A White Room (4 page)

I lifted heavy eyes, heaved forward, and vomited again.

Two

November 1900

M
y mother wept, swathed in black and bent over her writing desk in the sitting room, which she had decorated with light, cheery colors long ago. She existed like a ghost—out of place in the world of color and light. It had been like this for months.

I touched her shoulder. “Mother? Are you all right?”

She struggled between crying and breathing. “No, no, no. I’m not all right. I am not all right!” She clenched a letter between her hands.

“What is it?”

She sucked in air.

“Who wrote you?”

“My brother.”

“Is he not well?”

“We have no money.”

I stiffened, dumbfounded. “What?”

“The funeral expenses—I didn’t realize—the surgery and medical costs and living the way we live without any income. We shouldn’t have—I didn’t—” She shook her head. “We are—we…” She choked on her words, but I knew: destitute, poor, hopeless.

I stumbled backward and bumped against the arm of the white sofa. “What do we do?”

“James said when he starts working he will send us a little money each month.”

She told James? Why hadn’t he said anything to me? “He can’t earn enough to support himself and us.”

“I know.” She turned around to reveal feverish eyes and a red face. “We have to sell the house. We have to sell everything.” She blubbered and slumped back onto the writing desk.

I hesitated. “How long have you known about this?”

She buried her head in her arms and muffled her words. “I don’t know.”

“Why did you let us buy mourning toilettes?” I asked. “Why did we have that huge procession? The hand-carved casket? The glass-window viewing carriage? The family plot? All the flowers and food—we didn’t have to do any of that.”

“I don’t know!”

I took several short breaths. “It’s all right. It’s not your fault…but where will we go?”

“My brother.”

“Uncle Robert?” I thought about the tiny house, his stuffy wife, and their two plump children. “Does he have room?”

Her head was still buried in her arms. “James is going to move into a boardinghouse, and we will share a room.”

“The girls?”

“All of us.”

“All of us?” Five women. “One room?”

“We don’t have any other choice.”

She gripped her handkerchief with one hand and clenched the other tightly on top of her lap.

I knelt and took her hands in mine, including the soggy handkerchief.

“I don’t know what else to do.” She sobbed harder. “I can’t take care of you by myself. I can’t do anything.”

“It’s going to be all right.” I looked into her bloodshot eyes. I thought about my father—my promise. “I’ll figure something out. No matter what. I will take care of us.”

I rushed to the Dorrs’ house. The servant asked that I wait in the parlor, a spacious room decorated with rich velvet and animal hides. Although Mr. Richard Dorr worked in the same field as my father had, he had acquired much more wealth. Over the past few months, he’d made it known that my father had helped him start his firm, now a great success. Richard and his wife, Elisa, had been wonderful after the funeral. Even though the rest of my family didn’t know them as well as my father had, they stopped by regularly with various gifts of kindness. Elisa became a steady companion for my mother and saw to the rest of us quite regularly. They made us promise to come to them if we ever needed anything—anything.

Elisa glided into the room. “Emeline?” She had a sickly sweet appearance, feathery hair, and a pink nose.

I tried to greet her without revealing my panic but failed. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do, but I had to—I had to if I wanted to keep my promise.

“What’s wrong? Is everything all right? Where’s your mother?”

“She doesn’t know I’m here.”

“What’s happened?” She motioned to a chair. “Please.”

“I can’t.” I gripped my hands together. “I just can’t bear to be still right now.”

“Emeline, what’s wrong?”

“You said I should come to you if we ever needed anything.”

“Of course.”

“I’m afraid we need a great deal right now.”

“Emeline, tell me, what is the matter?”

“We’ve run out of money.”

“What?”

My cheeks flushed. No one spoke of money in polite company. “We’re bankrupt.”

“But—your father…”

“My mother has never had to handle finances, let alone…She didn’t think. She wanted to honor my father. She—we had that elaborate funeral and procession. The doctor’s bill alone.” I caught Elisa’s eyes. “We have to sell our house.”

Elisa lowered herself into the chair she had offered me, her hand to her chest.

“James is going to move out. My mother is going to take us to her brother’s house.”

“Emeline, I’m so sorry. You know we will do whatever we can to help your family during this time. We can spare a little money, but—”

I shook my head. “That’s not why I’ve come.”

She lifted her gaze.

I inhaled deeply. “Do—”

“Emeline. What gives us the pleasure?” Richard had entered the room wearing a dark blue smoking jacket. He was a tall, slender man with little hair remaining on the top of his head.

