The Daring Ladies of Lowell (18 page)

H
iram Fiske and his wife were waiting in the foyer when she and Samuel arrived back at the mansion.

“Samuel, how could you?” his mother said. Her eyes were red.

“How could I
what
?” Samuel said, taken aback. He had spent the entire ride home trying to get through the protective shell behind which Alice had retreated. He had wanted to kiss her hands and tell her no snob would hurt her again, not if he had anything to say about it. There was no way in. So they had talked about violins and piccolos, and that was that.

“I want to talk to you in the library,” Hiram said to his son. He turned his attention to Alice. “Miss Barrow, thank you for coming. Your coach will be here at seven in the morning, and I hope you have a comfortable trip back to Lowell. Samuel, please come.”

Mrs. Fiske nodded at Alice and stepped onto the stairs. “I’ll escort you up,” she said in a faint voice.

The situation was clear to Alice. “Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said to Samuel. “It is indeed time for me to go home.” She turned and followed Mrs. Fiske up the stairs, holding her body straight, her head high.

“W
hat is this absurd treatment?” Samuel demanded angrily as the library doors closed behind him and his father. “I will not—”

“You have exposed that poor girl to humiliation,” Hiram said. “Not to say your parents. I understand from Daisy my mother was creating a little mischief. But did you not see you put us in a compromised position taking her to the oratorio? What were you thinking?”

“I see no reason why I couldn’t do exactly what I did.”

“Well, listen closely. I know you gravitate to these new freedoms that are rampant these days, but yanking this poor woman into your own social circle goes too far.”

“I’m a grown man, Father. I will do as I please.”

“Then you’re a fool,” Hiram said. “Do what you want with her in private; that doesn’t concern me. But let there be no repeat of this behavior tonight.” He wheeled and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

D
reams were just that, dreams. Nonsense. As the carriage clattered homeward the next morning, Alice dissected hers, punctured the night before. Samuel’s gesture inviting her to the concert was generous, but just that—a quick walk through his world, and nothing more. It was all right; she told herself she didn’t care.

She had kept repeating that to herself as she exited the front hall of the Fiske home, noting that Samuel—there to say good-bye—looked quite haggard. That pleased her, oddly.

“I’m sorry,” he said as she stepped into the carriage.

“Why? The evening was lovely,” she replied coolly.

No, she wouldn’t think of him. Instead she did her best to replay Handel’s music in her mind for the entire ride home. That was an experience no one could take from her. It had opened a place in her soul she did not know was there. Who knew music could do that?

Yet something more than exhaustion began creeping through her as she walked the final steps to the boardinghouse. A new morsel of wisdom. She shouldn’t have accepted Samuel’s impulsive invitation. She, too, had stepped over a line, and it mustn’t happen again.

Wearily, she pulled open the door.

“Well, hello, there.”

A girl about her own age was sitting at the piano, listlessly poking at a few keys. An unfamiliar face. Her skin had the sallow appearance of someone rarely outside, which was unusual, since most of the mill girls in Boott Hall came from farms. Her frame, hunched over the piano, seemed all sharp angles.

“You must be Alice,” she said, glancing up. “I’ve already heard quite a bit about you.” She said it with a slight edge to her voice; not quite the warmest of greetings.

“And who are you?” Alice asked, trying to be cordial.

“You’ve got an opening here, and I’ve been assigned to it. Just my luck, getting a dead girl’s bed. I’m Hattie Button.”

Only then did Alice spot Ellie peeking around the corner at the new girl. Her eyes were wary.

“Hello, Ellie,” Alice said, holding out her hand. “Have you met Hattie?”

Ellie nodded, reaching out, while casting Alice something of a desperate glance. “Mrs. Holloway told her I’m Delia’s little sister, and I’m a very good bobbin girl,” she said rapidly.

Alice smiled to reassure Ellie that her warning had been heard. With a stranger coming in, Mrs. Holloway knew better than to presume Delia and Ellie were safe.

Hattie barely glanced at the child; she just kept poking at the keys. “I didn’t want to come here, it’s bad luck,” she said sullenly.

“There’s nothing wrong here, we have a good house,” Alice objected.

“Well, I don’t want to sleep on the same mattress of somebody who is dead, and I’m not going to.”

