A Silken Thread

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  She smiled, an attempt to put him at ease. “My questions have nothing to do with courtship and everything to do with friendship.”

  Relief flooded his features. “Oh. All right. I know somethin’ about that.”

  Miss Warner sent a stern look across the girls. “The only reason we’re taking the time for chitchat is because I suspect you will be unable to focus on work until you’ve satisfied your curiosities. But if visitors come, the conversation will immediately cease and you will assume your assigned duties.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Laurel spoke first, and the other two girls echoed her agreement.

  Miss Warner returned to her desk chair. Felicia and Berta pulled the tufted bench closer to the desk and sat side by side, as attentive as a pair of sparrows. Officer Sharp retrieved the stool from in front of the loom for Laurel and then perched on the corner of Miss Warner’s desk.

  Laurel described the driver’s and footman’s fine suits, the carriage, and its smooth ride. She shared her amazement at her first view of the house with all its windows aglow. Berta and Felicia sat slack jawed, their eyes wide, while Laurel recounted details about the furnishings and draperies, the floor’s marble tile and thick carpets, and the beautiful china dishes and shining silver cutlery she used when partaking of french onion soup, roasted beef with sautéed onions and mushrooms, and a rum torte with sugared pecans.

  “But the best part”—she closed her eyes for a moment, viewing the scene in her mind’s eye—“was the library. Shelves built from dark-stained walnut and reaching from the floor to the ceiling all the way around the room, even above the doors and windows. Were it not for the fireplace’s monstrous mantel with carved lion heads on either side of the marble inset, not an inch of wall space would have been wasted.”

  She placed her hands over her heart, remembering how her pulse had pounded. “Mrs. Rochester gave me permission to borrow any books I wanted. I wanted to borrow an entire stack, but I was polite. I only took one—The Marble Faun, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mama and I started reading it yesterday afternoon and oh”—she sighed—“it’s divine.”

  Felicia and Berta nudged each other and giggled. Felicia said, “Trust Laurel the bookworm to be most impressed by the library. I would have fainted dead away if a carriage with a driver and footman called for me.”

  Berta licked her lips. “A rum torte? I’ve never heard of such a thing, let alone tasted one.” She grinned at Laurel. “Couldn’t you have sneaked some in your pocket to share with us? Or”—her blue eyes sparkled—“asked to take an entire piece? They have servants, don’t they? If you had asked, the servant would’ve got it for you. I hear servants have to do everything they’re told. You lost your chance, Laurel.”

  Felicia covered her mouth and giggled. “But if Langdon Rochester does decide to court Laurel and she decides to marry him, she’ll have other chances to order servants about. Maybe then she’ll invite us to dinner and we’ll be able to ask to take home a piece of rum torte.” She and Berta laughed together, as if sharing the best joke in the world.

  Laurel couldn’t laugh, though. Langdon had claimed that the servants were grateful for their jobs. But she hadn’t seen gratitude as much as resignation on the faces of the black men who’d brought the carriage or the black women who had served their meal. Even the youngest of the servants she’d met, Damaris, appeared perpetually nervous, old already when she couldn’t have been any older than Laurel’s oldest niece, Millie, who’d turned fourteen last summer.

  She couldn’t set aside Langdon’s reaction when she questioned his lack of courtesy toward Andrew and Damaris. His attitude troubled her. He claimed he and his parents were churchgoers, but somehow he hadn’t learned the biblical admonition from the sixth chapter of Luke, “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” Langdon certainly wouldn’t appreciate being ordered about without a please or thank-you.

  Laurel turned her attention on Officer Sharp, whose gaze had never wavered from her face the entire time she spoke. How intently he’d listened. “Officer Sharp, I wondered—”

  A mutter of feminine voices carried from the reception room. Miss Warner rose abruptly. “Put things back where they belong and hasten to your posts. Visitors are in the building.”

  Laurel picked up the stool and scurried to the loom. Regret weighted her. How she needed to share these unsettling feelings. If she were to marry Langdon—and oh, to bring Mama into such a fine house and have access to that marvelous room full of books!—she would want to somehow make friends with the servants. Only Officer Sharp could advise her.

