Lilac

by Louisa Trent

  Tegan tightened the drawstrings of her reticule, heavy as the very dickens, but not due to an overstuffed money purse. She’d had to sell her parents’ wedding bands to subsidize her trip. And with no funds left over to purchase a return train fare to Pittsburgh, running for the hills was not only a figurative expression in this instance, but alas, quite literally, her only means of returning home. In a word, she was impoverished. Though financially embarrassed suited her better. Vastly more polite.

  Oh! Finally. The ornate front door was swinging wide.

  From the yawning threshold, a matronly servant squinted at Tegan. “Here for the soiree?”

  Soiree?

  Hmm.

  How very providential. The squinting domestic had just handed Tegan an entrée behind enemy lines, and on a silver platter no less. Only a ninny would refuse.

  “Why…er…yes, I am indeed here for the…uh…soiree.”

  Tegan tossed aside her twinge of guilt at the untruth. Why split hairs over a small fib capable of producing expansive results? The ends justified the means; her lie served the higher power of good, right was on her side, and time was of the essence. Strike while the iron is hot!

  Or in this instance, before her evidence against the owner of Central Coal Mine grew cold. Every day she delayed, miners and their families suffered.

  Tegan drew herself up, straightened her shoulders, and told another whopper of a tale. “Though, I am a tad early. For the…uh…soiree.”

  “Not to fret. Into the entrance hall with you, luv.”

  Luv?

  An altogether familiar form of address coming from a servant. How to proceed? Slack morals were one thing, lax etiquette quite another. The former might be forgiven, but the latter was an irreparable breach in decorum. At sixes and sevens, she hesitated.

  The servant impatiently swished her black bombazine skirts. “Come in, luv, do! You will catch your death standing out there and freeze my rosy arse.” She shooed Tegan over the threshold. “Brrrr. The calendar says late August, but it is as cold as a witch’s—”

  Tegan sniffed, her nostrils withered. “I quite understand your meaning. No need to elaborate.”

  “I meant no offense.”

  Oh dear. They had gotten off on the wrong foot, the servant and she, and now Tegan must remedy their bad start. Antagonizing this salty-tongued woman would defeat her purpose and possibly court Tegan’s ejection from the manor. Contrary to popular wisdom, love’s oil did not make the world go round; it was the elbow grease applied by hardworking domestics.

  “I fear we may be in for a storm,” Tegan offered, lifting her skirts and crossing the threshold into the vestibule. Weather always made for an unobjectionable subject on which to converse. “A raindrop landed on my nose as I navigated the drive.”

  “A raindrop. On your nose. Do tell?” The servant stuck her head outside, peered up at the dark sky, and then slammed the door shut. “No bloody use. Everything is a blur without my pince-nez.” She patted her apron pockets. “I am forever losing those blasted spectacles. But never you mind, luv. Blind as a bat, I can still find my way around these corridors. The name is Mrs. Birch, by the way, housekeeper here at Griffith House.” Turning on her heel, she hurried away. “Come along with me, if you please.”

  Tegan most assuredly did not please. But now that she had her foot in the door, as it were, succumbing to the vapors was out of the question. Like it or not, she followed a shaky step or two behind the housekeeper’s swaying bustle.

  The servant paused at a mahogany escritoire and Tegan eyed the handsome silver tray balanced on top.

  Uh-oh. A receptacle for visitors’ calling cards.

  With nothing to deposit save the lint from her pockets, Tegan hunted down a distraction before Mrs. Birch found her out as a fraud.

  A bronzed statue, a singing troubadour from the looks of him, provided her with the very diversion she needed.

  “My, what a fine example of circa-fifteenth-century sculpture.” Tegan gave the bulge in the minstrel’s tight-fitting breeches a poke. “Back then, you see, men would fill the front pouches of their hose with scrotum, an archaic and extinct fish of Latin etymology. Hence, the word codpiece.”

  “Fancy that, luv. A fish! And here I thought the gent hung like a stallion.”

  Tegan breathed a tremendous sigh of relief. She had made that up as she went along, but evidently her lie…er…ruse had worked.

