Where We Belong

by Lynn Austin

  “How will we research all those things?” Flora asked.

  “It can’t be hard. The Great Central Depot is right back there on the other side of the Chicago River, near the lake. They’ll have information about train tickets to New York—and maybe they can tell us about steamships, too. People book passages to Europe all the time.”

  “Which people?”

  “You know . . . interesting people.” Rebecca gave a vague shrug, knowing that Flora accepted everything she said as the gospel truth. They had always been close, though they didn’t look at all like sisters. Rebecca resembled their father with his sturdy, robust build and dark hair—at least his hair and beard used to be dark before fading to silver. Flora had inherited their mother’s fair complexion and pixie-like proportions. But heredity had played a trick on them and given Rebecca their mother’s pale blue eyes to go with her dark hair, while Flora got Father’s dark brown eyes to contrast with her blond hair.

  Rebecca’s mind spun with plans for their European trip as their carriage approached the school and slowed to a halt. She flung the door open and jumped down instead of waiting for Rufus, their carriage driver, to help. Realizing her mistake, she quickly glanced at the school doors, hoping no one had noticed. The headmistress had marched Rebecca into her office to scold her about this twice before: “Young ladies do not tumble out of carriages on their own. They wait for assistance.”

  “But why?” Rebecca had asked. “I don’t need assistance.”

  “That isn’t the point, Miss Hawes. Ladylike behavior must be developed early in a young woman’s life. She must learn composure, equanimity, and self-control. Girls your age should be as demure and dainty as rosebuds. . . .” There had been more, but Rebecca had stopped listening. The other girls in her elite private school came from well-to-do homes like hers, but they had probably learned to be demure and ladylike by watching their mothers. Rebecca didn’t have a mother to teach her such things, and in a way she was glad. Being dainty was boring. Climbing trees in the parkway near their home and skipping stones on Lake Michigan was much more fun.

  Rebecca’s mother had slipped away to heaven the day after Flora was born and Rebecca a mere thirteen months old. Since neither sister remembered their mother, they’d never felt particularly sad about losing her. If Father had grieved, he’d kept it to himself, never mentioning his wife who was known to Rebecca only by a small oil portrait in his study. He didn’t seem the least bit inclined to marry again and provide them with a stepmother—which was a good thing, considering how stepmothers in fairy tales usually turned out. Father had moved to Chicago to open his own law firm in 1837, the year the town was incorporated. He’d married Rebecca’s mother, who was twenty years younger than him, when he was forty-four. Three years later he was a widower with two small children.

  Flora waited dutifully for their driver’s assistance before stepping out of their carriage. Rebecca worried that her sister was succumbing to the school’s attempts to make her dainty. How could she and Flora be partners in great escapades if Flora was too frail to alight from a carriage on her own? They stood together and watched as the carriage merged into the thick stream of traffic and disappeared. Groups of girls in their crisp, gray uniforms fluttered around the school’s tiny courtyard, chattering like sparrows, but Rebecca felt no urge to join them. She knew she wasn’t like the others, and that they giggled about her behind her back. Well, if studying hard and devouring books made her different, then so be it. At least she had Flora for her best friend.

  The morning was so beautiful that Rebecca spread her arms and twirled in the warm spring sunshine. The thought of going inside and studying faded maps and dog-eared geography books made her groan. She longed to travel and explore the real world. She turned to Flora and took her hands in hers. “Let’s go right now.”

  “To France?”

  “No, silly, to the train depot. I don’t want to waste any more time. Once we get the information we need, Father can book our passage and—”

  “But school is going to start any minute.”

  “Let’s skip school.”

  Flora stared at her in horror, as if Rebecca had suggested they remove their clothes and dance naked in the street. “We can’t skip school!”

  “Why not? We’re the top student in each of our classes. You know we’re way ahead of the other girls.” In fact, Rebecca had finished reading all of her textbooks with two months remaining until the school term ended. “Come on, Flora. What will it hurt?”

