The Girls with No Names Page 12

  I snatched the envelope from his hand. “You were not supposed to go to her. You were to tell us when you found her so we could contact her.”

  “Don’t get mad at me, ma’am. Take it up with your husband. I was just doing what he asked.” He settled his hat back on his head. “I’ll see myself out,” he said, hastening from the room before I could ask another question.

  When Emory came home, I was on the sofa with the letter in my lap. Neala had telephoned him at the office, the maid’s lilting Irish sailing from the hallway. “I was nervous calling you at work, sir, but your wife’s been sitting in the parlor for over an hour now without moving. She’s white as a sheet. I think you’d best be coming home.”

  I heard the car pull up and turned my gaze to the window. The room smelled faintly of lemon oil from Neala’s cleaning, and wood smoke from the fire that crackled in the hearth. A log fell, startling me, and a shower of sparks shot up the chimney. I noticed that the candelabra on the mantel was off center, and that the photograph of the girls and me taken at Christmas had been moved to the bookshelf. I’d have to tell Neala to take more care, I thought. It was imperative that things were kept in order.

  The door opened and I heard the heavy thud of Emory’s shoes in the hallway. I kept my eyes straight ahead as he entered the room. “Read it,” I dared, waving the letter over the curved arm of the sofa.

  He left me dangling the letter in midair as he walked to the decanter on the side table and poured himself a scotch. I’d never thought of him as a drinking man, but lately scotch was the first thing he went for.

  I dropped my arm. My skirt, plum colored, rich as jam, shifted around my feet as I angled myself to look directly at my husband. “If you’d be so kind as to pour me one.”

  His drink was halfway to his lips. He paused, his clear blue eyes searching me curiously. I held his gaze, resisting their allure. Those eyes could drown a girl; I learned that a long time ago.

  Emory extended his drink with an audacious look. Possibly this side of me would have excited him, under different circumstances. Careful not to touch his hand, I took the drink, feeling instantly more confident as the biting liquid coursed down my throat. I waved the letter like a red-dare before a bull. “Go ahead. It will only hurt a little.”

  I didn’t usually speak to my husband this boldly, and I couldn’t tell if it intrigued or worried him. He drew the paper from my hand and glanced into the fire, as if pondering whether to toss it in, before he pulled his reading glasses from his waistcoat pocket and unfolded the letter.

  I’d already read it three times. And each time, I was struck that even the angle of Luella’s handwriting seemed indignant. I could hear her voice upbraiding us as plainly as if she was standing in the room. She wasn’t sorry, she wrote, especially not after we sent a detective to find her. Sydney had found a job with a local fisherman and they were doing just fine. If we were worried about her, we should have come ourselves. We were clearly more concerned over the family reputation, which she didn’t give two whits about. She had no plans to come home, and if we didn’t leave her alone, she’d marry Sydney just to spite us. Couldn’t we see that this was why she’d left in the first place, because we were more interested in controlling her than understanding her? And had Daddy changed his ways? Because she wasn’t doing anything he wasn’t. At least I’m brave enough to stand up to him, she wrote. And we were to tell Effie she was sorry. This had nothing to do with her. She loved her, and they’d be together again. She promised.

  There was no closing, just a hasty signature.

  Emory looked at me over the wire rim of his spectacles, the blue of his eyes diminished. “When did our daughter become so mean?” he asked, carefully removing his glasses and folding them back into his pocket.

  I myself had been enraged since reading the letter. It was not Luella’s place to stand up to her father on my behalf, to shame me. What a man did in his spare time was his business. If I chose to turn a blind eye, that was mine.

  “At least we know where she is and you can bring her home. I’ve already checked the train schedules. There’s a train to Boston tonight that leaves for Portland at seven tomorrow morning.” I didn’t generally take charge, but I didn’t generally drink scotch in the afternoon either.

  He dropped the letter on the end table. He didn’t look angry, just put out, inconvenienced. “I will do no such thing. Clearly, Luella refuses to come home, and I have no intention of pleading with my daughter. You think she’ll last a winter in Maine in a wagon? I daresay she’ll be home before the first snow falls.” His self-possessed confidence needled me. He was so assured of my compliance. And why not. When had I ever questioned him?

