Mercer Girls Read online

  “I’m Josephine Carey,” she finally said.

  “Dovey.”

  The girl offered her hand to clasp, but did not offer a surname. Fair and well, Josephine thought as she squeezed Dovey’s warm fingers. I have no room to begrudge any woman her secrets—not at present.

  “You’re to travel with Mr. Mercer, too, then?” Dovey asked. She eyed Josephine rather skeptically—doubting, Josephine assumed, whether a woman of her advanced age could make a suitable bride.

  “Yes. I mean to take up a position as a teacher in Seattle. Whatever other plans the Lord may have for me in Washington Territory, I leave up to Him to dictate.”

  Josephine glanced around the platform again, counting the assembled women. They were thirteen in all, including Dovey and Josephine herself. And what a pair we make, we two castoffs. The eldest and the youngest, the bookends of Mercer’s cargo.

  Dovey’s plaintive voice broke into Josephine’s thoughts. “You aren’t going to tell my father that I’m here, are you?”

  The girl sounded so dejected—so defeated—that Josephine turned back to her abruptly, wide-eyed and nearly laughing. “Dear laws, Dovey, I don’t even know who your father is!”

  Dovey’s swollen eyes narrowed, and she watched Josephine’s face for a moment in suspicious silence.

  “Even if I knew your father, I wouldn’t tell. You have your reasons for leaving Lowell. So do I.”

  The girl’s display of misgiving—that peek through her chipper, ready exterior to the vulnerability Josephine had glanced before—sent warmth surging through Josephine. She felt rather protective of the girl, quite suddenly and with a fierce insistence that took her aback. Was it merely their mutual status as outcasts that drew Josephine to Dovey? Was it the girl’s natural charm—amply evident, even through her exhaustion and bedragglement? Perhaps it was only the fact that Josephine needed a friend so sorely—an ally who might stand beside her, or a distraction from the fears that would not relent even as she stood on the very brink of freedom.

  She looked down at Dovey’s pillowcase. “I have some room in my trunk—that one over there, on the crates opposite. Why don’t you come along and add your things to mine?”

  “Oh—may I? It’s ever so kind of you!”

  “You may, but you’ll have to help me carry the thing. It’s a bit too heavy to manage on my own. I think we can handle it together, though.”

  Dovey eased herself down from her perch and stood gingerly. But though she moved with deliberate care, still her face crumpled in distress and she uttered a little, choked cry of pain.

  “What is it?” Josephine took her arm.

  “My feet. They’re terribly sore. I ran all night to get here, and when I couldn’t run any longer, I walked. I’m afraid I can’t go another step now.”

  “Come over to the bench, at least, and let me have a look.”

  Dovey leaned on Josephine’s arm, hobbling and hissing softly with the pain. When they reached the bench, Josephine eased her down. She reached beneath Dovey’s ripped, muddy hems and pried the boots from her feet—then stifled a gasp at their state. Dovey’s winter-wool stockings were crusted with the fluid of blisters, and stained here and there with spots of blood.

  “Lord,” Josephine muttered. “You look like you’ve been chewed by a dog.”

  She pulled the stockings away as gently as she could manage. Angry red splotches covered the girl’s feet from toes to heels. In many places the white bubbles of unruptured blisters stood boldly above the tender flesh, and on the knobs of her delicate ankles the skin had worn down into raw, half-scabbed abrasions.

  “It hurts,” Dovey admitted quietly, as if fearful the other women might hear and judge some weakness in her.

  “I’ll just bet it does.”

  Josephine retrieved her sewing kit and set to work with her embroidery scissors, gently releasing the fluid from the remaining blisters. Dovey flinched each time the scissors approached. Exhaustion and fear had left Josephine rather shaky, and she feared she might pierce more than just a blister if she couldn’t keep Dovey still. She cast about for something to distract the girl from the sad plight of her own two feet.

  “You’re young, to venture west in search of a husband,” Josephine said. “What inspired you to join Mr. Mercer’s party, if I may ask?”

