She moved the furniture and rug, pulled up the secret floorboard, and retrieved her bandbox. Even though she knew exactly how much was there, nine dollars from Sam Weston and fourteen from Reilly, she counted it again and again. Papa was right. The money from Reilly was easier and Papa hadn’t even given her what he had promised from Reilly. She slipped the coins back in among the ribbons, closed the bandbox carefully, and returned it to its hiding place for the last time. The next time she took it out, she wouldn’t hide it away again.
<><><>
ON MONDAY, when Clara and Mrs. Purcell had gone to purchase rail tickets, the station master had told them that the snow and ice was so bad on the Genesee Valley Railroad tracks that there were no trains running and he didn’t know when they’d start again. He told them it would be a better bet to take a steamboat down the lake and get a train for New York City from the south. Trains were still running on the southern lines so they went down to Long Pier and got steamboat tickets for the first sailing on Tuesday morning, on the Watkins.
During the rest of Monday, Clara was jittery, her stomach in an awful twist. She had waited until the last minute to tell Euphora the details of their running away because she and Mrs. Purcell were afraid Euphora might spill the beans without meaning to. During the night as they lay in bed, Clara whispered Mrs. Purcell’s plan to Euphora. They were to go to Mrs. Purcell’s cousin’s home in New York City. The cousin, Mrs. Agnes Hogarth, would take Euphora on as a domestic and she could live there.
There wasn’t enough room or money at the Hogarth’s to take a second girl, so Clara would have to work a factory job and live in a boardinghouse. But there was nothing to worry about. Mrs. Hogarth and Mrs. Purcell had it all arranged. Mrs. Hogarth knew a boardinghouse run by a woman just six blocks away and they had an acquaintance who managed an umbrella factory. Clara was promised a job there. The whole thing was a secret. Only Mrs. Purcell knew where they’d be. Even Izzie wouldn’t know in case Papa pressed her to tell. Later on they would write Izzie and explain it all.
Euphora was even more afraid of Papa than Clara had realized. Euphora actually seemed eager to run away. It turned out that during the many hours Clara was at the Spirit Room, Billy had confided in Euphora, telling her some of his stories about Papa losing his temper, things even Clara never knew. Clara had expected Euphora to fight against going, but it wasn’t the going that upset her sister, it was New York City, how far it was, and how big. For a good long time, Euphora whined and pleaded that they go to Izzie’s. Euphora wanted Izzie taking care of things as she had done in the past. But finally, Clara made her understand Papa would be able to find them there and steal them back.
“And I don’t want to leave Mrs. Purcell,” Euphora said.
“I know. I wish we could live with her too, Euphora, but we just have to get away from Papa. Maybe someday, if Papa leaves, we can live here again or go to Izzie’s.”
Clara told Euphora they were to get up at dawn and wear as many of their clothes as they could, like Billy had done. That way they’d be warm and their bags would be light.
When the dawn finally came, they rose and moved quietly about the room, preparing to leave. With all the gifts and clothing that Clara had acquired from Papa and Sam, her possessions had grown and it wasn’t so simple to throw them into a little sack, but Mrs. Purcell had realized this earlier and had given Clara her own carpetbag. To get the valise to close, Clara had to stuff her things down with all her weight. She put on her whalebone hoop, several petticoats, and her green taffeta dress over her green and white striped one. Over that she wore Mamma’s cape and over that, her red shawl. Everything else was in the carpetbag—hairdressings, bracelets, combs, brooches, sewing needles, thimbles, and threads. Euphora had two shawls, two dresses, two chemises, two petticoats, two books, two wooden horses, and one hairbrush. She wanted to take Billy’s checkerboard and checkers.
“It won’t fit in your satchel, but if you can carry it in your other hand, take it. If we end up walking a long way, you’ll have to get rid of it.”
“I can carry it.”
“Shhh. If you wake Papa, we’re dead as two doornails.”
