“And he took the pins from her hair! There they were, embracing for all the town to see, and he unfastened her hair, and we heard that he almost kissed her. In front of everyone!”
They sat there, looking at Terel, waiting for a response from her.
“I do not believe you,” Terel said.
“You can ask anyone,” Louisa said. “And their being on the wall wasn’t the only thing that happened. According to Johnny Bowen and Bob Jenkins, Mr. Montgomery nearly attacked them on the street. All they did was ask Nellie about you.”
“Ask about me?” Terel whispered. Johnny and Bob were two of her favorite suitors. They were adoring puppies, requiring nothing from Terel but always ready to do her bidding.
“Johnny said that Mr. Montgomery said that Nellie was not your social secretary.” Mae turned to Louisa. “That’s right, isn’t it? That’s what he said, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Louisa answered. “Mr. Montgomery said Nellie wasn’t going to answer questions about you, and Johnny said that Mr. Montgomery seemed quite taken with Nellie.”
“In the tea shop,” Mae said, “he looked at her as if he were—well—in love with her.”
“With Nellie?” Mary Alice said. “With Nellie Grayson?”
Terel had heard more than she wanted to hear. She stood. “Mr. Montgomery is a very kind man, and he has a great deal of sympathy for women like Nellie. My poor sister has very little social life, and he felt pity for her, so he took her out for a day.”
“I wish Mr. Montgomery would take pity on me,” Mae said, but she quieted when Terel gave her a quelling look.
Terel jerked at her plum-dyed kid gloves. “I apologize if Mr. Montgomery’s actions were misconstrued, and I would appreciate it if you would stop spreading gossip that has no basis in truth.”
She pushed through the young women, purposely stepping on the lace of Mae’s dress as she passed.
“What about your heart palpitations?” Mary Alice called after her.
“Her heart is fine, it’s her temper that needs doctoring,” Charlene said, and all four women dissolved into giggles.
Terel was very angry as she started walking home. How dare Nellie do this to her! As if she didn’t have enough problems, what with so many other unmarried women in Chandler, to have her own sister betray her like this was more than she could bear!
She stormed all the way down Coal Avenue, and every block someone stopped her to ask about Nellie.
“Who was the heavenly man with her?”
“It looks like Nellie may beat you to the altar,” Mr. Mankin said, laughing.
“I hear they’re going to the Harvest Ball together,” Mrs. Applegate said. “Do you think you’ll be invited after what happened last year?”
“I never realized how pretty Nellie was until today,” Leora Vaughn said. “I think I’ll invite her to my garden party.”
“Terel,” Sarah Oakley said, “you must bring Nellie with you to next week’s church social.” She laughed. “This town isn’t going to let you hide Nellie away any longer.”
By the time Terel reached the sanctity of her house, her blood was boiling. She was ready to tear Nellie to pieces. How dare she act like this? How dare she call attention to herself like this?
Terel went first to the kitchen, then to the garden, but Nellie wasn’t in either. Nor was she anywhere else in the house. It took Terel a few minutes to realize that Nellie was still out with Mr. Montgomery.
She sat down hard on a footstool in the parlor. Nellie was always home. Since Terel was a little girl, Nellie had been at home waiting for her. She remembered coming home from school, and Nellie would be in the kitchen ironing. Nellie had only been fourteen then, so she’d had to stand on a box to be high enough for the ironing board, but when Terel returned she’d get down and get milk and cookies for her.
Now Terel put her little handbag on the table and noted with disgust that the surface was dusty. Slowly, she got up and went back to the kitchen. Usually the place was neat and clean, but now the big table was covered with flour and there was a lump of dried, cracked dough to one side. The door had been left open, and flies buzzed over everything. The fire in the stove had gone out.
In the other rooms downstairs everything was dusty. If Nellie didn’t constantly stay on that lazy Anna, the girl did nothing. Now, with Nellie having been gone most of the day, Anna was probably sleeping somewhere.
