Maggie jumped like a startled rabbit, and glanced at Hannah only for an instant, before wrenching her arm free. Then she disappeared into the fastmoving crowd of workers hurrying home for their noon dinner. “Why doesn’t she know who I am?” Hannah said forlornly.
The Professor gestured to Hannah’s new outfit. “You’re all cleaned up, and you’re not dressed as she would expect. In these clothes, you see, you’re no longer Hannah Dow. You’re Hannah Day.”
Hannah felt strangely empty. Who was Hannah Day? Or Hannah Dow? Were either of them the same girl as Hannah Dias?
That night, Hannah slept the sleep of the dead. The hotel’s mattress was not as comfortable as a modern bed, but compared to her bed at the Gordons’, it was a vast improvement. After all this time, though, it felt odd to sleep alone. In the morning, after breakfast, she waited impatiently while the Professor pored through a stack of documents. Finally, noticing Hannah’s boredom, she said, “Come on. Let’s go have some tea.”
Hannah had never had the money to visit a tea shop in Dundee, so she was very excited to be taken to Lamb’s Tea Gardens.
Glancing around the elegant café, she asked, “Where are the sheep? I mean, I figure if you call a place ‘Lamb’s Tea Gardens’, you have to have a lamb. Or at least a garden.”
“I see your point,” said the Professor. “But no. It’s named for Mr. Lamb. He also owns Lamb’s Dundee Coffeehouse on the Murraygate, and by next year, he will open his temperance hotel, restaurant, and coffee shop on Reform Street. He’s quite a businessman. I’m surprised Mina never mentioned him to you, because she’s quite a fan. His establishments don’t offer alcohol, and they’re meant as a nice alternative to all the pubs.”
“Urgh… umm…” said Hannah in reply. She had just crammed an enormous jam and cream-slathered scone into her mouth.
The Professor tutted. “Hannah, your manners need work.”
“I’m starving,” Hannah shot back through a mouthful of scone, which she chased down with a swig of tea. “Can we get some more of these? And what are those cold pancake things?” She pointed to a plate of buttered flapjacks.
The Professor offered them to her. “They’re dropped scones, also known as Scotch pancakes. I’m rather partial to them, myself. They’re really good with butter and jam. Why don’t you…”
Hannah had already grabbed three pancakes, piled two on her plate, and sunk her teeth into the third.
Twenty minutes later, when the waiter had removed the last empty plate, Hannah licked her jammy fingers and groaned happily. “Ohhh….That was awesome. The pastries here are to die for. They’re the only thing from Dundee I’ll miss…”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” said the Professor, digging out money to pay the bill. “Won’t you miss the people? What about your friends?”
Hannah sat in silence, the scones and pancakes suddenly feeling lead-like in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t have any friends,” she said quietly. She didn’t want to tell the Professor that the Gordons had threatened to throw her out if she couldn’t find another job.
But the Professor, somehow, already knew. “You’re upset because the Gordons can’t afford to keep you, aren’t you?”
Hannah looked at her in astonishment. “How did you know that? Are you, like, psychic or something?”
The Professor ignored the question. “It’s true, though, Hannah, isn’t it?”
Hannah nodded, and her eyes welled up. She wiped at them and sniffed noisily. “I thought they liked me… And I had this awful day, and they weren’t nice to me. Jessie just told me to go look for a job. It was so mean. I’m only a kid.”
The Professor said gently, “But you’re not really a kid here, are you? You have to work for a living. And the Gordons literally cannot afford to support you, Hannah. You know how poor they are. Jessie’s sick, and Janet is worried that they might have to pay for a doctor. They do like you, very much in fact, and they would help you if they could, but they’re barely getting by themselves. Most of their money goes to rent and food. And once all the others are married, Jessie will only have Janet to help her pay rent and raise John.”
A question suddenly occurred to Hannah. “So who’s John’s mother, anyway?”
“You didn’t know? He’s Janet’s son. Janet’s husband died in the cholera epidemic two years ago. Janet can’t afford to support John by herself, so she works at the mill while Jessie keeps house, or at least she will until Jessie…makes other arrangements.”
