Ebb Tide (Ella Wood Book 3)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  “I’ve already decided to enroll.”

  He gave a satisfied nod. “Then perhaps you’ll also agree to my next request and accept a position in my studio.”

  Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. “Is this a job offer?”

  He grinned. “Yes.”

  “But what about your assistant?”

  “He turned in his resignation two days ago. He’s returning to Indiana after graduation.”

  “And your nephew?”

  “In the military.”

  Emily’s jaw gaped open. Then relief and the fierce thrill of opportunity surged through her. “The same position you offered me last year?”

  “The very same. With full pay and full credit for any work you do.” His enthusiasm reached all the way to his eyes.

  She laughed aloud. “Daniel Harnish, I gladly accept!”

  22

  “I found it!” Missouri crashed through the bedroom door, slamming it behind her like a child in primary school.

  Emily looked up from her bed where three images of Jovie lay spread over the coverlet—the picture of him leaving Sophia’s so long ago, the printed copy she was presenting throughout town, and one of him leaning against a piling on a Patapsco wharf that she had found packed away in her trunk. It was a memory of their trip to Baltimore to investigate the school, the day he’d actually offered to pay for her education. Beside the likenesses she’d set the daguerreotype of herself that he had carried for so long, as if by seeing the images together she might figure out Jovie’s mind.

  “What did you find?” she asked her roommate.

  “The house I’m going to purchase and convert into a boardinghouse.”

  “Missouri, that’s wonderful!”

  Face flushed and hair spilling into disarray, Missouri beckoned her into the hallway. “Come on! I want to show it to you!”

  Emily laughed. “Right now? Dinner will be served in twenty minutes.”

  “Oh, bother dinner! Who can eat at a time like this?”

  “Someone who’s spent seven hours in a studio and three walking door to door. I’m famished.”

  Missouri rolled her eyes. Charging into the room, she caught Emily’s arm and gave a mighty tug, yanking her to her feet. Fortunately it wasn’t the arm newly emerged from the sling. “We’ll break into the kitchen later. Come on!”

  Missouri never let go as she bolted down the stairs and out the door, dragging Emily to the street. “For heaven’s sake, slow down!” Emily protested. “The house will be there if we run to it or if we walk.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just so excited!”

  Missouri did let go of her arm, but the pace she set was less of a stroll and more of a forced march. They flew through the downtown area to a neighborhood with stately old homes and an aura of faded glory. Emily began to catch her roommate’s eagerness.

  They stopped before a two-story Georgian home made of warm brown brick and set with a chimney on either side, just where the hip roof formed an angle. It was perfectly symmetrical, with five windows above, four windows and a central door below, and as tall as it was wide. A decorative pediment adorned the door, and each window had been crowned with elaborately carved moldings. It was stout, balanced elegance.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Missouri breathed.

  Emily clapped her hands. “Why, it’s perfectly lovely!” Solid and spacious, she guessed it held five bedrooms on the upper floor. The lower story had plenty of room for a parlor, kitchen, dining room, and possibly another bedroom. “Can we go inside?”

  “No.” Missouri’s eyes had turned dreamy.

  “Then just describe the interior and I’ll use my imagination.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have been inside, haven’t you?”

  “No.”

  Emily glanced at her sidewise. “Have you spoken to the people who own it?”

  She shook her head, and Emily began to suspect that she was gazing at a wish and a prayer. “Missouri, is the house even for sale?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed like a woman in love. “But someday I’m going to own it.”

  Emily glanced from the house to her roommate and back again. She had missed dinner for a daydream? She turned on her heel. “I’m going home.”

  “No, wait!” Missouri spun her around and held her in place. “Just stay and look at it with me. Just for a few minutes. Imagine the possibilities.”

  Then Emily understood. Missouri knew she could never afford anything so grand. This wasn’t about practicalities but about hope. The house represented her deepest yearnings; she simply needed someone to share them with, to validate them, to keep them alive. Hadn’t Missouri often done the same for her?