  Never. That was the answer. I could sway him in my direction, at times, when it came to the girls, but I never questioned him. In the beginning it was because I loved him, later, because I didn’t want the truth.

  Finishing my drink, I set the glass on the coffee table to leave a ring of sweat on the exquisite wood, an eighteenth-century Tildon heirloom. I was happy to leave my mark. I stood up to fetch my cigarette case from the hall table. When I returned, Emory tilted back on his heels, watching me as I lit my cigarette and tossed the case onto the sofa, the metal object sliding over the velvet and thumping the arm.

  I drew a long breath and blew a satisfying puff of smoke in Emory’s direction. “Maybe your daughter would see fit to come home if you apologized for whatever it is you’ve done.”

  This took him by surprise. “You’d like to give her that much satisfaction? She dictates the terms?” He yanked loose his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, facing me as I sucked hard on my cigarette. At least he did not say I have nothing to apologize for.

  In a placating gesture, Emory reached for my hand, but I yanked it away. I was not going to be mollified. I had never let myself be angry with him. But I was angry now. “I want to know how you plan to get our daughter back.”

  His usual tactics failing, Emory took a step closer, trying now, I think, for intimidation. “What do you want me to do, lock her in the attic? Threaten to disinherit her? She’s not going to come home unless she wants to.”

  “Or is it that you don’t want her home?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jeanne!” His composure slipped. Tiny, red blotches like champagne bubbles burst to the tops of his cheeks. He wasn’t used to being hemmed in and I found his discomfort pleasurable. Steadying his voice, he said, “You’re too upset to discuss this right now. We’ll talk when you’re feeling rational.”

  Dismissing me, he headed for the door. I’d finally cornered him and he was getting away. I followed him into the hallway. “I’m perfectly rational,” I said, my voice gravid with years of resentment. He ignored me, pulled on his coat and snatched his hat from the hook. “Where are you going?”

  “Out. I need some air.”

  “You can’t ignore me!”

  “I’m not ignoring you. I just need a minute to think straight.”

  “Think straight about what? Your indecencies?”

  Emory moved in front of me and bent his head close to mine. “Stop this, Jeanne.” Moisture collected over his upper lip, his mouth near enough to kiss. Maybe he’d kiss me now to shut me up. “Just stop it,” he said again.

  I didn’t want to kiss him. I wanted to hurt him. “Stop what, exactly?” I jeered, sounding like a malicious schoolgirl.

  “This is not the time.” Somehow, he’d managed to make this look as if I was the one who’d veered away from what was important.

  He wrenched the door open and I cried, “Just bring Luella home!” as Emory dropped his hat, stumbling into Effie who stood startled on the top step.

  We stared at her, but in our tangled blindness with each other, failed to truly see her. Our second daughter slipped into the house and up the stairs.

  Neither of us said a word to her, or turned to watch her go
.

  Chapter Eleven

  Effie

  I followed Sister Mary up two flights of stairs to a dormitory lined with beds, each with a flat pillow and a gray wool blanket tucked around a thin mattress. Here there was no view of the river. The high, barred windows faced a mass of tangled trees, the tops swaying against a colorless sky.

  I was made to bathe and scrub my hair in the bathroom down the hall. “To get the lice out,” Sister Mary said, so confident of my infested head I didn’t bother telling her otherwise. Ice-cold water sputtered out of the pipes and I bathed quickly, scrubbing my head with a bar of brown soap. The bathroom had no toilet, just a porcelain sink with exposed pipes and the tub that I scurried out of as soon as my hair was rinsed, grateful for the wool dress I’d been given despite how scratchy it was.

  When I stepped into the hall, Sister Mary was waiting with patiently clasped hands. She nodded for me to follow and we moved down the stairs, my wet braided hair cold against the back of my neck. As we walked, Sister Mary explained that the third floor was the dormitories, the second the classrooms and Ladies Associates dining rooms, which I was never to go into, and the first floor was the chapel, reception, laundry, dining and bathroom. I was not to use the toilet at night. There were chamber pots under our beds for that.

