The Daring Ladies of Lowell (3 page)

“I want to be independent. To be on my own and do things I choose to do,” Alice said. “I never fit in on the farm. Some of the neighbors in our village were glad to see me go.”

“Why?”

“I made them nervous. Once I took a single board and a rope and fixed it so I could swing from a tree out over a cliff. It was glorious, until the landlord’s daughter tried it and the rope broke.”

“I hope this story doesn’t have a bad end.”

Alice smiled. “I grabbed her; we slid down the side of the cliff a short way, but we were fine.”

“And you lived to tempt fate another day.”

“I left, truly, because I couldn’t bear it anymore. I had a suitor, but he was too content with his lot for me. Marrying him meant never leaving farm life. I heard about the mill, and I knew it was going to be the only way I could escape, but…” She paused. Memories of that last night at home were excruciating. Her father had ordered her to stay, shouting from the kitchen even as she packed. Yes, he had lost the blacksmith shop. Yes, he was a miserable farmer, but it was her duty to stay, he said.

She couldn’t.

“My father said he would be ruined financially if I didn’t stay and marry Jebediah.”

“So you ran. Maybe we are a little alike.”

Alice hugged her knees close and bowed her head. “I told my father I could help better by working in the mill, but I don’t think he will ever forgive me.”

“Do you think about what you want after this?” Lovey asked, nodding toward the mill.

Alice nodded. Most people would laugh, but she sensed Lovey would not. “It’s just a dream, but I want to paint, even sculpt, someday,” she said.

“What does that feel like?” Lovey asked almost shyly.

“It’s hard to explain—but I love holding a brush, dipping it into pots of color, touching it to paper or canvas, and seeing something appear, something I made, nobody else.” It didn’t have to be painting in front of an easel; she would bargain with fate on that.

“How do you get time?”

“At night, when my father was sleeping. I would make cameos.” She drew in a deep breath. “I love making cameos, catching the light just right, making someone’s face come alive. Maybe, even if I’m not good enough, I could teach children to paint, to reach out, to hold a brush with confidence—oh, I’m talking too much.”

“No, no, I love hearing about it. Now, if you’re teaching those children, be sure to tell them not to let anyone, man or woman, tell them they’re wasting their time.”

Alice laughed. “I will. Now, what about you?”

“I want what I lost,” Lovey said, almost dreamily. “There was a man, and I was quite sure we were going to be married; he had proposed, after all. But I made a dreadful mistake. He left me, decrying the fact that I was no longer a virgin.” Her words were without inflection. “It was a scandal at home. My father said, ‘You learned your lesson too late. No man will buy a cow if he can get the milk for free.’ Fancy that, he called me a
cow.
”

“What a cruel and stupid thing to say!”

“Well, thank you,” Lovey replied, casting Alice a slightly surprised but gratified smile. “Many people would agree with him.”

“Could you defend yourself?”

“Not very well. I’ve had more practice since.”

The distance between them seemed to be shrinking. She could confide her own remembered blows here. “When I was a child, my father kept saying I would come to a bad end if I didn’t stop fighting him.”

“Well, and here you are,” Lovey said merrily. “I’ll tell you a secret. I write my mother letters, and she never writes back.”

“Is she sick?”

“No, she just doesn’t care.”

“That’s worse than terrible,” Alice said. Lovey’s mood had darkened so abruptly, she wondered if she was about to cry. But no, just a long sigh, and the two girls sat for a while again in companionable silence.

“I want other things, too. I don’t know, I like to punch little holes in puffed-up people.” Lovey flashed a wry smile. “Now there’s a plan for life, wouldn’t you say?”

“Of course. You could run for president, maybe.”

This time they chuckled in unison. Then Lovey said something unexpected. “Do you think bad girls are redeemable?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“I’m not religious at all. I don’t think anyone’s going to hell, if that’s what you mean,” Alice said. Coming to that decision had started another argument with her father last year; hard to tell which one was the final spark that had sent her packing for Lowell.

“I rather like the Methodists better than the Calvinists on that sort of thing; at least they offer salvation. The others, you probably know how
they
are—bad is bad, and no redemption. Poor old Mary-o is enthralled with those new revivalists who like to dance themselves into a frenzy praising God. People are swooning over their preachers. She talked me into going to one of their camp meetings last month.”