“You can have my bed,” Alice replied.

“You’re the one all the way in the back, that’s too far. I want a closer one.”

“Well, you can’t have it,” Ellie said stoutly.

Hattie ignored her. “Too many odd things going on here. Plus you’ve got somebody sick, and I don’t want to be around sick people.”

Alice turned to Ellie, alarmed. “Who’s sick?” she asked.

“It’s Tilda,” Ellie whispered. “She was coughing so bad last night, she almost couldn’t breathe. We took her to the doctor.”

“That’s another thing.” Hattie was warming to her grievances. “Those Fiskes keep thinking if they show up and pretend to be concerned when people get sick or hurt, that’s all they have to do. They should spend more time talking to the crowds at the mill. There’s been talk about a turnout, a big one. Lucky for them that mill worker who got hurt is going to survive.”

“Where is Tilda now?” Alice asked Ellie. She had had quite enough of the new girl.

“At the doctor’s. He’s giving her medicine.”

A
lice hurried down the steps of the boardinghouse and turned toward town. Her head throbbed. She needed rest. She almost tripped and fell as she came within sight of the flapping sign announcing the presence of Benjamin Stanhope’s surgery. This time he came immediately to the door when she knocked.

“She’s finally sleeping,” he said without preamble as he moved aside to let her in. He then led the way to a small room off of his office. Tilda, her small form still, was lying on a cot. Her skin was tinged with gray, a ghostly hue devoid of light.

“What have you been able to do for her?” Alice asked as she moved to the side of the cot and took Tilda’s limp hand into her own.

“I bled her. There is not much else I can do,” Stanhope said.

“Is she going to get better?”

“I think so, but she’s quite weak.” He seemed calmer and less uncertain than the last time she saw him. “I’ve put in a request for some potassium carbonate, and I’m going to press my case with Samuel Fiske. He listens better than the others.”

“Will you be testifying at the trial?”

He stirred in his seat, uneasily. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been subpoenaed.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Nervous, I’m afraid. But it’s the only right thing.”

“I was afraid you would resist,” she said with relief.

A flush spread upward from his neck. “I’m a timid man, Miss…Miss—”

“Barrow.”

“Of course. I’ve asked you that too many times, haven’t I?”

“Yes. And you’ve described yourself as timid before, too.” She softened the tartness of her reply with a small smile. She then leaned forward to stroke Tilda’s hair, gently pushing it away from her face. “Will she sleep through the night?”

“If the morphine works, which I think it shall. That gives her time to build her strength. I’ll take care of her, Miss Barrow. Do you know what Samuel Fiske said when he was here?”

“No.”

“He told us he was going to get those, ah, these were his words”—Stanhope cleared his throat—“those ‘damn windows’ at the mill open tomorrow. I raised the question,” he added somewhat diffidently.

So Samuel was who she wanted him to be, who his grandmother said he was. But somewhere inside, she already knew that.

“Thank you for speaking up,” she said to the doctor.

For just an instant, she saw a flash of pride in his eyes.

B
y the time she got back to the boardinghouse, everyone was in bed. And yes, there at the end, in her cot, she could see the lumpy shape of the new girl, Hattie. She had accepted her offer after all. Alice undressed quietly, reaching across her friends for her nightdress, which was hanging on a hook just past Lovey’s bed. She slipped it on, shivering a bit; it was wet. A pitcher was very close; some water must have been splashed on the gown. No matter. She crawled into Lovey’s bed and pulled up the blanket, remembering how Lovey would yank it so hard it would come undone, and everyone would groan and complain and Lovey would laugh and crawl down to tuck it in again, tickling somebody’s toes in the process. She buried her face in Lovey’s pillow and let the tears trickle down, licking the salty taste from her lips. Her friend was no more. And her night at the oratorio, experiencing another world, seemed a lifetime away.

“T
hey’re doing this questioning thing today; tell me what to do. Samuel Fiske is back in town and escorting me to a law office. Odd, isn’t it, that he would come for the likes of me and not send a worker? He’s a fine man. I’ve never been in a law office.” Mary-o’s voice was tense as she sat down next to Alice at breakfast a few days later. She was wearing her Sunday church dress and had combed her hair into a proper bun. Her hands were trembling as she spooned out oatmeal into her bowl.

