“Her paperwork was in order,” Graft explained, drawing the Inquestor’s focus back. “Since she was seventeen, she was legally entitled to all of her family’s property. After the war, it didn’t amount to much beyond this house, an empty textile factory ten miles from here, and another empty store in town.”
“You bought all of it?” Carver hitched a brow. “How on earth did you approve the funds?”
“It was completely within my office’s budget, sir,” he explained. “The girl was willing to accept my initial offer on the condition that I buy all of her property and pay cash. Frankly, it seemed like she was in a hurry to leave town.”
The Inquestor tapped his fingers together as he absorbed these facts. “Were those her only conditions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you make any conditions of your own? Perhaps a little incentive to keep the price so low?”
Graft blinked. “No, sir. It was all approved by my legal administrator and detailed in the contract. I can retrieve it for you right—”
“I just think it’s funny that you’d buy so much useless property instead of just sending the girl to the replacement home and confiscating it all,” Carver interrupted, but then waved the thought aside. “But never mind that. Chasing up girls for the home isn’t your department. Did Amandine tell you what happened to her parents?”
Graft was relieved that he could finally provide some answers to the Inquestor. “Her father served in both wars. Killed in action a little over two years ago, I believe.”
“Interesting.” Carver took out a notepad from his pocket and began writing furiously. “Branch and rank?”
“Navy. He was captain of the NARS Osiris, lost in the Atlantic.” Graft’s good memory had always served him well, and he was glad it didn’t fail him now despite his anxiety.
“And her mother?” Carver pressed. He used such a peculiar emphasis that Graft suspected this was the heart of the matter.
“She didn't say. I assumed she died as well. Fever epidemic, or something.”
Carver laughed inwardly and put his notebook away. “No, she didn't.”
Graft was afraid of this. The Inquestor knew much more than he was letting on. “Is it this Caroline you're after, sir?”
“No, not anymore,” he replied, his smile unwavering. “I popped by for a visit… oh, I suppose it was two months ago now? She invited me in, fixed me a coffee right where we’re sitting, and after we had a chat about what she’d been up to, I hit her.”
He drew his gun, a nickel-plated 1911 with a gleaming pearl grip, and the Administrator recoiled in shock.
“I hit her over the head again and again with this pistol for trying to feed me a load of hokum about how she was just a war hero’s widow. You see, she was a rebel fighter. And not just any fighter. No, I’ve got her linked directly to the leaders.” He burst out with wild laughter as he played with his gun, pulling back the hammer and releasing it slowly.
Click-click. Click.
Click-click. Click.
“You mean… she was the Caroline Stewart? The one they locked up for working with Tall-Me and Cleo?” Graft desperately wanted the Inquestor to put the gun away. “But… if you have Caroline already, then you must be after the girl.”
“I am!” He caught his breath and wiped at a tear.
“But the girl was a shut-in. Why didn't you just arrest her with her mother?”
“You must not have been in your position long, Administrator,” Carver’s tone suddenly dropped to a low and dangerous growl.
Click-click.
“Otherwise you would know it is not a good idea to pry an inquestor for confidential information, and you’ve already done so three times.”
“I— I’m sorry, Inquestor,” Graft stammered.
“Oh, what the hell? I'll tell you anyway.” Carver’s cheerful demeanor returned without a trace of his momentary hostility. “It was an oversight! I was just so giddy about Caroline, I didn't even stop to think about the girl upstairs. Serves me right. A stitch in time saves nine, and now I’ve got a couple of loose ends to tie up if I ever want to see the end of this investigation. This is where you come in, Administrator.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice to an excited whisper. “Did you know that this was a rebel safe house when you bought it? Come on now! You can tell me!” He punched him lightly in the arm. “Tell me just like little miss Amandine told you.”
“She didn't tell me anything,” he rasped, watching the gun intently for any sudden movements. Carver still hadn’t let the hammer down.
“Horse feathers!” The Inquestor laughed again as if Graft was playing a hilarious trick on him. “I know you have a way with young ladies.”
Startled, he finally looked up from the gun to Carver. “Sir?”
“You're a popular customer over at the replacement home,” he said, shaking a finger at him. “All those young widows and orphaned daughters—they all need somebody to care for them. I hear you do that very well.”
Graft paled. How could the Inquestor have possibly known about that? He never visited the same replacement home twice. He never left a clue or used his real name. A flash of his badge was all it took to grant him unfettered access to a menagerie of eligible, desperate women.
“All of those girls with rebel ties...” Carver was motionless and wide-eyed, like a snake about to strike. “And they're all missing. Nowhere to be found.”
“No, sir! Please, let me—”
“Now the daughter of a murderess runs free with a pocketful of taxpayers’ cash while you look after her safe house. I wonder what the boys in blue will uncover if I turn them loose in that ‘empty’ factory.”
Graft saw the end of the gun move in his direction. In a panic, he cried, “The girl left fifteen minutes ago! She said she was heading to Nieuwestad to see her mother! That’s all I know, Inquestor! I swear it!”
