“That’s no good,” Lila said. “I’ve heard they’re only taking boys for that work. They can lift the flour sacks and load the carts for delivery. They won’t want a slip of a thing like you, Dovey.”
Dovey’s brow pinched in a sour frown. “Damn it all, anyway. It was the same story back in Massachusetts. No jobs to be found anywhere—not for me, at least.”
Ruby tossed her head. “I tell you, there’s only one way for a girl to earn her keep in this town.”
They crossed another street and passed the dry goods store. A bolt of silk was half unrolled in the shop’s window, cascading over a wingback chair on lavish display. The girls stopped to admire the fabric’s blue-and-white stripes and its rich luster, but Dovey’s eye was drawn to a display of another kind. Tacked to the shop’s wall, just to the left of the window, was a printed bill. She glanced over the announcement quickly, then tore it from the wall and held it up for the others to see.
“Look, girls. What about this work?”
The prostitutes eyed the bill, then shared a wary look among themselves. Finally Penny said, “What does it say, exactly?”
Dovey flushed. She hadn’t realized none of these young women could read. She had no desire to flaunt the skill, or to make them feel inferior—not when they had been so welcoming, so supportive of her dream. She read the announcement for them.
“Wanted: collectors for the Revenue Service. Apply in person at—”
“Tax collecting?” Ruby scoffed. “You can’t do that sort of work.”
“Why not?”
Penny waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s a man’s job. Even a big, tough woman couldn’t do it—too dangerous—let alone a short, skinny little thing like you.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” Dovey said. “You had to be tough, believe me, to survive the trek to Seattle. And look here—the salary is seventy-five a month! It won’t take long to save up for my own establishment on a salary that rich. I’m going to apply.”
Penny laughed, but there was no mockery in her amusement. “You’re a real whip-cracker, Dovey. If it’s your fond desire to pry taxes from the hands of the old cranks up in the hills, then good luck to you. But mark my words, Miss: if you really want to make a buck for yourself, you’ll have to do it on your back.”
Dovey folded the bill in her hands, scuffing her feet restlessly on the sidewalk.
“Don’t look so grim,” Penny added cheerfully. “Knocking is the easiest work there is.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A SUITOR CALLS
Josephine couldn’t help a girlish giggle as she wrestled the duvet toward the window. It puffed high above her head, flopping over to cover her face, enveloping her with the perfume of the bar soap that had been rubbed over the ticking to protect the valuable feathers within. The sharp, pine-like scent of goose down undercut the florals of rose and lavender. She breathed it in until her head felt dizzy. It smelled like home—like a true home, warm and happy and safe.
“Look out!” Mary laughed. “You’ll miss the window.”
She took Josephine by the elbow to redirect her blind path, then helped her beat the feather bed down until half of its bulk could be shoved out the window, into the fresh, late-springtime air. As they prodded and pounded, a few feathers escaped the bed from a rent that had gone unnoticed. They shot into the bedroom and drifted about in a slow-falling cloud.
“Drat!” Josephine said, scrambling to catch the escaped feathers. They skittered away from her hands on currents of air and went spinning and dancing across the room before she could collect them.
“It’s all right,” Mary said. “The Jamesons up the street keep geese; I can buy their next few pluckings if need be.” She braced her hands in the small of her back and leaned, stretching with a contented sigh. “Airing the ticks is my least favorite chore, but it’s a good deal more bearable when I’ve got a friend to help.”
“You could hire out the work, I suppose.”
Mary shrugged. “I could. But there aren’t many young ladies in Seattle who I’d trust inside my home. I think the majority prefer earning their money down at the docks, if you’ll pardon my indelicacy. Besides, I like to work. What would I do with myself all day, if I didn’t wrangle feather ticks and ply a duster and broom?”
Josephine smiled sympathetically as she examined the hole in the feather bed. “I can stitch this up for you, if you like.”
