We Five

by Mark Dunn

  “Yes, Miss Higgins. For it is said I killed my own twin brother in the womb.”

  “It is also said,” offered Castle with a mischievous gleam, “that it was the wrong brother what popped off.” This statement was greeted with immodest laughter by all the men save Cain, who lowered at Castle. Even Catts could not contain his dark delight over the remark, though he made an earnest effort to conceal it.

  Jane shook her head with disrelish. “If this is a demonstration of the level of respect with which the five of you uphold one another, I should think my sisters and I would do better to have naught to do with the whole lot of you.”

  Holborne bounded to his feet. “We are not at all as you perceive us, Miss Higgins.” Surlily addressing the two men still residing upon the bench on either side of him: “To your feet, boobies. Can’t you see there’s a lady present?”

  As Castle and Harrison were reluctantly accommodating their friend’s husky-voiced directive, Holborne exchanged a glance with Catts. The latter placed a finger aside his nose, the gesture going unobserved by Jane.

  “Madam,” said Catts, “I give you the undeniably disreputable but occasionally charming Messrs. Holborne and Harrison. And now you know us all, and I would ask that you extend our invitation to your ‘sisters’ when at last the contingent should appear, and perhaps you will let us know your answer at this hour on the morrow.”

  Jane nodded. “And you are amenable to our request for chaperons?”

  “If such a thing is absolutely necessary.”

  “It is, Mr. Catts. Otherwise, Miss Thrasher will refuse to come along.” Jane tossed a glance at Pardlow. “And I think you should like Miss Thrasher, Mr. Pardlow. She also very much loves to read.”

  Pardlow nodded and smiled. He coloured a bit, as well, to have his favourite pastime so deferentially acknowledged.

  “We shall bring along Mrs. Colthurst on our side,” Jane went on. “And you gentlemen must find a man of impeccable character to accompany the five of you.”

  Castle roared merrily. “We? Know of a gentleman of ‘impeccable character’? Whoo! I dare say we’ll be hard put to conjure up a man of even middling character. I put it to you, Miss Higgins, that we are lowly millworkers and haymakers who do not generally fraternise with men not of our own ilk.”

  “Then if you cannot find even a single man who will vouch for your reputations and who will warrant behaviour beyond reproach when in the company of my sisters and me, we shan’t be taking an excursion on this coming Sunday or any other Sunday.”

  Jane turned as if to take her departure.

  “But my dear Miss Higgins!” This ejaculation came in a most desperate tone from Tom Catts. “Mayhap the vicar will agree to join us. He’s a jovial sort and would no doubt enjoy an after noon out of surplice.”

  Jane Higgins shook her head. “Miss Barton will not have the vicar because he drinks. I won’t brook disagreement on this point, because I have seen it for myself. I would suggest, instead, should you gentlemen not be too averse to having a Dissenting minister superintend our outing, that Mr. Mobry come along. He is a good and kind man, and you must know how strongly he has advocated for the rights of labour in this and well nigh every mill town in Lancashire. In other words, he is a friend to the working man and thus would be a good friend to you gentlemen as well.”

  “He is already a friend to me,” said Pardlow, “for I have attended services at his church on several occasions.”

  “Then you must already know my circle-sister Miss Thrasher.”

  “I have seen her at services there, but we have yet to be properly introduced.”

  “Then we should fix that straightaway! Ruth—rather Miss Thrasher—will be delighted to know that you are also an inveterate votary of books and such like.”

  Castle made a funny face with his eyes and lips. “Love among the literate! Someone should write a book!”

  Jane ignored this remark (or at least pretended to ignore it). “So we are all agreed. I shall deliver our reply to your kind invitation about this time to-morrow. Should it fall out that Misses Barton, Osborne, and Hale are unable to come in today, We Five will have ample opportunity to discuss your offer on our walk to work in the morning.”

  “You are so very kind, Miss Higgins,” said Tom Catts, “and on behalf of myself and my four friends—Mr. Pardlow and Mr. Holborne, and young Mr. Harrison and the habitually churlish Mr. Castle—allow me to say that we eagerly await your answer.”