“What was it like?” The Methodists Alice knew back home cluck-clucked about the self-proclaimed revivalists roaming through New England who claimed church membership; either that or made jokes about them.

“Much hollering and singing. I promised to go again, mainly because of the preacher, very intense. He’s intelligent, more than you can say of most of them. Poor Mary-o, she thinks she’s making progress trying to convert me. I haven’t the heart to tell her it won’t work.” The laughter again; that sound of bubbling water. “Want to come with us?”

Alice hesitated. She had had quite enough religious fervor from her father. “I don’t know, I’ll think about it.”

“Fine, let’s not stay so serious,” Lovey said, jumping to her feet. “Let’s go inside and sing along with Mary-o’s piano playing.” She cupped an ear to the sound of the piano. “My heavens, I think we’re hearing ‘Rise Gentle Moon’ for the hundredth time; she loves that one.” She gathered her skirts, adding with another laugh, “I’m not really making fun; I’m very fond of Mary. She’s a decent sort and no hypocrite.”

She stopped, her hand on the front doorknob. “So?” she asked, glancing up at the moon. “Do you see the man and the woman?”

Alice smiled, her spirits up. “Yes,” she said. “I see them.”

“Good, I would have been a bit worried if you hadn’t. Isn’t it nice that somewhere, if not here, people can be in love?”

T
he week went by slowly, so slowly Alice at times despaired. Her aching arms and burning feet grew worse each day as she struggled to master working the loom. The ringing in her ears from the constant clatter and banging of the machines wouldn’t stop. Thirteen long hours a day. Yet her determination was building as she watched the other girls. She would become as good as they were; she would train herself, and soon she would be able to handle six looms at a time, too. Every day she carefully cleaned away the wispy particles of cotton and dust from her loom, wishing only that she could open a window to clear them from the air. Impossible, she was told. The air had to remain moist inside or the cotton would dry out, and anyone who opened a window ran the risk of being fired.

At night it was back to the boardinghouse for beans, pancakes, applesauce; finally, sleep. Sometimes the girls went straight to bed, but most lingered in the parlor. Alice, claiming a rocker, began rereading her mother’s old copy of Sir Walter Scott’s
Ivanhoe,
too tired to take on more than a few pages at a time. But she always managed to thumb through
The Lowell Offering.
Stories, poems—it made her proud to be a mill girl.

The best moments were sitting out on the porch with Lovey. She was filled with funny, mocking stories that made Alice laugh and forget her aching muscles. They discovered they both hated plums and loved the color blue, and they both had once excelled at doing cartwheels. On the fourth day, Lovey challenged Alice to a contest on the frozen grass, to see who could do the most cartwheels in succession. With laughter and clapping from the other girls gathered on the porch—and ignoring her burning feet and aching arms—Alice won. Oh, how free it felt!

And every night she would drift off to sleep to the sound of Jane murmuring prayers, of Tilda’s knitting needles clicking long past lights-out, of Delia, her head still covered in a cap, snoring faintly with her little sister cradled in one arm. Since the accident, the child would sleep only with her sister, never apart.

Alice felt a measure of new contentment. Just a drop at a time, but it was real.

F
inally, payday. When the closing whistle shrieked on Saturday at noon, Alice shut down her loom, awash in relief. She had done well. Now came the reward. A buoyancy of spirit swept the room. Laughing and joking, the girls shoved cold hands into the pockets of their coats and half ran out of the mill, across the bridge, heading toward the stairs of the Boott Boardinghouse. The lights were on in the parlor. Their precious time off had arrived.

“Look!” Mary-o spread her arms up to the sky. “It’s snowing!”

Small flakes of snow were indeed drifting lazily to the ground.

“Ah,” Lovey said, tipping her face to the sky as the snow began falling faster. “Fancy this, the Fiskes have ordered a March snowfall to dress the town up!”

Tilda gave a rich chortle, leaned down, cupped a handful of flakes into a meager ball, and threw it at Lovey. “But we make the snowballs!” she cried.

And then in an instant they were all laughing and ducking and running for the porch—a group of girls who, Alice realized to her delighted surprise, had somehow not forgotten how to play.

