by K. D. Alden
“You don’t say.”
“Yes, it’s where Ruth Ann’s mother is, as well. She’s unstable and—well, she has a number of issues.”
“What sorts of issues?”
Mrs. Dade plucked at the baby’s blanket again, then retucked it around her. “She’s prone to emotional outbursts, she’s a drunk, she’s rated a moron in terms of IQ, she doesn’t maintain proper hygiene—and before she was processed by the state into the Colony, she was given to…certain unsavory and immoral proclivities.”
Block easily read between the lines: Ruth Ann’s mother had been a prostitute. “Good gracious. Well, then. You are to be doubly commended for first taking on this woman’s daughter and now her granddaughter. That’s a rather pernicious set of genetics.”
Mrs. Dade sighed and nodded. “I’m afraid that’s probably what the doctor at the Colony is thinking, as well. But Ruth Ann was always a sweet girl and not at all stupid. She learned to read and write and do basic figuring.”
“That’s as may be. But she clearly seems to take after the mother in terms of her moral code.”
Mrs. Dade was silent. She wound the corner of the baby’s blanket tightly around her index finger, then removed it and did it again. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “She says—”
After a long, uncomfortable pause, Block gallantly filled in the gap in conversation. “My dear lady, don’t they all claim either immaculate conception or force? What else can these girls say? I wouldn’t give it a second thought, considering her background. People of a certain class—and by that, I mean low—learn to lie, cheat and quite often steal at their mothers’ apron strings. They’re ignorant, debauched, lazy, shameless.”
“Ruth Ann—she wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t being the operative word, it seems, Madam.”
Mrs. Dade sighed again. “I promised to try to help her, Mr. Block. That’s why I’m here. Is there anything you can do on her behalf to put a stop to this surgery?”
“Possibly. But I’m concerned that your good nature, your soft heart, not be taken advantage of. Not to mention your wallet.”
“Oh, dear. I—I can’t pay you, Mr. Block.”
Swell. No dough. He’d figured as much, but it had been worth a try.
“Well, sometimes I do take cases gratis.” If they had the potential to make a name for him in legal circles, he did. And allow him to collude with his friend Dr. Price, not to mention a legal luminary like Anselm Stringer. “Is Ruth Ann still a minor, Mrs. Dade?”
“Yes. She’s sixteen.”
“And her legal guardian is now the state of Virginia, which has placed her in the Colony’s care?”
“I believe so.”
“All right. Let me look into the legal statutes involved, and I will contact you again shortly.”
“It’s Ruth Ann you should contact. She wrote me a letter. I—my husband doesn’t know I’m here. Frankly, I’d rather he didn’t. He wouldn’t want me to be involved in any of this.”
“I see. Do you have the letter with you, Mrs. Dade?”
“Yes, I do.” She pulled a tightly folded, rather grimy piece of notepaper from her pocketbook and handed it to him.
“May I retain this for my files?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I have no reason to keep it.”
“Thank you. It’s clear to me that you care very much for your former foster daughter, and that you did the best you could with her. I commend you for that. But blood always tells, dear lady. We cannot escape our breeding. A weed will never become a prize orchid or a rose, eh? A mule can never become a thoroughbred.”
Mrs. Dade nodded uncertainly as she stood up.
He took her free hand in his, patting it. “Everything will work out fine, Mrs. Dade. I’ll see to that.”
Her eyes widened; her breath hitched.
He enjoyed the effect he had on women, he truly did.
She seemed to recover her senses. She pulled her hand away and settled the baby into the crook of her other arm. Annabel was a beautiful child, he had to admit that. It was a shame that she, too, the poor innocent, would grow up to be mentally and morally lacking.
But it simply couldn’t be helped: it was in her genes.
Fourteen
Ruth Ann replaced one of the heavy black irons on the back of the stove and hefted yet another so that she could finish pressing the sheet she had over her board. Why it was necessary to iron dad-blasted sheets, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out. As soon as a body laid down on the bottom one, the darn thing’d be wrinkled again. As soon as the top one got squashed under that same person’s arm, it’d be wrinkled, too.