Hannah thought about this, and about all the ways in which the Gordons were trapped. “How can Maggie and the Gordons get out of this?” She swept a hand in the direction of the window, and the street beyond.
“Out of Dundee, you mean?” The Professor asked innocently.
Hannah shook her head. “No, not necessarily. I mean out of being poor. I mean, what am I missing here? My mom always said that people are poor because they just don’t work hard enough, and they waste the money they do get, but all these guys work their tails off.”
“But isn’t it true that they waste money?” The Professor arched an eyebrow.
“How is Maggie going to help herself if she spends the pound you gave her on whisky for her dad and pies for herself? Shouldn’t she save it?”
“Yeah, but then what?” Hannah said urgently. “I mean, nobody I know here has bank accounts, because they’re too poor, and, it’s like you said, all the money we’re paid goes on food and rent. Maggie can’t read, and she doesn’t have time to go to school, even if there was a school that would take her, and they won’t because she’s too old. She has to buy pies because she has nowhere to cook, and no time to do it. So what can she do?”
“Do you need me to answer that question?” asked the Professor.
“Well, duh!” Hannah yelled.
The Professor sat back. “Oh, I don’t think you do. I don’t feel like telling you what to think, as it happens. Anyway, don’t shout at me. Well-brought-up Victorian girls don’t shout at their governesses.”
Hannah glowered at her, and the Professor seemed to relent a little. “Look, why don’t you go and say goodbye to the Gordons? Tell them the truth about yourself, or at least something close to it that they can understand.”
The Professor insisted on escorting Hannah to the Gordons’ tenement. At first, Hannah was annoyed by her company, but once she saw the weird looks they got in her old neighborhood, as two well-dressed women in one of the city’s nastiest slums, she was glad she had not gone alone. The two of them picked their way through the alleyways, trying to avoid stepping in the open sewers that ran down each street.
But when they reached the building, the Professor urged Hannah to go up to the apartment alone. Hannah held back, saying, “Why won’t you come with me? Are you gonna leave me here?”
“No, I promise I won’t,” The Professor said firmly. “I will wait for you, but you must go alone.”
Janet opened the door to Hannah’s tentative knock, and it was obvious that she had been crying. Her cheeks were wet and puffy, and her eyes were red. She was wiping her nose on her apron when Hannah greeted her.
Janet did not recognize the young lady who stood before her, and she was astonished to see such a person at her door. “Can I help you, miss?” she asked humbly.
Hannah pointed to herself, and said, “Janet, it’s me. Hannah.”
Janet stared at her. “Begging pardon, miss, but you’re…who?” “Hannah. Hannah Dow.”
Janet looked at her closely, and was clearly struggling to reconcile the face to the clothes. “Come away in, quickly,” she said, hustling Hannah into the flat. She closed the door, and then grabbed Hannah by the shoulders and shook her. “Where did you steal these clothes?” she hissed at her.
“I didn’t,” Hannah cried. “I got them from my…” Suddenly, she stopped cold. “What’s wrong with Jessie?” Jessie was lying asleep on the bed, and her face was ashen.
“She died last night,” Janet said quietly. “Mrs. Go
w the midwife came to her, but there was nothing she could do. She thinks Mother’s heart gave out.”
Hannah gasped in horror. Jessie was dead. And her dead body was right there, in the room. Hannah had only seen a corpse once before, when her Great-Aunt Mae in California had died, and there was an open-casket funeral at the church. Even then, the undertaker gussied up Aunt Mae so much, Grandma had muttered that she looked ready for a night on the town. Jessie, however, just looked dead.
“But I came to say goodbye,” Hannah said helplessly.
“Aye, well, It’s too late for that,” Janet said tersely. “And where were you last night? Ma was that worried about you. She thought we’d been too hard on you after you lost your job.”
Hannah’s lip trembled. The Gordons did care about her, after all. But Jessie was dead, and she could never, ever say goodbye to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, tearing up. “Something came up. I have a new job, and I’m leaving.”
“So you say,” Janet said, looking at Hannah’s clothes with suspicion. “I daren’t ask what you will do.”
