Waltzing with the Earl

by Catherine Tinley

  Miranda went to the door, eased it open and glanced down the hall once more to make sure no one had been listening. Turning to look back, she signaled with her hand. Charlotte walked out of the parlor, her heart hammering against her ribs as she headed along the deserted corridor toward her bedroom. If things went badly, the sisters might never see each other again.

  * * *

  Charlotte stood waiting by the tall window in the hall, hidden behind the thick velvet drapes. She wore leather half boots, a pale gray blouse, a green wool skirt and a jacket to match. Her oldest clothing. Something to blend in with the crowd. She’d packed a small traveling bag that contained a pair of kid slippers, two extra sets of underwear, a nightgown, another blouse, and a few toilet articles and personal treasures.

  The clock chimed to announce the full hour. One o’clock. Charlotte strained her ears. A few seconds later, a high-pitched shriek came from the direction of the kitchens. Then a hysterical voice yelled something about a mouse. Well done, Annabel, Charlotte thought. A rodent would send the servants scurrying.

  She could hear more voices, this time from the other end of the house. Masculine shouts. Then the tinkle of breaking glass and the acrid smell of smoke. Charlotte took a deep breath and emerged from behind the curtain. She hurried to the front door, unlatched the lock and darted out and clattered down the stone steps, speed more important than moving without a sound.

  Her running footsteps crunched along the gravel drive. Arrow straight, the drive seemed to stretch ahead endlessly. In the sky the clouds had thickened, and were now shedding a fine drizzle that bathed the landscape in a curtain of mist.

  Charlotte veered left, across the lawns, toward the forest. Her heels sank into the soft earth. The wide brim of her bonnet protected her face from the rain, but she could feel the dampness penetrate her clothing. Already, her skirts were heavy and clinging, hampering her speed.

  The line of trees ahead formed a green wall that didn’t seem to get any nearer as she hurtled along. Her bag bounced against her thighs, a painful slam at every step. She didn’t dare to look back over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. She simply ran, legs pumping, muscles straining, skirts flapping. It seemed an eternity before she reached the thick canopy of the forest and dived into its shelter.

  Her heart pounded, partly from fear, partly from the effort of the wild dash. She paused to catch her breath, and finally turned around to survey the house. Mist hovered over the lawns, but there were no signs that anyone had noticed her escape. Through the library windows she could see an orange glow, already fading.

  Charlotte turned around, forced her way deeper into the forest. It was less than a mile to a streetcar stop, but she didn’t dare to take local transport. People might recognize her, remember her. She’d obey Miranda’s instructions and walk all the way to Boston. Four miles. Charlotte gripped her bag tighter in her hand, ducked between branches and set off through the forest, making her way south toward the city.

  * * *

  Twilight was falling when the train pulled in at the railroad station in New York. Charlotte gripped her leather bag in one hand and climbed down the iron steps from the second-class car of the New York and New Haven Railroad Company train. She came to a halt upon the teeming platform and swept a frightened glance around.

  So many people. So much noise.

  Porters dashed about, pushing through the crowds. Relations welcomed passengers with joyful greetings. Street vendors hawked their wares. Dogs barked. Beggars cried out their pleas. Street urchins raced about, yelling at each other. The cacophony of sounds filled her ears, booming and relentless, like the trumpets of doom.

  The journey had taken her two days, even with the trains rushing along at speeds in excess of twenty miles an hour. Who could have imagined that apart from the costly express service there was no direct connection, but a bunch of local railroad companies, half of which seemed to be going bankrupt at any given time? She’d had to change trains three times, and the overnight stop in Hartford had made a further dent in her funds.

  “Miss, do ye need a place to stay?”

  Startled, Charlotte whirled toward the coarse voice. A man had stopped beside her. Short and stocky, he wore a gaudy brown suit. He whipped his bowler hat down from his head, exposing coils of oily black hair. His dark eyes raked over her in a bold inspection. His lips curled into a suggestive smile.

