Secret Sisters

by Joy Callaway

  Mr. Sanderson cleared his throat.

  “I do appreciate your locating Miss Carrington for me.”

  Miss Zephaniah didn’t answer him, and instead leaned close to my ear.

  “As much as I abhor everything about Mr. Richardson, I must advise you to remain loyal to him. It is unseemly to take a solitary appointment with a man while intimately connected to another . . . and this man is a rebel, no less.” Her breath smelled of green onions and garlic, and I backed away from her, as much to distance myself from the mention of an intimate relationship with Grant as to flee from the reek of her dinner.

  Mr. Sanderson coughed, clearly trying to keep from laughing, wearing an expression nearly identical to his sister’s.

  “Mr. Richardson understands the relationship I have with Mr. Sanderson. He’s my friend’s beau and another friend’s brother. My reputation is safe in his hands,” I said, not bothering to dispel her belief that Grant and I were still courting. The vision of Grant in the library struck my mind again, weighing on my heart as though our end was my doing. It wasn’t. He’d lied to me. He’d ruined us. “And I should also mention that the war has been over for seventeen years, Miss Zephaniah. Mr. Sanderson is not a rebel. He’s simply Southern.”

  “I would never compromise a woman’s virtue,” Mr. Sanderson chimed in, disregarding the mention of his heritage. “I simply need to speak to Miss Carrington in confidence.”

  His words dissolved the image of Grant from my mind, and I gestured toward the old leather sofa in front of the fire.

  “I’d be happy to hear you, Mr. Sanderson.” I took my seat, not waiting for Miss Zephaniah to stop hovering or for Mr. Sanderson to help me sit. I took a deep breath, choked on the wood smoke, and coughed. Mr. Sanderson came to my side. I could smell the underlying notes of rye that always seemed to swirl around him.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Miss Zephaniah said, finally ambling back to her quarters.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, once she’d departed.

  “Yes, of course. I just—”

  “I heard about what happened with Richardson. I’m sorry that she mentioned him. It must have come as a shock . . . his betrayal, I mean.”

  “I suppose, though I really should have expected it.”

  “Were you surprised at Buchannan? I certainly wasn’t, though most of the brothers are behaving as though he’s transformed into Judas Iscariot, as though he hasn’t any right to love you if Richardson does. And, of course, they’re mad as hornets over the fact that he told you about Richardson’s bribe, but—”

  “How dare they,” I spat before he could finish. “Most of the brothers wander round this campus like they are integrity incarnate, yet they’re going to isolate Will because he did what was right? Because they’re afraid to disagree with the almighty, Grant Richardson?”

  I could feel my heart beating fast, color rising to my cheeks. Not only did everyone know now that Will had defended me, they knew he loved me. I hated that I’d let Grant in, that I had any sort of feeling toward him. It was my fault that the man I loved was alone, that he was being ostracized by his brothers. I’d been too weak to expunge Grant from my heart the moment I found out that he’d betrayed me, and Will had paid the price for my fragility. That fact upset me the most—that I wasn’t by his side, that I couldn’t somehow come to his defense.

  “It’s all right,” Mr. Sanderson said, patting my knee. “He’s not completely without peers. He’s got Stephens . . . and me, though I’m not sure that my alignment with him is doing either of us any favors.”

  I slouched against the couch.

  “Richardson always acts as though he’s hanging something over my head,” he continued, rolling his eyes. “Which is why I needed to talk to one of you.”

  “Do you think he’s found out who you are, Mr. Sanderson? About the rye?” I whispered.

  He laughed.

  “James, please, and no. You know from Katherine that I rarely place a finger in my father’s dealings. She’s made sure of that.” James looked around and then leaned in to me as though an Iota would manifest from thin air. “I’ve just come to tell you a bit of information I found out during last night’s chapter meeting—about pledge procedure.”

  “Oh! Do tell,” I said.

  He lowered his voice. “We’re to pledge for exactly one month. In that time, we’re tasked with proving our allegiance to the brotherhood . . . whatever that means, though I figure in my case, I’ve got to do something extraordinary to win the favor of our esteemed president.”