  She perched on the stool, cranked the motion handle, and made a vow to herself. The moment all fell quiet in the building again, she would question Officer Sharp.

  Willie

  Willie stood guard at the door, wishing he could lean against the doorjamb. Two ladies who looked like they’d passed the age of seventy a few years back listened to Felicia explain the life cycle of the Bombyx mori. By now he could give the presentation, he’d heard it so many times. He stifled a yawn.

  When would Mr. Felton decide the Silk Room didn’t need a guard anymore? The break-in was two weeks past. The only visitors to the room were ladies and children, and he couldn’t imagine any of them causing a ruckus. Well, except for toddlers throwing tantrums, but their mamas didn’t need his help handling that. He slowly scanned the room, assuring himself all was in order, and he paused when he reached the corner with the loom. But he didn’t watch the loom. He watched the weaver.

  What had she wanted to ask him? No crowds had visited during the morning, but enough folks wandered through that he and Laurel didn’t have a long enough quiet time for a chat. There’d barely been time to slip the dime he owed her into her hand. He’d hoped to talk to her during the lunch break, but Langdon Rochester had come to the door and escorted her away. Then Rochester returned for her afternoon break. Now the day was nearly gone, and the question still rolled unanswered in the back of his mind.

  The two old ladies toddled out the door, and a middle-aged one entered. Willie nodded to the newcomer and then aimed his gaze at Miss Millard again. But something else caught his eye. Where was the length of blue silk? Had it been laid out under the jars that morning? Hard as he tried, he couldn’t recall.

  Irked with himself for being so absentminded, he crossed the floor to Miss Warner’s desk. “Ma’am?” He kept his voice low. No sense in distracting Berta from telling their guest about the tapestries.

  She glanced up. “Yes, Willie, what is it?”

  He liked how she called him Willie when nobody else was listening in. He wished all the girls would call him Willie and that he could call them Felicia, Berta, and—he gulped—Laurel. “I’m sorry, but I just now noticed the blue silk ain’t in the case.”

  She didn’t even look that way. “I know. I took it home over the weekend. I’d hoped to remove the bootprints our intruder left behind, but the dirt was too deeply ground into the fabric. Then this morning I neglected to bring it with me.” She tapped a paper on her desk. “I’ve made a note to remind myself to do so tomorrow.”

  Willie blew out a breath of relief. “That’s good. I thought maybe it’d got stolen.”

  “No, merely ruined for all but very rudimentary purposes. Perhaps I’ll give it to Laurel and have her make more hair bows, as she did with the yellow scraps.” She shook her head. “Berta was absolutely right about the prints. It appeared someone laid the cloth out on the floor and played hopscotch—hopping first one direction and then the other, but so haphazardly. Whoever did it must be very nimble to hop side to side on one foot.”

  Willie scratched his head. “Maybe a child did it.”

  Miss Warner huffed. “The size of the prints point to a grown man.”

  He couldn’t imagine a grown man hopping on a piece of fabric. But then, he couldn’t imagine anyone being mean enough to come in and bust the place up, either. Some people
didn’t use good sense. Sure puzzled him why the night watchmen hadn’t noticed somebody lurking on the grounds that night. The fellow must be a sneaky one.

  Willie shrugged. “Sure am glad nobody’s bothered the place again.”

  “Having a posted guard has undoubtedly discouraged the perpetrator from returning.” She smiled at him, her eyes warm. “Thank you for your willingness to keep watch, Willie.”

  “That’s no trouble, ma’am.” He glanced over his shoulder. The lady was at the counter now, and Miss Millard was making her presentation about threading the loom and weaving the cloth. They’d be a while. He scooted to the side of the desk and braced his palms on the solid wood. “Ma’am, there’s somethin’ I’ve been meanin’ to say to you ever since the break-in.”

  She laid her pen on the desk and looked up at him. “Yes, what is it?”