Upstairs, the rooms were as bad. The bathroom hadn’t been cleaned, and her father’s whisker-filled lather had dried on the basin. In Terel’s room clothes were everywhere. This morning she’d had a difficult time deciding what to wear today, and all the clothes she’d decided against were still strewn about the room. On the bed was the pink taffeta that Terel had expressly asked Nellie to repair, but the skirt was still torn at the waist.
She went to her father’s room, and it didn’t look much better than her own. His clothes from the day before were on the floor, and six pairs of shoes had been set out for Nellie to polish, but all six were still dusty.
Terel moved down the hall. Nellie’s room was, as always, neat and tidy, but it was the only bit of order in the chaotic house.
Thoughtfully, Terel went back downstairs to the parlor. From what the townspeople had been saying, whatever was going on between Nellie and Mr. Montgomery was serious. Serious as in permanent. Serious as in taking Nellie away.
Terel looked at the dusty parlor and thought about the rooms upstairs. If Nellie got married and left the house, who would have to see to the cooking and cleaning? She knew her father wouldn’t bother himself. Although Nellie tended to look at their father through rose-colored glasses, Terel saw him for what he was. He was as tightfisted a man as had ever lived. Terel had an idea that her father’s freight company made quite a bit of money, but Charles Grayson wasn’t about to part with any more of it than he could help. That’s why they lived in a very ordinary house and had only one very bad, but cheap, servant. Charles wouldn’t part with his precious money to raise their standard of living.
Terel had learned how to deal with him. When she wanted new clothes she went to a store and charged them. Her father’s pride kept him from refusing to pay the bills.
But Nellie knew nothing about their father. All Charles had to do was say he couldn’t afford more servants and Nellie doubled her efforts to help make ends meet.
So what would happen if Nellie left, Terel thought. What if she went away and left Terel and Charles alone? Terel knew that Charles would make her life hell. He’d no doubt expect Terel to spend her days cooking and trying to get the lazy Anna to do something. If Terel did get out of doing the work, it would only be through waging enough battles to equal a war. Her father could be pleasant; cold, perhaps, but all right if his basic needs were taken care of and he didn’t have to spend too much money. But he could be a tyrant over simple matters such as his dinner being late. Terel couldn’t imagine what his temper would be like if she had to prepare his dinner. She didn’t know the first thing about cooking.
“Nellie cannot leave before I do,” Terel whispered. Under no circumstances was she going to allow Nellie to marry and leave Terel alone to take care of their father. Terel’s jaw clamped shut. If nothing else, Nellie couldn’t marry someone like Mr. Montgomery. Today was just an example of what would be said if fat, boring Nellie caught a man like that. She could hear Charlene now. “Your husband is nice, but he’s not as rich or as handsome as Nellie’s husband. Who would have thought that Nellie would get the catch of the season, all while wearing such ugly dresses? Terel, maybe you should have learned to cook.”
No, Terel thought, she couldn’t bear the ridicule—and she intended to see that there was no reason for her to bear it.
At six o’clock her father walked through the door, just as Terel knew he would, and she smiled, because Nellie still hadn’t returned. She pulled out her handkerchief, sniffed a few times, and went running to her father.
“Oh, Papa,” Terel wailed, throwing her a
rms about his neck, “I’m so glad you’re home. I’m so very, very frightened.”
With distaste, Charles pulled Terel’s arms from around his neck. He did not believe in physical displays of affection. “What has frightened you?”
Terel put her handkerchief to her face. “Nellie isn’t home.”
“Nellie isn’t home?” Charles asked in the same tone he might use to say, The earth stopped turning? “Where is she?”
“I’m afraid to tell you. Oh, Papa, I hope our good name can overcome the scandal.”
“Scandal? What is this?” He half pushed Terel into the dusty parlor. “Now tell me everything. Hold nothing back.”
Terel, while giving a good show of weeping, told him all she knew and then some. “They were embracing on top of the wall! And everyone in town saw them. I wouldn’t be surprised if people canceled their contracts with you after this. Nellie cares nothing about us, only about herself. There is no dinner prepared, and upstairs is a mess.”