  Dovey’s pretty, rose-pink lips compressed for a moment, and she searched Josephine’s face with a wary flick of her eyes. Finally, though, she huffed a little sigh of surrender. “Oh, Jo, it was awful. My father locked me up in my room and planned to marry me off to the worst man I know. Marion Stilton is a boor—and a bore. And he’s vain and dim-witted. If I’m compelled to be charitable, I can admit that he’s good-looking—though there isn’t much else I can say in his favor. But I don’t want a good-looking husband; I want a respectable one.”

  Josephine lanced another blister. “Mr. Stilton is not respectable?”

  The girl snorted. “I should say not. He dodged the draft! Paid the exemption, and he’s off scot-free, while all three of my brothers went to fight the Confederates. My eldest brother is dead now, and I have no idea how the other two fare.”

  “I’m sorry.” Josephine looked up from her work, and was touched to see tears welling in the girl’s red-rimmed eyes. Beneath Dovey’s bold, brash exterior there beat a soft and gentle heart; despite the girl’s bluster, and her alarming air of wildness, Josephine felt herself warming yet more to her company. “I wouldn’t want to marry a dodger, either,” Josephine said.

  “My feelings on the subject were of no interest to Father.” Dovey’s voice was dark and low, and Josephine could practically smell the resentment simmering inside her—acrid and oily, a dish long stewed. “His only care is for his business—his wealth. Only, there’s no business left, and no wealth, either.”

  “A mill man?”

  Josephine was not surprised when the girl nodded. Dovey’s father was hardly the only man in Lowell to have plunged from wealth to poverty, and it seemed each one who made that precipitous drop had the same sad tale to tell.

  “I’m sure he thinks,” Dovey said loftily, “to revive his business by hitching his wagon to the Stiltons. I’m his wagon now, his last good asset—but I won’t be hitched. Not against my will. I’d rather go clear to Seattle and choose a man of my own, if I must have a man, at any rate.”

  “That seems reasonable enough.”

  “Then you won’t tell my father?”

  “Of course not.”

  Josephine had a few spare handkerchiefs in her trunk—they didn’t take up much room—and she sacrificed these for Dovey’s sake, cutting them into strips and binding her battered feet tightly.

  “Thank you, Jo.” Dovey’s lip quivered with emotion as she gazed at Josephine. “I can call you Jo, can’t I? I think I’d like to be your friend. You seem—well, sensible and fair.”

  Despite the worry that still shrouded her—she could almost feel hard, possessive hands reaching for her from the cold depths of the city—Josephine smiled. No one had ever called her Jo—nor any other nickname. Pet names didn’t seem to suit her plain, sober face or her high-collar, old-fashioned style. But somehow, on the tongue of this sad, bedraggled little imp, the handle fit just fine.

  “Your stockings won’t do until you can wash them. Pack them away in my trunk, and your other things, too.”

  Josephine ventured back across the crowded platform to retrieve Dovey’s heavy pillowcase. When she returned to their shared bench, she found Dovey staring at the provisions Josephine had packed with a morose air.

  “Food.” The girl’s tone suggested she was about to administer a smart slap to her own forehead.

  “You didn’t pack any food for the trip?”

  Dovey shook her head. “It was all so sudden, you see—my decision to join the Mercer party. I’m afraid I didn’t think it through.”

  “You can share mine,” Josephine said at once.

  No charitable Christian could leave a waif like Dovey with
out crumb or crust to eat, but even so, Josephine wondered how on Earth she would make her provisions stretch now. She had packed everything she could scare up from her own pantry: a few hard sausages, a packet of ground coffee, a wheel of cheese no wider than her two hands, dried apples wrapped in oilcloth, and several oat biscuits, which would be stale long before they reached Aspinwall. It was poor fare, and if it were to sustain Josephine all the way to Seattle, then Jesus Christ himself must make an appearance on the voyage to repeat His miracle of the loaves and fishes. How the paltry store of food could possibly feed two women was beyond Josephine’s comprehension.