  With the vexatious issue of Tegan’s nonexistent calling card forgotten, the chortling housekeeper resumed her former brisk pace.

  Tegan had bypassed a thorny tree branch without any irksome scratches, but she was not out of the woods yet. The reception room lay straight ahead.

  Oh…dear…Lord. What if Mr. Griffith, himself, conducted her inquisition…er…reception?

  A warm flush suffused Tegan’s skin. She must certainly be glowing. Doubtlessly, underpaid, overworked Central miners provided Griffith House with cheap coal, which accounted for her dripping palms. Oh, the irony there! While mining people in Pittsburgh shivered with the cold, the owner’s house in New York was overheated.

  Tegan peeled off her black knit gloves, careful to hide the bumpy darned spot on the thumb, and as she did, Mrs. Birch swept right past the reception room door.

  Apparently, Tegan would not need to suffer through an inquisition…er…reception. Thank heaven. A reprieve!

  The drawing room came next, an exclusively female domain where the lady of house would interview each visitor. Here too, Tegan had gotten lucky. According to reliable sources—lady’s tea at the Pittsburgh Free Library—Mr. Griffith remained unmarried at the not-too-terribly-advanced age of thirty-five. No wife equaled no grilling…er…greeting behind closed drawing room doors.

  Tegan wiped her moist brow. Safe. For now.

  Outside the cabinet room, the housekeeper paused beside marble busts of Cupid and Psyche. “Downstairs we go, luv. Should you have any wants, a speaking tube is located next to the call box in the butler’s pantry. Just look to the corner next to the dumbwaiter. And please know the silverware is counted each evening.”

  What a perplexing thing for Mrs. Birch to say, Tegan mused, brushing a reverent hand across her faded sleeve.

  As did all her wardrobe, the black traveling coat she wore today had once belonged to her beloved mother, a matron of forty at her passing a decade and a half since. A few adjustments for size with a needle and thread…and some forgiveness for wear and tear…and, of course, minor fading…and the garment looked as good as new.

  At least, Tegan had always thought the coat looked as good as new. Now the servant’s perplexing statement set her to thinking. Mrs. Birch’s prior statement about counting the silverware made absolutely no sense, unless the servant had mistaken Tegan for a…a…

  Thud. Like a missing jigsaw piece, the housekeeper’s puzzling lack of protocol fell into place.

  No need for a calling card of introduction, no need for an inquiry as to her name, no need for a reception of any sort, not when Tegan’s secondhand clothing called her as a common scullery maid.

  Chapter Two

  Oh, the shame.

  In light of that night’s festivities, Mr. Griffith’s must have hired temporary help to augment the household’s regular staff.

  Orgies, evidently, were labor-intensive.

  And here Tegan had been under the assumption, misguided in this instance, that she looked genteel. Instead, she must appear impoverished enough to accept day work in the mansion’s kitchen.

  Regardless of her humiliation, Tegan followed the housekeeper’s bustling lead down the narrow staircase to the servants’ quarters.

  As her dear Papa used to say, every rain cloud has a silver lining, and Tegan dutifully searched for hers.

  It took a while.

  Eventually, she did look on the bright side of things. The day’s wage would come in handy. Perhaps she would even earn enough money to purchase a return train fare to Pittsburgh. And even carrying a tray of dirty dishe
s, she could still speak with Mr. Griffith about a matter of pressing urgency.

  Unless the robber baron saw to his responsibilities, this coming winter Central Coal Mine’s largely Welsh workforce and their families would go hungry and cold, their food supplies short and their housing conditions deplorable. Presently, the only benefit provided loyal miners was a company-owned store that sold overpriced goods. As it stood now, all employee salaries reverted to Mr. Griffith. He needed to do more than swindle his workers. Or else!

  What?

  What possible ultimatum could she, a mining girl of little consequence, issue a wealthy robber baron?

  “Here you go, luv, a snug little room. Take off your charming bonnet and stay awhile.”

  As a way to stretch a penny, Tegan not only remade her mother’s gowns, she also designed her own bonnets. This particular one reflected first-year mourning for her deceased father and so boasted no decorative braid for garniture. By all rights, the hat should have included a veil, but the cost of netting was prohibitively dear and buying the stuff would have meant skipping her single meal of the day.

