Haypenny gave a jeering, feline hiss and leaned casually against the corner of the nearest building. “Where are you heading off to, Stuffy Sophie? Have a dinner date with Harmon Grigg?”
Sophronia blanched. Her throat tightened, and she croaked as she said, “What’s that to you?”
The prostitute slitted her painted eyes. “I know you’re sweet on the preacher. Everybody does.”
“It’s none of your business.” Sophronia sniffed and turned away, but the sly, lascivious nature of Haypenny’s laughter halted her in her tracks.
“You know, Sophie, you ought to have a little talk with Harmon Grigg.”
Sophronia swallowed hard. Reluctantly, she turned to consider the prostitute again. The girl’s arms were folded below the spilling lace and riotous bows that adorned her low neckline. She leaned her hip against the building’s corner with an air of sly satisfaction—and with a knowing smirk that sent a chill deep into Sophronia’s stomach.
“A talk? About what?”
Haypenny detached herself from the wall and sauntered up to Sophronia, then right past her, around the corner and into the cool blue shadow that hung across Second Avenue. “About the past,” Haypenny said casually, over her shoulder. “Don’t you think a girl ought to know everything about her beau’s habits before she ties the knot?”
Sophronia watched the girl mince away down the avenue, her hem lifted distressingly high, never once turning to glance back at her. Dread settled thickly in her chest, but Sophronia pushed it away resolutely.
That shameful wag can’t possibly know anything about Harmon. Sophronia remembered all too vividly the threat Haypenny had made when she’d dragged Dovey away from the gang of prostitutes. She’s only trying to get my goat, for Dovey’s sake. There’s no reason to be alarmed by the nattering of a fallen woman.
Sophronia turned and continued calmly toward her home. She would certainly not allow Haypenny’s petty attempt at vengeance to unseat her confidence, or to spoil her pleasure in the day. But the girl’s words did stick in Sophronia’s mind, despite her efforts to dislodge them. A woman really ought to know everything about her suitor’s past. Yes, it’s time Harmon and I discussed our lives, our habits—and best to do it now, before he makes his proposal.
As it happened, Harmon called on Sophronia that very evening. She had just helped Mrs. Jameson clear away the supper plates and was drying the last of the freshly washed pots when his familiar tap-tap-tap sounded at the front door. She answered the door herself, beaming at him, glad to fill her eyes and soul with the image of her love in the summer dusk, his red hair glowing in the fire of the sunset.
“I’ve come to ask you out for a stroll,” Harmon said. “It’s such a lovely evening, and there’s no one I’d rather spend it with than you.”
She accepted eagerly and wrapped herself in her shawl, then pressed herself snugly against his arm as they walked down to the waterfront and turned north, making for the unspoiled, pebble-strewn beaches beyond the shipping docks. The last brilliance of the sunset clung to the horizon in shades of flame and rose, touching long, thin tendrils of cloud with vermillion fire.
“Isn’t it lovely.” Sophronia sighed. “It’s been a perfect day, Harmon, and it’s all the better now that I’ve seen you.”
He smiled at her warmly. “I know it’s only been two days since my last visit, but I couldn’t allow another evening to pass without looking on your lovely face. You do look so enchanting in the sunset.”
Sophronia blushed and lowered her eyes to the rocky strand. They picked their way over a few pale logs of driftwood, then found one on which to sit, high and large enough to function as a bench. The sun’s warmth was still trapped in its dry, salt-roughened surface; Sophronia could feel it seeping through her skirt and petticoats.
“I’m so glad you called on me tonight,” she said, holding Harmon’s hand. “Forgive my forward manners, but I feel we’re reaching a turning point in our courtship.” She could not bring herself to look at him as she spoke, but he squeezed her hand gently, and, encouraged, she went on. “I thought perhaps it would be wise if we … spoke.”
“Spoke?” He kicked lightly at the gravel of the beach, a charmingly boyish gesture. “What’s on your mind, darling?”
Haypenny’s snide laughter slithered through her mind, twisting like a snake in the weeds. Sophronia pushed her doubts away. She was determined to let nothing destroy her happy mood—especially not the envious taunts of a woman of ill fame.
