by Bess McBride
“Hopefully, he will one day,” Faith replied. “He will marry and have children.”
“Is he engaged?” Sarah asked.
“No, not yet,” Faith replied.
“Not yet?” Sarah repeated. Her heart skipped several beats, but she wasn’t sure why. What Jeremiah did with his personal life was no concern of hers.
“He’s very handsome,” Agnes said, an extraordinary compliment, coming from her. “He’ll have no trouble at all finding a wife. Lots of ladies around here would like to marry him. Every eligible young woman, I imagine.”
Sarah drew in a deep breath through her nose and held it. “How about that?” she murmured.
“Oh yes!” Faith said. “Jeremiah is very handsome. So is his cousin, Eric through their mothers.”
“Eric?” Sara asked. “The guy at the counter? He’s Jeremiah’s cousin? I would never have guessed. Not only are they as different in looks and temperament as night and day, Eric is very servile to Jeremiah. I think he called him sir.”
“That’s just Eric’s way. I don’t think Jeremiah requires him to do so.”
“Eric is very handsome as well,” Sarah said in his defense.
“But he is not rich. Jeremiah is rich,” Agnes said. “Rich men are much more handsome than others, aren’t they?”
“Agnes Williams, how very mercenary of you!” Faith exclaimed.
“Not to me,” Agnes said, “but there you are. Women want security. A man with money has that.”
Sarah thought about her job as a Virginia state employee, which paid well. She was financially secure, and she knew how fortunate she was to be a woman in the twenty-first century.
“Have either of you ever worked outside the home?” Sarah asked.
“Agnes and I?” Faith asked. “Oh, no! Father would never have allowed such a thing. We did not grow up at the turn of the next century, no indeed. We were born in the 1840s. Our father worked to support us. We had servants, but we did not go outside the home to work.”
A knock at the door startled Sarah, and she held her breath, thinking it was Jeremiah. She opened the door to find Nancy, on cue, standing there with a tray laden with a tea service and finger sandwiches.
“Oh! Let me help you with that!” Sarah exclaimed.
“No need. I have it,” Nancy replied, moving across the room to set the tray down on the table.
Sarah scanned Agnes’s and Faith’s faces, those women who had never worked outside of the home. Nancy could not say the same. Sarah noticed a ring on Nancy’s left hand and wondered if she was married.
“Do you need anything else?” Nancy asked, looking not at all subservient but busy.
“No, thank you. I really appreciate this,” Sarah said, fully aware she had no money to pay for the tea and sandwiches.
“You’re welcome,” Nancy replied and left the room.
“Is Nancy married?” Sarah asked.
Faith, pouring out three cups of tea, paused and looked at Agnes, still seated at the table.
“Her husband went away,” Agnes said, picking up a sandwich.
Sarah moved over to the table and grabbed one up as well. She was starving again. Or maybe it was Nancy’s delicious food.
“Went away?” Sarah repeated, standing while Faith took the other chair at the table.
“You know. How men go away?” Faith said.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t. Is he traveling? Does he work out of town?”
“He’s in prison,” Agnes finally said.
“Oh nooooo,” Sarah said. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Does she have children?”
“Just Eric,” Faith said with a sigh.
“Eric? Eric is Nancy’s son?” Sarah would never have imagined that Eric, with his shining blond hair and sunny disposition, was dour and drab Nancy’s son.
“Eric is the spitting image of his father, a gambler with a quick trigger finger.”
“He shot someone?”
“Yes, in a card game.”
“Goodness!”
“Poor Nancy,” Faith said.
“Nancy is Jeremiah’s...aunt then?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But wasn’t Jeremiah’s mother your good friend?”
“She was. Nelly,” Faith replied.
“But not Nancy?”
“Nancy was always a bit different than Nelly,” Faith said. “She preferred reading to socializing, so we didn’t become friends. I have regrets about that, but there is nothing to be done about it now.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it is just much too late.”
“Why?”
Faith looked at her sister, who stared back.