  “New into town, ye’ll be,” the man said, with a note of satisfaction in his tone. “A pretty girl like you could do well in the right place. I’ll show ye where to go.”

  He reached out to take her traveling bag. Charlotte gave an alarmed squeak and jumped backward. She gripped her bag tighter, spun around and hurried down the platform, away from the man. In her haste, she kept bumping into people. Rough hands groped at her and another man shouted a lewd comment after her.

  She increased her pace, panic soaring inside her. She might be innocent, with no exposure to life outside of Merlin’s Leap, but she possessed common sense. A young female alone in a big city was easy prey to the worst elements of humanity.

  Her hair was disheveled after her flight, her clothing dried into wrinkles from getting soaked in the drizzle, her face a mask of fear and uncertainty. Everything about her revealed that she was down on her luck and therefore an easy target for the predators.

  Along the platform, a conductor was yelling instructions to board a departing train. “Train to Chicago and cities and towns west,” the dapper little man shouted. “All passengers to Chicago and cities and towns west must board immediately.”

  Charlotte’s gaze fell on the open door of the railroad car. Her steps slowed. She knew she didn’t possess enough money for the long-distance fare, but boarding a train without a ticket seemed less terrifying than facing the dangers of New York City after nightfall.

  The train blew its whistle. The iron wheels screeched, spinning into motion. Charlotte gripped her bag tighter and sprinted forward. Reaching up, she grasped the handle on the door and climbed up the steps into the railroad car.

  * * *

  The train chugged over the flat prairie with a dull monotony. Charlotte dozed in the hard wooden seat, crammed between a large woman on the way to her sister’s funeral and a thin salesman who sold farm equipment. Sunshine streamed in through the windows, making the air hot and stuffy.

  All through the night, as the train rolled from town to town, making frequent stops to take in water for the steam engines, she had moved from compartment to compartment, snatching a moment of sleep whenever she could, while at the same time trying to avoid detection by the conductor.

  The man beside her shifted in his seat. He fumbled in his coat pockets, his bony elbows butting into her side. Charlotte stirred from her slumber and cast an alarmed glance down the gangway. The conductor in a peaked cap and uniform had entered through the frosted glass door at the far end of the car, and he was inspecting tickets.

  With a muttered apology, Charlotte jumped up and hurried in the opposite direction. At the end of the car, she darted through another door and lurched toward the convenience tucked away in the corner. She’d already made it without a ticket most of the way to Chicago, and she had no intention of being caught now.

  The lock on the convenience door appeared stuck. In a burst of panic, Charlotte rammed her hip against the peeling timber panel. The door sprang ajar, and then jammed again, meeting some obstacle on the other side. Scuttling backward like a crab, Charlotte squeezed in through the narrow gap. She dropped her bag at her feet, kicked the door shut and turned around to survey her refuge.

  A soundless scream caught in her throat.

  In front of her, a young woman lay slumped beside the toilet bowl. The folds of her plain brown gown rippled in the draft that blew up from the iron rails below.

  Her legs unsteady, Charlotte inched closer. Her breath stalled as
she saw the marble white skin and the lifeless look in the open eyes of the woman.

  The image of her parents flashed through her mind. Nothing in her twenty-four years had matched the ordeal of visiting the mortuary with her sisters to identify their bodies after they had been recovered from the sea.

  Nothing until now.

  Nearly swooning, Charlotte lurched forward and clung with both hands to the edge of the porcelain washbasin. In the mirror, her reflection stared back at her. Her face was ghostly pale, her eyes round with fear. Like a black cloak, her hair tumbled past her shoulders, her upsweep fully unraveled.

  Scowling at her image, Charlotte struggled to contain the harsh breaths that tore in and out of her lungs. She couldn’t afford to give in to hysteria now. Dead is dead. A lifeless body presented no danger, required no rescue.

  As her terror ebbed, her attention came to rest on a collection of items on the small metal shelf above the washbasin. A bundle of papers. Next to them, an empty apothecary bottle rattled from side to side, the stopper missing. Charlotte picked up the glass vessel and studied the label, neatly printed in blue ink.