Hannah couldn’t imagine why Janet was so skeptical, but she let it go. “Will you say goodbye to everyone for me? I’m sorry about Jessie. Honest, I am.”
Janet gave a brisk nod, and said nothing more. Hannah left the apartment feeling rotten. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was crying, and the Professor tentatively put an arm around her shoulders as she began to walk her back to the High Street.
Suddenly, Hannah stopped. “But what about Maggie?” she asked. “Can’t we do anything for Maggie?”
“I didn’t mean to tell you this, but I know you’re having a hard time, so I will,” the Professor said, giving Hannah a small hug. “Maggie’s father will die in November this year. She will be given a place to live by the Dundee Lodging House Association, who have recently opened a home for young women, funded by donations. There, she’ll learn to read and write.”
“How do you know all that?” Hannah asked, sniffing.
The Professor paused, and Hannah could swear she saw her choke up. Then she said, “Because it’s in the records. And because I arranged for it to happen.”
Hannah thought of asking how she had done that, but she decided against it. She was feeling very insecure, and she didn’t want to give the Professor any reason to abandon her now. She felt strangely vulnerable in her fancy new outfit. She certainly no longer felt that she belonged in a Dundee slum. For some reason, that made her feel very sad.
That afternoon, the same ticketing clerk who had snubbed Hannah Dow warmly invited Hannah Day and the Professor to board the sail-assisted steamship named Perth for the voyage to London. Hannah eagerly seized on her new persona as a respectable middle-class girl, chaperoned by her governess. As she got a look at the opulent first-class dining room, she smiled broadly. “This is more like it,” she told the Professor with a giggle. “I have no problem with being a Victorian lady. Bring it on.” “You have had a change of tune,” the Professor said. “I thought you quite liked Dundee, for all of its faults.” Hannah pretended not to hear her.
Soon, Hannah was enjoying the steamer voyage. Her first-class cabin, next door to the Professor’s, was tiny but very comfortable, and she made herself at home. Fortunately, the North Sea was calm, which the Professor told her was a huge stroke of luck, for the voyage down the east coast of Britain in a paddle steamer was often very choppy.
She loved her new pink dress, difficult though it was to move around in, with its many petticoats. Without TV or radio to entertain her, she amused herself by ringing the cabin crew to bring her tea and snacks. She also luxuriated in ordering a hot bath. This meant that servants had to carry buckets of hot water up and down steep flights of stairs, but Hannah didn’t worry about that. After all, she didn’t have to do the work.
That night, Hannah and the Professor dined in the first-class passengers’ lounge. The Professor was tucking into a type of boiled seafood that Hannah had never seen before, piled on a china platter that bore the name Dundee, Perth, & London Shipping Company, and a drawing of their ship. The shellfish were called langoustines, and they looked like a cross between shrimp and small lobsters. The Professor snapped their heads off and sucked out the insides before doing the same to the claws and bodies. Hannah winced and said, “Do you have to eat like that?”
“Yes,” said the Professor as she teased some meat from a shell, “Don’t be silly. They’re my favorite, and this is how you eat them. You ought to try one before you pass judgment.”
“Fat chance,” Hannah said. “They look gross. I’ll just have some more of this soup. It’s pretty good.”
The Professor peered into a langoustine’s body. “Suit yourself. Mind you, I’m surprised that at this point you would turn your nose up at anything, since you’ve mostly been living on oatmeal and potatoes.”
Hannah shrugged dismissively and slurped at her soup, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
“Hannah,” said the Professor sternly, “Sit up straight and use your napkin.”
“Okay, okay,” grumbled Hannah, lifting her napkin and wiping her mouth. “No need to get too into character, Miss Davies.”
“It’s nothing to do with being in character,” said the Professor. “You’re grossing me out.”
“Hey, at least I’m not sucking on insects.” Hannah glanced at the Professor’s langoustines and shuddered.
There was a momentary lull in the conversation, and Hannah craned her head to look around the first-class lounge. Ladies were banned from here, except at mealtimes. At all other times, the room was open only to gentlemen, who smoked and played cards here. For recreation, the ladies had only the deck (when the weather was pleasant, and when the sails were not in use) and their own tiny cabins.