“I only thought,” Sophronia said lightly, “we might tell each other about the past. Make our little confessions before we … before we progress any further.”
“Very well,” Harmon said. Had a touch of uneasiness entered his voice, or was that merely Sophronia’s fretful imagination? “Shall you go first, or shall I?”
Sophronia cleared her throat. “Once, when I was ten years old, I stole an entire crock of strawberry preserves from my mother’s pantry and ate the whole thing.”
Harmon stared at her a moment, uncertain whether her confession was real. Then he burst out laughing, slapping his knee.
“It’s not funny!” Sophronia protested, struggling to keep back her own giggles. “Theft is very wrong. And besides, I got a terrible stomachache. Now you must make a confession.”
He stroked his beard, searching his memory as he grinned out at the fading sunset. “Very well. When I was a boy of about twelve, I was so bored in church service that I took out my pocketknife and carved a cuss word on the pew. I felt terrible about it later—I was dead certain the Lord was planning to strike me down. So the next Sunday I sneaked a little pot of my mother’s floor wax into church and covered it up again. But that sin lay heavy on my soul for many months afterward, I can tell you that for certain.”
Sophronia giggled. “Imagine, a little boy destined to be a minister, doing something so naughty!”
“I guess I’ve been forgiven for that particular sin,” Harmon said. “Now you.”
They went on trading their confessions as twilight crept over the beach, spreading its purple wings across the sky and coaxing the first of the stars into view. Laughter over youth’s sweet follies joined with the whisper of waves and the crying of gulls. Finally, when the stars wove a web of silver across the darkening sky, Sophronia gazed steadily at Harmon and took his hand again.
“I do have another confession to make. And I fear it’s a serious one.”
He wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye. “I can’t imagine you’ve ever had a real sin in your heart, Sophronia.”
She swallowed her fear, and her hand trembled in his. “You might think otherwise, once you’ve heard what I have to say. I’m afraid you might lose all respect for me, Harmon.”
“Darling! You need never fear such a thing from me. Tell me what burdens your heart.”
“The last time we were together …” Sophronia faltered and stared mutely at the waves, at their pale line of froth sketching and erasing itself against the dark, wet gravel of the shore. She took a deep, ragged breath. “When we were together, I thought you intended to kiss me. And I … I hoped you would, Harmon!”
He had gone very still and silent. Sophronia bit her lip, watching the waves advance and recede, certain she had lost his respect and his love forever. She risked a glance at his face. “Do you think me a harlot? I’ve thought so myself. The impulse shocked me, but I—”
“No, darling, no. I don’t think poorly of you.” His voice was thick with emotion. “We’ve all had shocking impulses from time to time. I think you a woman of admirable character, for you were able to control your longings.”
Something in his voice—some thin strand of regret—caught at Sophronia’s conscience. “But you,” she said desperately, “you are just as able to control—”
He gave a rueful laugh, short and hard, and turned his face away.
“Harmon?” Sophronia’s voice quavered, and she recalled Haypenny’s sly smirk with a chill of fear. “Do you have some
other confession to make?”
“I only tell you because I think it’s important that you know,” he said quietly. “Before we go any further.”
But then he fell silent, and slowly withdrew his hand from hers.
“What is it, Harmon? Please, just tell me!”
“In the past, I, too, have felt … unseemly desires. But I fear I was not as strong as you, and didn’t control myself.”
A harsh, brassy sound clattered in Sophronia’s ears, like the ringing of a cymbal. She realized with the too-calm clarity of despair that it was the sound of her own blood rushing, that her heart was racing, that her spirit was falling down a long, dark pit.
“In my moments of weakness,” Harmon went on, “I have sought out the company of low women.”
Sophronia gasped. “Harmon—how could you?”
“I’ve made repentance,” he said, turning to her hopefully, his eyes pleading for her forgiveness, too. “And once the guilt of it caught up to me, I never did it again. It has been two years since—”
She cut him off relentlessly. “How many times have you lain with soiled women?”
