Mercer Girls

by Libbie Hawker

  “The Lord only sends what trials we can bear,” Sophronia said, “and what rebukes we deserve.” She tried to keep her voice cool and righteous, but it managed an unruly quaver.

  Dovey snorted. “That’s nonsense. Don’t say such doltish things. You aren’t to blame if some ugly, drunken ox attacks you.”

  Sophronia’s composure cracked. She covered her face with her hands and vented a long, high-pitched whine, an undignified squeal of fear and despair. It was a chastisement, she told herself, a rebuke for my haughty ways, a lesson sent to humble me, to make me a better woman.

  The terrifying assault had to be a message from the Lord—it simply had to. A part of His inscrutable but ultimately Grand Design, a test Sophronia could face and overcome. If this night’s fear and suffering weren’t part of an ordered plan, then nothing made sense—not the heartbreaks she had suffered, nor her decision to leave home; not the quiet pain that throbbed every day deep in Sophronia’s heart, and certainly not the whole damnable mudhole of sin and disorder that was Seattle.

  It must be a rebuke because I nearly allowed Mr. Tidworth to kiss me, she told herself frantically. Her pulse raced in time with her thoughts. If he’d managed to kiss me, God only knows what sin I may have been led into! I must guard myself even more carefully—and I must determine a man’s true character before I get too close to him.

  But how exactly did one determine a man’s true character? In a place like Seattle, where sin seemed to fall from the sky with the frequent, heavy rains, how could any woman hope to discover the truth of a man’s soul before it was too late?

  “Come now, Sophie,” Jo said gently. “Pull yourself together. You’re all right now. Dovey and I are here; we won’t let any harm come to you.”

  With an effort that shivered her to her bones, Sophronia squared her shoulders and stood on shaking legs. A small, framed mirror hung on the parlor wall opposite. Sophronia walked to the glass and stared at her reflection. Her complexion was flushed pink and swollen, the delicate skin of her cheeks inflamed from the salt of her tears. Slowly, with controlled care, she tucked a mussed lock of hair back into the white-golden roll at the nape of her neck.

  “I’m going to marry,” Sophronia said steadily. “I must have a husband to protect me. It’s not right for a woman to go about undefended, as I was tonight. I’ll marry the first true Christian man I can find. But he must be a true Christian. There lies my only hope.”

  “Tiff me dead,” Dovey burst out rudely. “We’ve only been here a week and a half! You can’t just up and marry the next man who comes along, even if he is a Christian.”

  “It’s why we came, isn’t it?” Sophronia countered, refusing to look at Jo. “To become wives? Well, it’s time I got on with my task.” And she would just have to place all her trust in the Lord—to know, without a shred of sinful doubt, that He would match her with a good man. He would give her to a man she could find contentment with, if not love. Sophronia examined her flushed face in the mirror, the tracks of her tears, and she suspected very strongly that love was out of the question.

  “I don’t care why we came,” Dovey said. “It’s better to stay unattached, to remain free.”

  Because the pain had sunk deep into her chest, gnawing like a starved rat at her heart, Sophronia turned her tongue sharp and lashed Dovey with its edge. “Unattached? Free? You don’t know the curse you wish on yourself, you foolish girl! I do. There’s a divine reason why you were led to this work, Dovey—a purpose and a plan for you in Seattle. If you don’t bend your will to the Lord’s, he will punish you—punish you!” She gestured sharply at her torn dress, and Dovey flinched, screwing up her brown eyes.

  “Woman needs Man,” Sophronia went on. “Eve was made for Adam, and her purpose was to be his wife. Women were not made for freedom, for unattachment. Women were made to submit themselves to the headship of a husband. Women need protection. If my predicament tonight hasn’t taught you that much, then I shudder to think what you must endure until the lesson is learned!”

  “All right,” Jo said soothingly. “You’ve had a difficult night, Sophronia. Let Dovey alone and come upstairs. You’ll stay here with us tonight. Don’t worry about the Jamesons; I’ll get a message to them tonight and tell them you’re safe. Don’t think about the rest now—husbands and proposals and what women were made for. Just come upstairs and let us tuck you in.”