“I don’t know! I just assumed that it was too late. We are too set in our ways.”
“You and Agnes?”
“And Nancy. You have seen that she is still not the friendliest person.”
“I did notice that. Now, though, I think she might have reason to be dour. She might be humiliated by her husband’s crime, and maybe even that she is working for a living. You have said that your father left you some money to live on, but she’s obviously in different circumstances.”
“That’s true,” Agnes said, chewing on a sandwich. “She might be embarrassed. I never thought of that. She’s had to wait on us once a week for the past ten years.”
“Ten years?” I gasped.
“That is when her husband went to prison.”
“Eric must have been a boy.”
“Yes, he was. Jeremiah’s father took pity on them.”
“And his mother too?”
“Nelly passed away when Jeremiah was ten.”
“Oh dear. Too young to lose a mother.” Sarah knew. Her own mother had died when she was fifteen. Her father had raised her alone after that, but he too had died way too young two years before at sixty-two.
“Indeed.”
“Well, I’m glad Jeremiah’s father gave them jobs,” Sarah said.
“He did more than offer Nancy a job,” Faith said cryptically.
“Faith,” Agnes said reprovingly.
“Uh-oh. What’s this about?” Sarah asked.
Faith’s cheeks turned pink. “He offered to marry Nancy if she would divorce her husband, but she wouldn’t do it.”
“Really? Out of kindness, or did he fall in love with her?”
“He was a kind man, that is true, but I think he fell in love with Nancy. That was certainly the rumor.”
“Is divorce a hard thing to get?”
“It used to be more difficult, but Nancy did not want to divorce her husband. She still loved him. I imagine she still does. Remember, Eric is his spitting image and has a similarly friendly demeanor. His father had a temper that I’ve never seen Eric display, but other than that, he was a charmer. Yes, I imagine that Nancy still loves her husband.”
I sighed. “How long is he in prison for?”
“Forever, I believe,” Faith said.
“Enough gossip,” Agnes said. “Do you want to try the clothing on before we go, to see if it fits?”
“Here? In front of you?”
“Sarah is shy,” Faith said. “We can turn our backs, or you can go down to the bathroom, or we can come back tomorrow to see how it went.”
Sarah practiced gratitude. “Okay, I’ll try it on now. I’m very grateful for the loan of the clothing. It would probably be easier to change in here. If you can just look out of the window, I’ll see what I can do.”
“See what you can do?” Agnes said, shifting in her chair to look out the window.
Faith pivoted as well.
Moving to the bed, Sarah unbuttoned her shirt. “I’m not sure how all this clothing works, but I’ll try to put it on right.”
“You are a very strange young woman,” Agnes said again. “What an odd thing to say.”
“We don’t dress this way in my time, Agnes,” Sarah said, slipping out of her jeans.
“I can see that,” Agnes replied.
T
hey fell silent while Sarah folded her outer clothing and set it on the bed, then searched through the pile to see what looked like it should go on first.
“Does the shift go on first or the corset?”
“The corset goes over the chemise,” Faith said.
“Okay.” Sarah slipped her arms into a white cotton shift and let it drop to her knees. Then she picked up the corset, figured out which way was up and wrapped it around her waist. Also made of cotton, the corset was plain, simple and stiff, with laces running down the front. She pulled at the laces and tied them just below her belly before attempting to bend at the waist. She thought she could manage the thing. Straps dangled from the corset, and Sarah picked up the thick stockings and eyed them with misgiving.
She took them one at a time, half hanging on to one of the bed posters while she stuck each foot into a stocking and pulled it up to her thigh. She attached the top of the stockings with the garters and paused for breath.
Another white cotton garment presented itself, and Sarah assumed from the simple lace hem that she was looking at a petticoat. She stepped into it and buttoned it at her back.
She picked up the brown twill skirt and slipped it on over her shoulders. The sateen lining rustled. Leaving the skirt unbuttoned, she picked up the final garment, a beige gingham blouse with ruffles down the front and long sleeves with little puffs at the shoulders.