So he was here. A sudden guilty thought: she could at least breathe the air of Lowell today and know he breathed it, too. “Just answer their questions, but talk slowly and don’t get upset if Avery’s lawyers try to say terrible things about Lovey. Especially the one named Mason,” she said.

There was a knock on the door. Alice rose and went to open it. And there he was, once again only a step or two away. “Good morning, Mr. Fiske,” she said, trying to reclaim the hard-won protection of distance.

Samuel’s expression showed nothing. He tipped his hat and bowed slightly. “Good morning, Miss Barrow,” he said.

Neither was quite sure what to say next.

At that moment Hattie brushed by Alice, bobbing her head respectfully toward Samuel, even as she darted a curious glance at them both. Alice didn’t like her arch, knowing look.

“Excuse me, Mr. Fiske, sir, we’re heading for our shifts at the mill, nice to see you visit us. Coming, Alice?”

Samuel quickly moved to the side, clearing the doorway. “I’m here to pick up Mary Dodd for her deposition,” he said, now looking past Alice. His voice was quite formal.

Alice pulled her coat off the rack and quickly put it on, not looking at him, then followed Hattie and the others out the door.

H
er head was pounding, her ears ringing. It was bothering her more today than usual. The endless motion of the machines reverberated through her body—not just in her ears but in her stomach and down to her burning, aching feet. She would soak them tonight, try some of those salts Lovey always used. Alice wiped the perspiration from her brow and looked around. This was home now, strange as that seemed. And for all the rigors of the mill, all the dangers, the place had taken up residence in her bones. As had her friends. Lovey was gone. Tilda hovered somewhere between health and illness. But there was Jane, so solemn and earnest, mouthing her prayers as she worked, trying frantically to keep Tilda’s looms going as well as her own; Delia, a scarf tightly tied around her hair, frowning intently, casting protective glances every now and then toward Ellie as the child hustled back and forth with filled bobbins. Perhaps this is what motherhood would have been like for Lovey. It could have worked.

D
inner that night was quiet. Mary-o, her plump face solemn, seemed overwhelmed with the experience of having faced all the important men of law who actually
listened
to her, but all their questions had made her feel guilty of something. “I’m not sure of
what,
” she whispered to Alice at the dinner table.

“They try to make you feel that way,” Alice said.

The shadows had already descended when Alice went out alone after dinner to sit on the steps, rubbing her aching fingers. Yesterday she had been carving a cameo; today, working her looms. She still felt the pounding, pulsating noise of the machines. If she turned her head too quickly her ears would ring, but there was nothing new about that. She sat as still as possible, hoping she wouldn’t be missed by the others.

Mary-o, limp from her grueling day, had gone to bed. Hattie, the new girl, was arguing about something; Alice could hear her voice from the parlor. She didn’t like the girl. And yet, in truth, she would probably be hostile to anyone who took Lovey’s place.

“Alice.”

She looked up and saw a shadowy figure at the end of the walk, under the branches of a large oak tree. She could not see him clearly. But she knew the voice.

“I will leave immediately if you so wish,” he offered.

“I don’t want you to go.” Those first words stumbled forth, unscreened, but were quickly followed by common sense. “This isn’t right. For either of us.”

“I don’t share my father’s rigidities,” he said. He heard himself; he sounded like a prig. What did you say when there was no pattern to follow, no convivial exchange of ritual formalities?

“Will you take a short walk with me?” he asked.

“I think it’s quite late,” she said.

“I’m sorry for putting you in such an unfamiliar position the other night, and I ask your forgiveness.”

It might have been the tone of his voice or the simple way he reached out his hand to her, but she found it easy to tell him the truth. “You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “I loved the oratorio, it was magical.”

“But the night before—”

“I overreacted.” She pushed a strand of hair back from her face, hardly able to shift her eyes from his handsome, earnest face. “Please understand. My friends and I have been tainted by the lies about Lovey, do you see that? We have to avoid even the appearance of liberties being taken.”

So she could be blunt as well as brave and honest; finally, a window to her had opened. “Alice, Alice. Please walk with me,” he said.