  Laudanum.

  Pity clenched in her chest. What could have been such a dreadful burden? What had happened to extinguish the lust for life in someone so young? The urge to understand swept aside all hesitation, and Charlotte picked up the bundle of papers. Her fingers trembled as she shuffled through the documents.

  Railroad ticket to Gold Crossing, Arizona Territory.

  A letter, signed by someone by the name of Thomas Greenwood, referring to arrangements made through an agency. It confirmed that a room had been reserved for Miss Jackson at the Imperial Hotel, where someone would meet her with further instructions.

  The last piece of paper had been folded over twice. Charlotte unfolded it.

  The single page contained two shakily scribbled words.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Overcome with compassion, Charlotte sank to her knees beside the body and steeled her senses against the putrid odors of the shabby railroad convenience. As she studied the woman’s waxen features, desperation whispered its own cruel demands in her mind. Charlotte hesitated, then swept her scruples aside and searched the dead woman’s clothing.

  “Please forgive me,” she muttered, shame burning on her face as she pulled out a small cotton drawstring purse and examined the few coins inside. “You don’t need this anymore, and I need it so very much.”

  Tears of pity and shame stung her eyes as she continued her inspection. She found nothing more, but understanding dawned as her gently probing fingers encountered the contours of a belly swollen in pregnancy.

  Poor Miss Jackson.

  Charlotte ended her harrowing search and stood. Her hands fisted at her sides as she stared down at the wretched waste of a suicide.

  God have mercy.

  God have mercy on Miss Jackson. God have mercy on her own desperate flight that took her away from family and home. God have mercy on every young woman whose life had been ruined by a predatory male and on every child who never got the chance to be born.

  “I’ll pray for your soul,” Charlotte said, her throat tight with emotion. She slipped the purse with coins into a pocket on her skirt and gathered her traveling bag from the floor.

  Her gaze lingered on the slumped form of Miss Jackson a moment longer. What would they do to her? A suicide couldn’t be buried in consecrated ground. Would anyone speak words of understanding and forgiveness over her grave? Or would they only preach about hellfire and damnation?

  In a quick motion, Charlotte set her bag down on the floor again. Her hands went to her neck, where a small silver cross hung on a chain. It seemed to take forever before her trembling fingers managed to unfasten the clasp.

  Holding the cross in her hands, Charlotte crouched to reach around the slender neck of Miss Jackson and fastened the chain. Don’t you dare anyone steal it from her, she admonished in her mind.

  The piece of jewelry, a birthday gift from her sisters many years ago, was not of great value, which was why Cousin Gareth had allowed her to keep it. Now the cross would be like a blessing for Miss Jackson, and the gesture eased Charlotte’s conscience over the money she had taken.

  Charlotte finished by throwing the bottle of laudanum down the toilet chute and stuffing the suicide note in her pocket. There, she thought as she straightened and surveyed the scene. The cause of death might have been an attack from an illness, which might make all the difference in how they buried her.

  Picking up her bag once more, Charlotte clutched the railroad ticket and the letter from Thomas Greenwood in her hand. She pulled the door ajar and peeked in both directions to make sure the corridor was empty before she slipped out.

  A plan was forming in her mind, born as much of lack of alternatives as opportunity and impulse. Charlotte Fairfax needed to disappear until her twenty-fifth birthday. If she could become someone else for a year, she would be safe from the Pinkerton agents Cousin Gareth was bound to send after her. Too much money was at stake for him to simply let her run away.

  Making her way down the corridor, moving up from third to second class, Charlotte strode along until she spotted a vacant seat. The compartment was occupied by a family. The parents sat on one side, feeding breakfast to a pair of sleepy children perched on the opposite bench.

  “Excuse me,” Charlotte said, in a voice loud enough to capture their attention over the churning of the train. “Would you be kind enough to allow me to join you?”