  We entered a large room with narrow, high windows covered in rivulets of steam. The air was thick with moisture that settled over my face as I stepped inside, dusting my cheeks like the tip of a paintbrush. Laundry lines were strung from wooden beams, hung with all manner of clothing, and there was an unfamiliar smell to the air that I would later come to recognize as a mix of bleach and starch and wet wool. Girls hunched over washboards that rested in large barrels, their arms moving rapidly in and out of the mist that rose from the tops like a fog burning off of miniature lakes.

  I scanned the room for Luella, trying to peer under the lowered faces that dripped with sweat as I was led to a long table. A row of girls stood pressing hissing black irons over wide swaths of linen. Sister Mary went to the tallest of them, a girl with high cheeks and fine hair pulled tight behind her head, white wisps scattered at her temples, her skin ivory, chiseled, her eyes slices of pale sky.

  “Effie, this is Mable,” Sister Mary said. “Mable, dear, would you please instruct Effie on the ironing?”

  Mable propped a hand on her skinny hip. “Why doesn’t she have to start with washing like the rest of us?”

  “Do as you’re told, Mable,” Sister Mary said, singsong. She was used to this sort of talk back and she moved away, gliding as if on wheels, fluid as a ghost.

  Mable snatched my hands and the feeling on my bare skin was a shock. “What’s wrong with your nails?”

  “Nothing. I was born that way,” I mumbled, not used to the exposure. I wanted my gloves back.

  She inspected my palms, her hands rough and dry. “Never ironed clothes, have you?” I shook my head and she dropped my hands. “Burn something and I’ll slap you. Come on.”

  I followed her around the table, standing on my tiptoes to look out over the room. Maybe Luella would see me first.

  “Pay attention,” Mable snapped, handing me an iron so heavy I almost dropped it. My hands felt tender, like freshly healed wounds. “We’ll start simple.” Mable spread out a pillowcase edged in lace, covered it with a square of linen, flicked water over it from a bowl beside her and told me to get to it. The iron hissed as I pressed down. “Smooth,” Mable ordered. “All the way to the edge, and keep it moving or you’ll burn it.”

  “I’m looking for my sister.” I moved the heavy iron back and forth as I’d been instructed.

  “She in here?” Mable took up her iron next to me.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Luella.”

  “Luella!” Mable shouted and I looked up, my hand stilling, the iron spitting. “Get over here!”

  A girl walked toward us, her plump face bobbing in front of Mable as disappointment washed over me.

  “Blazes!” Mable cried and the iron was ripped from my hand as a blow struck my cheek so hard I gasped and grabbed my face. “You dunce,” she hissed.

  Stamped in the white cloth was the perfectly singed shape of the iron, the edges blackened like burnt toast. Mable slammed my iron on the massive black stove behind us and knocked me out of the way with her hip. Scrubbing, ironing and wringing halted as every girl turned to watch. Snatching up the pillowcase, Mable heaved open the door of the stove and shoved it in. Hot coals lit with flames. The door clanked shut and she turned to the room, brushing a clammy piece of hair from her forehead as she raised her finger, stringing an invisible line between the staring faces. “Not a word. Got it? Sister Gertrude finds out about this and I’ll drag each and every one of you from your bed and beat you.” The girl whom she’d ordered over stood startled in front of her. “You this halfwit’s sister?”

  “No,” the girl muttered.

  “Well, you got her anyway. Show her how to use the wringer. Maybe she’ll lose a finger instead of costing me another pillowcase.”

  I kept my hand clasped to my throbbing face as I followed the imposter Luella to a tub where one girl stood feeding clothes through two large rollers while another worked the crank that squeaked with every turn. The girl at the crank was solid and strong. She took one look at me with her thickly lashed, brown eyes and said, “Those scrawny arms of yours won’t last a minute at this. Helen, step aside and let her feed the clothes through.”

  “Gladly,” said Helen, passing me a mound of wet fabric.