Carver seemed startled by this outburst. He looked down at his gun, and with an embarrassed laugh, he finally let down the hammer and turned the weapon over in his hand.
“Nieuwestad, you say?” He stood and replaced his hat over his glossy black hair. “Thank you. That is most helpful.”
Was that all? the Administrator thought. He took a ragged breath and rose unsteadily to his feet. “Will there be anything else, Inquestor?”
Carver recovered his formality and bowed. “No, thank you. I just about have what I was after, so I will let you get back to work and see myself out. Hail to the Republic.”
The moment the Inquestor was out of the parlor, Graft slumped down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. His entire body shook as he reflected on how narrowly he avoided trouble.
“Such a shame about this house,” he heard Carver say from directly behind him. His blood turned to ice when he heard the sound he’d never hoped to hear again.
Click-click.
“It’s so luxurious. I feel just awful every time I have to make a mess in here.”
“One cheese sandwich, coming right up, Miss Stewart,” the baker said, dropping new coins into her outstretched palm. “There. I think that is supposed to be proper change, though you’d better count again for me.”
Amandine examined them in her palm for a moment. “I’m so glad they made the dimes bigger than the nickels now. It makes sense since they're worth more.”
The baker prepared her order, watching her carefully while she browsed the humble cakes on display. He didn’t recognize Amandine when she first stepped into his shop. She was a wisp of the schoolgirl that she used to be, but her familiar order and glowing smile endured throughout the years of hardship.
He rolled the bag shut and passed it over the counter.
“Mr. White, do you know if our post office has reopened yet?” She stuffed the bag under her coat. “I need to get a letter to my mother and tell her that I sold the estate.”
“You sold the Stewart place?
” Mr. White exclaimed in surprise. “Is that what brings you down from the big house after so long?”
“That’s right,” she chirped. “But if folks ask, you can tell them I was driven out by a three year-long hankering for a cheese sandwich.”
Mr. White laughed on his way to the refrigerator. “I think Pearisville is the closest town that still gets regular mail.” He returned with a cold soda in a green glass bottle. “This is for the road. I reckon Cold River won’t be seeing much more of the Stewart family, so take this with my best wishes.”
“Thanks, Mr. White,” she said. “I’m certainly going to miss your cheese sandwiches.”
“Any idea where you’re going?”
“Nieuwestad.”
“Nieuwestad, New York? Land sakes, that’s a very long way. Are you going for your mother?”
“Yes, sir. I figured that I’d work to pay my way and save my nickels for maman’s defense,” she explained.
Like most people in Cold River, Mr. White knew the Stewarts well, and it saddened him to see that this was how it ended for their family in this town. “It’s a damned shame what happened to Caroline,” he grunted. “I remember when Willy brought her from France back in twenty-two. Everybody was worried that she wouldn’t get along out here in the sticks.”
“Really?” Amandine perked.
“It’s true,” he said. “You could tell she was a high-class lady. She didn’t talk much at first, but she ended up being even easier to get on with than your stubborn dad. He was a good man, but that pride got the best of him sometimes. Caroline, on the other hand, was an angel. Didn’t matter if you were a king or a cotton-picker; she’d treat you with the same kindness.”
“That sounds about right,” Amandine murmured. She didn’t realize that she had started squeezing the long, silver locket around her neck until the hinge bit into her palm. “Well, I had better be on my way, sir. Got a lot of miles to cover.”
“When you get to Pearisville, look for my cousin Nathaniel’s store on the near side of town, just past the bridge. It’s White’s, same as mine. If you tell him that I sent you, he might give you a meal for some work.” Before she left, the baker added earnestly, “You be careful now, young lady.”
Amandine waved, and the door chimed brightly behind her. Goodbyes aren’t so bad if you’ve got bells to say them for you, she decided, popping the cap off of her soda bottle and mounting her bike.
There was still plenty of time left in the day for the long ride to Pearisville, so Amandine decided to take the road through town. She cruised down the empty, littered main street one last time, past broken windows that made the vacant stores gape open like caves.
Contrary to what the NAR party had promised, nothing looked like the shimmering, Utopian pictures they passed around during The Depression, and the war had only made things worse. There was no bounty of food, only ration cards. There were no happy, smiling families, just men sent to serve before they could finish school and women whisked away to replacement homes if they had nobody to care for them. Still, Amandine thought things weren’t so bad. At least people could eat again, even if it was heavily regulated by government storehouses, and the streets weren’t an open war zone anymore.
She glided around ruts and potholes. Of all the things the NAR party said they’d fix, I suppose they never said anything about the roads.
Amandine was glad to see that the only place that didn’t have a single broken window was Master Elegance, the two-storied brownstone store that once drew the eastern elite to the rural town of Cold River. She didn’t know if vandals avoided Master Elegance because of its visibility at the corner of a prominent intersection or out of respect of its former owner. She smiled at her own reflection that seemed to roll right through the dusty, gilded mirrors and toppled mannequins inside.
Beneath layers of anti-government graffiti, Amandine could still make out the cheery message on the sign out of town: PLEASE VISIT COLD RIVER AGAIN SOON.