  “Won’t we get into trouble?”

  “Maybe,” she said with a little grin. “But we can’t have an adventure without expecting some sort of trouble. That’s an integral part of it. Besides, what can the headmistress do to us—put us in jail?”

  “She could expel us.” Flora’s voice hushed dramatically as if the very mention of expulsion might bring it to pass.

  “Good. I hope she does. I’m bored to death at school. If she expels us, Father will have to hire a private tutor, which will be much more interesting.” Rebecca was still holding Flora’s hands in hers, and she gave them a little shake. “Come on—aren’t we always wishing for a little excitement?”

  A school monitor emerged through the double doors to stand on the top step and ring the bell. The other girls swarmed toward her like ducklings. Flora was trying to inch in that direction, too, but Rebecca held her firmly in place. “I’m not going inside, Flora. It’s a beautiful spring day with a wonderful breeze from the lake—why sit in a stuffy classroom where the teacher won’t even open a window for fear the air will be too bracing for young ladies and cause us to wilt? Come to the railroad depot with me, please?”

  “By ourselves? Won’t we get lost?”

  “We can’t get lost. Chicago’s streets are laid out in a grid. If Lake Michigan is on our right, then we know we’re facing north.” She linked her arm through her sister’s and began hurrying away from school, giving Flora no time to think. The school yard grew quiet behind them as the obedient girls disappeared inside.

  “All we have to do is walk back across the river and turn toward the lake. The railroad depot will be right there. It’s too big to miss.”

  “Are you sure about this, Becky?” Flora’s dragging steps and frightened brown eyes betrayed her uncertainty. She was more timid than Rebecca and much closer to the dreaded goal of becoming ladylike. Rebecca wanted to rescue her from that fate before it was too late.

  “Of course I’m sure. Don’t you want to be brave and strong like the women in the Bible? Sarah walked right beside Abraham when he left home and followed God. And Deborah led an entire army into battle when all the men were afraid. Queen Esther—”

  “Yes, yes, you’ve made your point. I’m coming with you, aren’t I?” They looked at each other and grinned.

  At first they followed the same route they took to and from school each day, backtracking until they crossed the Chicago River on the Rush Street Bridge. It took them nearly an hour because it was farther than Rebecca had thought—and because they stopped to watch the boats sailing on the river. Traffic was so snarled in places that they had to wait to wade through the cross streets or risk being trampled by the rushing carriages. They talked and dreamed of travel the entire time.

  “Which place would you most like to visit?” Flora asked her.

  “The Holy Land. I feel like I know so much about it from maps and Bible stories, but I would love to see it in person—Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee . . .” The pastor of their church spiced his Sunday sermons with stories from the Old Testament, so the Holy Land already had the dimensions of a real place in Rebecca’s imagination. “If I could walk in the same places where Moses and Abraham and Jesus walked . . . that would be a dream come true.”

  “Could we visit the palace of Nimrud, too?” Flora asked.

  “Yes! Why not? Father would love that.” He had a layman’s fascination with the archaeological discoveries in the ancient Bible lands, which were part of the Ottom
an Empire, and he regularly pointed out newspaper articles for Rebecca and Flora to read. They knew all about the discovery of Nimrud’s palace and how Henry Layard dug it out of the sand where it lay buried for millennia.

  “Everyone believed the Bible was composed of fairy tales,” Father had told them, a flush of excitement on his somber face. “Skeptics thought there was no such place as Assyria or a king named Sennacherib until Layard proved that the Scriptures were indeed accurate. How marvelous to make a discovery like that!”

  Rebecca had wanted to point out to Father that if he truly longed to make such a discovery he would need to leave Chicago, but she hadn’t wanted to spoil his good mood.

  “Where would you like to go, Flora, besides France?”

  “I would love to visit Egypt and see the pyramids. And the Sphinx.”

  “Me too.” Rebecca pulled off her bonnet so she could feel the warm sunshine on her face and hair.