But either God or Good Housekeeping had determined that women’s energy be spent in this futile pursuit, so here she was, with seven other girls, squashed into the back of the kitchens like so many overgrown, perspirin’ sardines in a can. Or maybe oysters. She’d rather be an oyster, come to think of it, since at least they got to make pearls afore they were scooped out of their shells and robbed of them.
How glamorous, to create a pearl! Imagine that…hunching over a grain of sand for months and forming something so beautiful from it. Was a pearl an oyster’s baby?
She ran the iron back and forth over the sheet, her thoughts darkening. Oysters didn’t have to get married to make pearls, now did they? And nobody fussed at them or treated them like shabby barnacles when they did.
But they did get harvested, shucked, robbed, eaten, digested and pooped out, their shells tossed aside. So maybe she wasn’t doing too badly, in the great scheme of things. She’d only been harvested, shucked and robbed so far. Not eaten, nor all the rest.
Ruth Ann adjusted the sheet on the board and finished ironing it. What was wrong with her, comparing her life to an oyster’s? She was plumb crazy. She set the iron back on the stove with a heavy clank and proceeded to neatly fold the sheet into halves, then quarters, eighths and so on.
“Ruth Ann Riley?” called a familiar voice.
She looked up and saw Clarence in the doorway.
“Is Ruth Ann back there?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m here.” She laid the sheet on the ironing board and elbowed past the other girls. “You need somethin’, Clarence?”
“There’s a gentleman asking to see you.”
She was puzzled. She didn’t know any gentlemen.
Clucks and whistles came from the other girls. “A gentleman caller, she has? Well, well, Ruth Ann…What have you been up to?”
She shook her head. “Are you sure he means me?”
“Yep. He’s waitin’ on you in the front parlor.”
Who could it be? Clarence gave no sign.
She wiped her sweaty face with her palms, wiped those on her dress. Then she attempted to smooth her hair, though she was sure it was hopeless—like trying to coif a mop. She wished she didn’t smell like a carthorse after ironing for most of the morning.
“For crying out loud, lookit ’er primping…”
Ruth Ann did her best to ignore the whispers and jeers. She followed Clarence outside, trying to glean any information from his expression. He just jerked his head toward the main house, the Colonial near the gates, where the reception area, the parlor and the intake office were.
“Who is this gentleman?”
“Name of Block. Wilfred Block, Esquire.” Clarence drawled the last word in an exaggerated fashion that suggested he didn’t think much of the man in the parlor.
“What’s that mean?” Ruth Ann asked.
He shrugged. “Means he’s awful impressed with hisself, you ask me. He’s quite the billboard. A high hat.”
She didn’t know what to make of this. “Why’s he here to see me?”
“You’ll have to ask him. See ya later, Ruthie. I got to go polish his flivver.”
Ruth Ann walked up the path to the house. She hadn’t been here since she’d been processed through the intake office, where they asked her a load of questions and tested her IQ and put all the answers in
an official-looking file that got locked away in a tower of other ones.
The door opened as she climbed the three steps up to it. Mrs. Parsons waved her in. In her mid-sixties, Mrs. Parsons wore navy or moss-green or burgundy dresses with white lace collars, and was the receptionist at the Colony.
“Heavens, child, come in. Don’t keep Mr. Block waiting any longer. He’s an important man.”
“Sorry,” Ruth Ann said. “I was workin’ on the—”
“Never you mind that. Come along.”
Ruth Ann followed her to the parlor door, where she stopped short at the sight of the gentleman inside. He looked as though he’d stepped out of a magazine advertisement. He was tall, with chestnut hair and narrow green eyes set in an angular, fine-boned face. He had a nose a man could hang a hat on.
He wore a three-piece suit nicer than Doc Price’s and a snowy shirt with a silk necktie. He had on polished black shoes she could see her hand’s reflection in, when she finally extended it to shake his. She felt unworthy to touch his manicured fingers, but he’d extended them toward her first.