  With that, Tom Catts bowed to bid Miss Higgins good morning. And all his mates did the same, young Mr. Harrison’s bow being ridiculously deep and quite formal (for he had attended two classes in etiquette from a woman of breeding who had come to town to uplift and enlighten its youth, but left quickly thereafter when she discovered that Tulleford had neither iced champagne nor a vol-au-vent or timbale which wasn’t rancid to the taste and pasty in its constituency).

  Ruth was waiting for Jane just inside the door to the shop. “Jane, you must know that Mrs. Colthurst is quite worried that the lilac-coloured muslin gowns for the five Misses Cuthwaite won’t be ready for that family’s trip to London on Saturday. Unless, that is, you and I work doubly hard in the absence of the others.”

  “I shall work late into the night if need be,” replied Jane. “I’ll tell her not to worry.”

  Ruth elevated her eyebrows with anticipation. “And so what was made of my request for chaperons? Is the whole thing now scotched?”

  “On the contrary, Ruth. To their credit, the young men expressed a decided willingness to accommodate you.”

  Upon Ruth’s look of surprise, Jane drew her friend into the rear workroom, so as to avoid Mrs. Colthurst’s curious gaze. Still, she spoke no louder than a whisper: “I should like to wait a day or two before asking Mrs. Colthurst to accompany us. Her mind is, at present, much too occupied with the Cuthwaite gowns.”

  Jane and Ruth settled behind their sewing tables.

  Ruth sighed with discontent. “Even with chaperons, I’m not certain—”

  “It is a picnic, Ruth,” Jane snapped, “and nothing more. And I must say that the young men have had their eye on us for some time. So the invitation was a natural consequence of their long-lived interest.”

  Ruth remonstrated with a slow and negatory turn of the head. “Had their eye? I should say ‘their ogling eye’ would be the better way to put it.”

  “Still, you do not fully know a man until you’ve had opportunity to see him at his leisure out-of-doors, capering through a fragrant meadow, taking a gentle hand to guide a young maiden over the slippery stones of a murmuring brook.”

  Ruth whistled. “How you fancy this alfresco holiday which you and your cohort Mr. Catts have devised for us! I should like to see how the others take to it—especially Carrie, who hasn’t exchanged so much as two words with any of our town lads since she was a chattering child of four.”

  “You may very well be wrong about Carrie. She told me only two days ago that she fears her life has lost its savour.”

  A smile now curled Ruth’s lips. “There may be some literal truth to that, when one remembers that her mother cannot bake a muffin which isn’t burnt to indigestibility.”

  “Yet she tries,” laughed Jane indelicately. “Oh bless the woman, she does try!”

  The two stitched for a moment without speaking. Then Ruth said, “Oh Jane, you won’t hate me too much if I don’t join you on Sunday.”

  “Too much? I shall hate you more than it is possible to hate another. Now there are five of them and there are five of us, and if you do not come, there shall only be four of us and that would put the whole thing out of balance.”

  “But the young men will come to know I haven’t any interest in a connexion of any sort. It will be like the parlour game of musical chairs in which one chair is removed and then someone is left without a seat when the music stops.”

  “But why do you impute this picnic with such serious purpose? It is merely the means by which ten young people who a
re seldom placed in the way of one another other than as unacquainted passers-by may enjoy a few hours of leisurely and inconsequential companionship. The good Lord knows I have sought to have the four of you accompany me to the village dances where we may meet some interesting young men, but each of you does not agree to it for all your various reasons: Carrie fears her mother will sit at home alone and pluck and plink and weep and burn things in the kitchen. Molly’s father desires to keep her close at hand. Maggie’s mother has no control over her, but Maggie is nonetheless motivated by her desire to avoid the society of farm boys who will reek of hay and manure and perturb her digestion. And you—it cannot be said too strongly—you haven’t use for boy or man in this or any other life you shall ever live. So…we do not dance. We do nothing all day but stitch and sew and net and chitter, and when we are not in harness we may shop and sup a little together, but ’tis always within our own circle, and the one time we took the train to Manchester for a girls’ holiday, if you will recall, we shopped and supped and chittered and met no young man of any consequence whatsoever, and it constituted no startling surprise, I must tell you. These five young men from the mill may not be men at whom we may wish to set our caps, my dear Ruth, but I have no doubt their company will at least constitute a pleasant diversion.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you and Molly and Maggie and Carrie won’t be seeking husbands in this bargain. And, by the by, what if either Dr. Osborne or Mrs. Barton opposes this venture?”