Charles’s eyes widened, then he left the room to go upstairs. It was some minutes before he came down again. In spite of Terel’s theatrics, Charles understood the problem very well. He wasn’t concerned about Nellie’s scandalous behavior causing him a loss of business, for if that were possible, Terel’s behavior would have hurt his company years ago.
It was the unpolished shoes that caused him concern. Two years ago when Nellie had wanted to marry he had persuaded her not to. He’d known what his life would be like without Nellie. If Nellie left, he’d be alone to deal with Terel’s laziness, with her refusal to do anything that didn’t directly benefit herself.
When Charles had first met Jace Montgomery he’d known who he was. A year before someone had pointed him out as the son of the owner of Warbrooke Shipping. Charles had tried to get an introduction to him, but the man had left town before they could meet. A year later Charles had blessed his luck that, out of the blue, the man appeared and saved him from ruffians.
Immediately Charles had started planning. What a catch he’d be for a son-in-law! Jace would connect the Grayson family with Warbrooke Shipping. Charles imagined a vast land and sea company named Grayson-Warbrooke. So Charles had started talking about his beautiful daughter and had, after hours of talk, persuaded Jace to come to dinner.
Then everything had gone awry. Terel, as usual, hadn’t listened when Charles had told her how important Montgomery was, and so she’d turned the man over to Nellie. Heaven only knew why he was interested in Nellie, but he had been from the first.
He can have Terel, Charles thought, but not Nellie. Or at least he couldn’t have her until Terel was married and gone. Charles wasn’t going to be left alone with his spoiled younger daughter.
“Fool man!” Charles muttered. What in the world did he see in Nellie? Nellie was to Terel as an old plow horse to a sleek racing filly.
He stepped back into the parlor. “I will send men out to look for her,” he said to Terel. “I do not believe our family can stand this scandal. I will forbid her to see Montgomery again.” He gave Terel a piercing gaze. “Perhaps you could see that the man is introduced to Chandler society.”
“I will do my best,” Terel said solemnly. “You know, Papa, that I am always willing to help you.”
Chapter Five
Nellie had been eating for three days. She couldn’t seem to stop. She baked three pies and ate one of them. At the bakery she’d order four cakes and eat a whole one herself. She baked six dozen cookies and ate two dozen before they’d cooled. Every time she remembered the evening of the day she’d spent with Mr. Montgomery, she became ravenous.
The horror of that night—Terel crying, her father’s disappointment in her—had haunted her every minute of every day since then. For three days now she’d lived in fear of people canceling their freight contracts because of Nellie’s scandalous behavior. Her father had painted a bleak picture of the three of them being cast into the street with no food, having to survive a Colorado winter in the open because Nellie was too selfish to care about anyone but herself.
That Nellie’s behavior had been outrageous was verified by the many invitations that began arriving in her name.
“They believe you to be a woman of loose morals,” Charles had said, throwing the invitations into the fire.
Part of Nellie wanted to point out that Terel received invitations yet wasn’t considered a lewd woman. As though reading her thoughts, Terel had said that she hadn’t been seen by the entire town embracing a man. She hadn’t spent most of a night alone with a man in a park.
Nellie had tried to defend herself by pointing out that she’d been home by eight-thirty, but she’d burst into tears when her father asked if there was a chance she would bear the man’s bastard.
Terel had talked to Nellie about how a worldly man like Mr. Montgomery only wanted Nellie because she was so innocent and he could get anything he wanted from her. “Look at yourself, Nellie. Why else would he want you?” Terel had said. “Men like him take advantage of women like you, women who will stay out all night with them, and then they marry respectable women. If he had any respect for you, he wouldn’t have come to the back of the house and asked you to sneak away with him. A man who respects a woman treats her with respect.”
Neither her father nor Terel let up on Nellie. They talked and talked and talked. And Nellie ate and ate and ate.
