by Joy Callaway
“I’ve got to go meet my father at the dormitory. He’s asked for my ledgers,” she said, standing and digging her fingers into her high black chiffon neckline, drawing the fabric out from her neck. “He told me that I’m no longer to work for him. He heard me talking with James. He knows I forced him to rush and believes that I don’t have enough integrity for the job.”
I found integrity a strange requirement for bootlegging, but didn’t question her. She’d lost her best friend, and the only thing she’d ever wanted for herself.
“I’m s—”
“I am too,” she said. Edging out of the pew, she walked down the aisle toward the door. “Oh, Beth. When you see Lily, tell her that Mr. Richardson’s seen to it that Professor Helms won’t be coming back. He asked me to pass it along.”
“How?”
“It seems that he offered Professor Helms enough money that he’s agreed to keep quiet about the rye and stay away from Whitsitt. I’ll see you in a bit.” With that, she disappeared into the courtyard, leaving me alone with Mary.
* * *
Judith stood over her daughter’s open coffin, her cathedral-length black crepe veil fanning out with each breath. The funeral had been over for nearly an hour, but Katherine, Lily, Will, and I had remained with Judith, none of us able to bear the thought that the moment we left, Mary’s body would depart as well, and we’d never see her again.
“The only thing she really wanted was the fraternity,” Judith said. “She was serious about her musical studies, her dream to be a conductor, but rarely wrote to me about them. It was always about the fraternity, about her sisters. I know it wasn’t easy for her, growing up without siblings or a father. The three of you were as much her family as I was.”
Lily began to sob again. The gasp that preempted it rang through the chapel. She’d been crying before the service had officially begun, with the first notes of “Shall We Gather at the River,” and had barely stopped since. I glanced over my shoulder, finding her huddled at the end of the first pew. Her head was in her hands, black feathers in her mourning cap trembling as she wept. I knew Judith’s sentiments rang true for Lily and me, too. We’d become each other’s family, true sisters.
Will squeezed my hand. I swallowed hard and looked down at Mary. She was pale, her soul clearly absent, a blue-gray tinge lining the edges of her painted red lips.
“We’ll find a way to make it happen . . . for her honor,” Katherine said. The thought of continuing Beta Xi Beta after losing Mary shocked me. I hadn’t thought of the fraternity in days and didn’t know if I could even bear to say the pledge without her. The bullheaded determination to start it had been the reason we’d followed James to the lake in the first place.
“She would want that. I was so proud of what you all were doing.” Judith reached into the coffin, cupping her daughter’s cheek in her hand.
“If we’d waited by Wilson Hall like she’d wanted, if I hadn’t been so hasty . . .” The words croaked from my lips and tears sprang to my eyes. “I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.” Judith stepped away from the coffin, flung her veil back, and snatched my shoulders. Her light green eyes, so much like Mary’s, were snaked with red veins, lids so swollen that the almond shape had been reduced to slits, but I’d been sitting beside her for nearly two hours and she hadn’t as much as sniffed.
“I’ll not allow you to say that again,” she said. “I’ve had quite enough of you blaming yourself.”
I stared at her, trying to remember how many times I’d apologized since she’d arrived.
“You sound just like her . . . Mary,” I said.
“I am her mother. Consider it a message from her to you,” she declared, then dropped her hands from my shoulders to drift over the black velvet lining the coffin. “I suppose it’s almost time to go.” Taking her words as a signal, the two men from the funeral parlor advanced from their posts flanking the chancel door. I felt panicked as though I should stop them, but I knew I couldn’t keep her or bring her back to us. I leaned forward to look at Mary one more time, trying to memorize the face I’d never see again except in the small miniature Judith had given us to share. Katherine sighed heavily, and I heard the soft hiccups of Lily’s sobs. Will drew me away from the coffin, but I resisted, clutching the edge. He reached in front of me, palm resting on the back of my hand for a moment, before he gently pried my fingers from the wood.