  “It’s about Quincy. You know, the man who helped carry in the new case an’ then asked to stay around an’ help some more?”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together, making two little ridges form between her eyes. “What about him?”

  “He’s a good friend of mine.” Or at least, he had been. Quincy still wasn’t talking to Willie, but maybe saying what he should’ve said that night would help. “He woulda been real helpful, an’ I feel bad about not tellin’ you so. I sent him on ’cause you seemed a mite suspicious of him. But if he comes around again, I hope you’ll—”

  She stood so fast her chair slid backward and hit the wall. It thudded pretty good, and the girls and the visitor all looked at him and Miss Warner. Then they kept looking while Miss Warner gave them something to see. Her whole body shook, and her face got all splotchy. “If your so-called friend enters this room again, I shall send him out so quickly he’ll feel as if a hurricane chased him.”

  He stared at her angry face, his heart thudding against his ribs. A hundred questions paraded through his mind, but only one word came out. “M-ma’am…?”

  “Would you like to know why I am Miss Warner? I should be Mrs. Thaddeus Petrie. I would be had it not been for the War Between the States. My fiancé, although not a slave owner himself, felt it his beholden duty to defend his neighbors’ way of life. So he joined the Confederate army, and he wrote letters to me every week from the battlefields, letters filled with his dreams for our life together when he and his fellow soldiers defeated the Union and he came home. The last letter arrived December 12, 1862, a full week after he was shot by an escaped slave who took up a gun and fought on the side of the Union.”

  Thirty-three years had gone by, but Willie saw as much pain in her eyes as if her loved one had died yesterday. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “ ‘Sorry’ doesn’t bring Thaddeus back to me. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t erase the loneliness I’ve endured. My life was irrevocably shattered by a dark-skinned man.”

  Willie said what popped into his head. “But it wasn’t Quincy who shot your fiancé. So why’re you mad at him?”

  Her eyes snapping, she leaned toward him. “I do not need a reminder of that…that murderer…in this room. You will tell your friend to keep his distance from me.”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She stood up straight and lifted her chin. Then she swept around Willie like the hurricane she’d talked about was pushing her. “I’m going home. Secure the lock at the end of the day, Officer Sharp.” The lady visitor scuttled out behind Miss Warner.

  Willie’s ears rang. Not from Miss Warner’s rant. From the dead silence that came after it. He looked across the room. The three girls stared back at him, standing as still as the statues on top of the Women’s Building. Except statues didn’t cry. Tears were rolling down Miss Millard’s pale cheeks.

  He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and crossed to her. He held out the square of white cotton. “Here.”

  She blinked several times and then squinted at it.

  “Don’t worry. It’s clean.”

  She sniffed. “I couldn’t see well enough to know what you had.” She took it and wiped her eyes, then gave him a weak, wobbly smile. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He wished he could take care of Miss Warner’s hurt so easily.

  She wadded his handkerchief in her fists and turned to Berta and Felicia. “Now I understand why she smiles so infrequently. She’s full of bitterness.”

  Miss Collinwood crossed her arms. “I would be, too, if my fiancé got killed that way. It must be awful for her to come here every day, see the black men workin’ in the flower beds, hear the singin’ from the Negro Buildin’.”

  Miss Hill clapped her hands to her round cheeks. “Do you reckon she means to go home for good?”

  Willie shook his head, but before he could answer, Miss Millard said, “Miss Warner is too conscientious to abandon her responsibility to the owners of the silkworm farm. She’ll be here tomorrow. I’m sure of it.”

  Miss Hill sighed. “I hope you’re right. She left before she gave us our pay envelopes. I was sure hopin’ to get paid today, but…” She scuffed toward the little broom closet. “Guess I’ll sweep up. Berta, pull all the shades and close the curtains. Laurel, cover the loom. When Miss Warner comes in tomorrow, we don’t want her thinkin’ we shirked our duties.”

