by Jill Barnett
Ed didn't try to explain that she was his niece not his daughter or why that doll was important. "Thank you," he said and the man hurried off to help the other customers lined up near the sales counter. Ed set his hand on her head and he squatted down. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. They sold the doll. Do you see another doll here you like?"
Penelope looked at the dolls and began to cry, the same heart-wrenching sobs she cried in the middle of the night. He picked her up and tried to soothe her but she began crying even harder, and louder.
Soon everyone in the shop was looking at them, some with sympathy, some with annoyance or scorn, as if he had done something to her.
What the hell was he supposed to do? They'd sold the damned doll.
A woman dressed in dark blue with a huge brimmed hat and the face of a stern grandmother marched up to him and looked him in the eye. "Pray what, sir, did you do to that poor child?"
"Nothing," he said defensively. "They sold the doll she wanted."
Then Penelope let out a wail that rang through his teeth and drowned out the bell above the door. The sound was ear-piercing. Startled, the woman stepped back quickly and without another word.
"We'll look for the doll somewhere else," he said. He patted her back while she was hiccupping pitifully into his shoulder. A couple of women gave him a look of understanding as he hurried out of the store. His driver opened the carriage door and, over the sounds of Penelope's pitiful crying, Ed said, "Find another toy shop, Will." He climbed inside the carriage and settled his niece in the crook of his arm, but not before some people on the sidewalks look at him as if he were some kind of ogre.
"We'll find her," he said firmly.
By the time they had left the third shop empty-handed, Penelope was asleep before the carriage had traveled a block. She had cried at every shop, but he gave her his word over and over he would find a Josephine doll.
He looked down at her asleep on his lap, her small face flushed and streaked from tears. He placed his hand on her back and sagged back against the seat, closing his eyes. He would find that doll somewhere...somehow. He wasn't one for coincidences, for omens or signs. But Josephine? The doll was named Josephine.
4
Idalie Everdeane removed her hatpin and hung up her hat and woolen coat in her employee locker. The ladies locker room in the basement of Steward & Company's famed Marble Palace department store was abuzz with chatter. The store wouldn't open its doors for another half an hour. Idalie smoothed the skirt of her uniform--a dark bombazine skirt with its crisp white shirtwaist, French cuffs, and shell buttons--worn by the sales women who worked in the fashion custom design area that dominated the third floor of the City's premier emporium.
Ten minutes later she was in the design room, checking the list of deliveries scheduled for the day. The door the back rooms opened as one of the seamstress managers came inside. "I pulled some of the extra silk and woolen fabric scraps and some trim for you. There's even a midnight blue silk taffeta from one of the ballgowns."
Idalie dug through the cloth bag. "Oh Clementine, these are lovely! Look at the cornflower blue wool...and is this curly beaver?" She looked up. "Really? This will make a lovely coat collar and perhaps there's even enough for a muff. Thank you, Clem." Her dolls next year would be even more beautifully dressed than this last year, which she had heard had sold out before the holiday shopping had hardly begun.
Chimes rang from a wooden speaker box in the corner warning the store would open in five minutes.
"I need to run," Clem said, heading for the door. "The orders have already tripled and the girls are sewing their hearts out and it's still weeks till Christmas." She paused. "I'll keep pulling for you. There are very few usable pieces left if my seniority didn't grant me first choice at the scrap and trim boxes. Every time I watch my Geneva playing with her doll, Idalie, I want to cry. I could have never bought her a doll like you made for her. It would have cost me two month's rent."
"I'll make a new gown for her for under the Christmas tree this year, and maybe a hooded cloak, like Little Red Riding Hood."
"Her favorite story."
"I know."
Clementine laughed. "Her doll is going to have a whole trousseau."
"Keep bringing me these and she will, Idalie said as she closed the bag. "See you later in the lunch room?"
Clementine nodded and closed the door behind her.