  We’ll find a way, the told herself stoutly. Perhaps I can patch and mend for the other women to earn a few more bites, a few little pennies. She watched Dovey ease back into her boots. The girl stood and tested her weight on her feet, and grinned broadly at Josephine when she found herself able to walk. Or perhaps I can lance the other women’s blisters, too.

  “You’re a saint, Jo.” Dovey transferred her few goods into the trunk, including a lovely dress of fine blue wool, which made an indecorous rumple in the cedar box. Dovey closed the lid and brushed her hands together. “Sakes alive, but I feel awfully better now. I could run another night without stopping!”

  “Don’t try it,” Josephine advised. “You’ll have to coddle your feet, I’m afraid. As soon as we’re settled on the train, take your boots off again and let your toes breathe. Your blisters will never heal properly if you keep your feet shut up all the time.”

  A hollow clatter rose above the platform’s murmur of conversation—the sound of many hooves ringing against the cobbles. Dovey and Josephine stared at the noise. A fine carriage, pulled by six dappled grays, rolled to a smooth stop at the curb. The clarence was as lustrous and dark as black satin, and curtains of red velvet hid the occupants from view. A footman stepped down from the carriage’s rear to swing the door open.

  Josephine felt her brows rise of their own accord; the figures that emerged from the depths of the clarence were intriguing, to say the least.

  A short, plump, older woman, with white hair streaking her dark-golden temples, was the first to descend from the carriage. Arrayed in a wine-red jacket and matching skirt, the black plumes of her extravagant, wide-brimmed hat nodding in the morning breeze, she stood with one hand on her hip, surveying the depot and the women gathered on its platform with a frankly dismissive air. Two girls followed, each younger than Dovey, both with curls of soft, butter-yellow hair falling to their shoulders in precise, orderly rows.

  Next came a tall, slim woman of about twenty years. Even across the crowded platform, Josephine was struck by her beauty—her features were as sharp and delicate as flakes of ice, and her coloring was milk-glass pale, with hardly a blush to warm her angular cheeks. The young woman’s hair, swirled into a thick bun at her nape and secured with a comb of glinting sapphires, was so light a shade of blonde that it seemed touched by frost. She held herself with a proud, erect bearing, and eyed the depot and the assembled women with the grim resolve of a soldier preparing to march into battle.

  Last, a small, portly man with a shiny pate clambered gracelessly from the carriage. The women gathered about him, and, lifting his hands in a gesture reminiscent of a minister at the pulpit, he struck up an oration. The words of his speech did not reach Josephine across the platform, but she could hear the rising and falling intonations of his voice clearly enough. That bold, ringing tone cut through the open air and the murmur of the gathered women as smoothly as a spoon through cream. Josephine and Dovey watched as the man raised his hands to the stately, pale young woman’s head. She bowed her head, accepting his blessing.

  “What a show,” Dovey muttered. “How did they all fit inside that carriage? Do you suppose the girls sat on each other’s laps? Is this spectacle for our benefit, do you think? Or do they honk and flap like a flock of geese all the time?”

  “I can’t say,” Josephine muttered, eyeing the young woman in sapphire blue with a twinge of wariness. Her staunchly upright bearing and the proud carriage of her fine, pointed chin gave her a particularly haughty air.

  She seems just the kind of woman who’ll be quick to judge someone like me, Josephine thought. Just the sort who might expose me.

  If that vision of imperious pride was to join the Mercer party, Josephine knew she must guard her secret with even greater vigilance. Otherwise she might not make it to Seattle after all—and what hope could she cling to then?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SECRETS AND INCITEMENTS

  When Sophronia’s father closed his blessing with a hearty and resonant “Amen!”, her mother burst out with a theatrical cry. Her black plumes shivered as she dabbed at her cheeks with a kerchief. Sophronia dutifully pulled her mother against her breast in a farewell embrace, inwardly sighing at the dark spots left on her sapphire bodice—the traces of Mother’s tears.

  Sophronia turned to kiss her sisters on their cheeks, with more feeling than she’d embraced her mother.