  In Josephine’s little room under the pointed gable, Dovey and Jo stripped Sophronia down to her chemise. Jo found a fresh nightgown in her narrow armoire and urged Sophronia to put it on. But Sophronia could only stand in her underthings, covering her face with her hands, shivering as she wept. She felt Jo’s arms encircle her, strong and unshakable. Then Dovey embraced her, too, and the girl’s nearness was a comfort to Sophronia.

  In time she controlled her weeping again and shook off their clinging arms. She pulled Jo’s nightgown over her heard.

  “It’s time I married,” Sophronia said firmly. “It was time before I even came here to Seattle. But … well, I was too stubborn, too proud to do as the Lord wished.”

  She went obediently to Jo’s bed, allowed the older woman to tuck the covers up to her chin as if she were a child in a nursery.

  “Those days are over,” Sophronia promised. “I’ll do exactly as God directs, from this day forward.”

  “I don’t believe you’ve ever done anything but what God directs,” Dovey muttered.

  But Jo hushed the girl with a glance.

  “Don’t be in a hurry to wed,” Jo advised Sophronia. “Not even a man you believe to be a good Christian. A marriage is nothing to be rushed into. Take my word on that account.”

  “A husband is nothing to be gotten ever,” Dovey added.

  “Marriage is Woman’s purpose,” Sophronia said sternly. “And I will do what I was made for.”

  Dovey tossed her curls. “Maybe my purpose is something other than yours.”

  “God gave Woman only one purpose—one path,” Sophronia said. “The sooner you realize that, Dovey, and cleave to the righteous path, the better off you will be.”

  She nodded with finality. Jo ushered Dovey from the room, leaving a candle burning for Sophronia, to chase away the shadows of the night. But as Sophronia lay still in the bed, musing on the subject of divine purpose, she didn’t feel better off. The time had come to marry, all right. There could be no doubt about it. Why, then, did she feel so lost, so afraid?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  WHAT PASSES FOR MOONLIGHT

  Josephine sank down on the green velvet couch with a sigh. In the parlor, the pink hobnailed lamps still burned in their sconces, tingeing the air with the faint scent of coal gas. Lamplight glowed in cheerful circles along the room’s length, setting the gilded accents in the wallpaper to sparkling. The parlor’s air of gaiety only seemed to mock the silence, the grave acceptance of fate that had settled over the Terry house and its miserable sleeper upstairs. Sophronia’s wretched state was all the more heartrending for her stoic determination to marry, her certainty that she was somehow to blame for the assault—that she could stave off future violence with a man.

  The thought of it twisted Jo’s gut into knots. She had rushed into marriage with Clifford because she had thought the union might confer on her protection of another kind—a shield against aspersion, acceptance as a worthy member of society. But the price had been too dear. Jo longed to talk sense into Sophronia, to make the woman see that she couldn’t trust her safety to a stranger—even one she believed to be morally upright. But a voice whispered in Josephine’s head, repeating in a sly, mocking echo, Sophronia isn’t wrong. What choice does a woman have but to trust her fate to a husband? Perhaps it wasn’t Sophronia who needed her senses restored.

  Dovey entered, carrying an enameled tray that was laden with two slices of fruitcake and a pair of steaming teacups. “I found the cake in the Terrys’ pantry,” she said, setting the tray on the sideboard. “Hope it’s all right if we nibble the crust.”
/>   “Mary won’t mind.”

  Jo accepted a plate from Dovey. She stared at her slice of cake. The bright bits of fruit were set in the cake’s dense crumb like jewels in a golden crown, but Jo found she had no appetite. She laid the plate aside and sipped at her tea instead.

  “Do you think Sophie will sleep?” Dovey asked.

  “I hope she will. She needs rest. She mustn’t make any rash decisions.” I did, and look at the mess I’ve ended in. “The world will look fresh and new to her in the morning, and she’ll choose a wiser path.”

  Dovey took a bite of fruitcake, then leaned from her chair to peer out the window. “Jo, I think there’s a man outside,” she whispered. “Do you suppose it’s Sophie’s attacker?”

