“What is it?”
She sucked in air.
“Who wrote you?”
“My brother.”
“Is he not well?”
“We have no money.”
I stiffened, dumbfounded. “What?”
“The funeral expenses—I didn’t realize—the surgery and medical costs and living the way we live without any income. We shouldn’t have—I didn’t—” She shook her head. “We are—we…” She choked on her words, but I knew: destitute, poor, hopeless.
I stumbled backward and bumped against the arm of the white sofa. “What do we do?”
“James said when he starts working he will send us a little money each month.”
She told James? Why hadn’t he said anything to me? “He can’t earn enough to support himself and us.”
“I know.” She turned around to reveal feverish eyes and a red face. “We have to sell the house. We have to sell everything.” She blubbered and slumped back onto the writing desk.
I hesitated. “How long have you known about this?”
She buried her head in her arms and muffled her words. “I don’t know.”
“Why did you let us buy mourning toilettes?” I asked. “Why did we have that huge procession? The hand-carved casket? The glass-window viewing carriage? The family plot? All the flowers and food—we didn’t have to do any of that.”
“I don’t know!”
I took several short breaths. “It’s all right. It’s not your fault…but where will we go?”
“My brother.”
“Uncle Robert?” I thought about the tiny house, his stuffy wife, and their two plump children. “Does he have room?”
Her head was still buried in her arms. “James is going to move into a boardinghouse, and we will share a room.”
“The girls?”
“All of us.”
“All of us?” Five women. “One room?”
“We don’t have any other choice.”
She gripped her handkerchief with one hand and clenched the other tightly on top of her lap.
I knelt and took her hands in mine, including the soggy handkerchief.
“I don’t know what else to do.” She sobbed harder. “I can’t take care of you by myself. I can’t do anything.”
“It’s going to be all right.” I looked into her bloodshot eyes. I thought about my father—my promise. “I’ll figure something out. No matter what. I will take care of us.”
I rushed to the Dorrs’ house. The servant asked that I wait in the parlor, a spacious room decorated with rich velvet and animal hides. Although Mr. Richard Dorr worked in the same field as my father had, he had acquired much more wealth. Over the past few months, he’d made it known that my father had helped him start his firm, now a great success. Richard and his wife, Elisa, had been wonderful after the funeral. Even though the rest of my family didn’t know them as well as my father had, they stopped by regularly with various gifts of kindness. Elisa became a steady companion for my mother and saw to the rest of us quite regularly. They made us promise to come to them if we ever needed anything—anything.
Elisa glided into the room. “Emeline?” She had a sickly sweet appearance, feathery hair, and a pink nose.
I tried to greet her without revealing my panic but failed. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do, but I had to—I had to if I wanted to keep my promise.
“What’s wrong? Is everything all right? Where’s your mother?”
“She doesn’t know I’m here.”
“What’s happened?” She motioned to a chair. “Please.”
“I can’t.” I gripped my hands together. “I just can’t bear to be still right now.”
“Emeline, what’s wrong?”
“You said I should come to you if we ever needed anything.”
“Of course.”
“I’m afraid we need a great deal right now.”
“Emeline, tell me, what is the matter?”
“We’ve run out of money.”
“What?”
My cheeks flushed. No one spoke of money in polite company. “We’re bankrupt.”
“But—your father…”
“My mother has never had to handle finances, let alone…She didn’t think. She wanted to honor my father. She—we had that elaborate funeral and procession. The doctor’s bill alone.” I caught Elisa’s eyes. “We have to sell our house.”
Elisa lowered herself into the chair she had offered me, her hand to her chest.
“James is going to move out. My mother is going to take us to her brother’s house.”
“Emeline, I’m so sorry. You know we will do whatever we can to help your family during this time. We can spare a little money, but—”
I shook my head. “That’s not why I’ve come.”
She lifted her gaze.
I inhaled deeply. “Do—”
“Emeline. What gives us the pleasure?” Richard had entered the room wearing a dark blue smoking jacket. He was a tall, slender man with little hair remaining on the top of his head.
“Good afternoon.” I lowered my chin and curled my toes inside my boots. “I’m so sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”
He lowered himself into an oversize chair. “Not at all.” He glanced at his wife and observed her solemn expression. “What’s this about now?” He talked with an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. He pulled out a pack of matches.
“Dear, I’m afraid Emeline and her family are having some troubles.” Elisa leaned forward and glanced at me, unsure whether it was her place to tell him.
Richard ripped off a match and prepared to strike it.
“I’m afraid we have—we’re—the doctor and funeral expenses were too much. We have nothing left.” I paused. “We’re losing our home.”
Richard’s face fell. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
I nodded rigidly.
“Do you need money?”
I shook my head. I knew no loan could be enough to last, and we had no means to repay. I had to ask for much, much more—so much that I had to give something in return, and I had only one thing to give.
“How can we help you?” Elisa clasped her hands.
“There is something you could do.”
“Go on.” Richard struck the match and it burst into a little flame.
“It would help us not just now but long term as well.”
Richard lifted the match to his pipe.
