by Lynn Austin
“The author is a godless fool,” he’d said. “His so-called scientific conclusions are an outrageous affront to the truth of the Bible—and to everything we hold dear. I understand why people are incensed with the book, although I don’t imagine that sensible, God-fearing people will give it any credence.” He was going to leave the book behind, but Rebecca asked to read it. So far, she’d been unable to concentrate on it, worried more about Father and the widow. She closed the volume again and tried to lighten her mood by reminiscing about their trip.
They had visited the Louvre the day after she and Flora had gotten lost, studying the fascinating collections of Egyptian artifacts for hours—mummies and cartouches and monumental statues. “There’s so much more to the world and to history than they ever teach us in class,” she had told their father. “Please promise you’ll hire a decent tutor for us when we get home instead of sending us back to that dreadful school.”
“I’m surprised you girls find all of this interesting.”
“Of course we find it interesting, Father. Don’t you?”
“Well, yes, of course, but—”
“We do, too!”
When they finished sightseeing in France, they headed to Italy. It would have been easier to take a steamship from Marseilles to Rome, but since the mere sight of water made Father turn pale, they took a train across France, then over the Alps and into Italy. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to skip Venice,” Father told them. “It seems they have canals instead of streets and one can scarcely get anywhere in the city without a boat.”
“You’ll have to travel by ship in order to get home,” Rebecca had pointed out. “Unless you plan on settling down here in Europe.”
“Don’t tempt me . . .” he grumbled.
Rebecca brightened. “I think living abroad for a few years is a wonderful idea!”
They spent two weeks in Italy, and once again, Rebecca and her sister planned all of the excursions and booked all the guides and transportation. She was disappointed that she didn’t have another opportunity to venture out alone in Rome as she had in Paris, longing to prove to herself and her sister that she could navigate that city without getting lost. They made the return trip by train from Italy to France and the port of Calais.
One morning over breakfast, Father had asked Rebecca and Flora to report on their observations and any conclusions they’d drawn about what they’d seen during their journey. “I would be interested to hear your impressions and analyses after two months of travel abroad.”
Rebecca spoke first, as she always did at these mealtime board meetings. “It was a wonderful trip, Father, but not nearly long enough. It was like tasting one tiny bite of a marvelous banquet before having it snatched away. I’m still hungry for more.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” Flora said.
“This summer has flown past,” Rebecca continued. “And now I want to learn even more, study even more, and visit as many interesting places as I possibly can. I’m wondering if my desire to explore the world and learn new things means that God has something for me to do in the future that involves these passions and interests.”
“Hmm . . .” Father combed his silvery beard with his fingers. “And what do you think that might be? Becoming a teacher, perhaps?”
“I hope not. I can think of nothing more frustrating than trying to teach a subject as fascinating as history to students who don’t have the least bit of interest in it. If only there were a few more choices open to women than teaching. But since there aren’t . . . maybe I’ll travel the world and write guidebooks for other travelers to read.”
“What about you, Flora?”
“I think I’m too young to figure out what my future might be. But I know I can’t wait to go on another trip next summer. May we, Father? Please?”
He seemed to pale at the thought. “We’ll see,” he replied. They had boarded the steamship for New York the next day with Father dreading the voyage home—and then the widow came into their lives. Rebecca knew she should be grateful, but she stifled a groan at the mere thought of Mrs. Worthington’s delicate, tinkling voice, as fragile as porcelain, plying Father with her phony questions and feigned interest. “That’s so fascinating, Edward! You must tell me more!”
Rebecca opened her book again and was attempting to concentrate when one of the deck-walkers halted alongside her. She knew by the choking cloud of French perfume that it was the widow.
“May I join you?” she asked.
“Of course,” Flora said. “Why don’t you sit between us?” She politely closed her novel and slid into a vacant chair so the widow could sit in the middle.
“Where’s our father?” Rebecca asked. She imagining him stunned and bound and dangling from a web in the corner of Widow Worthington’s stateroom.
“He’s in the smoking lounge with the other gentlemen.”
“We can’t thank you enough for sharing your cure for seasickness with him,” Flora said. “He’s a changed man.”
“I’m so glad. It would be tragic if your father couldn’t enjoy the voyage. He is such a charming traveling companion.”
Rebecca barely stopped herself from snorting in disdain. No one who knew her father had ever defined him as charming. He was blunt and opinionated, with little patience for anyone who wasn’t his intellectual equal. And no one who’d spent an evening with the widow would ever accuse her of being his intellectual equal. The woman’s chief talent seemed to be filling out low-cut dresses and providing an attentive audience as Father lectured.
“I noticed you girls spend a lot of time reading,” she began.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Worthington,” Flora said, all smiles and sunshine. “A good book can transport you to an entirely different time and place.”
“That may be true,” she replied, “but you’re missing out on all of the wonderful social activities aboard this ship. There are several young ladies your age here. Perhaps you would find them interesting once you got to know them.”