  Emily would dream with her.

  “It really is perfect. A little whitewash on the fence, some paint on the door, a vegetable garden out back. How did you find it?”

  “I took a different street home this afternoon. Mr. Portman lives over there.” She waved in a westward direction, still gazing in rapture. “I think it was fate.”

  “If you owned it, what would you do first?”

  Missouri didn’t even hesitate. “I’d put an arbor right over there, with brick paving stones and a few cushioned chairs. And I’d plant ivy along the western wall. I love how ivy breathes life into brick, don’t you? And I’d take out those horrid shrubs and plant something with more color. Flowers, perhaps, or those bushes with the purple leaves.” Her mouth pulled to one side of her face. “I sure wish I could see inside.”

  Emily wondered just how long her roommate had stood on the street dreaming before she came home. “We’ll return after dark. Perhaps we’ll be able to see into a room or two.”

  Missouri’s face lit up. “Yes! Tonight!”

  “Friday night,” Emily corrected, drawing her friend away. “Come on. Maybe we can still make dinner.”

  Reluctantly, Missouri allowed herself to be lured down the sidewalk, but she kept her eyes turned back until they rounded the corner and the house was lost from sight. Emily decided to draw her mind elsewhere. “Have you heard from any of your brothers lately?”

  “Just Nebraska.”

  “And he is…?” Emily could never keep Missouri’s brothers straight.

  “The baby. Idealistic, and a firebrand to boot. A real Jayhawker. He joined a Kansas cavalry regiment, and he’s storming up and down the plains having the time of his life. Probably shooting Rebs and Indians as we speak.”

  Emily winced. Sometimes she and Missouri forgot their families were on opposite sides of the conflict.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. What about the other two? Did they join up?”

  “Naw, California hung out in New York for a time and found out he doesn’t have much of a head for business. So he lit out for the Rockies. Last I knew, he and Texas were playing Mountain Man somewhere in Colorado.”

  Emily chuckled. Missouri’s family was a breed apart from the cultured, sophisticated circle she had grown up in. “I’d like to meet your brothers someday.”

  The evening meal was already in progress when they returned. Five pairs of eyes watched them enter the dining room and slide into their places.

  “You’re fifteen minutes late.” Mrs. Calkins frowned in stern disapproval.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Calkins,” Missouri apologized. “It won’t happen again.”

  The matron was tiny but firm. “I expect my young women to exercise discipline and punctuality. If you are not here for the start of the meal, you miss it entirely.”

  Grace smiled at them sympathetically. The twins watched with wide-eyed interest. Violet ignored them altogether.

  “Our tardiness was…job-related,” Emily tried. “A bit of an emergency.”

  “Then you should have extended me the courtesy of a notification before you left the house.”

  Emily felt the sting of the reprimand. “You’re right, of course. I apologize.”

  Missouri seemed unabashed. “What if we clean the
kitchen afterward and give you the evening off?”

  “I’m sorry, girls. Rules are rules.”

  Shamefaced, Emily followed Missouri from the room.

  “Don’t worry,” Missouri whispered on the stairway. “I know where she keeps the food. We’ll come back after dark—after we slip back to my boardinghouse and have a peep inside.”

  Emily giggled. “We’re not going back. We both have to work in the morning, remember?”

  “Yeah, but only one of us is excited about that. And we both know it isn’t me.”

  It was true. The two weeks Emily had spent working in the studio had been incredibly fulfilling. Daniel was showing her how to apply the skills she had learned in school to real business situations. They got on well together, and the atmosphere remained enthusiastic and relaxed. “If I had the funds, I’d buy you that house, Missouri. I wish you could know the pleasure of working at something you love.”

  They entered their bedroom. Emily kicked off her shoes and massaged the stiffness from her shoulder. Missouri picked up one of the images of Jovie that still lay on Emily’s bed. “Do you ever wish you’d chosen something more creative than photography? You’re so good at portraits.”