“Not many,” he answered at once. “Not many, though … I have done it a time or two. I’m a man made of flesh, after all. But, Sophronia, the guilt of it—I’ll never do it again. You need not fear that. I want nothing now but you—to settle down to a proper life.”
Harmon took both her hands in his own, meeting Sophronia’s eye with an absurd spark of hope—as if he expected her absolution for this insult, this sin!
“You may certainly not expect me to marry you!” Sophronia burst out. “Of all the grave offenses! Find another woman to tolerate your sins, Harmon Grigg! I’ll have none of you!”
She leaped up from the driftwood log and turned and rushed away, stumbling over the stony beach. She ignored his frantic calls to wait, to let him speak, to hear his confession and repentance. Under his painful protestations, she could not blot out the echo of Haypenny’s gratified laughter. The whore had taken her revenge, and no mistake.
Sophronia ran through the violet night until her lungs burned, ran until her throat rasped with pain and tasted of blood. She passed the muddy stench and the deep blue-dark scar of Skid Road, its hard, decisive slash down the face of the wooded hill. Ahead, glowing through the veils of darkness as on that fearful night when the stranger had attacked her, Sophronia saw the Terry house, the prim, white lacing of its peaked roofs standing stark and sharp against the dimness of the hour. She hurried up the steps of its steep yard and pounded on the door, choking back her sobs.
It was Dovey who answered the door, and for a moment Sophronia thought her eyes had deceived her, that she had not come to the Terry mansion after all. In her haste to flee from Harmon’s sin, and from the sting of betrayal, had she run even farther up the hill?
“Lord, Sophie, what’s the matter with you?” Dovey caught at her hand, but Sophronia reeled back from her touch.
“Where’s Josephine?”
“Tell me what the matter is,” Dovey said, frowning in concern. “You haven’t been attacked again, have you? Poor duck—”
Sophronia balled her fists and shouted into Dovey’s face, “I want nothing to do with you any longer—nothing, do you hear? Not you, or your filthy, painted friends!”
Josephine stepped through the doorway, wrapping Sophronia in a comforting embrace. She felt one moment of embarrassment over her disheveled state—her hair must be tossed and ruffled from the wind at the beach, and her boots were covered with clinging sand—but she could do nothing for a long, terrible moment except weep piteously against Josephine’s shoulder.
“Sophie,” Dovey said gently, “just tell us what’s the matter.”
“I won’t! Let go of me!” She reared back, breaking Jo’s embrace, and whirled to face Dovey once more. The girl’s pert confidence and bold stare seemed to mock her, as much as the whore Haypenny’s laugh had done. “You can just … just go to Hell, Dovey!”
She heard Josephine’s loud, startled gasp. Dovey blanched and wrinkled her nose, cutting a wary glance toward Josephine. Sophronia could just about read their thoughts: This isn’t like our Sophie. Something’s gone wrong.
But I’ll never speak of it, Sophronia told them silently, pressing her lips together, shivering with the cold of the night and with the force of her determination. No one will ever hear of my dashed hopes, of yet another beau driven away. No one will hear how the Lord taunted me, promising love and then snatching it away just as I felt brave enough to reach for it! She would bear her penance with patient humility, because that was good and right. But she would never speak of Harmon Grigg, or the shame and loss that wracked her, for all the rest of her days.
“Sophronia,” Jo said, “what has Dovey done? Surely she doesn’t deserve such harsh words from you.”
“Don’t try to smooth this over, Josephine. There are some wrongs too deep and terrible for your clever words to put right.”
“But Dovey only—”
“I will not make nice with that recalcitrant, foolish child. I will have nothing to do with anyone who associates with prostitutes.” It was because of those blights on the city, those maids of Babylon, that Sophronia had lost her final chance at love—and Harmon’s loss, just when Sophronia had allowed herself to be so happy and cheerful in her hope, hurt ten times more than any that had come before.
Sophronia brushed the sand from her skirt and turned to Dovey with cool composure. “I never want to speak to you again,” she said calmly, with perfect composure. Then she turned away from the women who stood shocked and silent on the Terrys’ porch and walked back out into the night, alone but with her head raised high.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE WEIGHT OF DUTY
“How do you like that?” Dovey said grimly, watching the pale streak of Sophronia’s unbound hair fade into the rainy night.