W
ithin an hour the short flurry of snow had turned the ground to mud, bringing moans of frustration from the puddle-jumping girls as they walked together into town.

Alice drank in everything. To the right of the road, there was a small park carved out of rolling terrain with picnic tables and benches. A child’s rocking horse, its colors faded, stood still, waiting for spring. Just past the park was a school, another building fashioned solidly from red brick. Next to it rose the white steeple of a church—could this be Saint Anne’s? Alice looked questioningly at Lovey, who nodded, not even needing to hear the question.

The closer they got to town, the busier the road grew. Carriages with drivers seated high, smartly cracking whips with a light touch, clattered by. A cluster of women in crisp suits and hats was gathered around a small pastry shop, examining its wares through a glass window. The door was open, and the fragrance of freshly baked bread wafted through the street. Across from the pastry shop was a pharmacy, its mortar-and-pestle sign so shiny and bright, it could have come directly from the U.S. Mint. In fact, the entire town looked new and vigorous, and all faces were as bright as the glittering signs and storefronts.

Alice inhaled deeply, not joining the grumbles from the other girls about the mud. She was here, finally, in the town of Lowell, the magical place girls whispered about back home. She was part of it now, with a week’s wages in her pocket.

Lovey abruptly gave her a hard nudge.

“Look, over there, by the bank,” she said.

Alice followed her gaze and saw two men standing in front of the arched stone entrance of the imposing Fiske Bank, nodding greetings to the mill workers filing past them into the grand building. Even from a distance, the taller man had a large, well-carved face and exuded a gravity of manner. He wore a black greatcoat with velvet buttons and carried his hat in his hand, revealing dark, well-trimmed sideburns. He stood stiff as a soldier, bobbing slightly as the mill girls passed by.

The younger man couldn’t have been more different. He had a ruddy complexion, displaying broad shoulders under his linen shirt and wide green cravat as, coatless, he exchanged hearty greetings with men in the crowd.

“The one with the coat is Samuel, and the cheerful-looking one is Jonathan,” Lovey said. “I don’t think they like each other much, but the family trots them out together to make everybody feel grateful once in a while. Aren’t you lucky? You get to see both of them at the same time. Now watch this.”

Grabbing Alice’s hand, Lovey quickened her step and marched up the steps of the bank. “Good morning, Mr. Fiske,” she said with almost-languorous ease to the man in the linen shirt, twirling her parasol. “You do remember me, I presume?”

Jonathan Fiske seemed startled but almost instantly flashed her a smile. “Of course,” he said with a slight bow. “Do remind me, where have we met?”

“Nowhere, actually. But you have on several occasions winked at me.”

A quick guffaw, a sly glance in his brother’s direction, then a move closer to Lovey. “Well, I shall do so again. No harm in winking, right? And who’s your friend?”

“This is Alice, new to the town. Feel free to wink at her, too, from time to time.”

A mortified Alice tried to pull free, but Lovey held firm to her hand, a reckless light in her eyes. Her bit of theater was drawing attention. Townspeople glanced over their shoulders, then bent their heads together, whispering. Heads were shaking; here and there a snicker.

“It appears this young lady wants to enter the bank,” said Samuel Fiske, his deep voice cutting through the murmurings as he looked toward Alice.

“Indeed, I want to open an account,” Alice said, freeing her hand from Lovey’s and tipping her chin high. She felt sharply aware of her faded coat with its threadbare collar.

“Well, then, welcome. We certainly won’t stand in your way.” Samuel Fiske opened the massive carved door and gave her a stiff little bow, his manner, she imagined, like that of a host ushering a customer into a tearoom. She caught a flash in his eyes as he shot a cold glance at his younger brother.

“Just having a bit of fun,” Jonathan said, annoyed, his flirtatious grin disappearing. He turned back to Lovey, leaned down, and whispered something in her ear.

“W
hy did you do that to me?” Alice said furiously after Lovey later joined her inside.

“It was just a lark—my goodness, are you really upset? I’m sorry, I feel like tweaking their noses every now and then. What’s wrong with a little flirting?”

“Not with them. We
work
for them.”

“So what? I like surprising the important men of industry.”