The door latch clicked. Clara flinched. The hall door opened and there was Mrs. Purcell. She was fully dressed and carrying the small glass lamp from her bedchamber. Silently, she nodded at Clara, then vanished.
“We’re meeting her in her library. Are you ready?”
Euphora darted to the table, stuffed the checkers into her satchel and grabbed the checkerboard, which clunked loudly against the table. Heart flittering, Clara tensed and spun toward Papa’s door. She waited a hushed moment with Euphora. Nothing. Papa hadn’t been out late enough last night to be stewed to his eyebrows. He picked one muttonhead night not to get drunk and fall into a stupor.
“Go on ahead, I want to make sure we haven’t left anything.” Clara shut her carpetbag with the clasp.
Euphora tiptoed out and Clara went to the chest of drawers. In the top drawer there were several nearly empty tins of Billy’s pomade and a few scattered, dingy hair ribbons. In the second drawer, there was Euphora’s third toy horse, its legs broken off. How and when had that happened? In the bottom drawer there were garments they’d outgrown, a blue plaid dress that had been Izzie’s, then Clara’s, then Euphora’s, and there were numerous pantalettes and a pair of Billy’s out-grown trousers. Clara ruffled through these, but then felt something firm. She lifted Mamma’s Bible out of the mess and held it to her.
Mamma was buried in Geneva and Clara was leaving her here. She might never see her grave again. Raising the Bible to her face, Clara breathed in the musty, worn smell of it. She glanced over at her bag on the bed. Could she cram it in?
She opened the valise, reached in, and found the white and indigo dot summer dress Sam had given her that first time he’d pinned her in the corner of the Spirit Room. She tugged it out and tossed it onto the bed. She wrapped the Bible in the red bandana Billy had given her and slipped it in.
At the door she put the bag down and lingered. She looked around the Blue Room one last time. She looked at the things of the life that was over now, the sky blue walls, Mamma’s rocking chair brought from Ohio, the girls’ big bed and Billy’s skinny one, a handful of story books, the framed print of Broadway, New York City above the mantel. That seemed strange. After staring at that bustling place in the picture for so long, that’s just where she was going.
She glanced at Papa’s door and pictured him on the other side of it sleeping in his bed. “Goodbye, Papa.”
She turned, heart still flittering, and crept slowly downstairs. Nothing ahead of her would be familiar. Nothing except her little sister.
In her blue-and-red paisley wool shawl, silver hair perfectly up and tidy in a topknot, Mrs. Purcell was waiting for her with Euphora in the study. Euphora, with the checkerboard tucked under her arm, held a small woven basket.
“Do you have everything? Tickets? My cousin’s address?” Mrs. Purcell asked.
“Yes.”
“If you get confused, just ask the men working on the steamboat or in the depot. Here’s ten dollars.” She dropped various coins into Clara’s hand. “There’s food in the basket and here’s the letter for my cousin, Agnes.” She pressed it toward Clara. “Give it to her when you arrive. I’m sorry I can’t come with you down to the slip but if anyone saw us they’d know I had something to do with your leaving and it might get back to your father.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Purcell. We would never be able to do this without you.” Clara wished that her heart would slow down enough to be able to swallow normally.
“Nonsense. I owe it to your dear mother. My cousin is going to be a little surprised at the rush. She’s expecting another letter from me giving her a date, not you and your sister on her doorstep.”
Suddenly, Euphora dropped the basket and checkerboard to the floor with a thud and threw her arms around Mrs. Purcell’s waist.
“There, there, darling, I’ll miss you too
, more than you can know.” She patted Euphora. Mrs. Purcell looked pale this morning, tired, the skin over her cheekbones sagging.
“You can’t get into trouble with the sheriff for this, can you?” Euphora looked up at Mrs. Purcell.
“It’s not the sheriff I’m worried about. It’s your father, but once the worst is over, I don’t expect he’ll be staying around here. He doesn’t much care for me.” She gently nudged Euphora away from her.