“And I know my father would approve and be eternally grateful.”
“What is it, Emeline?” Elisa asked.
Richard started to puff.
I pursed my lips and exhaled. “Could I marry your son?”
Richard’s pipe drooped.
Elisa brought her hands to her mouth, so only her wide eyes showed.
They must have thought me mad. Like most girls aware of John Dorr, I considered him beyond my reach. He had nearly black hair, which he wore slicked back, and he kept his face clean-shaven, a new trend that revealed his sharp cheekbones. His strange features gave him an almost-sinister type of beauty. An intriguingly handsome man from a well-off family, he should have been taken long ago, but his arduous education and antisocial tendencies gave him rare opportunity for courtship. His parents surely had high expectations of a bride, but the past few months had revealed the extent to which Richard Dorr felt indebted to my father. It wasn’t much, but I had made a promise to do whatever it took.
Richard cringed and rapidly waved the match out. “What?”
I put my hands up. “I know it’s outrageous to ask, but if I were married, I could take some of the pressure off my mother. She wouldn’t have to care for me, and I could send her a little money each month, too. Perhaps they could afford something—a tenement.”
Elisa lowered her hands.
I wondered how they saw me in that moment. Was I still a twenty-three-year-old girl with feathery-fawn hair, a girl who had attended university, who came from a well standing, middle-class
family? Or did I appear frazzled, desperate, and poor? I gulped. “I know, I don’t have anything to offer your son or your family, no dowry, but I can offer my promise that I will be the very best wife to him.”
They stared at me, hardly blinking.
“I’ve had no other prospects. I refused suitors while at Grantville.” I failed to restrain my tears as I begged. “If I became a Dorr, I could help my family. You would be rescuing them from destitution.” I stopped myself.
Elisa blinked, her mouth open. “Emeline—I—I don’t know—”
“My father wouldn’t have wanted this for us. Please. I will be the best wife. I will sacrifice for him. I will honor him for the rest of my days. I will do anything to make him happy. Please.”
Elisa’s mouth froze open.
Richard lowered his eyes and then brought them back to me.
“Emeline? I—” Elisa shook her head.
It was too much to ask, and I knew it. I felt my cheeks flush. “But…I understand. I’m sorry. I should never—I—I—have to leave.” I rushed into the foyer, scrambled for my coat, and fumbled with the double doors.
“Emeline, wait!” Elisa said, but I could not stop.
I fled.
I tried to forget my embarrassment for the next few days but relived the scene over and over until my mother approached me Saturday afternoon. She entered the sitting room timidly while I read next to the warm fire. Her voice trembled and her eyes glistened as she informed me that Elisa and Richard Dorr were calling with their son. Her bottom lip trembled and she clenched her hands, unaware of any courtship, unsure of my sentiments. Then I smiled, and she assumed the rest. I watched her body and mind sink with relief for the first time since my father had died. She reached out, clasped my hands, and pulled me off the sofa. “A wedding, my daughter will have a wedding.”
I hopped with her in a little circle until she dropped my hands and started pacing. “It will have to be small, in mourning, of course, and soon, within a month.”
My eyes shot wide open. A month?
“Oh, and with the holidays, but that’s good. It’s good. Everyone should be happy to come for a Christmas ceremony and to see you before you move so far away.”
“Far away?”
“The Dorrs said their son’s job opportunity in Labellum will not wait for any honeymoon, and don’t you worry, I won’t make any problems for you, dear. I won’t say one word. I will make no complaints, even if they don’t want a ceremony at all. I don’t care. You are getting married!” She reached toward me but pulled back and held her hands under her chin, under her growing grin. “Your father would be so proud.”
I nodded along with her assumptions, but inside I wondered, where’s Labellum?
After the Dorrs left, I sneaked outside and sat on the front steps of our house. It felt haunted by the lonely feeling of a home that wouldn’t be ours for much longer. We lived in a red brick house with white-framed windows flanking the front double doors. I folded my arms, not having brought a coat. I embraced the bite of the cold as a form of martyrdom. There still wasn’t any snow, but the icy air nipped at my nose and reminded me of days spent playing rosy-cheeked in a white childhood wonderland long ago.
I heard the door open and close, followed by footsteps. I stiffened and straightened. I felt someone standing next to me.
“I believe congratulations are in order?” he said.
“Last rites sound more appropriate.” I looked up at my brother.
He chuckled.
“It’s not funny.”
“I thought it was clever.” He handed me my black coat.
James wore his black frock coat over gray trousers. He squinted out at the street as a horse and carriage clip-clopped and rattled down the road. “I figured I’d come out here and tell you to stop pouting.”
“I’m not pouting.”
“Uh-huh.”
I sighed. “How did you know?”
“Emeline, you can fool Mother and Mr. and Mrs. Dorr and him, but you can’t fool me.” He knew me too well.
“I don’t know what else to do. It’s going to save our family.”
He grunted and dropped down next to me. “I thought all girls wanted to get married.”
“Maybe I’m not a girl.”
“I always thought you were built for railroad work.”