“Good afternoon.” I lowered my chin and curled my toes inside my boots. “I’m so sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”

He lowered himself into an oversize chair. “Not at all.” He glanced at his wife and observed her solemn expression. “What’s this about now?” He talked with an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. He pulled out a pack of matches.

“Dear, I’m afraid Emeline and her family are having some troubles.” Elisa leaned forward and glanced at me, unsure whether it was her place to tell him.

Richard ripped off a match and prepared to strike it.

“I’m afraid we have—we’re—the doctor and funeral expenses were too much. We have nothing left.” I paused. “We’re losing our home.”

Richard’s face fell. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

I nodded rigidly.

“Do you need money?”

I shook my head. I knew no loan could be enough to last, and we had no means to repay. I had to ask for much, much more—so much that I had to give something in return, and I had only one thing to give.

“How can we help you?” Elisa clasped her hands.

“There is something you could do.”

“Go on.” Richard struck the match and it burst into a little flame.

“It would help us not just now but long term as well.”

Richard lifted the match to his pipe.

“And I know my father would approve and be eternally grateful.”

“What is it, Emeline?” Elisa asked.

Richard started to puff.

I pursed my lips and exhaled. “Could I marry your son?”

Richard’s pipe drooped.

Elisa brought her hands to her mouth, so only her wide eyes showed.

They must have thought me mad. Like most girls aware of John Dorr, I considered him beyond my reach. He had nearly black hair, which he wore slicked back, and he kept his face clean-shaven, a new trend that revealed his sharp cheekbones. His strange features gave him an almost-sinister type of beauty. An intriguingly handsome man from a well-off family, he should have been taken long ago, but his arduous education and antisocial tendencies gave him rare opportunity for courtship. His parents surely had high expectations of a bride, but the past few months had revealed the extent to which Richard Dorr felt indebted to my father. It wasn’t much, but I had made a promise to do whatever it took.

Richard cringed and rapidly waved the match out. “What?”

I put my hands up. “I know it’s outrageous to ask, but if I were married, I could take some of the pressure off my mother. She wouldn’t have to care for me, and I could send her a little money each month, too. Perhaps they could afford something—a tenement.”

Elisa lowered her hands.

I wondered how they saw me in that moment. Was I still a twenty-three-year-old girl with feathery-fawn hair, a girl who had attended university, who came from a well standing, middle-class family? Or did I appear frazzled, desperate, and poor? I gulped. “I know, I don’t have anything to offer your son or your family, no dowry, but I can offer my promise that I will be the very best wife to him.”

They stared at me, hardly blinking.

“I’ve had no other prospects. I refused suitors while at Grantville.” I failed to restrain my tears as I begged. “If I became a Dorr, I could help my family. You would be rescuing them from destitution.” I stopped myself.

Elisa blinked, her mouth open. “Emeline—I—I don’t know—”

“My father wouldn’t have wanted this for us. Please. I will be the best wife. I will sacrifice for him. I will honor him for the rest of my days. I will do anything to make him happy. Please.”

Elisa’s mouth froze open.

Richard lowered his eyes and then brought them back to me.

“Emeline? I—” Elisa shook her head.

It was too much to ask, and I knew it. I felt my cheeks flush. “But…I understand. I’m sorry. I should never—I—I—have to leave.” I rushed into the foyer, scrambled for my coat, and fumbled with the double doors.

“Emeline, wait!” Elisa said, but I could not stop.

I fled.

I tried to forget my embarrassment for the next few days but relived the scene over and over until my mother approached me Saturday afternoon. She entered the sitting room timidly while I read next to the warm fire. Her voice trembled and her eyes glistened as she informed me that Elisa and Richard Dorr were calling with their son. Her bottom lip trembled and she clenched her hands, unaware of any courtship, unsure of my sentiments. Then I smiled, and she assumed the rest. I watched her body and mind sink with relief for the first time since my father had died. She reached out, clasped my hands, and pulled me off the sofa. “A wedding, my daughter will have a wedding.”

I hopped with her in a little circle until she dropped my hands and started pacing. “It will have to be small, in mourning, of course, and soon, within a month.”

My eyes shot wide open. A month?

“Oh, and with the holidays, but that’s good. It’s good. Everyone should be happy to come for a Christmas ceremony and to see you before you move so far away.”

“Far away?”

“The Dorrs said their son’s job opportunity in Labellum will not wait for any honeymoon, and don’t you worry, I won’t make any problems for you, dear. I won’t say one word. I will make no complaints, even if they don’t want a ceremony at all. I don’t care. You are getting married!” She reached toward me but pulled back and held her hands under her chin, under her growing grin. “Your father would be so proud.”

I nodded along with her assumptions, but inside I wondered, where’s Labellum?