Idalie placed the cloth bag on a shelf in the box room since there was no time to go back down to her locker. She checked her hair, repinning a loose strand of blonde hair escaping her top bun, then turning to check the back of her uniform skirt in one of the many tall mirrors lining the walls of the large design room. No creases. With the milder weather, she had tried more often than not lately to save a nickel each way and walk to work instead of taking the crowded trolley.
The opening bells rang out through the whole store and her day began--Rowland & Company was open for business.
The Pinkerton guards had caught a gang of ruffians at the building site the night before. They claimed the damage was minimal, a gate knocked down and some wooden shipping boxes and crates broken into pieces and iron rivets scattered all over the site. The gates had been repaired, the rivets gathered, and the site cleaned before Ed and Hal arrived, but they had lost a full day of work and their schedule was already behind, the weather hadn't been an issue yet.
Ed walked the site with Hal, their contract supervisor, and the Pinkerton guard in charge, who said, "We think they broke in around 3 AM, through the back lots on 7th."
"We won't have electric lines in for another two weeks, so lighting the site has been difficult," the contractor added. "Once the electrical is in, we can light the place like Union Square."
"That should help," Hal said, "but we need to do something to protect the site for the next two weeks."
"Increase the guards," Ed said and they made plans as they finished walking the site.
By the time they had inspected the steel supports and on the upper floors, the sidewalks and nearby intersections had grown more crowded and the trolleys, horse-drawn cabs, and carriages were filling the streets with people leaving for home. The site was conveniently situated was across the street from the north entrance of a neighborhood park square and people in a hurry cut through rather than walk the longer blocks around it and his carriage was parked near the entrance, waiting.
Ed started to say something to his partner when he heard a loud bang and fell the ground shake from impact. He turned to see a pallet of five foot steel cross bar supports fall like dominoes from the top level of the building--the floor they had just inspected, landing like Jackstraws and rolling toward the gates.
As a section of fencing went down, crushed under the steel, Ed caught the silhouette of a woman stepping onto the sidewalk...unknowingly into the path of the steel. A heartbeat later he charged, hit the women full body, chest to chest, and took her down, tumbling with her into the dirt lot and out of the path of the supports, which now lay where the woman had been.
His ability to breathe was gone and for startled moments he lay with the woman atop him, rocks and stones cutting into his back and legs from the weight of two bodies. She did not move. Had she fainted? He had tried to protect her head.
The curled feather on her hat was in his face. Surely he hadn't knocked her out? Was she breathing? Panic speed through him as he realized what he had just done, done on pure instinct and without any thought.
To his immense relief she lifted her head and he first saw her face under the wide brim of her hat--porcelain skin that was smudged with dirt, dark lashes and brows above doe eyes the color of a summer sky, wisps of dark blonde hair at her temples and neck. "Are you hurt?" he asked.
She moved so swiftly he was caught off guard and then realized when she wiggled free that his hands had been griping her buttocks.
"Let me go!" Her face flooded with a deep red flush, her bosom was pressed against his ribs, and her small chin rested on the Windso
r knot of this tie. For a moment something passed between them--something earthy like desire.
Dust had settled around them and then Hal spoke, "Good God, Ed. Madame. Are you hurt?"
Sanity returned and Ed said, "Help the lady up, Hal."
She shoved off of him, scrambling to her feet as Ed winced and got up, his bruised back and shoulders shooting with pain. She appeared unharmed as she vigorously dusted off her clothes.
A cloth bag lay open nearby and pieces of fabric, bits of ribbon and such lay scattered in the dirt of the lot.
"Oh, no...." she gasped and bent to gather up a strip of dirty gold braid, ribbon, and swatch of pale blue wool.
Ed moved his foot off of what looked like a swath of curly beaver, dusted it off and held it out to her. "Let me have this cleaned or replaced."
"Are you harmed, Miss?" A police officer stood at her side, concern on his face.
"I'm not, sir," she said in a sweet, low voice.
"I'm sorry, but the support was coming right at you," Ed said.