  “No, I don’t.” Jo stood eagerly and drained the last of her tea in one long draft. Sophronia’s distress still weighed on her heart, of course, but even through that haze of pity, Jo felt a prickle of sweet anticipation. She headed for the door.

  Dovey set aside her teacup with a loud clink and leaped to her feet. “Where are you going? You can’t leave the house tonight, with some beastly creeper on the prowl.”

  “Stay inside,” Jo said. “And trust me. I’ll be safe.”

  She stepped out onto the porch just as Bill Jakes climbed the final stone step that led from the road up to the Terry home. His lean, rangy shape was well known to her now, so that even silhouetted against the night she recognized Bill at once. The swinging rhythm of his arms—just a touch too long for his body—was as much a comfort as the beat of her own heart. Jo leaned against one of the porch’s ornately carved posts and smiled.

  “You look real pretty in moonlight,” Bill said. “Or what passes for moonlight in Seattle.”

  “Keep your voice down,” she whispered, glancing back toward the house. For all she knew, Dovey was pressing her ear to the other side of the door. But she smiled up at Bill’s shadowed face. “Back again to see me?”

  Of course Bill was back again. He had called on Jo every other night since their initial walk. At first, she had kept him firmly in his place, insisting that their encounters remain blandly civil, so that no one—especially Jo and Bill themselves—might mistake their interactions for courting. But little by little, his affable charm had worn her caution away. Soon Jo looked so forward to their evening strolls and chats in Mary Terry’s garden that all the mundane events of her daily life blurred into long stretches of featureless time, devoid of any color. The moments she shared with Bill were the only moments when she truly lived.

  And even as her heart leaped like a fish in a sunlit pond, Jo felt the familiar twist of guilt in her stomach, the tightening of shame in her chest. She was not free to love Bill—and she had made a promise to Sophronia.

  “I have to call on you often,” Bill said, grinning, “or your other suitors might get the jump on me.”

  “There are no other suitors.”

  Bill reached through the darkness and found her hand. “I find that hard to believe. A woman as fine and clever as you must have men clamoring to marry you.”

  There were times when Bill’s flirtations cheered Jo, and times when his pretty words sent pain stabbing through her heart. Tonight, with Sophronia’s distress so raw and near—with the thought of Clifford so recently haunting her mind—a gust of thwarted longing blew right through Josephine’s soul. It scoured away all her careful defenses, tore off and tossed away her mask of quiet dignity. She hung her head, unable to meet Bill’s eye.

  I must tell him the truth, she told herself. Even if it hurts him. Even if he judges me a fallen woman, or spurns me for allowing him to hope for what can never rightfully be.

  She opened her mouth and tried to make her confession. But her throat constricted and her heart seized; she could not make herself speak the words that would ruin their love forever.

  Finally she managed, “I wouldn’t accept any other suitors, even if they appeared. I won’t see anyone else, Bill—only you.”

  “I suppose that makes me lucky.” Gently, he squeezed her hand.

  “I need to ask a favor of you,” she said. “Can you carry a message to the Jameson house tonight? Dovey is here with me while the Terrys are away, and our friend Sophronia has … has decided to stay the night, as well. I don’t want Mrs. Jameson to worry.”

  “Sure, I can pay the Jamesons a late visit,” Bill said amiably. “But I hoped to spend a little time with you before I went on my way. I must speak to you of something, Jo—a matter very dear to me.”

  Something in his tone—its sudden sobriety, the thickening of his voice, as if his throat had gone tight with emotion—made Josephine look up in a panic. Bill was watching her with an earnestness so strong it almost looked like sorrow—his brows pulled together, his eyes deep and imploring in the dimness of the night.

  Josephine’s heart fluttered, a bird trapped cruelly in a pretty cage. “Oh no,” she whispered.

  “I’ve come tonight to ask you to marry me,” Bill said. “I never had much interest in marrying any woman—not that I have anything against women, of course. I just never saw the point of marrying—until I met you. So strong and sure of yourself … so fearless and honest …”

  Those words stung Jo so fiercely that she gasped. She was not fearless—not by a long way—and as for honesty … !