“I wish you would! I’m no use at all with a needle and thread. I’d probably rip another hole in it just by trying. But I don’t want to make you work any more. You’ve been so generous already, lending a hand with my housekeeping—”
“Nonsense!” Josephine gave Mary a friendly tap on the shoulder. “You’ve taken me in—a perfect stranger from all the way across the continent. Helping with housework is the least I can do. And as for sewing, I adore it. Even if it’s just patching holes in mattresses. I haven’t had a chance to sew a stitch in more than a week, since I arrived.”
Josephine left Mary Terry in the master bedroom to dust the gleaming mahogany of its imported four-poster bed. She ducked into the cozy spare room she would call home until she found some means of supporting herself in Seattle. Her sewing kit waited on the shelf inside the room’s narrow closet; Josephine picked it up eagerly and cradled it to her chest as she hurried back down the hall.
“I’m sure I have just the right thread,” she began but trailed off at the sight of Mary, leaning over the airing tick to peer out the window to the yard below. “What is it?”
“There’s a gentleman outside,” Mary said.
Josephine glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel. “It’s only one o’clock! Is he a salesman?”
Mary’s laughter was so bright and joyful that Josephine had to grin. “No, darling. If he’s peddling anything, it’s his heart. I believe you’re about to receive your first caller.”
Josephine joined her hostess, leaning across the feather bed’s bulk to stare down into the yard. There was indeed a man there, making his unhurried way up the Terrys’ stone steps and long, cobble-paved walk. He was dressed in a dark suit—rather smart, for a rough-and-tumble Seattle fellow—and though she could not make out his face from this angle, eaved as it was by the brim of his bowler hat, his long, lanky, thin-boned shape gave her memory a twinge of familiarity. The man’s hands were in his pockets. He certainly carried no salesman’s case.
A caller—this is disastrous! Josephine thought frantically. She had kept well to herself since arriving in Seattle nine days before, hiding out in the Terry home, receiving only her female friends from the voyage for company. After the sensation she’d made at the reception, the men of Seattle seemed to have forgotten all about her—and for nine days Josephine had told herself she was pleased to be forgotten. But now, as she watched the tall, dark figure strolling toward the Terrys’ porch, a little thrill of triumph raced along her veins. A caller posed a pickle, indeed—for she was determined to keep her word to Sophronia at all costs. But it did give her a tingle of satisfaction, to know that Mr. Mercer had been wrong after all. I’m not too old to attract a man’s eye. So there, Asa Mercer!
Just before he climbed the steps, the gentleman pulled his hat from his head, revealing a wild array of black hair and a thick, downward-curved mustache.
“Why—it’s Bill Jakes!”
“You know him?” Mary asked.
“I met him at the reception. Briefly. He said he’d like to call on me, but then he never did. I assumed he’d forgotten all about me.”
Mary glanced down into the yard again, her eyes shining. “I guess he remembered. Let’s hurry downstairs.”
“Oh—I can’t see him!”
“What?” Mary regarded her with hands on hips, wrinkling her fine, pointed nose in disbelief. “Don’t be silly, Josephine. Of course you can!”
Mary marched Josephine downstairs, picking bits of down from her sensible navy-blue dress and tucking stray locks of hair back into her tight-woven bun. They rea
ched the foyer just as Bill knocked, and Mary swung the door open immediately, beaming up at him.
“Hello, sir! Hello!”
The enthusiastic greeting seemed to take Bill aback. He scratched at the back of his neck, the same bashful gesture he’d displayed at the reception. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Terry. Is Miss Carey at home?” As he spoke, he gazed right over Mary’s head at Josephine, who stood pale and stiff with panic in the foyer.
Mary turned to Josephine slowly. Her smile was impish and wide.
Josephine threw up her hands, sighing. “Well, here I am. There’s no denying it.”
“Here she is,” Mary corroborated, bursting with glee.
Bill’s dark eyes gleamed with hope. “Miss Carey—that is, Jo—would you care to come out for a stroll with me? It’s an awful nice day, and we don’t get a lot of nice days in Seattle.”