“Almost done,” she puffed, buttoning the blouse with a million small buttons down the front before fastening the skirt closed at the waist.
“Okay,” she said. “Did I get everything on right?”
Agnes and Faith turned and studied her.
“That fits just fine!” Faith said. “Yes, it looks like everything is fastened correctly. Did you have trouble?”
“Not as much as I thought I would,” Sarah said. The bureau held a small tabletop mirror, but there was no full-length mirror in the room, and she had no idea how she looked.
“There is no mirror in this room,” Agnes said, following Sarah’s eyes. “We will have to talk to Jeremiah about that.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay, thank you. No need to bother him. He’s been generous enough.”
“Hmmm,” Agnes muttered. “Not voluntarily though. So unlike him.”
“I agree with Agnes,” Faith said. “So unlike him.”
“How about a short walk now that you are dressed?” Agnes said. “We need to get back to the boardinghouse in about an hour, as it will be dinnertime. Our landlady keeps a very strict residents-only table—otherwise we would invite you to dinner. Will you eat dinner downstairs, Sarah?”
Sarah looked at the empty plate with longing. She had managed to snag only one small finger sandwich. “I had a sandwich. I think that’ll be fine for me.”
“Nonsense,” Agnes said. “Faith ate more than her fair share. If you do not wish to eat in the dining room alone, ask Nancy to bring up a tray for you. Better yet, on our way out, we will tell Eric to pass her a message.”
“I really don’t want to be any trouble,” Sarah said, sitting down to lace up the shoes. They were a bit loose, but she thought the lacing would keep them on.
“I’m sure it’s no trouble at all,” Agnes said.
Faith picked up the straw hat they had brought, and on the point of handing it to Sarah, she paused. “We must put your hair up. Such a lovely shade of brown, like chestnuts.”
“I don’t have a hair band,” Sarah said. She looked at Faith’s and Agnes’s hair under their hats. Both wore buns at the nape of their necks. “Or hairpins,” she added.
Faith took hold of Sarah’s shoulder-length hair and twisted it into a knot. “Your hair is curly like Agnes’s and will hold its style. We only need a few pins to secure it.” She held out her hand, and Agnes, with a frown, extracted two pins from her coif and handed them over.
“Agnes always uses too many pins. She’s very fastidious.”
“I don’t want hair flying around my face,” Agnes said.
“Pshaw,” Faith exclaimed. She stuck the pins in Sarah’s updo and handed her the small straw hat festooned with brown ribbons and a garland of pink silk roses.
Sarah settled the hat on her head, and Faith giggled.
“There is a hatpin in it. Let me help.” Faith adjusted the hat, and
Sarah felt a pull in her hair as the hatpin diced through the strands of her hair, dangerously close to her scalp.
“There!” Faith said.
Sarah wiggled the brim of the hat, but it sat firmly on her head. She knew why Agnes and Faith had not taken their hats off that morning and later in the afternoon. Once pinned, it was best left alone.
“Are you ready?” Faith asked.
Sarah nodded, suddenly nervous. She wasn’t sure she could pass for a late-nineteenth-century woman. Agnes and Faith had normal mannerisms. They walked like she did, said words like she did, but inherently there was a difference between them. Agnes and Faith had different experiences—in life, as women, even in employment in the workforce...or lack thereof.
Sarah gave herself a shake. She could manage—if she didn’t have to see Jeremiah, that was. She was out of luck though, as Jeremiah, talking to Eric at the counter, looked up as the three women descended the stairs. His eyes went straight to Sarah, and he stared. Her face flamed while she managed the steps and a skirt that was just a few inches too long.
Chapter Six
Jeremiah heard the women’s voices before he saw them. Eric had previously told him that Faith and Agnes had returned, each carrying a bag. Jeremiah had assumed that when next he saw Miss Chilton, she would be suitably dressed, but the sight of her took his breath away.