  I was relieved that we were finally learning something we didn’t know about the Iotas. It had been such a long time since our first meeting at Mr. Everett’s house, and James hadn’t brought us new information once. I’d begun to think that he’d started to harbor loyalty toward his new fraternity, as much as Mary and Katherine had insisted otherwise.

  “Mary says I should sit back and do nothing, that my presence should be allegiance enough, but I doubt that,” James said, turning his pearl gray felt derby hat in his hands. “Each time Richardson sees me, he feels compelled to recite a few lines from the Gettysburg Address as though he’s reminding me which side won and that if I don’t start cozying up to him now, I’ll be on the losing side again. Since I have your ear, Miss Carrington, I’d recommend leaving the proving allegiance part out of your fraternity. It lends to mayhem and lunacy.”

  “Please call me Beth. How so?” I asked. Loyalty to a fraternity was one of the most essential tenets, I felt.

  “Most of the pledges have either taken to stealing important relics from campus, or are contributing funds toward a gold bust of Richardson to be set up on the front walk upon his graduation,” James said, his tone heavy.

  A laugh burst from my lips.

  “You’re not serious,” I said. “They’re really considering a gold bust?”

  James nodded and chuckled under his breath.

  “See what I mean? Most of them have lost their minds in an attempt to outdo the others.” He smoothed his thin moustache. “I don’t feel compelled to do any of that. I’ve arranged for a shipment of rye. I’ll pretend that I merely placed an order from a random distillery, of course, but that’ll do, I think. Ensuring that everyone’s glass is full for at least the next year is allegiance at its finest, don’t you agree? It’s much more important than a statue of Richardson. It’ll only end up a new shitting stool for the birds anyway. Excuse my language.”

  “No one told me you were here.” Mary’s voice cut through ours. I glanced up in time to watch her barely skirt a tufted armchair, scowling at it as though it had gotten in her way on purpose, and jerking her plain black conductor’s skirt away from the wooden legs.

  “I asked Miss Zephaniah to ring you, but she said you weren’t here,” he said, reaching out to her. She clutched his hand with one of hers. The other held a letter and her baton, and she shoved both under her arm.

  “I wasn’t,” Mary said, drawing away from James. She paced toward the fire, and stood in front of it, staring. The logs had been reduced to thin gray limbs of ash by this point, embers flittering across them like summer fireflies. “I was in town conducting a small chorale at St. Paul’s Episcopal. Mr. Wade and Mr. Russell were otherwise occupied, so they had no choice but to settle for the female,” she said, her words muffled. “And after the concert, I posted a letter to Mother. I received a rather lovely note from her this morning and thought she deserved an immediate reply.”

  Clearly the letter was not pleasant. I thought to ask her what it had said, but didn’t dare. Not in front of James. I knew she’d been meaning to tell Judith about him for some time, and I wondered if she had. Though I doubted Mary would risk writing about the Sandersons’ business dealings in a letter, it was no secret that Judith would disapprove when Mary eventually told her—she was a prohibitionist, after all. Lily, and even Katherine, had suggested that Mary keep the Sanderson dealings a secret, but Mary refused. She said that she wanted her mother to kno
w everything about the man she might someday love and that she abhorred lying to her, even if it meant she’d unsettle her relationship with Judith. Her resolve reminded me of Grant’s.

  Mary withdrew the letter and read it. Her face clouded as though she were reading it for the first time. James went to her, taking her hand, but her focus didn’t waver.

  “I’d only come to tell one of you about a bit of information anyway,” he said. “I hoped it would be you, dearest, but—”

  “What did she say, Mary?” I cut James off and went to my friend’s side, figuring that if the letter had something to do with her courtship she’d choose not to answer me.

  She leaned away from James’s embrace and tossed the letter into the hearth.

  “Nothing really, I suppose,” she whispered. “It’s just . . . Mother said something peculiar and it upset me. I told her about Mr. Richardson’s ridiculous bribe—I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not,” I said sincerely. Grant’s misstep was something he’d have to own up to and I didn’t care if the world knew what he’d done.