The day was very pleasant. The sky was a crisp, cheerful shade of blue, a color Josephine hadn’t seen since her arrival in Washington Territory. Small puffs of white cloud skimmed across the sky like lambs frolicking in a pasture, and the Puget Sound beyond the waterfront winked and sparkled brightly. The sun raised a bright glare from the town as it made its valiant attempts to dry up puddles on the cobblestone streets and shrink the acres of mud that lined the long black streak of Skid Road. The yard of the house was adorned with two newly planted plum tree saplings, and from their bronze-purple foliage, Josephine could hear a chickadee calling with a sweet, beckoning rapidity. It was a day meant for strolling, for walking side by side with a quiet, pleasant companion just like Bill Jakes. Josephine shuffled her feet; she wanted to accept his invitation, but caution stayed her.
“I … I’m afraid I’ve already promised to help Mrs. Terry with housework today,” she finally said.
“Nonsense!” Mary hooked her by the arm and pulled her toward the door. “I’ve managed to keep this house on my own before you arrived, darling, and I’ll get by for today. You go on and enjoy the afternoon.”
“But I—”
“Don’t keep Mr. Jakes waiting,” Mary said in a theatrical whisper. “Enjoy the day, Josephine. This gentleman is right: we don’t see many afternoons like this one, here in Seattle. If you’re to live among us, you must learn how to relish a rare fine day when it comes along.”
With that, Mary pinned Josephine’s straw hat to her bun and sent her out onto the porch before she could raise another protest.
“Supper at five,” Mary called brightly, then shut the front door firmly in Josephine’s face.
Bill chuckled. “Is she so eager to send you off with all your gentleman callers?”
There had been no other callers, of course. Josephine bit her lip, searching for a suitable reply that wouldn’t expose her as the leftover of Mercer’s expedition. “Mrs. Terry is enthusiastic about a great many things.”
“I confess I didn’t have anything special planned for the day,” Bill said as they headed down the walk toward the street. “I’m not terribly good at thinking up romance. But I was eager to see you, ever since the day of the reception.”
“It’s been nine days,” Josephine said, startled. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“I’m not a fellow who forgets. Business took me out of town, that’s all.”
They strolled up the hill toward the university. Stately maples and cedars cast a green-dappled, rich-smelling shade over the road, and small birds and squirrels played in the high, thick grasses that fringed the hillside. As they walked, Bill told her all about his business. He was a builder. Though he did not design fine, fancy mansions like the Terrys’ lovely home, he could raise a simple, sturdy house fit for the lumbermen and shopkeepers of the city, and do it faster and better than any other man in the Territory. He found demand for his skills increasing with each passing season—as more men settled in Seattle, hopeful of finding a good wife and raising a family, Bill’s popularity spread.
“And so that’s why I was so late calling on you,” he said, fiddling with his hat in his hands. “I was building down in Tacoma. The folks down there are real set on making their town the end point of the Transcontinental Railroad. They’re growing faster than Seattle is, and there’s plenty of work for a builder like me.”
Josephine plied him with questions about his trade and watched his face light up with pleasure as he spoke of lumber and masonry, of good roofs and sturdy walls and all the parts that came together, one nail and tenon at a time, to create a home. Bill gave himself over to a quiet rapture as they conversed; Josephine could see from the straight carriage of his back and the clarity of his gaze that the joy he took in his simple, straightforward work was real. Here was a man who found gratification in a good day’s work, and pride in knowing he’d made something useful to others. His voice, gentle yet cheerful, mingled with the sound of their feet whisking through the roadside grasses, and stirred Josephine’s heart with simple, untroubled happiness.
It hardly seems possible that such a man can exist.
Bill was certainly nothing like the sample of masculinity she had known for the past ten years of her life. But he was truly what he seemed to be: a perfectly pleasant, thoroughly respectable man. Josephine had grown used to pretense throughout the decade of her disastrous marriage. She knew just how to spot falseness in a person, how to find the dark truth of a man’s soul hiding beneath a carefully constructed facade. She was ever wary for signs of shifting temper and brewing danger. Anyone who hoped to survive Clifford’s rages must be adept at spotting a change of mood coming, before it arrived.