“Hello, Miss Riley,” he said, with a blinding smile. “Wilfred Block, Esquire.”
Miss Riley? Nobody called her Miss Riley. It made her feel strange and grown-up and sophisticated. “Hello…?” She stood staring at him.
He seemed to realize the effect he had on her, for his smile widened a smidge.
Her face heated as she realized that, like some kind of booby, she’d left her hand in his warm, firm one for far too long, and quickly pulled it away.
Mrs. Parsons fingered her lace collar and watched the byplay avidly.
“I’m an attorney, Miss Riley.”
She had no idea what that was, and it must have shown on her face.
“A lawyer.”
“Oh.” She still could come up with no reason why a man of the law would want to say boo to the likes of her. She breathed in the scent of his cologne, though. It smelled of heather, leather and privilege. It smelled of college and European travel and house parties and champagne…she wanted to drift off on a cloud of it and float around the world.
Judging by her moony look, Mrs. Parsons was on her own cloud of his cologne. She seemed about to crash through it, fall to her knees and beg Mr. Block to marry her on the spot.
“Mrs. Parsons, will you excuse us, please?” Block asked serenely. “I have something of a private nature to discuss with Miss Riley.”
Mrs. Parsons’s face fell. “Of course,” she said, but took her sweet time walking to the door and closing it behind her. If Ruth Ann had to guess, she’d bet that her ear was pressed flat against it and would be for the duration of the chat.
“Now, won’t you sit down, Ruth Ann?” Block gestured to the sage-green velvet upholstered settee in the middle of the parlor. “Is it all right if I call you by your given name?”
She nodded.
She eyed the settee dubiously, then cast a glance at her own behind, afraid she might have brushed up against something dirty or sooty in the kitchen. She’d never been invited by anyone to occupy the settee before. But slowly, awkwardly, she sank down upon it. Ohhhh. Goosedown pillows. Jiminy Cricket, it felt as though she were leaning back into soft butter.
He settled into an armchair next to the settee and crossed one long, well-tailored leg over the other. Even his socks were beautiful. There were tiny clocks embroidered on them. Ruth Ann wondered how long it had taken someone to stitch twenty or thirty clocks on each sock.
She then returned her gaze to those mirrorlike shoes. She could not picture Wilfred Block, Esquire, giving one of them to a de-botched “slattern” with an eggplant-sized toe—or anyone else, for that matter.
“What’s a slattern?” she blurted, before she could stop her silly mouth from asking.
His pale winged eyebrows shot up into his hair. “I beg your pardon?”
“Do you know what it means? The word slattern?”
He fought a losing battle not to smile. “Ah…it means a dirty, untidy female.”
“Oh.” She supposed that she was one, after all. The idea depressed her.
“Why?”
“You just—you just look like a person who would know.”
This time he outright chuckled. “I look as though I know dirty, untidy females?”
Horror. “No!” Ruth Ann squirmed. “No, that’s not what I meant…I ’pologize, Mr. Block. Really, I do. I meant you look like someone who knows what words mean.”
“Thank you. Law school is certainly no picnic in the park.”
She had no idea what to say to that. So she took another whiff of his cologne and wondered how much a pair of shoes like his cost. She was certain that it would be rude to ask.
“Miss Riley—Ruth Ann—shall I tell you why I’m here to see you?” Block inquired.
“Yes, please.”
“Yesterday a lady by the name of Mrs. Dade paid me a visit.”
Ruth Ann’s pulse quickened. Lord bless her! Mrs. Dade had come through for her.
“I presume you know why?”
“Yes, sir. Dr. Price, the gentleman what’s—I mean, who’s—in charge of the Colony, wants to do a surgery on me—”
“And you would rather he did not.”
“No, sir. I’m downright scared of it. He just did it to my momma and to my—my friend. Her name is Glory. She’s real down and out ’bout it. She can’t never have no—I mean, any—more babies, and they took away her one baby she did have. They took mine, too.”