  “Then someone should blow the horn of hypocrisy and blow it loudly! For how can it be fair for either of them in the midst of their own autumnal courtship to deprive their respective daughters of similar romantic fulfilment?”

  Ruth shook her head, her face darkened by fearful concern. “What I see withal is calamity and disaster, for we do not know just what these men are up to.”

  “I choose to give them the benefit of the drought.”

  “What is that?”

  “I said that I choose to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  “That isn’t what you said.”

  “It very well is.”

  “It isn’t. You said drought. You said ‘benefit of the drought.’ And I say that this sums things up perfectly.”

  Maggie sate upon a stile. Molly paced. Carrie shook her head anxiously.

  “There can be no resolution,” asserted Carrie, “if neither of you is willing to speak another word to the other. This is why we stand here apart from town, where none shall hear us but the errant cow. So talk. The both of you. Or I shall find things to chuck at you for inducement?”

  “There’s nothing else to be said,” answered Molly sulkily. “Every word that flies from her mouth casts aspersions upon my father, for Maggie cannot draw a difference between her deceased father, who was a disreputable toper, and my perfectly alive and happy and loving father who wants only for his new wife (and by obvious association both his residual daughter and his prospective daughter) to be blissful and contented with this impending union.”

  “Impending?” muttered Maggie. “I should say not. For I will stop the marriage by all means available to me.”

  “You most certainly will not.”

  Maggie amplified her voice to match the intensity of her manner. “I will and I must. Mamma has suffered far too much already. Shall I name her woes and throes? Her many years of ill health. The terrible loss of two of her daughters. And then the dissipated decline of a husband whose useless life ended when he stepped, stupefied by the spirits, into the path of a fully-stoked L&NWR 2-2-2 Number 3020 Cornwall locomotive.” Maggie took a moment to fetch her breath. “I will not subject this poor mother of mine to the possibility of yet another heavy dose of sorrow and regret.”

  “As for your mother’s health, Maggie,” said Molly, who was no longer pacing, so that she should hold one spot and stare at her friend with a piercing gaze, “most of her troubles are self-inflected. I suspect she makes herself sick for the sole purpose of sending for my father. But he never minds it. Perhaps you haven’t noticed it, Maggie, but they are in love.”

  “I will not dispute the fact that my mother is the occasional hypochondriac.”

  “And it is a terrible thing, as well, to lose one’s sisters. You know I too lost my own sister only two years ago.”

  Maggie dipped her eyes in melancholy memory. “They say that I may have lost a brother as well—that my sister Octavia had a twin. Once when Mamma was delirious with fever, she muttered something to this effect. But then she later disavowed it.”

  “Whether it be two siblings or three, the sadness is the same, Maggie. It is a sadness that wants to be overcome by the joy of my father’s ascendance in your mother’s heart and in your heart too, if you will but allow it. And as for my father, I cannot tell you how it stabs my own heart for you to say the things you say about him.”

  Now Carrie, the peacemaker, interceded: “Maggie isn’t saying she loathes your father, Molly. Only that there are aspects to his character to which she cannot comfortably reconcile herself.”

  “Being a quack and a fraud,” jerked out Maggie, “is not an ‘aspect of character.’ It is a crime.”

  “He is not a quack and a fraud!” cried Molly. “He is merely uncredentialed.”

  Maggie replied in a sulky under voice: “I would rather he not be uncredentialed. For without the proper documents, he will never make enough money to provide for my mother as she deserves.”

  Molly’s mouth fell into a gape. “Then that is what this boils down to. That my father isn’t rich enough for your mother.”