  “Mind your manners at all times,” she told Elspeth, patting the girl’s yellow curls—how she wished she could snip off a lock of those beloved tresses, and another from Augusta’s head, and carry those precious mementos of her sisters with her across the wide, unfriendly continent. “Both of you must always be mindful of your reputation. Promise me you won’t harm your chances at a good match. A respectable, righteous husband is your hope for a life well lived.”

  “We promise, Sister,” Elspeth said, sniffling and wiping at her nose with the back of her hand.

  Sophronia tutted and handed the girl a kerchief embroidered with her initials in a florid script. “There’s no sense in crying.”

  “But we can’t help it,” Augusta moaned, clinging to Elspeth’s arm. “We may never see you again!”

  “Such histrionics,” Sophronia gently scolded, and not without a note of fondness in her voice. “Our separation is but another trial from the Lord. And if we are faithful, all trials may be overcome.”

  Elspeth’s fine features crumpled and reddened. “I despise trials from the Lord!”

  Sophronia’s back stiffened in shock. “Don’t say such things. Nothing that proceeds from God’s word or hand is to be despised.”

  But Elspeth went on weeping, and Augusta joined in, her small, slender form shuddering with hiccups and sobs.

  Tears burned in Sophronia’s eyes; she blinked them away mercilessly. “Come now,” she said, taking each of her sisters’ hands. “‘Count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations, knowing this: that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.’”

  Sophronia paused expectantly. Elspeth blew her nose into the kerchief with an unladylike honk.

  “James, chapter one,” Sophronia prompted. “Verses?”

  “Two through five,” Augusta muttered sullenly.

  “Two through four,” Sophronia corrected.

  Then, before her own treacherous tears could return, she swept her little sisters into a tight embrace. They clung to her, pressing their wet cheeks against her sleeves, whimpering in what, Sophronia knew, would likely be their final embrace in this life.

  “You are two very fine girls,” she said, willing her voice to remain steady and unshaken. “In a few years, you will have suitors—and then, the Lord willing, families of your own. Bear yourselves always with good grace, and in all things be worthy of your future husbands, your future children.”

  And may God grant you better prospects than I had, she told them silently as she kissed their flushed brows.

  “It’s time we were off,” Father said, a trifle reluctantly. He took Sophronia’s hand—a restrained display of affection, but all the more precious to Sophronia for its rarity.

  She gave her father a trembling smile, gazing at his solemn face, his stout, sturdy shape, the neat precision of his coat and tie. “I will do you proud in Seattle,” she told him. “I’ll carry the Lor
d’s word faithfully.”

  “I am certain you will, my girl.” His throat seemed to constrict on that last word, and he turned abruptly away to climb into the carriage.

  “Do write,” Mother said faintly, holding Sophronia against her plump bosom again. Then she, too, was turning away, hurrying back into the safety of the carriage with a flurry of dark plumes and rustling silks.

  Sophronia turned away from her family, gave a few curt instructions to the footmen who handled her baggage, and strode across the train’s crowded platform, refusing to turn back, unwilling to watch Elspeth and Augusta depart. The murmurs of the women waiting for the train—the rest of the pilgrims in Mercer’s party, Sophronia assumed—rose mercifully around her as she made her way into the crowd, and the chatter of their high, excited voices nearly drowned out the horses’ hooves as the carriage rolled away.

  Sophronia peered at the other women as she wended through the crowd. Most of them smiled politely, but none offered an introduction, and Sophronia kept moving. A few even shrank from her a little, as if intimidated by her presence. Imagine, being intimidated by a mere woman! She handled her deep-blue skirt deftly, careful not to lift the hem too high, as she brushed past groups of girls who conversed in the pale morning light with flushed faces and sparkling eyes, all of them intent on adventure.

  “I’m Kate Clement Stevens,” said one—the only young lady among them to offer her hand when Sophronia passed.

  Kate had merry eyes and broad, high cheekbones that gave her face an aristocratic appeal. Her smile was friendly and eager, but Sophronia’s chest tightened as she spoke to the girl, managing a few rote lines of courtesy through the sudden, sick welling in her gut.

  Clement. The very sound of that name was a shock and an ambush—and Sophronia felt assaulted from all sides by bitter memories of her most recent beau.