Hannah pouted at the Professor as she cracked open another langoustine. “I don’t know why you couldn’t have shown up sooner and at least bought me some nice clothes.”
The Professor shrugged her shoulders. “And how would you have looked showing up at Sutherland’s Mill or at the Gordons’ flat dressed like Cinderella, belle of the ball?”
Hannah shot back, “Better than looking like Cinderella, the sad-sack maid.”
“You wouldn’t have fit in.”
“I didn’t fit in anyway,” Hannah groused.
“That’s not what you said last time we met, was it?”
Hannah scowled.
“You know, Hannah,” the Professor said carefully, “You actually did fit in with the Gordons. Things ended badly because, well, you expected too much from them.”
Hannah felt herself go rigid. The Professor was about to say something seriously embarrassing, she could tell. She tried to stop her by calling over the waiter to bring more soup. But the Professor wasn’t about to be deterred from saying what she had to say.
“You expected too much from the relationship with the family, didn’t you? Especially with Jessie and Mina. It’s not your fault, you know. It’s just that you and all your issues arrived at a time and place when people had little enough to spare for their immediate families.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hannah muttered into her soup
“Okay…” The Professor cracked another crustacean. She watched Hannah thoughtfully for a while. “I just have to ask this, so don’t flip out… Do you miss your mother, Hannah?”
“I DON’T want to talk about it,” yelled Hannah. Several of the other passengers looked over at them to see what the commotion was about.
Hannah sunk in her chair and rapidly drummed her dirty soupspoon on the tablecloth. “Don’t talk to me about it, okay?” she hissed.
The Professor put down a langoustine shell. “Look, I know better than you can imagine that I’ve touched a raw nerve, and I’m sorry. I just want to help.”
Hannah growled at her, “Well, don’t. You can’t. Okay?”
The waiter arrived with Hannah’s second bowl of soup. She didn’t even look up when he put it
in front of her. The Professor thanked him with a smile, and then turned back to Hannah. “Hannah?”
“What now?” Hannah said without enthusiasm.
“You didn’t say thank you.”
Hannah was now extremely grumpy. “Don’t need a lesson in manners from you. At least I don’t go around stealing people’s lives and stuff. Anyway, it’s his job. It’s not like he’s doing me a favor or anything.”
The Professor regarded Hannah coolly. “A few weeks ago, you led a rich woman on a wild goose chase through Dundee just because you thought she ought to see how most people were living, while she lived in luxury on the profits from their work. I’m sorry to ask again, but what I really want to know is why you’ve suddenly changed your tune about Dundee?”
Hannah was silent. She knew the answer, of course. Because how people live in Dundee isn’t my problem anymore. Because I don’t want it to be. Because I don’t want to feel guilty. Because nothing I can do will help anyway. What she said was, “Hey, I got out. They should, too.”
The Professor exploded. “You got out because I paid for you to do it! It’s certainly not because you achieved anything by your own efforts, is it? My God, you’re a selfish little…”
Hannah picked up the soup bowl, and flung the contents at the Professor’s face. Luckily, the soup wasn’t very hot, and she missed, instead landing a vivid splatter across the front of the Professor’s dress.
Now the entire room was silent, and everyone was staring.
The Professor calmly began to wipe off her dress, and said imperiously, in her Miss Davies voice, “Hannah, you will return to your cabin this instant.”
Hannah spat out, “With pleasure. Like I really want to be around you? Yeah, right.”
The Professor now sounded coldly furious. “Wait for me there. I shall deal with you presently.”
Hannah threw down her napkin, and darted from the room.
In her cabin, a seething Hannah waited for the Professor to knock, because she was ready for her. She had locked the door, and shoved the chair under the door handle. She was prepared to claim to the cabin crew that Miss Davies was not her governess, but her kidnapper. Whatever happened, she was determined not to listen to another of the Professor’s lectures. But the knock never came, and Hannah eventually lay down on her bed and cried about losing Jessie and Mina, until she drifted off to sleep.
A Different Day, A Different Destiny (The Snipesville Chronicles) Page 25