  “I expected her to be outraged, but she went on and on about how we should take the opportunity to show him that he’s incorrect about female motivation. That it’s our duty, and if he’s truly sorry, we should forgive him and begin to show him why he’s wrong.” The edges of the letter caught fire and curled. “She said that prejudice is bred by two things, hatred and upbringing, and as he’s already been taught to view women as subservient, he will trust his beliefs are right until someone shows him he’s mistaken.”

  “I agreed with her before,” I said. “I hoped he would at least come to accept our views, but I’ve already tried and now—”

  “I know,” Mary said. “Perhaps she’s simply grappling with something similar. I don’t know for sure, but I think she finds herself entranced by men who don’t share her views from time to time. When I was a child, she’d soften a bit on occasion, reminding me to be gentle and tolerant of the ignorant, but never to this extent. She’s tried to validate her acquaintance with certain men on the point that changing them one at a time will further the cause, but once she sees they’ll not budge, she casts them aside. I have no doubt she’d seek blood if this happened to her.”

  James snorted. “Richardson won’t change,” he said. “I believe that some have the capacity, but he’s not one of them. A person must be a free thinker to embrace other ideas, and I’ve yet to meet a man as sure of himself.”

  “He’s certainly sure of his views, but he’s not as arrogant as he seems,” I said, shocked to hear the words coming from my own mouth.

  “After everything he’s put you through, you’ll defend him?” Mary asked. “His actions were the epitome of arrogance.”

  “No. I’m not defending him,” I said. “What he did to me was terribly wrong. But I also know that beneath the confidence, he’s broken. His family was less than picture-perfect . . .” I stopped there. I couldn’t share his secrets, as much as I knew providence gave me the right to do so.

  Mary laughed.

  “That’s a pathetic excuse. My father died before I could have any real memory of him. I only had my mother.” Her eyes pierced mine in such a manner that I couldn’t look away. It felt like she was holding a dagger to my throat, forcing me to heed her words and act accordingly. “Regardless of the fact that I’ve never truly had a father, I’m not campaigning against men and their right to live as decent human beings.”

  “I know, Mary, and I’m sorry. I—”

  James whirled her around to face him before I could finish.

  “You’re an incredible woman,” I heard him whisper. “And I know you’re upset. But your mother’s life’s work is campaigning for changed beliefs. Perhaps she’s only speaking from that place.”

  Thankful for the diversion, I stood and walked toward the stairs to my room without initiating discussion of Miss Rilk or the information I’d gathered from James. Regardless of what Mary had said, Grant was still a human. I wouldn’t endorse his actions and I couldn’t forget what he’d done, but I also couldn’t ignore the dejected man behind the poised façade.

  * * *

  “Remind me why Katherine wants to bid on Victoria Simkins?” Lily huffed as she entered, and slammed the door behind her. The rosettes along the crown of her white and cerise hat were coated in a sheen of melting snowflakes.

  I closed my anatomy textbook.

  “She’s the only architecture major, not to mention that she’s whip smart,” I said.

  Lily unpinned her hat and placed it on the stand on our dresser.

  “That’s right,” she concluded. “Well, she’s also infuriatingly by-the-book . . . except for her secret Greek lessons, I suppose. It took me nearly an hour to talk her into coming with me tonight.”

  We’d each been assigned a pledge, with Mary taking two, tasked with convincing them to accompany us to an event of our choosing, while really planning on taking them to Mr. Everett’s estate and asking them to join Beta Xi Beta. Miss Rilk had been relatively simple to persuade. I’d gone to her room and asked to take her for a soda at the counter in Green Oaks that evening. I’d left the reasoning fairly vague, but she’d automatically assumed that I wanted to talk to her about Grant, seeing as how she was the only other woman I knew connected to a full-fledged Iota Gamma.

  “Do you think she’ll agree to pledge?” I asked.

  Lily leaned over the porcelain washbin, clutched a handful of her hair and squeezed the water from it.

