephine’s lashes were as thick and dark as a healthy young girl’s.

  They dusted her forehead and nose with pale rice powder, then dabbed a touch of carmine on her lips and cheeks. When Sophronia pronounced the effort a success, Josephine gazed into the mirror with no small amount of shock. Her face was as delicately white as fashion demanded, complemented by a subtle, petal-pink glow. Her eyes seemed to dance with a vibrant, intelligent light that pleased and flattered her.

  “Why—I look perfectly pretty!”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Dovey said, smiling. “I always knew there was a picture of enchantment hiding behind that dowdy bun and colorless face. Here, let us do up your hair, and then you can get dressed.”

  Dovey and Sophronia laughed and joked like sisters as they combed out Josephine’s long, mouse-brown hair. She had never seen the two in such harmony before. What had drawn them together, Josephine wondered—their brush with danger the night of Clifford’s attack? Or perhaps the shared burden of the secret they kept—Josephine’s hidden shame? Perhaps it was simply their mutual annoyance with Mrs. Garfield. Whatever had made Dovey and Sophronia see eye to eye, Josephine prayed their newfound bond would hold. Their encounter with Mrs. Garfield and her contemptuous society had rattled Josephine to her core. The Mercer girls had been in Seattle only a handful of hours, but already the city was nothing like she had imagined. If they were to find their way in this new world—put down roots in this frontier—then every woman of their party would need friendship and sisterhood. Animosity was a luxury Dovey and Sophronia could no longer afford.

  Dovey worked a mystery with her comb, teasing and coaxing Josephine’s hair into a mound as high and soft as a cloud, then securing it with a twist and a few copper pins, judiciously placed. Josephine stared at herself in the mirror, wide-eyed. The style Dovey had chosen certainly did suit Josephine’s face and stature. She blushed, astonished that she could look so lovely—and so young. She seemed nearly of an age with the other girls in Mercer’s party, and she mused over Sophronia’s prediction of endless suitors offering poetry and sweet words, vying for Josephine’s hand.

  I oughtn’t to want any attention from the men, Josephine told herself firmly, my situation being what it is. But seeing herself anew, as a woman transformed into a fresh young bride, she found herself nursing the smallest hope that she would attract one or two hearts. Just for the novelty of the experience.

  Sophronia helped Josephine into her embroidered dress—the lavender linen, the fanciest garment she owned, though its style had long since passed into the realm of the old a
nd dusty. The only hat she owned was of plain, woven straw, without a plume or blossom to decorate it. Dovey secured it to Josephine’s high-piled hair with a long pin, then stepped back, cupping her chin judiciously.

  “It wants something,” Dovey said. Then her brown eyes brightened with mischief. “I know just the thing. Wait here.”

  She scampered out of the room, but in a few minutes she returned with a handful of waxy white flowers. Their stems dripped water onto the rug.

  “Where did you get those flowers?” Sophronia asked sharply.

  Dovey shrugged. “Downstairs, in the lobby.”

  “You stole them?”

  “Right out of a vase. Don’t tie yourself in knots, Sophie! No one saw. And nobody will miss a few flowers.”

  Dovey snapped the stems short, then tucked a few choice blooms into the brown ribbon band of Josephine’s hat. “There,” she said. “Now you look properly styled. In fact, Jo, you look an absolute glory. It’s a shame for the men of Seattle that you aren’t available.”

  Josephine laughed. “I really feel like a ‘Jo’ now—all bright and fresh and free. Well—almost free.”

  “Soon enough,” Dovey said confidently. “Clifford will see sense—he simply has to.”

  “Thank you, girls.” Josephine embraced them both, and for a moment their warm proximity drove away the last shred of her anxiety.

  But another tap sounded at their door—Catherine Stickney, who breathlessly announced that several carriages had arrived to take them to the reception. At the news, Josephine’s stomach erupted in nervous flutters again.

  “Carriages.” Sophronia sighed in relief. “At least it’s not beer wagons this time. Perhaps Seattle is more civilized than I thought.”

  The four smart carriages, shining like new-polished stones, stood waiting outside the Occidental. Asa Mercer waited, too, and gave Josephine a mannerly bow.

  “You look fine this morning, Miss Carey. I trust you slept well?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Josephine knew Mr. Mercer was only offering common courtesy. She knew, too, that the young man was no suitor. Even so, she blushed at his words. The heat in her cheeks only discomfited her all the more. Blushing was a foreign thing to her—but then, casual compliments from men were foreign, too. And if Sophronia’s grim prediction proved true, Josephine would face showers of praise and more very soon. I must get my reactions under control. I must give none of Seattle’s men any reason to hope for my hand. Not yet, at least.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Mercer went on. “The Occidental is the finest hotel in all of Seattle.” His mouth slanted in a wry smile. “I’m afraid it’s also the only hotel in Seattle, but we are fortunate to possess such a worthy establishment.”

  Mercer helped Josephine into the nearest carriage, followed by Sophronia and Dovey. The man himself climbed in after them.

  “I hope you ladies don’t mind my company on the ride to the reception.”

  “Of course not,” Sophronia said. “We’re glad of you, Mr. Mercer.”

  The driver clucked to his horses, and the carriage began to roll. Josephine pulled back the window’s velvet curtain, the better to take in her first true sight of Seattle. The city in daylight was far friendlier than it had been under the shroud of night. But still it seemed a place of bewildering contradiction. Its buildings were so new and stylish they might have stood in the freshest, most up-and-coming Boston neighborhoods; yet every plot and acre was ringed by deep, black mud, and streets and sidewalks alike were strewn with the debris of construction. Seattle was mired in the grime of its earliest infancy, a town struggling to rise from the dust of the earth.