“I would like to help you, Ruth Ann. If you’ll allow me to.”
“Yes, please. But how can you help?”
“I would represent you in a legal proceeding.”
“What does that mean?”
“We would file a petition to challenge the right of Dr. Price and the state of Virginia to make this medical decision for you, against your will.”
“A petition?”
“A piece of paper that asks the court to stop the surgery until we can argue this in front of a judge.”
“Oh.”
“I would do the arguing, but I’d do it on your behalf. And the surgery would, at the very least, be delayed until the judge makes a decision.”
“Oh.”
“Would you like me to do that for you, Miss Riley?”
“Yes!” she said, feeling dazed. “Yes, please, I would.”
“All right. Then you will need to formally retain my services.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Retain?”
“You need to hire me.”
“Like, with money?” Her heart sank. “I don’t have no money, Mr. Block. Any,” she amended.
“I anticipated that.” He smiled his dazzling smile again. “So here’s what’s going to happen, Ruth Ann.” He dropped a bill in a denomination bigger than she’d ever seen before. Dropped it right there on the rug in front of her, where it sat, folded like a greenish, headless bird with its wings spread.
She stared at it, wide-eyed.
“Now, Ruth Ann, you pick that up.”
“But—”
“Go on. Just pick it up,” he instructed, while drawing a leather satchel up onto his knees.
She debated it. If she reached forward and took it, wasn’t that stealing? If he was giving her the money, why didn’t the man just hand it to her? Why throw it on the floor? Was this a trick?
“But it’s not—”
“It’s fine, Miss Riley. Trust me.” He nodded reassuringly.
Finally, half expecting Mother Jenkins to fly out from behind the drapes and whack her senseless, Ruth Ann got up, bent down and took the bill between her fingers. The paper was different, finer, than regular notepaper or brown parcel paper. It looked to be woven, and in the center of it was a blunt-featured, kindly looking gentleman with shoulder-length hair.
She’d never seen so much money before in her life—and it all boiled down to one slip of fancy paper. Amazing. And so was his casual disregard for it. Imagine flicking it onto a r
ug, like a bit of cigar ash onto a porch.
Meanwhile, Mr. Block opened his satchel and withdrew some papers. He flipped through the pages and handed one of them to her, along with a fountain pen. At the bottom of the paper was her name, typed out, and a space for her signature beneath it.
She sank back down onto the settee, into the soft-butter pillows, and tried to read the document, but every other word may as well have been in Latin.
“This document says that I am your representative in a court of law, and that we are asking the court to intervene on your behalf as regards the surgery. If you agree, then just sign your name at the bottom and give me back the banknote in consideration of my services.”
Now she understood why he’d wanted her to take the money. Because he’d always intended on getting it right back from her.
He raised his eyebrows, waiting expectantly. “Miss Riley?”
She inhaled his scent yet again, and, unable to help herself, looked for a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. There was none.
She blushed fire as he followed her gaze with his own, his chiseled mouth quirking up at the right corner. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Ruth Ann! He’d sooner court a billy goat than you. Girls like you don’t end up with men like him.
“Trust me,” he repeated.
She pressed the paper to the coffee table in front of the settee and signed her name with mortified, trembling fingers. Then she handed it back to him, along with the pen and the banknote.
He put the lot back into his satchel. “Thank you, Miss Riley,” Block said, and stood to leave.
She scrambled to her feet as well and took the cool, dry, firm hand he proffered again.
This time, he drew it up to his mouth and kissed it—her hand! Kissed. It. Electricity shot through her, streaking along every nerve in her body.
She pulled away as if scorched and simply stared at him, mute. She wanted to plunge her hand into ice water, but there was none at hand. So she thrust it behind her back, instead.
“I’m honored to be at your service,” he said, something disquieting lurking in his green eyes. “This is a cause dear to my heart.” He lifted an eyebrow at her continued silence. “Ruth Ann?”