  “But I am creating portraits. I’m just using a camera instead of paper and ink. I still have to set up the shot, capture the right expression, and sometimes I even finish with ink or paint. Daniel let me shoot one of his sessions yesterday, and he told me I have a better eye for positioning than he does. I think it’s because I’ve drawn so many faces.”

  “Daniel?” Missouri asked. “What happened to Mr. Harnish?”

  Emily shrugged. “It wasn’t a formal decision. I guess when you spend so much time with someone, you just slip into it.”

  “I’ve been working for Mr. Portman for over two years, and he doesn’t even know my first name.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m still completely enamored of photography, and I’m going to focus on it solely this year so I can finish my certificate.”

  Missouri peered more closely at the sketch. “When school starts, are you going to have time to keep searching for Jovie?”

  “I’ll make time.” It was a promise to herself. The reason she’d come back. She wouldn’t let anything interfere with that purpose.

  ***

  “Emily, this turned out beautifully!”

  Daniel held an image of the three young Bowditch sisters to the light so he could better examine it. She’d lightened the skin tones, giving them a rosy glow, and painted in the pastel colors of their dresses. Some gold added to the background made the entire room come to life. It was no longer an image on a page but a window into the soul of the Bowditch family.

  “I don’t know how you do it, but you capture the essence of every single subject every single time. They’re prettier on the page than they are in real life.”

  Tinting was Emily’s favorite part of photography—that ability to take a cold, flat, emotionless image and give it warmth and depth. When she was done, the viewer could almost feel the affection Mr. and Mrs. Bowditch carried for their three little girls.

  “Thank you for finishing this for me,” Daniel said. “I spent the entire weekend at Anne’s house and just didn’t get to it.”

  “Is she feeling any better?”

  “She will once this baby arrives.”

  “The two of you seem quite close.”

  “We didn’t have much choice, coming so many years behind our brothers. We got into some dandy scrapes growing up, but now we have this great working relationship. She feeds me meals and I play with her kids. I’m their favorite uncle, you know,” he boasted.

  “Did they tell you that?”

  “They didn’t have to.” He grinned. “I have this natural talent with children.”

  “I see.” She rolled her eyes.

  Daniel eyed the Bowditch photograph more carefully. “You know, your work reminds me of that French portraitist we learned about at the last lecture. The fellow who worked with pastels…”

  “Maurice Quentin de La Tour?” After taking Missouri to the first lecture of the school year and watching her yawn and fidget through the entire hour, Emily decided to invite Daniel instead. He’d responded with genuine interest. She’d even used her earnings to purchase a new dress for the occasion and updated a few others. They hadn’t missed a lecture since.

  He snapped his fingers. “That’s the one. You have something of his style in your work. Some quality you share. I can’t describe it like our speaker did, but I recognize it, sure enough. I’d like to enter this in the Exhibition if Mr. and Mrs. Bowditch agree.”

  The entire school was engaged in preparations. Emily had two other pieces accepted for display, a dramatic photograph of Clara in which Emily had been experimenting with lamplight, and a charcoal sketch of the Baltimore waterfront she had finished on a Sunday afternoon before school started. If Mr. Bowditch gave his consent, the image of his girls could bring Daniel’s business some needed exposure.

  He set the sisters on the table and picked up a picture of a man in a top hat relaxing beside a lace-draped table. “And Mr. Donner looks like he’s about to step off the page. How much longer on this one?”

  “Mr. Donner will have to wait until tomorrow to take himself for a walk.” She rose and gathered her school books. “I’ve got class in thirty minutes.”

  Daniel set the image on the worktable and grimaced. “You mean you won’t be here to help me corral the Eberhard twins?”

  Daniel had met both boys when their father made the appointment. From his description, she was glad the Bowditch sisters had landed on her shift instead. She buttoned the flap of her valise. “I believe you were just telling me what a natural you are with children.”