  “Not precisely,” replied Maggie. “But it would certainly help matters if he were more prosperous. It would counter a number of deficiencies on his side.”

  Carrie wasn’t certain if it was Molly whose fingers went first to pull Maggie’s hair, or Maggie who clawed at Molly’s in defensive anticipation. But the outcome was the same.

  And it was all rather appalling.

  Chapter Seven

  San Francisco, April 1906

  Miss Colthurst looked up at the clock on the wall and tutted.

  11:20.

  She summoned her head salesclerk in ribbons, Jane Higgins, and addressed her fretfully: “Any sign of them?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “It’s nearly lunch,” said the harried floor-walker. “I’ve had to pull two girls from Hosiery and another from Misses’ Ready-to-Wear. This leaves us short in both of those departments. But that isn’t my greatest concern. I’m worried something serious might have happened to them.”

  Jane was looking at the clock herself. It hung over the pass-through to Men’s Furnishings and carried the name of the department store in bold script: Pemberton, Day & Co. “I’m a little worried myself, Miss Colthurst. When Mag telephoned to me this morning, she said they didn’t anticipate being too late, but that was over two hours ago.”

  “Surely there’s some logical explanation, though I must say that this just isn’t like them—and all three at the same time!”

  Jane glanced at the counter directly behind her. There was a customer standing there looking around for someone to wait on her. Her hat was so ridiculously aigretted that Jane could not stop herself from saying, “Let me help this woman with the private aviary, and then I’ll tell you what I think is going on.”

  Miss Colthurst shook her head. “You needn’t bother. Miss Thrasher has given me her theory, which will probably be the same as yours. See to the customer. Miss Thrasher! Miss Thrasher, come over here! I’d like a private word, my dear.”

  Ruth, who was working behind the Gloves counter nearby, pushed open the little gate next to her and was at her supervisor’s side in that next instant. Vivian Colthurst was standing in the middle of the Ladies’ Apparel showroom. Cash girls were flying by on their roller skates and giving the room the feeling of a festive roller rink. “Yes, Miss Colthurst?”

  “I was going to—why, that’s a lovely lavender tie. Did you get it here?” />
  Ruth smiled. “I did. Thank you for noticing, Miss C.”

  Miss Colthurst winked. “When it’s only the two of us, Ruth, you may call me by my Christian name.”

  “Yes, of course, Vivian,” said Ruth, as Miss Colthurst straightened her favorite shop girl’s necktie with solicitous hands. “Carrie—Miss Hale—saw it on the bargain table and thought it would go very nicely with this shirtwaist.”

  “It does indeed. Our Miss Hale has impeccable taste. With the lavender and the pink, Ruth, you are looking quite hydrangeaish today.”

  Ruth blushed. “I never know exactly how I look unless somebody tells me. I don’t have that feminine knack for the harmonizing of apparel that most of my female co-workers have.”

  “Which is why I keep you in Gloves where you can do the least harm!” teased the floor-walker, winking again, this time more playfully.

  “You wished to see me about something?”

  “Oh yes.” Miss Colthurst patted her slightly unraveling pompadour into submission. “Ruth, oh my good Lord, this is absolutely the worst possible day for any act of truancy on the part of your three friends. You see, I hadn’t wished to spread it about because it was only a select number of you girls whom I intended to recommend, but circumstances now require me to make a clean breast of it.”

  “A clean breast of what?”

  “Oh bother, you have a customer.”

  “Oh, it’s only Mrs. Withers. I’ll be with you in a moment, Mrs. Withers.”

  “Hum. Mrs. Withers.” Miss Colthurst nodded pregnantly while pursing her lips.

  Ruth drew closer for the purpose of conveying a confidence: “Nearly every other morning I have to contend with that fool woman for longer than I can stand it. She tries on the black lisles and then she tries on the imitation suedes and then she tries on the dogskins, and then just as I’m ready to scream, she ambles off without buying a single pair. I think shopping without buying is her favorite pastime.”

  Miss Colthurst shook her head. “It isn’t her pastime, Ruth. It’s her job. She’s a private shopper for I. Magnin’s.”