“She’s not here,” he whispered, and placed my palm on my heart. “She’s here. You’ll never forget her.”
The hinges creaked as the men began to lower the lid.
“Goodbye, my darling girl,” Judith said.
My bottom lip began to tremble, and I started to turn my head toward the coffin, but Will’s fingers found my chin and tilted me back to him.
“Remember her alive.”
“He’s right, you know,” Judith said, pulling the veil back over her face. The edges of the coffin met with a quiet thud—a note of finality.
“Would you like us to ride to Chicago with you? It would . . . it would be our honor.” Lily’s voice broke as she said it.
“We would be happy to go with you,” Will echoed, momentarily tearing his eyes from me. I stole a glance at the two men standing at Mary’s head and foot, waiting to take her away. The thought of her body being lowered into the ground made my stomach turn.
“No, my dears,” Judith said softly. “Mary would rather all of you get on to your classes. You know how disappointed she’d be if you didn’t pass them.”
“Are you certain?” Katherine asked.
Judith nodded and turned from her to squeeze my hand.
“I am,” she said. “But Beth, I must ask you for a rather difficult favor.”
I nodded, barely able to see her face through the black crepe.
“The carriage is here, ma’am,” the man said. Judith tipped her head at him, and the other man grasped the gleaming copper bar at the coffin’s foot. The men lifted it with ease, and I stepped aside to let them through. Katherine reached out and touched the coffin, fingers trailing down the black wood until it disappeared beneath her hand.
“I need you to take me to see Mr. Richardson.”
“Why?” The question came out of my mouth before I’d realized I’d spoken.
“There are some things I need to discuss with him,” she said. “As much as I’d like to blame him for my daughter’s death, I cannot, and he needs to know that. I’ve already told Mr. Sanderson as much, too.”
Over Judith’s shoulder, I could see Katherine staring at me, urging me to comply.
“I . . . I don’t know where he is,” I said, speaking as much to Katherine as I was to Judith.
“I’m sorry to say that he withdrew from Whitsitt, ma’am. He’s likely gone back to New York,” Will said, saving me from explaining.
I glanced out of the open chapel doors. Two Clydesdales stood at the front of the carriage. One stamped and snorted impatiently.
“Is there a message I could pass along to him?” I continued. “I’d be more than happy to write a letter or visit him personally—”
“No,” she said, flipping her hand. “It’s of no matter. I know his father. I’ll simply call on him next—”
“Please. Have me arrested and killed. For the love of God.”
The voice was a knife that plunged into my gut and twisted as Grant appeared out of nowhere. He looked completely undone. He hadn’t shaved and his face was ashen.
“I shall not,” Judith said. None of us moved; none of us spoke. His presence had frozen us all.
“Please,” he said, his tone a ragged sob. “If you won’t . . . no one will . . . I . . .”
Judith strode toward him, meeting him where he stood in the chancel doorway.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I will not. That’s the last thing my daughter would have wanted.”
Grant covered his face, leaned down, and wept. A strange mix of compassion and sadness passed through me, and I took a step toward him, but Will hel
d me back.
“Let her speak,” he whispered. “He’ll be all right.”
“I was standing outside,” Grant said as he sniffed and righted. “I knew I didn’t deserve to be here after . . . after everything. But I wanted to pay my respects somehow. I didn’t intend to interfere, but when I heard you say that you wanted to speak to me . . . you deserve to tell me to go to hell or send me there.”
I looked at her, wondering if she’d change her mind and have him arrested after all. Losing someone makes emotions a fickle thing—one moment you’re overcome with anguish, the next, rage.
“I’ll do neither,” Judith said as she lifted her veil and reached for Grant’s hand. “There’s something you should know,” she said. “Mary was . . . she was your sister. Half-sister, I suppose.”
Grant’s face paled. I heard Katherine gasp, and my mouth went dry.
“That can’t be,” Will muttered.
“What?” Grant said, barely audible.