  Tossed on the waves of her thwarted desire, Jo turned abruptly away from him. “Oh, Bill! I can’t marry you—I can’t!” She covered her face with her hands. Even under the cover of darkness, she was unwilling to show Bill her tears. Perhaps he would read in their crooked tracks the truth of her secret, and Jo couldn’t bear for Bill to know how she had deceived him.

  A silence fell over the porch, the yard—the whole darkened city. Jo breathed raggedly in that stillness, wishing the sun would rise now and put an end to this dreadful day.

  Finally, though, Bill broke the silence. His voice was not demanding; it carried no hint of anger. “Why not?”

  Jo hugged herself tightly. Now was the time to spill out her secret—her chance to unburden her conscience. “I … I have …”

  Like the last damp patch of a puddle drying in the sun, Jo’s courage failed her—not that she had much courage to begin with. “I simply can’t,” she said with brusque finality. The image of Dovey came suddenly to her mind—roguish Dovey tossing her curls, denying and defying the whole damned world. Jo blurted, “I don’t want to marry anyone. I want freedom—my own life. I don’t want to be bound to any man—no matter how I may care for him.”

  “Shucks,” Bill said at once. His voice even lightened a note or two, buoyed by what sounded very much like relief. “That makes proper sense to me. I felt exactly the same way, until I met you.” His angular shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Well, all right, then. We don’t have to marry. If that suits you best, it suits me, too.”

  Jo gazed at him in astonishment. Is he breaking off his suit? And if he had chosen to walk away from her heart, should she feel relieved or devastated?

  Bill stroked his mustache for a moment, bridled by some troubling thought. He watched Jo’s face in long contemplation. At last he said, “Only, I’m heading out to Whidbey Island to take up a building contract there. I’ll be living on the island for a few years while the work’s available.”

  A blow like a hammer struck deep in Jo’s chest. Bill going away? Never to visit her again—to walk with her in the evenings, to soothe her anxieties with the soft, simple music of his conversation? She gaped at him, pained and dumbfounded.

  “Will you come with me?” Bill’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “The island’s in need of a teacher, and I have connections to an awful lot of the families out there. I could secure the position for you.”

  With effort, Josephine regained command of her tongue. “Come with you? But you said we shouldn’t marry.”

  He laughed. “You said we shouldn’t marry. I’m merely going along with your preference.”

  Bill paused and cast a cagey glance across the Terr
ys’ yard. The streets of Seattle were quiet and still in the watered-down pall that passed for moonlight. But still he hesitated, as if fearing the whole city was even now straining to listen.

  Finally he said, “I don’t see why we can’t continue enjoying one another’s company, just the way we have been doing. That is, if you’re willing to make the move to the island. I know it’s been your great ambition to take up as a teacher, and it’s not so unusual for a schoolmarm to live alone. On the island, far from the people of Seattle who’ve come to know you, you’ll be just another teacher living on her own. But you won’t be entirely on your own. See what I mean?”

  Jo stared out over the town, feeling the pinch and flush of her previous torment draining, relaxing from her face. She was aware that her eyes popped, that her mouth hung as slack as an empty jute bag, but she could do nothing about her display of confoundment.

  Was this man truly proposing that Jo run off with him? Scamper off to some clandestine location, and there commit adultery? Was he suggesting that she take up as his … companion on some isolated island?

  The very thought was an outrage. Or at least, Jo knew it should have outraged her—would have set any proper, moral woman to scolding and beating Bill clean away from the Terrys’ porch and out into the night. But Jo liked Bill. She might, she realized with a rush of possibility that made her feel both giddy and ashamed, love him.

  And he was leaving Seattle.

  Jo pressed her hands tight against her stomach, trying to quell the sick dread that surged up at the thought. To be separated from Bill might cause a greater pain than to be judged an adulterer.

  “I must know,” she finally said, “why you would wish to maintain a … a friendship with me if we are not to be married.”

  Bill didn’t hesitate in his answer. “I’m comfortable with you, Jo. That’s all that matters to me. I know it’s deemed real scandalous for a man and a woman to do what I suggested, but I’ve never been too fazed by scandal. I don’t care a whit for the opinions of Seattle society.”