  “But since that probably isn’t possible this summer,” Flora said, “I’ll settle for seeing the Egyptian artifacts in the Louvre in Paris.”

  “We’ll see the pyramids someday, Flora. I promise you.” Rebecca’s feet were starting to ache in her thin-soled shoes. “We’ll need studier shoes when we go on our real travels,” she told Flora. “Something much less ladylike.”

  “And we won’t have to wear itchy petticoats, will we?”

  “Certainly not!”

  At last the arched roof of the railroad depot came into view. “There it is,” Rebecca said, pointing. “See? That was easy, wasn’t it?”

  The moment they stepped into the enormous depot, Rebecca’s heart began to race with excitement. She was born for this! The vast, rumbling space shook with the force of the locomotives thundering in and out; the air smelled of coal and steam and hot iron rails. The soaring ceiling arched high above them, magnifying the shrieking train whistles until they echoed all around her. Everywhere she looked there were knots of travelers, piles of trunks and suitcases, and porters pushing overflowing carts. Signs announced destinations like New York, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

  “Doesn’t this make you want to climb aboard and go somewhere, Flora?”

  “It truly does.” She gave a stage-worthy sigh and asked, “So, now what, Becky? Where do we start?”

  Rebecca had been wondering the same thing until she spotted a kiosk marked Information. They waited in line while the clerk helped two other customers, then stepped forward at their turn. He frowned when he saw them—or at least frowned at their heads, which were probably all that was visible from his perch behind a window grill. “Yes, girls? May I help you?”

  “I hope so.” Rebecca stood on tiptoes to make herself as tall as possible “We’re interested in traveling by train to New York City, then booking passage overseas to Calais, France—escorted by our father, of course,” she added when the clerk’s frown deepened. “Where might we find information on train schedules and rates?”

  The man twisted the ends of his pointy mustache, making him look sinister. He studied Rebecca for what seemed like a very long time, but she held her chin high and didn’t break his gaze, even though her toes ached from standing on them. “You can purchase tickets to New York at window number three, over there,” he finally said. “The agent can tell you the times and rates. As for the ocean voyage, you need to visit the offices of one of the steamship lines such as Cunard or the White Star Line.”

  “Do either of them have offices near here, by any chance?”

  He looked over Rebecca’s head at the growing line behind her and didn’t seem inclined to answer. Rebecca elbowed Flora’s ribs, hoping she would soften him up with her pleading brown eyes and sweet smile. Instead, Flora yelped, “Ow!”

  “Cunard’s is on Michigan Avenue,” he finally said. “Who’s next?”

  “Thank you very much for your help,” Rebecca said. No point in being rude simply because he was. She took Flora’s arm, and they marched across the tiled floor to stand in line at window number three.

  “Why did you poke me?” Flora asked, rubbing her rib cage.

  “I wanted you to smile at him and be charming. Maybe these clerks will be more helpful if we sweeten them up. And you’re much prettier than I am.” They waited in line, and once again Rebecca stood on her toes to tell the ticket agent what they wanted. This time Flora beamed at him like a gas lamp. He didn’t appear to notice as he studied the pages of a thick train schedule.

  “A train leaves daily to New York,” he told them, and he quoted the rates for two minors and one adult. He was crisp and businesslike as he pulled out blank ticket forms and official-looking rubber stamps—then he learned that Rebecca wasn’t going to purchase the tickets and became irritated. He shoved everything aside and growled, “Step aside, girls. Who’s next?”

  She thanked him and started to leave, then turned back to ask, “You wouldn’t know where the office for the Cunard Shipping Line on Michigan Avenue is, would you?”

  “Somewhere around Washington. Or maybe Madison. One of those presidents. Next, please?”

  “Do you know where those streets are?” Flora asked as they walked away from the window. “Are they very far from here?”

  “I don’t think so. Let’s see . . . which door did we come in?”

  “Could we sit and rest a minute? My feet feel as though we’ve walked for miles.” She stretched the last word out dramatically. Rebecca hoped she wasn’t going to sigh again.