“It’s true,” Judith said. “Many years ago, right after your mother left for Virginia, I met your father at the train station in Chicago. I was on my way to a rally at a tavern in the Bridgeport area and he was on his way back home from a holiday and . . .” She cleared her throat. “All of that is of no matter. He didn’t know about Mary and two months later I met my dear late husband. I haven’t spoken to him in nearly nineteen years, but from time to time, I’d catch a mention of your family in the society pages. When I saw that you’d chosen to study here, I encouraged Mary to consider it too. I’d been acquainted, rather intimately, with Patrick Everett before his death. The college was already at the forefront of my mind, but when I found that you’d chosen Whitsitt, I wanted her to study here. I hoped that she’d run into you from time to time, that she’d get to know you. It was my greatest wish that perhaps the two of you would be friends, even if you’d never be siblings.” Grant swallowed. His lips parted, as if he was about to say something, but he didn’t. “Don’t misunderstand me,” she said. “I didn’t want any part of your father’s life. I still don’t, but I suppose, beneath it all, I had hoped that either you or Mary would start to suspect. I’m her only family. I thought that if she knew she had a brother—”
“Why didn’t you tell us? Tell him?” Grant cried. His eyes welled and the cords of his neck bulged.
“Surely you know I couldn’t,” Judith said. “The knowledge of her would have ruined your father. A bastard child by an infamous suffragist would have been—”
“I killed her. I killed my sister.”
Grant let go of Judith’s hand, but she held tight until he pried his fingers from her grasp and walked away. I took a step toward him. He couldn’t be alone right now. Not after everything. Will disappeared from my side and went after Grant, stopping him in the doorway.
“Please. Listen to what she has to say,” Will said. “For her and for yourself.”
Grant stopped, fixing his eyes on a small stained glass window over Will’s head.
“I want to die,” he said finally, turning to Judith. “At the very least, have me locked away, I beg you.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Judith said, her voice solid and unwavering. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. You didn’t force her into the water, she chose to go. Mary’s heart was her calamity. I knew it was like mine from the beginning—a heart made for sacrifice. She paid the ultimate price for the things she loved the most—her fraternity, her sisters, and . . . and James. She wouldn’t have wanted you to spend the rest of your life suffering, blaming yourself. She would have wanted you to continue her legacy, to do something great by her memory.”
Grant shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he whispered. “It won’t bring her back.”
“Honor her life and it will,” she said, resting a hand on his rumpled black vest. “If you do that, she’ll be alive in every person you help, every life you touch.”
My eyes burned, and I blinked back tears.
“How?” he asked. “Nothing I do could possibly be a consolation.”
Judith smiled, her eyes just like Mary’s.
“You can start by helping her sisters establish the fraternity she loved.” She patted Grant on the back and pulled her veil back over her face.
“I’ve already asked the board to dissolve Iota Gamma, to reinstate the ban on all Greek organizations. This was a . . . a death by hazing, Miss Adams, and I cannot help but believe Whitsitt was right to—”
“I’m aware that you asked, but they were right to refuse,” Judith said.
“They refused only because I was away when they decided, because I haven’t yet forced my hand,” Grant said. “They think I’m only feeling a bit guilty and that I’ll come around and try to reinstate it again, but they’re wrong. Mary’s death was my fault, Iota Gamma’s fault, and—”
“From what I’ve heard, James presented you with a contest,” Judith said, interrupting. “It wasn’t a part of your Iota Gamma ritual. Those men are your brothers. They need each other . . . just as these girls need Beta Xi Beta.” She started up the aisle without another word, her ruffled train shuffling across the old oak floor, and then turned in the doorway, streams of pink and orange lighting the fading sky behind her shrouded figure. “There’s one more thing. My daughter was the epitome of spirit and light. I expect that all of you will live out the rest of your days accordingly.”
Judith was right. Her whole life, Mary had draped herself in the color of death. To most, it had only made her stand out as a woman martyred to an unpopular and unlikely cause, but to those of us that had truly known her, the morbid tone of her dress called out something entirely different—the contradictory joy of the woman wearing it.