“You two better get to the pier.” Her eyes moist with tears, Mrs. Purcell kissed Euphora, then Clara. Bracing Clara’s shoulders, Mrs. Purcell looked intently into her eyes. “You’ll be all right. Don’t be afraid. My cousin and her husband will watch over you.”
“I never got a chance to write Izzie about Billy running off. Will you do it for me?”
“Of course, dear.”
“But you still won’t tell her where we are until Papa is gone far away,” Clara said.
“Only when the time is right.”
Izzie not knowing their whereabouts for a while made Clara’s heart kick up harder. She didn’t like that part of the plan, even if Izzie didn’t care about them enough to visit. She and Euphora couldn’t be hidden from Papa if he could force Izzie, or even Doctor MacAdams, to tell where they were. Clara tried again to swallow, but couldn’t get her tongue to shift forward and the saliva to spill down her throat. Things seemed tarnal slowed down, thought Clara. She should be rushing away now, but she could barely move. She took her bag in one hand and picked up the basket in the other.
“Be careful out in the cold. It’s frostbite weather. The wind makes it worse.”
When they stepped out the front door, the wind tore right through Clara’s layers of clothing and chilled her, sending goose bumps over every inch of her body. The wind stung like a slap at her face. Her bonnet blew off her head, but the tied strings kept it from flying away.
Mrs. Purcell escorted them over the snow-crusted front path to the street, then kissed them both again. As they set off down toward Main Street, it was so blustery that they had to lean forward and take small steps just to get anywhere at all. Euphora kept repeating, “It’s colder than Sam Hill. It’s colder than Sam Hill.” At the corner of William and Main, they both looked back down the frozen white street. Mrs. Purcell waved farewell, her hand high in the air. Clara felt tears flood up.
Did they really have to do this? Wasn’t there another way to stay with Mrs. Purcell in the cozy, brick house with the gardens? She tried to swallow again. This time her throat performed. It wasn’t safe, though, not as long as Papa was there.
“I have to stop at the Spirit Room for my savings.”
Euphora’s blue eyes widened with alarm. “We’ll miss the boat. Why didn’t you do it yesterday?”
“I was afraid Papa might find it. We have to stay quiet so Mrs. Beattie doesn’t hear us.”
When they got to the Spirit Room, Clara directed Euphora with nods of her head and hand signals to clear the furniture away from the secret floorboard. They managed to pry the board out and settle it softly on the floor. Clara reached under and got out the bandbox. Then she opened it and foraged among the ribbons for her gold dollars and began dropping them into her reticule.
“Where’d you get all that?”
Clara brought a finger to her lips to hush her sister. When she had it all, she stroked the group of uniformed men hauling the fire wagon on the lid, stroked the windows on the pretty house behind them. There wasn’t room for the box in her bag and Euphora was carrying all she could handle. She’d have to leave it.
“Let’s go. We’ll miss the steamboat,” Euphora said.
<><><>
AS THEY RAN OUT ONTO THE STREET, bags in hand, Clara glanced back at Mrs. Beattie’s shop window and the beautiful hats and bonnets on display. In her mind’s eye, she said goodbye to beautiful Mrs. Beattie, then started down the icy sidewalk toward Long Pier.
From the foot of Long Pier, as far as Clara could see, there was a layer of ice covering Seneca Lake. It had better not be frozen hard, she thought. Everyone always said the lake rarely froze solid. She’d heard the stories about the freeze two years ago. The lake had frozen for three miles at their northern end. Steamboats were laid up and the town made a festival of it with horse racing on an ice track and ice-boat sailing. At water’s edge, where it was shallow, the ice was thick, but how far out was it thick?
Shooting up thick plumes of steam through the single stovepipe into the sky, the Watkins looked ready to go. Seventy or eighty people bundled in scarves, furs and gloves stood in the wind at the end of the dock talking, but none were venturing across the wide gangplank onto the long two-story vessel. Clara scanned the crowd. She knew seven of them from spirit circles. She lowered the brim of her bonnet to hide her face.