  “Don’t you have a seat in another compartment?” the woman asked. In her thirties, with delicate features and wispy brown hair hidden by a bonnet, she was pretty in a tired, worn-out way.

  Charlotte fiddled with the clasp of her leather bag and lowered her gaze, pretending to be embarrassed. “I would prefer to move. Sometimes gentlemen act too familiar. It makes a lady traveling without a chaperone feel uncomfortable.”

  The woman leaned across to wipe the mouth of the little girl in pigtails and glanced at her husband. A lean, bearded man in a wide-brimmed felt hat and a tightly buttoned black coat, he gave a silent nod of approval.

  “You’re welcome to join us,” the woman said.

  “Thank you.” Charlotte managed a strained smile as she settled next to the children. “I’m Miss Jackson,” she said. “I’m traveling to take up a position in the Arizona Territory.”

  * * *

  Afternoon sun scorched the dusty earth as Charlotte made her way from the railroad station along the single thoroughfare that ran through Gold Crossing. She lugged her leather bag with both hands. Sweat beaded on her brow and ran in rivulets down her back and between her breasts. In the Arizona heat the green wool skirt and jacket suitable for spring weather in Boston baked her body like an oven.

  She had spent ten days traveling, sleeping rough on trains and railroad stations, exhausting her funds with the cheapest meals she could buy.

  Each time she had to change trains, the town had been a little smaller, the passengers a little rougher, the train a little shabbier. The last legs of her journey had been westward from Tucson to Phoenix Junction with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and then a spur line north that terminated in Gold Crossing.

  Only two other passengers had alighted at the platform where the train still stood huffing and puffing. The pair of grizzly men had stared at her, the way a hungry dog might stare at a juicy bone. Charlotte had hurried on her way, without giving them an opportunity to offer their assistance.

  Imperial Hotel. She squinted down the street where a few equally rough men seemed to have frozen on their feet, like pillars of salt, ogling at her. Could this really be her destination? The town was no more than a collection of ramshackle buildings facing each other across the twin lines of dusty wagon ruts. Most of the windows were boarded up. It puzzled her how such a miserable place
had merited a railroad spur.

  A faded sign hung on a two-story building painted in peeling pink. On the balcony that formed a canopy over the porch a teenage boy stood watching her.

  Summoning up the last of her energy, Charlotte closed the distance. The boardwalk echoed under her half boots as she climbed up the steps and swung the door open. A gangly man standing behind a polished wood counter looked up from his game of solitaire.

  “Can I help you?” he asked. Perhaps forty, he had sallow skin and faded blue eyes that seemed to survey the world with wry amusement.

  “Yes.” Charlotte dropped her bag to the floor with a thud. “I have a reservation. Miss Jackson.”

  The man adjusted the collar of his white shirt beneath the black waistcoat and gave her a measuring look.

  “You’re late,” he said. “You were expected a week ago.”

  “I’m here now.” She approached the counter. “I was told someone would meet me here with instructions. I have a letter from Mr. Thomas Greenwood.”

  “Greenwood’s gone.”

  Charlotte lifted her chin. “When will he be back?”

  The man studied her, a sly smile hovering around his mouth. “He’ll hurry back like a bullet from a rifle once he hears you’ve arrived. I’ll send a message out to him. He’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

  “Good.” Charlotte exhaled a sigh of relief. “I’ll go and rest. If you could be so kind and send dinner up to my room as soon as possible.” She hesitated, decided to find out rather than live in hopeful ignorance. “Has Mr. Greenwood arranged to cover my expenses?”

  “Yes.” The man swept her up and down with bold eyes. “He’ll pay, all right.”

  “Good.” Despite the man’s intrusive inspection, Charlotte’s sagging spirits lifted. “Will there be hot water to wash in the room?”

  The innkeeper reached behind him to take a key from a row of hooks on the wall. “Room Four. The last one at the end of the corridor.” He handed the key to her and gestured toward the staircase on the far side of the deserted lounge.