  “There’s an empty bench over there.” They crossed the vast station and sank down on a stiff wooden seat that hadn’t been designed for comfort or lingering. Rebecca looked up at the huge clock on the wall and realized that school had started nearly two hours ago. “We’ll need to start a regimen of calisthenics right away to get into shape for our trip, Flora. Explorers need to be tough, you know. But isn’t it exciting to be part of all this bustle and purpose? Just think, all these people are about to visit new places and see new things.”

  “Or maybe they’ve already been somewhere wonderful, and they’re on their way home after a long trip. Maybe they’ve been out west to see the Indian lands and the buffalo.” Flora seemed to be perking up after their brief rest.

  “You have to admit this is fun. Today marks the very beginning of our trip! Someday we’ll look back on this day and remember how it all began.”

  Flora giggled and said, “Or else we’ll remember this as the day they expelled us from school.”

  “Would you be mortified if we were expelled? Because if you would be, then I’m truly sorry for making you come along. I’ll tell the headmistress that it was all my fault and that I forced you to come—”

  “No, we’re in this together, no matter what. We’re like the Three Musketeers! . . . Except there are only two of us. I do hope Father won’t be too angry, though.”

  “He won’t be. He’ll be proud of us for showing initiative and independence.” It was true. Father had treated them like little adults from an early age and seemed pleased that they didn’t cling to him like helpless children. “But no matter what, we need to explain to him how bored we are with that school. I want to learn exciting things, not how to be ladylike. I wish they would teach us Latin. Or maybe Greek. Then we could read Homer in Greek. Father said The Odyssey is better in the original language.”

  “Let’s make him promise to hire a Greek tutor for us,” Flora said.

  “That’s the spirit! Ready to walk again?” They stood and Rebecca led the way through the door. They walked away from the lake, heading west until they reached Michigan Avenue, then turned south. “You look for the shipping company on this side of the street,” Rebecca said as they walked, “and I’ll look for it on the other side.”

  Three long city blocks later, Flora spotted it. Cunard’s office had the same air of excitement as the railroad depot, even though it was small and cramped, with cluttered desks piled high with papers and thick ledgers. Rebecca decided that the excitement was mostly due to the colorful lithogra
phs lining the walls, featuring sailing ships and schooners and steamships moored in exotic, palm-tree-lined ports. They stopped at the first desk they came to. The man behind it didn’t look any friendlier than the two railroad clerks had, so since she and Flora were wearing their school uniforms, Rebecca decided to try a different approach.

  “Good morning. I wonder if you would mind helping my sister and me with a project for school. We need to know what the fares would be on one of your ships to Calais, France—and also to Dover,” she added, spotting a poster advertising that destination.

  “That depends on which class of accommodations you’d prefer. And what time of year you plan to go.”

  “First class, please. During the upcoming summer months.” Father wasn’t one to fuss about fancy accommodations, but if she could tell him the high end of the fares, he could economize as much as he wanted to from there. She waited while the man flipped through a thick catalogue. He didn’t seem to notice Flora’s blond head tilted prettily or her sweet, coy smile as she tried her best to charm him. At last he quoted prices to both destinations. The fares didn’t seem outrageous at all. “Would you mind writing down all the information for us, please? And we’ll need to get an idea of the traveling schedules to those places.”

  He dug through his desk drawer and handed them a newsprint brochure, tightly packed with columns of numbers. “Here’s a schedule. It lists the rates, too.” They thanked him and went outside to Michigan Avenue.

  “Now what?” Flora asked. “Should we walk back to school?”

  Rebecca made a face. “There doesn’t seem much point in going back now, does there? They’ll probably send us straight to the headmistress’ office, where she’ll make us sit and wait until she thinks we’re properly frightened. Then she’ll give us a long, stern lecture, threatening doom and ruin if we don’t mend our wild ways, and—”

  Flora began to giggle. “You’re right. Let’s save the lecture for tomorrow. It’s beautiful outside. I say we keep walking.”