Band of Sisters (40 page)

“Lower your voice! Why Mr. Kreegle insisted on keeping you on is beyond me. Get downstairs, young lady, or you will never work in sales again.”

“Work in sales?” Maureen screeched. “Do you call unpackin’ boxes in a rat-infested cellar
workin’ in sales
? How would you like to be demoted for somethin’ you never did, Mrs. Gordon? Somethin’ everyone—includin’ the sales floor manager—knew you did not do but were all too afraid to speak up?”

“You’re dismissed!”

She stepped closer to the shorter woman, trying to remember all that Curtis had bade her say, delighting in the strength rising from her anger, the voice it gave her words. “Dismissed, am I? I’ll have you know I don’t need you and I don’t need Darcy’s! Olivia Wakefield has begged me to come live with her for weeks! I’d never need to work again! I’ve a mind to take her up on it!”

“Get out!” Mrs. Gordon’s eyes reddened. Her mouth quivered in fury.

“Firin’ me, are you?” Maureen laughed. “Ha! Foolish woman—I quit!” She turned on her heel, stomped across the sales floor, and took the employee stairs two at a time for the cloakroom. She slammed her soggy hat to her head and pushed the pin through the wool with a vengeance.

Though Maureen knew she should run from the building before Mrs. Gordon contacted Mr. Kreegle or any henchmen he might have at his disposal, she pulled her cloak from its peg and buttoned it standing in the midst of the room. Glancing into the looking glass above the coats, she walked nearer and paused, just as she’d done on her first day, just as she’d done each day before leaving the store. The face reflected there did not look weak or terrified. It was an older face than the one that had been revealed to her that first day at Darcy’s weeks—it seemed like years—before.

Maureen touched her reflection. The fury in her face fled. The lines in her forehead relaxed. She smiled, and a healthy coloring returned to her cheeks.

I did it. I stood for me, shouted for me, and she did not kill me. The ceilin’ did not fall and the world did not end. I did not die. I did not die!

“What do you mean you’ve quit your job?” Katie Rose stood in the door of her sister’s room at Morningside, her face a rush of anger and incredulity. “You can’t stay here! You’ll spoil everythin’!”

Maureen had not expected Katie Rose to welcome her with open arms, but she’d not anticipated her sister’s venom. “What choice do you think I had? You know I couldn’t pay the rent alone and on reduced wages.”

“Well, it’s your own fault, isn’t it?” Katie Rose demanded. “You can’t expect an employer to trust you if you take things that don’t belong to you.”

The smugness on her sister’s face sickened Maureen, reminding her for the first time of their mother when vexed—something about the mouth—and chillingly, of Lord Orthbridge—something about the flash through her eyes. But she’d agreed with Curtis to keep counsel, and this, she knew, was her first test of that contract. “You needn’t worry about your place with Olivia; I won’t be here long. I’ll find work and be on my way. We’d never planned to stay with the Wakefields forever, you know.”

“And who do you suppose will hire you with no references—nothin’ but black marks against you? Or are you plannin’ to forge a letter from Olivia this time?”

Maureen bit back her retort, doing her best to ignore the gibe, and answered meekly, “I don’t know who will hire me. Someone. Someone, I’m sure.”

“She’s on to your ways. I’ve told Olivia everythin’ about you, you know—everythin’.”

“I’m sure you have, Katie Rose. I’m sure you’ll tell all you imagine to whoever will listen.”

Her sister flushed, the first sign that Katie Rose recognized she’d gone beyond righteous anger and immersed herself in cruel betrayal.

“It’s a credit to you that you can still blush,” Maureen said quietly after her sister stormed away.

Curtis Morrow’s note came during supper, a small envelope that Grayson delivered to Olivia, who passed it to Maureen. Katie Rose sat straighter, curiosity written on her face.

Maureen recognized the handwriting on the envelope but pocketed the note for later and fixed her eyes on the place setting before her.

“I’ve told Dorothy you are with us now.” Olivia smiled at Maureen. “I do hope you’ll join our circle meeting tomorrow. Mrs. Melkford has agreed to come. When I told her you were coming to stay, she was thrilled. We’ll all be so glad to have you.”

“Mrs. Melkford?” Maureen’s heart tripped at the thought of seeing her friend, but she registered the dread on Katie Rose’s face as her cream soup spoon paused in midair. “Thank you, Olivia. I know the invitation is kindly meant. But I’ve other plans tomorrow.”

Olivia seemed, to Maureen, truly disappointed; Katie Rose, relieved but suspicious.

There’s no pleasin’ you, Katie Rose. Your fear and jealousy eat you alive.
The thought surprised Maureen, making her, too, stop her spoon halfway to her mouth.
You’ve made a god of your fear and jealousy, Sister. For what is a god but what we go to again and again?

Maureen placed her spoon beside her plate, thinking that through, as Grayson removed the soup bowls in preparation for the next course.
I want more for you, Katie Rose. I want more than shame and anger for me.

She glanced at Olivia, almost surprised at the calm the other woman exhibited despite the palpable tension between Maureen and Katie Rose.
Even in the midst of our bad temper and turmoil, you’ve a peace about you. How is such a thing accomplished?
Maureen ran her mind through the list of outward gestures of refinement that Lady Catherine had taught her.
No, it’s more than that—something abidin’, somethin’ not put on, but grown from within. I don’t envy your carriage or clothes or fine house, Olivia Wakefield, though surely I’d love a roof over my head and food on a table I call my own, and I’d not mind fashionable waists and skirts and kid boots. But what I want, what I crave, is your sense of presence, that peace you possess.