Jo shook her head. A hard, cold stab of confusion struck her in the gut, and she heaved a tired sigh. There was something about this parting that made her feel panicked and small. Something precious was breaking apart, drifting away. The bond that had existed between the three of them had always been tenuous, perhaps, but it was real. It was a painful thing, to see that friendship rip into tatters.
“It’s fine by me if I never see her again,” Dovey said stoutly. “I’ve had more than enough of Sophie’s arrogant ways. If I never have to hear one of her prunes-and-prisms speeches again, I’ll keel over dead of happiness.”
Jo clutched Dovey’s hand in despair. “How can you say that, after all we’ve come through together?”
“What have we gone through? A couple of ship voyages and a few acres of mud in Seattle? What of it? That’s not enough to hang a friendship on. Obviously—you heard what Sophronia said to me just now! Imagine.”
“Sophronia nursed you back to health aboard the Illinois, when you were so sick we thought you might die. And in San Francisco—she came out to find you in the streets, even though she was terrified.”
“If she hadn’t come out to find me, I might still be in San Francisco, making my own way in the world.”
“Making your way on your back,” Jo added drily.
“With gold in my pockets.”
“Clifford would have taken every bit of coin from your pockets, and then ripped the dress right off your body. You saw how he handled me. I couldn’t have stopped him. It was Sophronia who saved you—saved us both.”
“What of it? That’s all behind us now.” She propped her fists on her hips and glared up at Josephine. “And I don’t care how I make my money, so long as it’s mine—so long as no one can take it from me or tell me how I ought to spend it. I’ve found where I’m happy, Jo—on the back of a horse, with a pistol in my hand, collecting the taxes.
“And that’s just for now. I’ve got more plans for my future. None of them concern a husband or Miss Sophronia monitoring my morals. And mark my words, that’s why she’s so upset tonight. That’s why she shot o
ff her mouth that way, and cursed me to the Devil. She knows I’m beyond her reach, and she can’t stand it.”
“I truly don’t think that was the reason for her outburst,” Jo mused, staring into the rain again. But all trace of Sophronia had vanished.
“It is. I’d bet my own money on it. She can’t stomach a woman who intends to make her own way in the world. But that’s just what I’m doing, Jo. I won’t stop—not for Sophronia or anybody else.”
Jo hesitated, twisting a fold of her skirt between her fingers. The rain drummed on the porch roof, and from somewhere down in the city, the wind lifted and carried the faint sound of laughter, of men’s voices raised in drunken song.
“I’m planning to make my own way, too,” Jo finally admitted in a soft, startled voice. It was the first time she’d said it aloud—the first time she’d even settled on the thought in her own mind. But now that the words were out of her mouth, she knew she was committed. She wouldn’t be coming back to Seattle again.
“Are you?” Dovey asked, snapping out of her grim mood and beaming up at Jo with real interest. “That’s bully, Jo! What will you be doing?”
“I’ll be going off to Whidbey Island, to teach at the new school there.”
“An island! My—that sounds grand. And far away.”
Jo smiled. “It’s not so far away. Only a short boat ride from Seattle. But I’m glad to be going, Dovey, even if I’ll be rather isolated there.” Not entirely isolated—not with Bill close at hand. But Jo couldn’t quite bring herself to speak of that. Not yet. “I’ve had such a hunger to teach again, ever since I met Mr. Mercer back in Lowell. It’s time I took it up once more—my true life’s calling.”
“I’ll come and visit you, then. I’m awfully excited for you, Jo. It sounds perfectly grand—living on an island, just like a character in a novel!”
In the face of her friend’s innocent enthusiasm, Josephine’s face heated with shame. “Don’t be so sure it’s perfectly grand.” She hesitated again, then finally pushed out the words she’d been dreading to say in one frantic rush. “I’m going there as a fallen woman. I’m taking up with my beau as his companion. But we aren’t to be married.”
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