The coachman called out to Judith and she lifted a gloved hand in answer. “Your lives will never return to the way they were before, but I trust that you will make this new reality a better one . . . for her.”
22
Six weeks later
“Good luck today, Miss Carrington,” Miss Zephaniah said as she stopped me at the bottom of the stairs. Her wrinkled lips were pinched together as they always were, but edged up at the corners as though she were actually about to smile.
“Thank you,” I said.
I glanced through the windows on either side of the front door, appreciating the way the yellow light streamed dappled through the old oaks. The sun had barely woken.
Miss Zephaniah reached out and touched my antique lace cuffs, an elegant finish to my royal blue silk sleeves.
“Quite lovely,” she remarked.
“The material came from a tablecloth of Mary’s grandmother’s,” I explained. The lace had been brilliant white at one time, but had browned to ivory with age. It was perfect for our dresses. “Suppose I’ll see you at the ceremony in a bit?”
Miss Zephaniah nodded.
“Of course.”
As I made my way through the foyer, the dormitory was still silent except for a few muffled voices coming from the gathering room—the divinity girls had been practicing their final sermons there almost every morning for a month. In a matter of two hours, the place would be swarming and loud, hectic with family arrivals in preparation for the graduation ceremony. I wondered if my father would come when I’d earned my diploma in two years, if he’d even know the degree it held by then. I took a breath, inhaling the familiar scent of old wood and rosewater, and stepped outside. It didn’t matter if he came or not, I reminded myself, or if he brought Vera and Lucas just to put on to everyone else that he cared. The people that mattered would be here. I’d have my sisters by my side regardless.
“Good morning, Miss Carrington.”
I jumped, hand jerking to my heart, to the lone ivory rose fastened to my bodice by a sterling silver wreath pin, a gift from Katherine. Lily’s beau, Mr. Langley, stood at the base of the porch steps holding a bouquet of identical blooms. He looked handsome, blue-green eyes fitting in with the shoots of indigo irises in bloom behind him.
“Same to you, Mr. Langley,” I said.
“Will Lily be along shortly?” He grinned at me, twin dimples appearing in his cheeks. He’d rarely left her side since Mary’s death, meeting her at the arch each morning before breakfast and sometimes staying with her until curfew. His presence had been a blessing to Lily. She’d spent many days with the Torreys, eventually confiding to me that she thought she might love them as much as her beau himself.
“Eventually,” I said, “Though I wouldn’t count on it anytime soon. Last I checked, she was still asleep.”
Mr. Langley laughed, resting the bouquet on the thick railing.
“I should be used to it by now.”
“If you aren’t yet, you will sooner or later,” I said, walking past him. “She quite enjoys her rest.”
“Wait,” he said, and I stopped and turned back to see him chewing on his bottom lip, thumb running along the base of the bouquet. “I should like to tell you something . . . if you’ll promise your confidence.”
“Of course.”
“I . . . I’m going to propose. I know it’s only been a few months, but I love her. I could contain my feelings, I could wait, I suppose, but nothing would change. She is my match, and I just . . . I just feel that waiting any longer would only be wasting time, time that we could be spending together.” The words tumbled from his mouth, and he stood staring at me, awaiting my approval. “Miss Carrington, you’re her sister, the closest family she has. Do you approve?”
I’d been so enamored by his outpouring of love for Lily that I hadn’t realized I hadn’t spoken.
“Of course. Congratulations,” I whispered, barely able to stop myself from embracing him. “I’m so very delighted that the two of you found each other.”
“Thank you. If she says yes,” he said.
“You say that as though there’s any question,” I said with a smile. “I’m so happy for you both.” I began to walk away, but he stopped me once again.
“There’s one more thing,” he said, and dug into the pocket of his beige afternoon suit and extracted a letter. “I hope you don’t mind, but Lily told me about your difficulty securing an apprenticeship.”