  “Shake it out,” ordered the girl at the crank. “And guide it through flat, but don’t get your fingers near the rollers. They’ll take ’em right off. I’m Edna.” She offered her namely flatly, no smile, her round face dewy and bright with sweat.

  “Effie.” I touched the welt on my cheek. It felt red-hot. Where was Luella? A wave of panic ripped through me. “My sister’s here somewhere,” I said. “But I don’t see her.”

  “We’re not all on laundry. The younger ones are in the classroom. How old is she?” Edna relaxed her hold on the wringer and straightened her back, giving a little moan of discomfort as she stretched out her arm.

  “Sixteen.”

  “Then she’d be in here. Millie!” she shouted at a girl dumping a boiling bucket of water into a tub. “Anyone in the pit?”

  “Don’t think so,” the girl called back.

  A bell tolled the hour, and there was a rustle of commotion as the girls put away their work and scurried to untie their aprons.

  “Supper,” said Edna. “We all dine together, so as long as your sister’s not in the pit she’ll be there.”

  The dining room was large, with white walls and wide, gleaming floorboards. There were kitchen smells, bone broth and onion, but also polishing wax and tung oil, as if everything had been newly varnished. I’d never been in such neat, barren spaces. Nothing felt lived in. No paintings, no bookshelves. Were there books here? Maybe in the classrooms, surely the girls were allowed to read and write.

  Our shoes echoed over the slick floor as we made our way to long oak tables with chairs pushed smartly in. From the high windows, past the thick metal bars, I could see the hillside. It had begun to rain. The bars struck dread in me, the reality of being locked in settling fresh in my gut. Where was Luella?

  We didn’t sit, but stood behind our chairs until Sister Gertrude entered and positioned herself at the head of our table. There was a lengthy pause as she scanned the room before giving an imperious nod for us to take our seats. I followed the girls as they scrambled into chairs and bowed their heads in prayer, keeping my eyes on the bits of onion floating in my bowl. When prayer finally ended, I glanced around the table at the girls spooning soup into their mouths and had to resist a consuming impulse to jump up and shout my sister’s name. No one spoke, and when I tried to whisper something
to Edna who sat next to me, she pinched my thigh under the table and I stayed quiet.

  The room buzzed with clinking spoons and shifting chairs, coughing and breathing and the thrashing whir of my heart. My cheek still throbbed where I’d been struck, and I felt the approaching panic of a blue fit.

  Nudging the girl next to her, Edna whispered under her breath, “Is there anyone in the pit?” The girl shook her head no without moving her eyes from her food. Edna put her head close to her bowl and whispered, “Your sister’s not here. Now eat before Sister Gertrude thinks there’s something wrong with you. The last thing you want is to get sent to the infirmary.”

  I reached for my spoon and gripped it as if that small piece of metal might hold me up. My sister was not here? My brain somersaulted through the events of the last few months, a frenzy rising in me. I took slow deep breaths and finished my soup. Luella had to be here. Pushing back my chair, I followed the girls to the back of the room where we scraped what was left in our bowls into a garbage pail and set them on a long counter. Silently, we tramped back to the laundry where I guided wet clothes through the wringer, my mind a tangle of irrational thoughts, my legs weak and my fingers slippery. The fabric kept going in unevenly and Edna glared at me as she made a show of heaving the crank up and repositioning the cloth.

  I was exhausted by dinnertime. My wool dress was damp and heavy, as much from my own sweat as the wet clothes I pulled from the bucket. Dazed, I left my apron on a hook and followed the gaggle of girls back into the dining room. Edna didn’t sit next to me this time and I found myself beside a pasty girl with sunken eyes who kept coughing and wiping her nose on the back of her hand. Dinner was a tough piece of meat and a baked potato that I found hard to choke down. I looked for Luella in every face around the room. She had to be here, otherwise nothing made sense.

  After dinner, we assembled in St. Savior’s Chapel for evening prayer. The chapel adjoined the main building in the center and extended out into a central courtyard. Shuffling our way past the hall windows, I could see the rain slicking over a lawn filled with golden leaves. Only hours earlier, a leaf had clung to my hair, water had eddied through my toes and the wind had chilled my neck.