She looked at him again and the same awareness of her ran through his blood again; it seemed to have stolen his voice.
"Perhaps we should take her to the hospital. Make certain she is unscathed," Hal said.
"No. No, please," she said quickly and held up a gloved hand holding a dirty piece of silk, looked at it and frowned, then added, "I am not hurt. I assure you. But you, sir, are." She nodded at Ed.
He looked down to see his coat torn and a red bloodstain on this white shirt
"It's nothing. The rocks cut my clothes. These scrapes look worst than they are. I'm fine."
"If you won't go to the hospital, at least let us take you home," Hal said.
She looked from Hal, to Ed, to the others standing around her. "I don't think so. You are complete strangers to me, sir."
"I'm Edward Lowell. This is Hal Green, of Lowell & Green."
"The architectural firm?" she asked. "You were named "Man of the Year."
Edward was embarrassingly silent but Hal...not so much.
"And now hero of the day," Hal said. "I think that tumble must have saved you from great harm."
"What is your name, Madam?" the police officer asked
"Everdeane," she said.
"Well, Miss Everdeane, one of us should escort you home."
"I'd rather not," she insisted. “I’m unharmed." She shoved the last of the fabric into her tapestry bag, then set it on the ground and readjusted her hat so the feather curled from the hatband down to wisp her smudged jaw line behind where an earbob hung from a delicate earlobe.
"We will escort you home," Ed said, clearly showing he was unwilling to accept no.
She shook her head. "I believe we have had enough contact for today, Mr. Lowell. You should have your wounds looked after."
"Get her a cab, Hal."
"And I will escort her," the police office said, none of them willing to let her merely walk away and clearly ending the discussion. "You will accept my company, Miss Everdeane. You should not have to walk the streets after such an ordeal. A close call, it was."
She looked from Ed to Hal to the officer and reluctantly agreed.
Ed watched as she and the officer climbed into a horse-drawn cab and took off, merging into traffic.
"We'll have our attorney contact the officer. We should offer her a settlement, Ed. I think we have enough trouble. I thought all those pallets were secured."
Ed glanced up at the building, a dark skeleton of steel in the waning light, his eyes on the floor where the pallet has fallen. "So did I."
5
After work, Idalie walked the last blocks from the trolley toward home, in her mind designing the miniature clothing she would make in the coming weeks. Over the last few months, the fashion design department had made a large number of ballgowns for holiday parties, many of them accented with jet beading, one of the few trims the employees were not allowed to take when a design was finished. She had some beautiful lace in her bag, and fine linen for undergarments, but elegant trims were scarce.
She stopped at the intersection closest to home and waited. An uncomfortable feeling swept over her, as if she were being watched and she looked up. There were probably fifty men on the walks around her and she shook off the feeling. At the front stoop, she removed her key and started to open the door, when a man came toward her from the opposite direction.
"Miss Everdeane?"
She took a step back. Someone had been watching her. But he was no ruffian, and stood back like a gentleman, which clearly he was in his custom cut superfine wool jacket, striped trousers and a finely-sheared, beaver-felt Homburg in his left hand. I'm John Gleason, Esquire."
She read the card he handed her. The law firm of Watson, Gleason and Mitchell with an uptown address. An attorney to see her. No one had bothered her for over a year, perhaps longer. Not since shortly after the funeral. "My home is not for sale, Mr. Gleason." Idalie turned back to the door.
"I'm representing the firm of Lowell & Green, Miss Everdeane, regarding the incident on their job site. Can we talk? We can make an appointment to meet in our Westside office, if you are uncomfortable talking to me now."
This man was no threat to her, so she opened the front door. "Come inside, Mr. Gleason." He followed her into the small parlor and stood in the middle of the room, looking out of place in her home, while she unpinned her hat and removed her coat.
Men did not call on Idalie. This was her private sanctuary. Her safe place. She kept them at arm's length. Moving toward her small chair by the tufted sofa, she said, "Please sit down. Can I offer you some tea? Coffee?"