Grayson served coffee and a light sponge cake smothered in sherry. Maureen marveled that Katie Rose had taken to this grand life so quickly and was so apparently at ease in the fine house.

At length Olivia stood, Katie Rose and Maureen following suit. The late January wind rushed past the windows and whipped round the corners of the sturdy chimneys as the ladies entered the drawing room, where a fire crackled, burning brightly. Despite Katie Rose’s attempts to exclude her from conversation with Olivia, Maureen smiled and feigned relaxation as best she could. Finally Olivia chose a book from the shelves, extending an offer to Maureen to do the same. Katie Rose threaded a needle and took up her embroidery.

Maureen stole a discreet glance at Curtis’s note behind the pages of her novel before slipping it back into her pocket. After its first line, nothing in the novel mattered.

Report to my home on Monday for training. Tell no one.

That alone was another exercise in faith—or foolishness. She wasn’t sure which. But she’d stepped into the boat, and there was nowhere to get out now but the deepening sea. Maureen sighed.
I hope you’re all you seem to be, Curtis Morrow.

When her eyes grew heavy, she closed them and leaned back in the chair, letting the warmth of the fire infuse her bones, doing her best to decipher the remainder of Curtis’s message, to guess at his meaning. The flames of the fire fell, burning low, its occasional hiss overshadowed by the intermittent turning of pages. The long hand of the clock swept its face twice.

The fire was little more than embers when Katie Rose, who had yawned herself nearly to sleep, at last excused herself from the company.

Despite her sister’s persistent frost, Maureen had enjoyed the evening in the silent company of women. When Olivia made no move to go, Maureen remained opposite the fire, savoring the room’s lingering warmth and the security of the deeply cushioned chair. She stared into the smoldering embers, waiting for the last to drop beneath the grate, all the while summoning her courage, knowing she must reach out to the woman who’d taken her in.

When at last Olivia closed her book, Maureen cleared her throat. “I thank you for takin’ me in,” she began. “I know Curtis—Mr. Morrow—asked you to do it, but you weren’t obliged. And I’m grateful. I’d nowhere else to go.”

“He needn’t have asked. I’ve wanted you to come a long while. It’s also what our fathers wanted—what they both intended.” Olivia laid aside her book. “You could have asked or simply come.”

Maureen raised her brows at the mild rebuke but remembered that Olivia knew nothing of Curtis’s “project.” For that was what she’d decided to call his proposed venture. She didn’t know exactly what he’d planned, and what little she understood was frightening.
What does he mean in his note, that we will “sting the viper in his own nest”?
All she could think of was the sharp and sudden sting of a bee.
But what if the viper anticipates the bee? What if . . . ?

“What do you want, Maureen?” Olivia’s question held no malice, no judgment, but it brought Maureen sharply back to the moment and to the mental vision she’d conjured earlier that evening.

“I want what you have,” Maureen answered simply, just as directly. “Not,” she hastened to add, “your wealth or home. Not your inheritance.”

“I never assumed that, though I think we should talk about that soon—about all my father intended for you and Katie Rose, what my father hoped for us as sisters.”

Maureen momentarily closed her eyes. The pain of thinking of her father, her mother’s cruel betrayal of so good a man, was still too near.

“But if that’s not what you mean—what, then?”

“The peace you radiate. The inward calm that carries you.” Maureen breathed, considering. “Whatever it is that makes you walk peaceably where others are afraid to walk. Yes, I want that—for myself and for Katie Rose.”

“Why do you want it?”

Maureen felt mildly taken aback at such a question. “Because it matters. If I possessed such calm, I would—” She hesitated, closed her eyes again to concentrate, to summon the vision and form the words she intended. “I would not be alone. I would never be alone again.”

“My peace, my companionship,” Olivia said softly, “come from my surety that the Lord loves me. Surety that because I’ve asked, believing He’s redeemed me, He’s also forgiven me and accepts me—now, as I am. He lives inside me, walks beside me, in the form of His Holy Spirit. He holds my heart, my life. He
is
my heart, my life.”

As Olivia spoke, Maureen felt a tiny flicker of hope rise within her chest. But the slumbering darkness rumbled. The shaming voice of her past and her recent failure to save Alice and Eliza taunted her heart, her brain, whispering that she could never claim such forgiveness, such acceptance, such friendship. Maureen clamped tight her heart lest the darkness overwhelm her. The last ember fell into the grate.

“I’m glad for you,” she answered at last. “’Tis a beautiful thing.” Maureen meant it, though she had no hope it could be hers. She rose and laid her unread book on the table. “Good night, Olivia.”

“Maureen.” Olivia stood and grasped her hand, contorting her head until Maureen was forced to return her gaze. “You can have it too. The same Holy Spirit, the same forgiveness, the same love.”

Maureen pulled back, fighting the rising tide of darkness, the swell of futility.
You mean well, but you can’t know; you don’t understand.
“Good night, Olivia.” Five steps brought her to the door.

“It isn’t because of who I am, Maureen. It’s because of who He is and what He’s done—what He longs to do in you!” Olivia’s voice carried into the hallway, but Maureen closed the drawing room door, cutting her off, and walked quickly toward the stairs. She stopped on the second-floor landing, heart thrumming as she gripped the banister.

If forgiveness is because of who You are, Lord, and what You’ve done—if You are willing to give it to those who cry out to You—then watch what I do. Perhaps if I’m successful in helpin’ Curtis and Joshua, if we save others more worth savin’, then You’ll hear me—even me. Perhaps then I’ll have a right to ask You too.