Rebecca thought she knew what the widow was up to from the hints she had dropped at the dinner table. She wanted Rebecca and Flora to make new friends so she and Father could dine alone. Rebecca had tried making conversation with other young ladies but had ended up feeling awkward and left out. The other girls were so different from her—just like the girls at school. One of them had bragged that she had never read a book in her life. Another said she hated traveling, hated visiting strange European cities and eating foreign food. They all seemed eager to get home and order new gowns for the fall season. “I have very little in common with them,” Rebecca finally said. “And they don’t seem to like me.”
“Maybe we just need to try harder,” Flora said. “They would love you, once they got to know you, Becky. You’re smart and witty and you have such a unique way of looking at the world.”
Rebecca knew that Flora had felt awkward, too, but she was too good-hearted to say anything negative about other people. “What bothered me most about those girls,” Rebecca continued, “was that they didn’t seem interested in discovering their purpose in life. In fact, they laughed when I brought up the subject. Father believes—and Flora and I agree—that no matter how rich or poor we are, how intelligent or ordinary, God has a task for each of us to do while we’re here on earth. Reading books and traveling abroad and learning new things are wonderful opportunities to figure out what that task might be.”
“God made you a woman, Rebecca. A woman’s role is to marry and have children.”
Rebecca nearly shouted in outrage. She waited until she was calm and said, “Our mother had two children and promptly died. Was that her sole purpose?”
“I really couldn’t say. . . .”
“I hope to marry someday and have children,” Rebecca said, “but I don’t believe that’s all God has for me.”
“We still have plenty of time to discover our purpose,” Flora said, sweet and conciliatory, as usual. “We haven’t even finished school. In the meanti
me, there’s no harm in making new friends.”
“Have you discovered what your God-given task might be, Mrs. Worthington?” Rebecca asked.
The widow’s cheeks brightened beneath her rouge. Her face quivered with the effort to keep her smile in place. “That’s a very personal question, Rebecca dear. One must learn not to put others on the spot in such a direct way.”
It was on the tip of Rebecca’s tongue to say, “You have no idea what your purpose is, do you?” But she stopped herself in time, releasing her annoyance with a huge sigh. “I never was very good at what our headmistress calls polite conversation. Flora is much better at it. Why don’t you two talk without me for a while?” She gestured for her sister to continue and then returned to Charles Darwin’s book.
Flora cleared her throat. “I’m so glad the weather has been pleasant. And the sea has been comparatively calm, hasn’t it?” Rebecca didn’t look up again until Mrs. Worthington took her leave a few minutes later. “You were very rude, Becky,” Flora said when the widow was out of earshot. “I think you may have insulted her.”
“Maybe she’ll stop bothering Father if she decides his daughter is obnoxious.”
“Are you jealous of her, Becky?”
“Maybe.” It pained her to admit it. “Most of all, I’m tired of her.”
Ten minutes later, the widow strolled by on Father’s arm, smiling up at him as if he had just hung the moon in place. He seemed to glow in her adoration.
Flora gave Rebecca a nudge. “Look at him, Becky . . . does he seem to be bothered by her?”
“No. And that’s what worries me.”
Chapter 5
CHICAGO
1860
Rebecca’s two-month journey abroad ended on a hot, humid afternoon in August when their train came to a halt in the Great Central Depot in Chicago. Since her grand tour had begun in this very station last spring when she and Flora skipped school, it was a satisfying conclusion to her trip—except for the fact that the widow was right beside them as they stepped off the train, chattering away in her tinkling voice. She had glued herself to Father like feathers to hot tar for the entire train trip from New York to Chicago, just as she had on their ocean voyage.
Rufus was all smiles as he welcomed them home and helped collect their luggage from the baggage car. And when a driver arrived to collect Mrs. Worthington and her steamer trunks, Rebecca hoped they would finally be rid of her. But they barely had time to unpack back home before a formal invitation arrived from the widow, asking the three of them to a dinner party.
“Surely Father will come to his senses now that he’s back into his old routine, won’t he?” Rebecca asked as she and Flora stared at the fine, engraved stationery. “He never used to bother with nonsense like dinner parties. Hasn’t he had his fill of her? I know I have.”
“I think he may surprise you,” Flora replied.
And he did. Father’s somber face managed a faint smile as he read the invitation. “Priscilla told me she wanted us to meet her family,” he said.
“Father! You can’t possibly consider going!”
He looked at Rebecca in surprise. “Of course we’re going. Why wouldn’t we?”
She didn’t know where to begin.
When the Hawes family arrived at the stately mansion on the appointed evening, Widow Worthington greeted them in the foyer in a glittering gown and sumptuous décolletage. She quickly introduced the elegant young people waiting in the foyer with her as her two nieces and three nephews, but their names slid right past Rebecca, who felt so out of place she wished she could turn around and run home. What was she doing in this ornate mansion with these fashionable people? She was certain she had nothing in common with them, including the fact that they were elegantly dressed and she was not.
“My maid will escort you to the ladies’ withdrawing room,” the widow said as she herded Rebecca and Flora toward the winding staircase. “You can leave your wraps there and freshen up a bit after your journey here.” She nodded to the waiting maid, then turned her attention to Father.