  “Well, yes,” he protested. “But Anne was there the whole time. I have no idea how to actually make children behave.”

  “Perhaps Mrs. Eberhard will accompany the twins.”

  “She’d be crazy to,” he muttered.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Uncle Daniel,” she remarked, throwing a grin over her shoulder as she pushed through the curtain. “Enjoy your afternoon!”

  She could hear his groan from the front room.

  The Maryland Institute was located only a few blocks from the studio. Mr. Woodward hadn’t been at all surprised to see her when she’d registered for classes.

  “So, the wanderer has returned.” He had smiled a welcome, leaning back in his office chair.

  “Hello, Mr. Woodward.”

  “I saw you at my lecture and assumed you might show up here, though with hostilities renewing themselves in your harbor, I could not be sure. Your family, they are well?”

  “My parents are fine. My aunt, unfortunately, has passed on.” Emily seated herself in the chair across from him.

  “My condolences. She was the one you returned to care for, am I correct?”

  “And part of the reason I have returned. She made me promise to finish my education.”

  He tapped a finger on his desktop. “She had an appreciation for talent then?”

  “I think she had a greater appreciation for strength of character.”

  “She sounds like a wise woman.”

  “One of the wisest.” Sweet sadness swept over her. How well her aunt had known her. “I would like to finish my photography coursework and graduate this fall, if I can arrange it.”

  He opened her file and flipped through a few pages, adjusting his glasses to peer more closely at the one he selected. “That shouldn’t be a problem. You’ve completed your general prerequisites as well as all basic photography courses. Had circumstances been different, you probably could have graduated last summer.”

  He pulled a registration form from his desk drawer and spoke to her as she filled it out. “You were in the company of Mr. Harnish at the lecture. I assume you’re working for him?”

  She looked up in surprise. “How did you know?”

  He pointed at the brown stains on her fing
ers. “You’ve either been hulling walnuts or handling silver nitrate.”

  She rubbed her fingers together self-consciously. It was a minor drawback of the profession.

  Mr. Woodward chuckled. “Actually, Daniel told me. He and I keep in touch. So often my students return to wherever it is they came from and I never see them again. It’s a treat for me to watch his progress here in Baltimore. Daniel’s a fine photographer.”

  “He’s a fine man,” she said, handing back the paperwork.

  He put it with the rest of her file and knocked the papers together on his desktop. “I will see you in class.”

  That had been several weeks ago. She’d had no difficulty keeping up with her schoolwork while working in the studio. They complemented each other beautifully. And her hands-on experience gave her an edge over the other women in her classes. The few hours between school and dinner provided a window of opportunity to knock more blocks off her city grid.

  She climbed the stairs to the school’s upper story for her Photographic Equipment class where her instructor modeled the use of several stereo cameras—a refresher session, since Daniel had already shown her how his worked, though she hadn’t actually used it yet. The dual images her teacher passed around reminded her of summer afternoons spent with Abigail viewing similar scenes through Aunt Margaret’s stereoscope. Her homework wasn’t quite as pleasant. Before her next class, she had to write an essay demonstrating an understanding of the eye and the physics behind the three-dimensional effect.

  Her equipment class was followed by Advanced Techniques, which let out with two hours remaining before dinner. Plenty of time to cover a few more neighborhoods.

  She stopped by the boardinghouse to drop off her books, and Mrs. Calkins met her with a letter she had picked up from the post office that afternoon. Emily didn’t recognize the Washington address or the handwriting. Curious, she ripped it open and glanced at the closing line. It was from Jeremiah, but only the signature was his.

  Dear Emily,

  I can’t begin to express to you my gratitude for moving Sarah away from danger. I have received a letter from her detailing your adventures and am deeply touched by your efforts on our behalf. I pray your injuries are healing and that your search for Mr. Jovie will meet with success.