Petite and ethereal in a dainty blouse and dark-brown skirt that showed a slender waist, she held her skirts high in a most unladylike fashion. Her hair had been pulled up to reveal small shoulders and a delicate neck. The hat Faith and Agnes loaned her perched atop her head, making her seem taller than she was.
“Ladies,” Jeremiah said, clearing his throat of an unexpected huskiness. “How nice to see you again. You look very fetching, Miss Chilton.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled. “Please call me Sarah.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“We are on our way out for a walk,” Faith said with a smile.
“Miss Chilton would like a dinner tray sent to her room, Jeremiah,” Agnes said in a businesslike voice. “Can you see to that?”
“Yes, of course, if she does not wish to eat in the dining room.”
Sarah’s cheeks brightened even more than when he had first seen her on the stairs.
“Just whenever you have time this evening. Please don’t put Nancy out.”
“Nancy will be busy in the restaurant, but I will bring a tray to your room myself.”
“Oh, no!” Sarah protested. “No, don’t do that. I really don’t want to be a bother. I can come down to the restaurant.”
Agnes and Faith turned to look at Sarah in surprise.
“Would it be acceptable to you if I were to join you in the restaurant?” Jeremiah surprised himself by saying. He never took his meals in public, preferring to eat in his office or his room just down the hall from Sarah’s room.
“Okayyyy,” Sarah replied with apparent skepticism.
“Good,” Jeremiah said, meaning it. “About six o’clock?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“I will see you then. Enjoy your outing, ladies.”
He walked over to the front door and held it open for the trio. Thinking to close the door after Agnes had passed, he could not resist stepping outside to watch the women, specifically Sarah. Seemingly aware of his gaze, Sarah looked over her shoulder toward him. He lifted a hand in a wave, and she stumbled on her skirts, and with a shriek she fell into a heap on the boardwalk. Cursing himself for distracting her, Jeremiah rushed forward to help as both Faith and Agnes attempted to lift Sarah from the ground.
“Sarah!” he exclaimed as he reached her side. He thrust his hands under
her arms and pulled her upright, holding her against his chest. Her hat had fallen off, and her silky hair touched his chin.
“Are you all right?” he breathed against her head.
“I’m okay,” she said, twisting in his arms. So close was her face to his, her lips to his mouth, that he jerked his head back and released her. Sarah staggered for a moment, and Agnes caught hold of her arm.
Embarrassed and inexplicably moved by what could best be described as an embrace, Jeremiah stooped to pick up Sarah’s hat.
“The skirts,” Sarah mumbled, her eyes downcast.
“Are they too, too long, dear?” Faith asked, peering down at Sarah’s hem.
“No, I can manage. I just need to be more careful.” Sarah took the hat that Jeremiah extended to her.
“I’m pretty sure I can’t secure this to my hair though,” Sarah said. “Can you help me again, Faith?”
“Certainly, dear.” Faith positioned the hat on Sarah’s shining head and secured it with a hatpin. Jeremiah did not like to see Sarah wince as Faith thrust the pin through her hair.
“Is that painful?” he asked.
“Yes, of course it is, Jeremiah,” Agnes responded in an acerbic tone, as if the question was redundant. “But we make do.”
“I had no idea.”
“There, I think it should stay on now,” Faith said.
“It definitely feels like it isn’t coming off anytime soon,” Sarah said. “Thank you all. Should we continue our walk? I’ll be more careful this time.”
“I think you cannot want to continue now, do you?” Jeremiah asked hastily. He found himself worried about her safety.
“I’m fine,” Sarah said. “Really, I’m fine.”
“If you still want to walk, then let’s go,” Agnes said.
Jeremiah couldn’t protest any further.
“May I accompany you?” he astonished himself by asking.
All three women looked at him in surprise. He had eyes only for Sarah.
“I guess so,” she said, looking to Faith and Agnes for approval.
“Yes, of course, though we will have to walk two abreast so we don’t crowd the boardwalk. Faith and I could walk ahead and let you accompany Sarah.”
Thus organized and much to his satisfaction, Jeremiah extended his arm. Sarah hesitated, staring at him.