“Freshen up?” Rebecca whispered to Flora as they climbed the steps. “This is as fresh as I’m ever going to be. And as for the ‘journey,’ we easily could have walked here.”
The maid opened the door to a beautifully decorated sitting room. The flowered wallpaper complemented the fabric on the divan, which matched the luxurious drapes covering the windows. It felt suffocating. On the dresser below a gilded mirror lay an array of toiletries for their use. “May I help you with anything?” the maid asked.
“No, thank you,” Rebecca replied, then quickly stopped the girl again. Servants were often a great source of gossip and secret information—especially disgruntled ones. Rebecca was determined to uncover the truth about the widow. “Wait . . . what’s your name?”
“It’s Mary, miss.”
“And how long have you worked for Mrs. Worthington, Mary?”
The girl stared down at her feet, as if expecting them to detach from her legs. “I don’t work for her, miss. I work for Mr. and Mrs. Charles Worthington.”
“Did they loan you to her for the evening?”
She looked up in confusion. “No . . . this home belongs to them—to Mr. and Mrs. Worthington, I mean. They’re still in France.”
“But I thought Priscilla Worthington lives here. This is her dinner party, isn’t it?”
“Mrs. Worthington had to move here after her husband died. Mr. Worthington is her brother-in-law.” The maid edged toward the door. “If there’s nothing else, miss, I should go.” She fled, closing the door behind her.
“See? Just as I suspected!” Rebecca tossed her shawl on the chair where the other ladies had placed theirs. “The widow is destitute, and she’s trying to marry Father for his money. We need to warn him—” She stopped when she turned to Flora, surprised to see she was in tears. “Flora, what’s wrong?”
“I’m so mortified! Father looks distinguished in his formal attire, but I feel like a weed among roses in this dress.” She lifted a pleat of fabric from her well-worn traveling dress and let it drop again. She and Flora didn’t own any fancy silk gowns, just simple cottons and gabardines that traveled well. They always wore uniforms to school.
“Listen, you look very nice. But did you hear what the maid said about the widow?”
“I don’t look nice! Didn’t you see the gowns those other girls are wearing?”
Rebecca shook her head. “I didn’t notice. I was distracted by the neckline on Widow Worthington’s dress and by the way she latched onto Father like a poison-ivy vine. He seems much too eager to become her trellis. Now that we know she’s poor, we need to warn him—”
“We look horribly out of place here, Becky. The other girls are all dressed in the latest styles with petticoats and hoop skirts—and look at us!”
“Who needs clumsy old hoops? Those girls can barely squeeze through a doorway wearing those stupid things, much less sit down comfortably. If they fell over they would never get up again.”
“We look so drab and plain in comparison.”
“They probably have lady’s maids to lace them into their corsets and button them into their clothes and arrange their hair. And they have—” She started to say, mothers to guide and advise them and take them shopping, but she stopped herself in time. Besides, Flora wasn’t listening.
“And look at my hair! It’s so plain! All I ever do is yank it straight back, braid it, and pin the braid on my head. I look like that starchy old German woman who used to march around the deck of the ship every day.”
Rebecca stifled a giggle. It was true, the woman had worn her hair the same way they did. “Never mind,” she said, wrapping her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I’m quite sure that you’re smarter than both of those hoop-skirted girls put together.”
“But I don’t want to be smart,” she wailed. “Just once in my life I would like to be pretty!”
“You are pretty, Flora. Here, look in the mirror.”
She spun her around to face it. “See? You’re slender and dainty and you have a lovely face with captivating eyes. They’re dark and mysterious, like a Spaniard’s. Mine are washed-out blue.”
“You’re pretty, too—” Flora started to say, but Rebecca interrupted her.
“Nonsense. The mirror tells me otherwise. Now, listen. If those people downstairs are going to judge us by our hair and our clothing, then they aren’t worth our time. You and I are interesting young ladies, and if they can’t see that, it’s their loss.”
“I suppose you’re right . . . but I still feel embarrassed.”
Rebecca studied her sister’s fair hair, pulled back tightly from her face. “Why don’t you use the comb to pull a few of those dangly, tendril things loose like the widow always does?”
“Won’t that make my hair look messy?”
“In my opinion, yes. But what do I know? All the other girls seem to have them hanging around their eyes.” Flora took the comb and loosened a few strands, making her face look even softer and prettier than before. Rebecca felt a stab of jealousy.
“Want me to loosen yours?” Flora said when she was finished.
“No, thanks. It would drive me crazy to have wisps of hair hanging in my eyes all evening. Are you ready?” Flora nodded. Rebecca opened the door then halted in the hallway. “Listen, I could pretend to be sick so Father will have to take us home. Then we can warn him—”
“No, don’t do that. It would be rude after all the trouble the widow went through to plan this dinner for us.” Flora straightened her spine, brushed imaginary wrinkles from her dress, and put on her prettiest smile. The fact that Flora wasn’t concerned about the widow’s trickery and didn’t want to leave seemed like very bad omens to Rebecca. Flora was becoming entrapped in the widow’s sticky web along with their father. This couldn’t end well.