  The carriage turned at another too-sharp corner. The sudden swing of gravity sent Dovey, feather light, sliding across the seat into Josephine’s hip. The girl giggled with the fun of it, until a timberman’s hoarse shout rang from the high, wet deep-green hill that towered over the city. A roll of grinding thunder seemed to rush down the hill toward them, louder than any freight train. Josephine’s heart raced; she braced her hands against the interior of the carriage as if she might hold it together by sheer force of will—as if she could stave off whatever monstrous force roared so near, threatening to split the carriage in two. Then she saw the source of that terrible racket: several massive logs, each at least a dozen feet in circumference, came sliding into view. They flew like winter sleds down a steep, deep-rutted, impossibly muddy track, descending from the crest of the hill to a lumberyard and sawmill waiting at the waterfront below.

  “We call it Skid Road,” Mercer said, stifling a chuckle at the women’s surprise. “A simple but effective means of transporting trees to the mill, don’t you think?”

  The rich, earthy scent of wet mud, stirred up by the logs’ descent, filled the carriage, and as the huge trees came to rest in the trampled expanse of the lumberyard, Josephine could hear the smack and hiss of thick mud settling, even over the horses’ hooves and the rumbling of the carriage wheels.

  Mercer pointed out more notable sights as they rolled through the city’s streets. A fine home nearby—a Gothic dream with tall, narrow gables and fretted eaves like the lacy icing of a gingerbread palace—belonged, so Mercer said, to Charles Terry, the wealthiest man in Seattle, whose network of bakeries and cracker factories kept the logging men and sailors well fed. They rolled down an avenue of shops, each fronted by a tall, square-topped, whitewashed facade. Even with a dense layer of cloud hanging low in the sky, the shops were still so clean and new that they reflected a healthy glare; Josephine squinted as the carriage passed. The horses’ brisk trot flagged as the carriage began to climb one of the many slopes that soared over the town. Mr. Mercer named the owner of every fine house on the hill—and there were more than a few, decked out with Grecian elegance or regal in their austerity.

  Josephine found the young man’s conversation lively, and his gladness at returning home was evident in the sparkle of his blue eyes. But she could not ignore Mercer’s nervous tension—subtle, well hidden, but plain enough to Jo once she’d noted the faint tremor of his fingers and the agitated bouncing of his heels against the carriage floor.

  He must dread the reception almost as much as I do. No doubt Mercer expected the story of last night’s encounter with Mrs. Garfield to have spread. Ladies of Mrs. Garfield’s type were often quick to sow a rumor.

  The carriage turned past a dark-wood home, built in the style of an old hunting chalet, and rolled along beside a vast, parklike swath of green. Gaps between the trees offered brief glimpses of the harbor below, shimmering gray-green like chips of polished jade. Then the horses turned again, and Josephine gasped at the sight that greeted her.

  A single building of creamy limestone stood alone at the crest of the hill. Stolid and strong, its tall, blocky shape the very illustration of grandeur, it rose to the height of two generous stories, crowned by a narrow dome. Four massive columns fronted the building. Even in the weak morning sun, the columns gleamed like precious ivory.

  “The Territorial University of Washington,” Asa Mercer said proudly. “My own dear place—my pride and life’s work. I’ve handed the school over to other stewards now, but it still holds a special place in my heart. Do you like it, Miss Carey?”

  Josephine shook her head in helpless amazement. To have traveled so far … to have left the unthinking brutality of her former life behind … to have found herself in this wilderness of deep mud and black water, surrounded by the wet tangle of the forest … and after all her trials, to be confronted by this gracious monument to order, hope, and knowledge … ! Her heart welled, and she found herself unable to speak. The university called to Josephine, tugging at her soul with the promise of safety, like a beacon to a storm-tossed ship.

  Here, at last, is my goal, she thought, warming with satisfaction. Here my life begins anew—and here I stake out the new bounds of my future. Let the men of Seattle do their worst; let them pepper her with poetry and haunt her for her hand. Josephine would not be distracted, nor would s
he be deterred. Hers would be the life of an educator—her mission a grand one, to shape and guide the youth of Washington Territory.

  “You built it yourself?” she asked in amazement.

  Mercer chuckled. “Well—not with my own two hands. I founded the university after my own dreams, though—that much is true. And I have entrusted its care to men better able to steer its course. I feel my duty calls me elsewhere. I have a vision for this territory, Miss Carey. It’s rough now, I know. It’s little better than a sucking bog, and I don’t only refer to the mud. This is not a place of high morals, of grand achievements. Not yet. But it can be; I’m sure of it. Washington Territory is home to men of good minds and better hearts. And now, it’s home to women who possess the same virtues: intelligent, hardworking, and honest. We can come together. We can tame this land—not only the land but the men who inhabit it. We can become a territory worthy of that beautiful building, and all the ideals it represents.”

  Josephine’s scalp prickled. It’s a beautiful dream. But what part can I have in it? I’m not the honest woman he believes me to be. She had let Mercer down—had used his kindness and the whole territory’s need for her own selfish ends. God grant that he never learn of my deception. It would break my heart, for a man of such lofty morals to think poorly of me—to judge me as I deserve to be judged.

  The reception was to be held under a great tent in the field beside the university. As Josephine took Mr. Mercer’s hand and climbed down from the carriage, she could see a great crowd—some women, dressed conservatively in subdued shades of red and green, drifting gently through the milling mass of bodies—but mostly men. The men were a vast sea of tailed coats and derby hats, of rough flannel and bristling mustaches, spreading out across the university’s green lawn. That ocean of masculinity seemed to toss and froth with an eagerness that made Josephine blanch.

  The other carriages rolled up the hill, and one by one, the women of Mercer’s party alighted on the grass. They clustered together like chicks in a brooding house, eyeing the tent and its restless crowd nervously.