“Why aren’t they boarding?” Euphora asked.
Winding her way through the crowd toward the man in uniform at the gangway, Clara kept her eyes straight ahead.
She sidled close to the narrow young man. “We have our tickets. May we board?” She wanted to charge right past him onto the boat.
“Captain Tuthill is waiting for a wire. We might have an ice embargo.”
Embargo. Tarnation. Everyone said the lake hardly ever froze. Everyone. Seneca Lake was too big, the currents too deep, too wild. A crash exploded at the stern of the boat. Heart flying up, Clara yelped.
“Just cargo coming off that buckboard.” The narrow man tilted his head toward a wagon down the pier.
Clara caught her breath. “We have tickets for this sailing. We have to go now. It’s a family emergency.”
“The captain has to decide whether to go. He’s concerned about the ice. He might be able to leave here, but not land at Watkins Glen. He’s got to wait for the message.” His gravelly voice was calm. A scar made a perfectly straight line from his left temple to somewhere in his curly, long beard. “Trust me, Miss. You don’t want to be stuck in the ice in the middle of the lake. There’ll be some delay either way. Go wait with the others.”
For close to an hour, Clara kept her eyes on the foot of the pier watching for Papa. It was still early. It wasn’t likely he’d be down here. He just wouldn’t think of it. Just the same, she kept her eyes peeled. And what would they do if the boat didn’t leave? Would they go home and unpack their things and leave another day? What if Papa saw them come into the house with all their carpetbags? He had already been studying her actions differently since Billy had left.
A bell clanged. Clara jumped. Euphora grabbed her hand. Then the deckhand called out for everyone to board. Clara squeezed Euphora’s hand and led her across the gangway.
Once on the steamboat, they found a gigantic parlor with chairs everywhere, small tables as well as a long one in the middle of the room, and even a big rug, curtains on the windows, and a piano. They sat in Windsor chairs in front of a warm iron stove and dug into Mrs. Purcell’s basket. Euphora ate several biscuits filled with strawberry jam, but Clara just held one in her lap. She had a coiled-up snake feeling in her stomach and couldn’t eat.
“Are you going to tell me about where you got the money, Clara?” Euphora licked a bit of jam from her lower lip.
“Not now.”
Could she ever tell Euphora where that money had come from? Probably not. It was too shameful. She’d have to come up with something, though. Clara felt a chill rush up her legs and into her back.
“We’re sailing,” Clara said. She gave Euphora a smile and held her hand. It was warmer than her own. “Papa won’t find us now.” She glanced around the room. “Look. There’s a little table. Let’s get out the checkers.”
Across the water and ice, Geneva was fading into the distance.
BOOK II
Thirty-Five
ON THE WAY TO GENEVA, Izzie was nearly senseless with worry. Because of the ice, the train ride had taken three hours longer than scheduled. According to the conductor the trains hadn’t been running at all the day before and now the engineer had to take the r
ails at a crawl because the brakes were nearly useless. During the trip, she wanted to scream, “Get us there now. Get me to Clara! Please.”
When the train finally arrived at the Geneva depot, Izzie stepped down carefully to the slick ground. There was a carriage for hire, but she decided it was safer to walk to Mrs. Purcell’s. Once the wheels of a carriage or wagon started sliding, it would be hard for a horse to maneuver even the gentle grade up to Main Street or up Castle. It was less than two miles and her valise was light. On her own two feet, she could at least be in charge of her pace.
When she had climbed up the hill and turned onto William Street, she came to a dead halt. A small crowd of twenty or so people hovered on the sidewalk at Mrs. Purcell’s house. Drat. Was it something to do with Clara, with the children? What was it? She should have come sooner, should never have listened to Mac about delaying. She ran ahead. About half way to the crowd, her heel skidded and she started to go down, but she caught herself. She skidded again, caught herself again. She forced her legs to slow down to a brisk walk. It was like one of those nightmares, legs not moving when one needed desperately to run.
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