"No, no, I'll only take a moment of your time. Lowell & Green are concerned about your well-being after the accident. I'm here to offer you settlement. To help with any repercussions that might have arisen from the accident. I understand you were struck fairly hard, ma'am. Mr. Green is concerned, as is Mr. Lowell." He removed an envelope from his jacket and held it out to her.
She took the envelope and unfolded the papers inside, a letter that was attached to a release form removing Lowell & Green from any responsibility or future liability for the accident. They were afraid she would bring a lawsuit against them. The bank draft was for five hundred dollars. She looked at Mr. Gleason, a man of about thirty, with brown hair and eyes and pleasant face, sitting on the edge of the formal sofa, his hat on his knees, waiting.
Idalie stood, walked over to her small writing table in the corner, sat and signed their release form. She stood. "Here you are, Mr. Gleason. Your signed release. Lowell & Green have no reason to be concerned about me. Edward Lowell had saved me from probable harm. He owes me nothing. She held out the papers and the bank draft.
He looked exceedingly relieved. Clearly he had expected trouble, but then, wasn't that was how attorneys thought, in terms of the worst possible thing that could happen? "Thank you, Miss Everdeane. I will take the release, but you must keep the bank draft. It's required as part of the release." He set it on the desk. "I'll take up no more of your time. Thank you."
She saw him out and locked the door behind him. Five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars. She stood there for a long while, until she didn't want to think about the money anymore and especially the man who had given it to her.
The man on her mind had only been to the office one morning in the last three, but Ed had worked well into the night once Penelope was asleep. Juggling his time between work and his niece was fast becoming more and more difficult, and add to that was his doll dilemma. He had continued to search, had been to every toy shop or store that sold toys and dolls in the city, and in all of Bergen County, New Jersey, rushing home to have dinner and time with his niece before she went to bed. When he explained to Hal why he was on a mission to find a doll, Hal had his mother and sister check the shops in Boston and Philadelphia.
Yesterday he had lost his last hope. Word came in that there was no Josephine doll in either Philadelphia or Boston. He was fast beginning to believe that
the doll they had seen in the window had been the only Josephine doll anywhere.
He glanced down at the piles of work stacked on this desk in order of most urgent. On top was a telegram from his aunt. She'd left London less than a week ago and couldn't get here fast enough for him. Perhaps Aunt Martha would have the answers he needed. He found himself questioning every decision he faced with his niece. Her need for him as clear in her expression. When he walked into her sigh she look relieved, and her face brightened, something that broke his heart and scared the hell out of him at the same time.
Dr. Cummings' last words echoed in his head, "Buy her the doll, Lowell."
Then Gordon, his secretary, alerted him that Oscar Dunbarton was there. Ed checked the wall clock. Three minutes early. He liked that. Perhaps his solution was waiting just outside his door.
And perhaps Santa Claus would show up Christmas Eve and put a Josephine doll under the tree...and perhaps he would grow a second head.
"Send him in," Ed said and pulled out the lists his secretary had typed up on the new Underwood. Gordon was so enamored of that machine that anything Ed wrote down was soon replaced with a new, freshly-typewritten page.
Dunbarton removed his bowler and shook Ed's hand. "Mr. Lowell, a pleasure."
"Have a seat."
Oscar Dunbarton sat down in the chair across the desk from Ed. He was of medium height and had a tobacco brown mustache with curled waxed ends, a hearty face, and the bushy brows of a billy goat. "What can I do for you, sir?"
"I need you to locate something for me."
"Yes, well, that's my specialty, Mr. Lowell, finding people."
"I need you to find a doll."
"A doll?" Dunbarton's expression showed clearly this was a first.
"Yes." Ed handed him the typewritten paper. Here's a list with the name of the doll, a description, and a list of stores where we've already checked. All the toy shops in the city, Brooklyn, Hoboken, Jersey City...most of Jersey. I've had friends check Philadelphia and Boston."