  Willie sat in Miss Warner’s desk chair and waited until the girls finished their cleanup chores. They finished a few minutes before six, but most likely nobody else’d be coming, so he walked them out. Miss Hill and Miss Collinwood left right away, but Miss Millard stayed while he used the key Mr. Felton had given him and secured the door. He dropped the key into his pocket and turned to face her.

  Her eyes were still all watery. He wished he could give her a hug. Seemed like she could use one. “You gonna be all right?”

  “Yes.” The look on her face didn’t match the answer. She pointed to his handkerchief in her lunch pail. “I’ll wash this tonight and bring it to you tomorrow.”

  “No hurry. I’ve got more at home.” He risked a smile, hoping to cheer her. “My preacher’s wife has been doin’ up my laundry for me since Pa went to the hospital. I’ve got a whole stack of clean handkerchiefs in my drawer, even more’n I had before. She must’ve sneaked some of the preacher’s in there, too.”

  She laughed softly. It did his heart a lot of good. “I’ll bring it back tomorrow anyway.” Her face clouded. “Officer Sharp, I’ve been meaning to ask you all day…how is it that you—”

  “Well, well, well. What’s this? A tête-à-tête?”

  Willie looked past Miss Millard. Langdon Rochester stood at the other end of the short hall with his feet set wide and his arms folded over his chest.

  Miss Millard darted to him. “Is it six? I didn’t hear the chimes.”

  He glared at Willie. “Perhaps because you were too caught up in…whatever it was you were doing.”

  “Talkin’.” Willie marched up close so he could look Rochester straight in the eyes. “That’s all we was doin’.”

  Rochester squinted like a snake getting ready to strike. “That better be all you was doin’.”

  Miss Millard laughed. A nervous laugh. “Langdon, it’s all right. Officer Sharp is correct. We were only talking. And he’s always a perfect gentleman. You needn’t worry.”

  Willie wasn’t sure what bothered him most—her using Rochester’s first name, or her trying so hard to make peace with the man.

  Rochester slipped his arm around Miss Millard’s waist, but he didn’t look away from Willie. “Of course I must worry about you, my dear. Someone as young and unsophisticated as yourself is easy prey for men harboring nefarious intent.”

  Willie didn’t know what nefarious meant, but he knew manipulation when he saw it. Miss Millard was young. And innocent. She could get taken in awful easy. He blurted, “What’s your intent with her, Rochester?”

  The man bristled. His free hand formed a fist. “My int
ent, right now, is to walk her safely to her waiting carriage.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “My intent, later, could involve someone other than Miss Millard. Someone who is dangerously teetering on the brink of expulsion from these grounds.”

  Miss Millard placed her hand on Rochester’s chest. “My brother will be waiting. Let’s go, please?”

  Rochester gave Willie one more glower before escorting Miss Millard across the floor and out the front doors. Willie watched after them, hoping she might change her mind about going with the arrogant man, but she didn’t even glance back. Which bothered him. Bothered him a lot. He came close to following them, looking out for her. But he wasn’t Miss Millard’s keeper. He wasn’t even sure she would call him a friend. But he wished she would.

  With a sigh, he left the building, dragging his heels, and followed the walkway through the center of the square. To his left, steam rose from Clara Meer. Such an odd sight. Hot water from the buildings emptied into the lake. The cool evening air created the steam. It looked like a horde of spiders had spun their webs over the water. He shivered.

  He opened the basement door of the Administration Room, and laughter filtered from downstairs. At least somebody was in a good mood. He clumped down the stairs and rounded the corner to the guards’ changing room. Only five men were there—Dunning, Briggs, Turner, Carney, and Elkins—but they were making enough noise for a full dozen.

  Willie needed a laugh. He ambled up to the circle. “What’s so funny?”

  Carney threw his arm across Willie’s shoulders and chortled, pointing at Turner. “He— He—” His breath smelled like beer.

  Willie’d rather smell Quincy’s onions. He waved his hand in front of his face and stepped away from the man. “He what?” Turner, as wide eyed and innocent as Miss Millard, sat on the bench. “Why’re they laughin’ at you?”