Maybe someday. She knew better than to try and wave again. Today, Nieuwestad calls.
Amandine didn't encounter many other travelers on the road to Pearisville, but those who did pass her saw a girl visibly affected by the war in her frailty. She was a small, skinny thing wearing a man’s jacket over an old, drop-waist dress, and her curly, brown hair was cropped short beneath a gray cloche hat. Since she believed that venturing out on her own was a very special occasion, she put on her last pair of stockings, but they were made for a much healthier woman and sagged around her thin legs. If somebody were to judge her by her appearance, Amandine hardly resembled someone who had once been heiress to a fabric fortune.
“Some people might say that Fortune is fickle, coming and going when you least expect it,” Amandine remembered her father telling her once. “But I say that just because Fortune’s turned her back on you doesn’t mean you’re powerless. You’ve got to bring her back around yourself. Don’t ever just sit by as long as you can still stand on your own two feet.”
Will Stewart had tried to instill his hardworking, pragmatic ideals on his daughter since the day she was born; after all, he was proof that with squared shoulders and determination, no problem was insurmountable. He would remind her that when he was called to fight in the Great War, he worked hard and made himself into a captain. When he came home to find his father’s business in shambles, he turned the dilapidated storefront into a fine textile factory and world-renowned clothing label. He even refused to take the Depression lying down. As the country suffered a decade of poverty and political unrest, he protected not only his family and business but the entire rural community of Cold River by securing a contract making uniforms for the newly elected NAR party.
“Everything will be alright, Button,” Will had said, inviting young Amandine to see the stack of opened mail on his desk. They were all thank-you letters from his employees, praising him for not cutting a single job while so many other people in the country had lost everything. Will looked from the letters to the new uniform sketches pinned to his wall. He proudly touched his favorite design: a slender black suit. “It’s not haute couture anymore, but it’s the dignity and pride of service to our country.”
At fourteen, Amandine got to experience fickle fortune herself when her father’s world of carefree comfort collapsed around her. The second World War was someone else’s concern, a far-off problem, until it took Will away and never brought him home. Without his direction, the factory closed, too. She wanted to do as her father said and turn her own luck around, but when the NAR found themselves fighting for the losing side in the war, everything turned worse than it ever had been during the Depression. Sickness wiped out entire towns, money became worthless, and every day became a grueling hunt for food. Rumors spread that women were being bought and sold in replacement homes, a government welfare program meant to aid unwed mothers. The practice was apparently so lucrative that corrupt administrators had begun to abduct young women, even girls, who didn’t have men to defend them. Because of this, Caroline had warned her daughter against ever leaving the house, and Amandine reluctantly agreed.
The girl tried not to let her confinement bother her too much. She decided that if her circumstances were beyond her control, she could always change her outlook. Ignoring the hunger pangs in her stomach, she gleaned a little happiness from sewing projects and spending time in their library. In a way, those things made her father feel a little closer.
Will had been gone for nearly a year, when one day starvation finally drove Amandine from the house and into the wilderness. As she rooted around the cold earth beneath the pecan trees, she spotted a tiny speck of yellow in a clearing and discovered a patch of newly sprouted dandelions. Hands quaking with joy, she gathered as much as she could find and ran back to their dark, empty mansion.
“Look, maman,” she beamed, rinsing the leaves in icy water. “Our luck has finally turned.”
Caroline scowled at the bowl of weeds in the sink, her g
aunt face set as hard as stone. “Indeed, ma jolie. I think this is only the beginning.”
She was right. For the next two years, Caroline left Amandine alone in the house frequently, but she always returned with a sack of food. It wasn’t much at first; just enough to fit in a canister she hid in the dumbwaiter, but it was better than weeds and wormy pecans. Amandine tried to ask where the food came from, but the only answer Caroline gave her was “a friend at the storehouse.” Gradually, the bags got a little bigger and sometimes they came with luxury items like chocolate, blocks of butter, and, curiously, real silk stockings.
As Amandine feared, their turn of good luck didn’t last long. One night while she was reading in her room, she heard a commotion downstairs. From her vantage point on the dark landing, she could see into the parlor where an officer in black had Caroline pinned to the floor. Horrified, she tried to make sense of what she was seeing when four armed policemen burst in through the front door.
“In here, fellas,” she heard the Inquestor call. “She won’t fight you. I doubt she can even stand up after the little bump I just gave her.”
Blood ran down Caroline’s battered face, and she grabbed at the banister. Her wide, frantic eyes found Amandine hidden in the dark, and she made a split second decision. Caroline let go of the banister. The officers tackled her to the ground, but not before she cried, “Please, I’ve done nothing wrong! I was just getting food! Fais attention à lui! Let me go! My husband was a Favored Citizen! I was just so hungry... s’il vous plaît, fais attention!”
It was a warning Amandine had heard all of her life. Whenever she left a hot iron unattended or climbed too high on the library ladder, it was always “Amandine, fais attention!” Now they were her mother’ last words to her, broken up so that officers would think that she was just begging in French.
Threadbare- The Traveling Show Page 2