  And still, Mrs. Birch had called the hat “charming.”

  Her lost pride restored, Tegan removed her creation and placed it carefully on the bedstead. How she would love to own her own milliner’s shop someday!

  “When the bell chimes, luv, find your way back upstairs. The soiree begins with a banquet in the dining room.”

  A banquet! What! Did Sean Griffith think himself above the most basic civility? Above even reproach? While his miners went without roofs over their heads, he lived in the lap of luxury. While Central workers starved, he put on lavish spreads. And for an orgy, of all misbegotten things.

  Mrs. Birch nodded to a basin and pitcher. “Mind you, wash first.” One lid closed in a squinty wink. “Giving utmost vigilance to you-know-where.”

  Indeed, she did not know where. Indeed, Tegan had no idea what the housekeeper meant.

  For lack of anywhere better to check, she glanced down at her gloveless hands. Perfectly clean. Though—

  If soft skin indicated good breeding, her rough and cracked fingers proclaimed her no lady at all. Unlike Griffith House, her tiny leased cottage came without a full complement of servants. Any scrubbing to do, Tegan did it. And, God rest his soul, since her father’s death six months earlier, she had done nothing but clean.

  Brynn Ellis had been a doting father, and she had loved him dearly. But the man kept everything. Mountains of papers gathered dust in his study. While tirelessly crusading for coal-mining reform, her father had also held the key position of chief supervisor at Central, a conflict of interest he kept secret in fear of losing his job. Despite a house filled with documents chronicling abuses, he never succeeded in making charges to the mine. He died believing himself a failure.

  Tegan would have done anything to spare him that final blow.

  Perhaps without the burden of raising her alone, of having to protect her from the repercussions of management retaliation, he might have made his dream of fair mining practices a reality. Heartbreaking to know she had stood in her father’s way. And losing the home she had lived in since birth only added to her grief.

  Her father’s death spelled Tegan’s eviction. Next week, the new chief supervisor, Mr. Willard Owen, assumed occupancy.

  Upon inspecting the home, Mr. Owen had discovered a stack of her father’s most damning papers against Central Coal Mine. The new supervisor insisted she turn over all evidence to him, “for safekeeping.”

  Ha! The dyed-in-the-wool company man would destroy her father’s work.

  Rather than surrender the documentation, she hid the papers in a metal box under some loose floorboards in the woodshed. Except for the most negative testimonies—those she had with her, rolled up inside her reticule.

  The plight of miners and their families concerned Tegan deeply. Their sad lot in life mirrored her own. Unless she did something drastic, next week Central Coal Mining Company would cast her out on the streets, where she would remain, homeless and penniless, a victim of the same callousness her father had sought to eliminate.

  Mrs. Birch winked once more, this time so strenuously her double chin quivered. “Also, before coming upstairs, make sure to change.”

  Into what—a maid’s uniform and apron?

  Tegan surveyed the spartanly furnished servant’s quarters and saw no white cotton apron and black serge maid’s uniform anywhere.

  Below her own linen servant’s cap, the housekeeper’s forehead furrowed. “Luv, you cannot possibly wear that upstairs for the soiree. You did bring a change of outfit in your reticule?”

  Indeed, Tegan had not. Her overstuffed satchel contained her father’s evidentiary papers and her sewing supplies—she never went anywhere without them—and that was it.

  But… “Yes,” Tegan lied. “I do indeed have a change of clothing with me.”

  Mrs. Birch gave yet another bawdy wink. “That is the ticket, luv. And make sure to let the plump pigeons topple.”

  Another assumption crumbled.

  Obviously, the housekeeper had not mistaken Tegan for an invited guest, or even a scullery maid, but for a…a…

  No. She would not lend dignity to the word. But she would use that word to her own ends.

  Tegan smiled serenely at the housekeeper. “Oh, the plump pigeons will most certainly fall. My very thought. In fact, I always say there is nothing quite like bird droppings for eliciting a gentleman’s interest.” Despite Mrs. Birch’s look of confusion, Tegan was the one to give the bawdy wink this time.