  “I’ll be shocked if she does. She asked me at least three times if I’d asked Miss Zephaniah for permission to leave campus and another four if I was sure it was all right for us to go to Mr. Everett’s home,” she said, and rolled her eyes. “I told her that I knew his daughters, that I’d be happy to take her to study the colonial architecture, and that Miss Zephaniah had given her blessing.”

  “Did you really tell Miss Zephaniah where you were going?”

  “Heavens no. She thinks I’ve asked Miss Simkins to accompany me to meet my former orphanage director for a late tea.”

  “Couldn’t you have come up with something else? I doubt you’d even invite me to something as personal as that.”

  “Of course I would, but I doubt I’ll see Miss Jordan again as long as I live, and there’s no risk of her revealing my life. No one from the orphanage ever writes, but they do send my tuition on time, and for that I’m appreciative,” she said. “In any case, I told Zephaniah that it would be quite emotional and I’d need a friend with me.”

  Lily unbuttoned the back of her wool cerise-colored dress. The sopping bulk of it puddled at her feet and she immediately picked it up, mopping the moisture with the hand towel next to the washbin. When she’d finished, she stood in her corset and cotton chemise, looking blankly over my head at the window displaying nothing but night.

  “Is something on your mind?” I asked.

  “You could say so. Professor Helms’s replacement, Professor Moore, made me take my test in the hallway.”

  “What? Why?” I’d heard of professors forcing their female students to complete examinations elsewhere, believing that a woman’s presence would break the concentration of the males, but thus far, it hadn’t happened to any of us.

  “He said that women make distracting noises while thinking—tapping their feet, drumming their fingers—and that he thought it best if I was removed.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Lily shrugged.

  “It isn’t the worst I’ve encountered, of course, but it was degrading all the same. David Langley, the man I met at the bird party, argued him on it, but it didn’t work.”

  “You fancy him, don’t you?” I asked, noticing a faint smile on Lily’s face.

  “I do. Very much.” She turned to her armoire as though she was embarrassed to admit her feelings, running her hands across the sleeves of dresses. “He came to speak to me after. He apologized for the ignorance o
f the professor and we had a long chat. He’s the son of George Langley of Wisconsin—a quite successful dairy farmer, apparently, though he died before Mr. Langley was born. Years later, his mother met Chicago real estate tycoon, Mr. Albert Torrey, and he took him as his own.”

  “Torrey? Is he on the board?” I immediately recognized the name of the man who had stood up for me in front of President Wilson.

  Lily nodded and turned around quite suddenly, clutching a velvet evergreen dress.

  “I told Mr. Langley about Professor Helms.” The words rushed out of her quickly.

  “Why did you do that? You know how word spreads around here and—”

  “I did it because I knew he’d understand,” she said. “He was outraged. He wanted Professor Helms’s throat, but I told him that we’d already taken care of him. Mr. Langley wants to court me regardless . . . at least that’s what he says. I can hardly believe it, but if it’s not the truth, I suppose word will be circulating around campus by the morning.”

  “I’ll pray he’s the gentleman you say he is,” I said. “You deserve nothing less.” I narrowly avoided scolding her, wishing she hadn’t confessed to a man she barely knew.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” Lily said, and reached into the pocket of her soaking frock to withdraw a rumpled letter. The blue ink had soaked through the envelope, and I recognized the sweeping cursive. “I thought about throwing it away. He doesn’t deserve to converse with you in my opinion, but I figured you had the right to do with it what you will.”

  I took the damp paper from her hand.

  I ran my finger along the envelope seal, and carefully opened the letter.

  Dearest Beth,

  I realize that you don’t want to hear from me. I’m not even sure that this letter will reach you, but I had to write it regardless—call it an attempt to settle my soul. I’m tortured by the misstep I made. It wasn’t my place to try to manipulate fate, but please understand I was honest when I said that I only did it for the assurance that you’d be near me. I can’t bear to think of you, but do each second, as though my mind enjoys the anguish. If it’s true that you’ve found love elsewhere, I wish you happiness. For all of his follies, he’s a man who loves deeply.