I squinted one eye at him with annoyed amusement. “I would think I’d be a well-dressed lawyer—like you.” I poked him.
He laughed at the assault. “Yes, you are probably too weak for hard labor.”
We chuckled and then simmered down, submitting to the depressed state lingering around our home. The breeze rustled the branches of nearby oak trees, little dead leaves still clinging to them.
“Did you see him?” I asked.
“He seems fine enough, a little bit gangly, but other than that…”
“He’s so quiet. I’m afraid I’m going to be bored.”
“Boring is good.” James’ voice lifted.
“How’s that?” I folded my arms atop my knees and laid my head down.
“Boring is better than obnoxious. Boring means you’ll be married but not irritated.”
I admired James’ soft boyish features and realized that his confidence made him seem very grown up. “Maybe I want more in marriage than to not be annoyed.”
“I thought you didn’t want to get married?”
“I don’t.”
“Why is that again?”
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes at him.
“Well? Is it something about him?”
“Promise you won’t laugh.”
“I promise nothing unless under the threat of torture.”
I gave him a stern look, the kind only an older sister can give—a look that threatened torture.
“All right, all right, I promise.”
“I kind of wanted…to work.”
“Work?”
I lifted my head. “You know, work, like what you’ll be doing soon.”
“At a law firm?”
“No.” I hesitated and blushed. “I kind of wanted to be a nurse.”
“Really?” He grinned.
I gave him another look.
He raised his hands in defense. “I’m not laughing.” He put his hands down. “I didn’t know you liked medicine, is all.”
“I couldn’t tell anyone, could I? Mother would faint.”
“So you weren’t going to really pursue it.”
“No, I was. At Grantville College I took classes. A lot of women are doing it.” I talked fast, excited. “I was waiting for the right time to ask…Father. He would have let me, I know it. Just…didn’t work out.”
James lowered his eyes.
“I don’t know.” I covered my face with my hands and then tore them away. “Obviously, I’m not going to be a nurse. I don’t mind John Dorr, or I didn’t until today. The problem is, I don’t want to move away from everyone. I never would have—it’s all a huge mistake.” I clenched my eyes shut and shook my head. “But I can’t take it back.” I leaned over and wrapped my hands around James’ waist. “I don’t know what to do. I want to stay with you.”
He put his hand on my back. “Emma, you know we could never stay together forever. I’ll probably get hitched soon, and then where would you be?”
I didn’t answer.
“You’d just be a burden. Our family needs this. You’re doing the right thing.”
“He’s going to take me away, though. I’m going to miss everyone so much.”
“Even the three hens?” He snickered. He’d come up with the nickname for our three sisters because they had the ability to appear perfectly calm and together until something excited them into a flurry of noise and feathers.
I smiled at the thought and smacked his knee. “This is serious!”
“You know you’ll visit us, and when I’ve gotten settled into the firm, I’ll come out to see you all the time.”
“Really?” I moved my head c
loser to his chest.
“Yes.”
I sat back up.
“I know you’re scared, but Emma, this is what people do. You get married. You have children.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.” His face hardened. “If I lived out on my own and didn’t get married, I would starve to death, but not before traipsing around in trousers full of holes.”
I held back a giggle. “What?”
“I don’t know how to do any of the ‘secret’ stuff you and Mother do. If someone threw me in a kitchen with everything I needed and a set of detailed instructions, I’d cook my own hand.”
I laughed, nodding. “But you are moving out alone.”
“And you can’t get mad if my trousers are uneven at your wedding.”
I chuckled a little.
“You need someone to take care of you, and John Dorr needs you to take care of him. I know he’s not everything you hoped for, but at least he’s not horrible. Just think what you could end up with if you don’t get married now.”
I raised my eyebrows and wondered what type of prospects I’d face as a destitute woman living in one room with my mother and three sisters.
“My point is, maybe you’re just a little scared. I’m sure if you give this John Dorr a chance, he’ll end up just fine, and if he doesn’t…” He stood and pulled me up by the hands.
I popped up. “Yes?”
“I’ll come get you.”
Three
January 1901
Labellum, Missouri
My eyes moved across the steamboat passengers. Death lingered on the tip of everyone’s tongue, and everyone was clad in black crepe and taffeta. What an odd time to be newlyweds. I looked at John and considered him, clinging to the hope that affection would grow with time. I touched the ring he had given me—a tiny pearl atop a gold band surrounded by a circle of white opal spheres. Florence had eyed it after the ceremony. “Emeline?” she said as her smile turned. “Pearls mean tears.”
John had recently graduated law school, and his father wanted him to mentor under a friend, Mr. Lewis Coddington, who had a firm in Labellum, Missouri. On January 28, 1901, a few weeks after our private ceremony and only six days after Britain’s Queen Victoria had died, my new husband and I sat silent and still on a steamboat bound for the distant town. Not only were my family and I in mourning, but people all over the world were mourning the queen. A marriage was supposed to be a happy occasion, but the dark curiosities surrounding death twisted the minds of everyone around us.
A White Room Page 3