  What cared she about decorum when miners’ lives were at stake?

  If baring her bosom gained Tegan a private audience with the robber baron, then bare her bosom she would. Her plump pigeons could roost in his lap if that achieved her purpose.

  “Luv, when the bell rings, Mr. Griffith will expect you promptly upstairs for the soiree.”

  Soiree?

  Ha! A debauched, grape-peeling orgy more like.

  Tegan had come here, to this…this…den of iniquity, to make demands of Mr. Griffith. But without an ultimatum, her “or else” had no teeth.

  Her demands had just sprouted a mouthful, all pointed fangs.

  One thing to have rumors of Mr. Griffith’s licentiousness bandied about, quite another for an eyewitness to confirm the gossip. If Tegan threatened the industrialist with public exposure in the press, he would most certainly accede to her mining reform demands.

  Granted, blackmail was ugly, but no uglier than what miners and their families would endure this coming winter if something was not done. Extortion would convince the robber baron to do the right thing—if the evidence in her reticule did not.

  But here was the rub—could she do it?

  If the evidence in her reticule failed to achieve the desired results, could she attend the orgy, then face Mr. Griffith coolly afterward and threaten him with exposure in the New York newspapers unless he acceded to her demands? Could she be so bold?

  She could, indeed!

  Lives depended on her.

  Acting as though everything was normal and usual, when nothing was normal or usual, and most likely never would be again, she nodded at the housekeeper. “Thank you, Mrs. Birch. That will be all.”

  “I will leave you to your toilette then, luv,” the housekeeper said and left.

  Poverty carries a distinctive fragrance. For years, Tegan had doused herself in that poor scent as if she wore the finest Parisian perfume. But the smell had eventually nauseated her. The hardships of living in a filthy mining town rife with problems had worn her down. Doing without had thinned her body and her expectations. She craved justice for the miners as much as she craved food.

  And that was saying a lot. Her belly gnawed so. When last had she eaten?

  Only crumbs remained of the crust of bread and wedge of hard cheese she had carried from home in a muslin cloth.

  She would do this! Because she had to do it.

  Rummag
ing through the rolled-up papers in her reticule, she brought forth her trusty sewing kit. She would cut her gown down to size the same way she intended to cut Mr. Griffith down to size. A few alterations, a snip here, a rip there, and the robber baron’s eyes would pop when he saw her.

  After stripping to her underclothes, Tegan attacked the modest black mourning gown with her sewing scissors. The neckline had to dip, until her chest swelled over the top and her “pigeons” nearly toppled.

  Upon finishing, she held the altered mourning gown up before her and examined the results.

  Scandalous!

  She smiled. The very effect she had sought to achieve.

  Though the fabric was faded and thin with repeat washings, the style was no longer hopelessly matronly and years outmoded. The gown looked almost fashionable, in a risqué dance hall sort of way. The neckline went past dipping into plunging and would certainly not allow for the wearing of her a chemise, corset, and corset cover. Foregoing petticoats as well, she would wear just drawers, she decided, and stripped to them.

  A cracked mirror was propped up against a scratched chest of drawers. Bare-breasted, she stood before the glass and blinked. Then blinked again.

  She was not given to vanity. Or to overly long sessions of peering at nearly naked reflections of herself. But in a fit of daring, she ran a finger over her pronounced collarbone and down to her bosom, which was adequate but hardly ogle-worthy. Her waist was trim enough, her belly flat, her hips a bit narrow. Her bottom, not that men cared about such things, was a little too round, even without a bustle.

  Biting a lip, she undid the frayed ribbon at her middle and lowered her drawers to her ankles.

  And blushed.

  She should not. Really, she should not do it. But helpless not to do it, she cupped her adequate bosoms and widened her stance.

  Her privates, covered with tight black curls, were a forbidden area, restricted to all but essential and utilitarian reasons. Outside of specific times, she never ever touched there. Beyond necessity, touching there was simply not allowed. Certainly, ladies never did. Ladies did their utmost to forget that no-man’s land between their legs. And if she felt strange tingles in that particular locale, she simply ignored them.