But there was no vice, no anger, hiding behind Bill’s soft, smiling eyes. There was no hint of pretense about him. He seemed utterly content with life, pleased with his humble place in the world, with Josephine’s quiet company at his side, with the soaring, blue sky and the little birds chipping and darting in the trees.
Oh, to be so carefree—to have a life of peace and joy! It was an impossible dream, Josephine knew. But as she strolled with Bill Jakes in the warmth of late spring, it seemed a touch more attainable than she’d dared to hope.
They arrived at the hill’s crest. The shaded green tunnel of the road gave way to the open sward of the university, and the sun dazzled on the newness of the building’s white limestone walls.
“It’s quite a place, Seattle.” Bill gazed down the great length of the forested slope to the mud-brown streets and pale buildings clustered around the bay. “It’s not much yet, but it will be. Some day, our town will be a real city—a grand place, where hopes and dreams can flourish.”
Josephine watched the town in silence—the carriages and wagons, small as children’s toys, bustling along its roads as if they already went about grand business, as if the town was unfolding itself even now, stretching and pressing against its own small boundaries, growing into the land of dreams Bill envisioned. For a moment, she felt as if she could glimpse the future—neighborhoods and avenues spreading north and south, lining the great, hopeful, blue-shimmering arc of Puget Sound. Far across the water, the clear day afforded a view of rounded islands and the hilly peninsula beyond, its flanks thick with a green-black covering of timber, an endless expanse of trees to be harvested and sold, to feed Seattle’s progression from its infancy into a brilliant, hopeful maturation. The timbered hills were crowned by the rugged peaks of the Olympic Mountains, resting like a white-pointed crown on nature’s majesty.
“I can see it,” she said. “It’s such a lovely place—once you look past the mud and the gambling and all the rough characters in its streets. Seattle … I’m glad I came here, Bill. Really glad.”
“That beauty out there,” he said, nodding across the Sound to the mountainous landscape, “makes you real happy to be alive, doesn’t it?”
Happy to be alive—you have no idea, Josephine thought, remembering Clifford’s choking grip on her collar, the stench of whiskey on his breath.
Impulsively, she took Bill’s arm. She could feel the warmth of his body through the heavy linen of
his jacket, and her fingers tightened on his solid presence, on the fact of him, as if she intended never to let go. “It makes me feel contented, right down to my soul. It’s no wonder you’re such a pleasant man, Bill. You call this place your home, and look at it! It just sings in my heart!”
“Kind of makes you feel optimistic, to look on that pretty little vista,” he said quietly. But he wasn’t looking at the mountains anymore, or the winking expanse of the water. He gazed at Josephine, and his smile was warm and steady.
Optimistic—yes.
Josephine swallowed hard and looked away. She could still feel Seattle unrolling itself below, reaching toward its bright array of possibility. But Josephine knew she must curb her own elation and keep her expectations in firm check. She had a secret to keep, she thought sadly as she clung more tightly still to her companion’s arm. And until she was free from her past, she mustn’t allow hope to plant itself in her heart.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
NOBODY’S WIFE
Dovey found the address for the revenue building at the northern edge of the city. In fact, she suspected she had gone somewhat beyond the bounds of Seattle, wherever those lay. The cobblestone street had turned to an unpaved lane some time ago, and more recently degenerated into a muddy track through a stand of cedars and maples. She had passed the last business at least ten minutes ago—the workshop of a carpenter, its yard redolent with the oily tang of fresh-planed wood—and the nearest home was hidden now behind a screen of trees.
But Dovey had found her destination, sure enough. A plank sign swinging over the paling fence read, WASH. TERR. REVENUE SERVICE—but she hesitated at the gate. She had expected the Revenue Service to operate out of a proper office building—stone or brick, with a suitably stately appearance. This, however, looked more like a home than a taxman’s haunt. The single white house, of simple construction and unadorned appearance, stood beneath the arch of the cedar boughs. Beyond its muddy yard, Dovey could make out a split-rail fence corralling several horses, their heads bent to a tin trough, and in the distance, the long, low shape of a stable.
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