She was sure they were right. She knew she had caused them great embarrassment, but sometimes, often late at night, she remembered the way Mr. Montgomery had looked at her. Nobody knew that he’d put his head in her lap, and Nellie was sure that if they did, they wouldn’t hold out any hope that she could be saved; but sometimes she remembered the feel of his hair on her fingertips. She remembered how he’d asked her about what she liked to do in life. She remembered the tears on his cheeks when he’d sung the hymn.
In all her memories she could think of nothing that made him seem like the devious seducer that Terel seemed to think he was. Her father said that he flirted with all the pretty women who chanced to come into the freight office. And Terel said that in church on Sunday Mr. Montgomery sat between Mae and Louisa. Charles had said it was better for Nellie not to go to church that day, that she shouldn’t be seen in public yet. He hoped her absence would help the gossip of her scandalous behavior die down. So on Sunday Nellie had remained home, and after Terel told her about Jace sitting with the other pretty, thin, younger women she’d eaten half a dozen cupcakes.
Now she was alone in the house, her father at his office, Terel at her dressmakers, and Anna sent off to the market. She was scouring pans from the previous night’s dinner.
“Hello.”
She turned to see him standing there, and the memories of that wonderful afternoon and evening together came back. She smiled at him before she remembered the last three days, then she frowned.
“You have to leave,” she said, and she turned back to the dishes.
Jace put his bouquet of flowers on the table, went to her, took her shoulders, and turned her around. “Nellie, what’s wrong? I haven’t seen you in days. I’ve been by every evening, but your father said you were indisposed. You aren’t ill, are you?”
No one had told her he’d come by. She moved away from him. “I am perfectly all right, and you have to leave. You cannot be alone with me. It isn’t proper.”
“Proper?” he asked, puzzled. If she hadn’t been ill, then maybe she hadn’t seen him because she didn’t want to. “Nellie, have I done something to offend you?” He straightened. “Maybe at choir practice I…” He trailed off.
She gave him a startled look. Did he think his tears had offended her? “Oh, no, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s…” She couldn’t tell him.
“What? What have I done wrong that you won’t see me?”
To Nellie’s disbelief, she burst into tears. She hid her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook with her weeping. Within moments Jace was there, his arm around her, and he was handing her a glass of brand
y. “Drink this,” he ordered when she was seated.
“I can’t. I don’t—”
“Drink it!”
She obeyed him, choking on the liquid but getting all of it down.
“Now,” he said, taking the empty glass and sitting in front of her, “tell me what’s been going on.”
“We behaved scandalously,” she said, and with the brandy in her it didn’t seem like such an awful thing they had done.
Jace didn’t understand. Maybe their behavior, had been a little outrageous, but no one in Chandler seemed to have minded. In fact, everywhere he went people were curious about Nellie. It seemed that no one in town had even noticed her before.
He took her hands in his. “Was it our being alone? We could go out with other people if that bothers you.” It might help him keep his hands off her, too, he thought.
“The wall,” she said, sniffing.
“The wall?” He smiled. “You’re upset because I hugged you on the wall? You were about to fall.”
“I…I…” She couldn’t tell him more, couldn’t tell him of the possibility of people canceling contracts or say to him that he wasn’t respecting her. When he looked at her as he did now she couldn’t think clearly.
The sound of a footstep outside the kitchen door made her eyes widen in horror. “It’s Terel. You have to go.” There was panic in her voice.
“I’ll say hello.”
“No, no, no. Leave. You must leave.”
Jace didn’t know what the urgency was, but he had no intention of leaving. He slipped into the pantry just as Terel entered the kitchen. Leaning against the shelves, he had a clear view into the kitchen and could see Nellie and her sister fully. Up until now he’d had eyes only for Nellie, but now it struck him as odd that there was such a contrast between the two sisters. Terel was dressed in an expensive wool suit, her hair coiffed and cared-for, while Nellie was wearing a dress that seemed quite old.
“Y-you’re back early,” Nellie said, stammering.
“Yes.” Terel yanked off her kid gloves. “I couldn’t stay in town and listen to more of the scandal. No one can talk of anything but you and that man.”