The Daring Ladies of Lowell (32 page)
Read The Daring Ladies of Lowell Online
Authors: Kate Alcott
“I seem to be always asking if you will walk with me,” he said quietly.
She shivered, clinging to the swing chain. “Did you come to see your grandmother?” she managed.
“Yes. And now I’m here to see you. Am I welcome?”
His voice was calm—not anguished, not defensive. How she had hungered to hear it again.
“I watched you leave from Lowell last year.”
“I know. I saw you standing there, across the street.”
She trembled at that. “Then why are you here?”
“My grandmother made the point that I shouldn’t open a new door without first closing this one firmly first.”
What new one, she wanted to ask. But she knew. Close the door, slam it, hurry, she thought. I can’t be here, next to you once again, and bear it much longer.
“I read your piece,” he said. “I thought it was an eloquent tribute to your friend.” He willed her to move forward, away from the swing, closer to him. This was a last shot; he knew it.
“Thank you, I’m sure your father isn’t happy about it.”
“Probably not, but I don’t want to talk about him. I’d like to tell you about what I’m doing.”
“Please, Samuel, I don’t think I can chat as if we’re just friends,” she said.
He could hear the pain in her voice, and his heart jumped. He hadn’t been wrong to come. She did still care.
“I’m not part of Lowell anymore, Alice. I love Baltimore. It’s young and exuberant, not tight and exclusionary like New England. I’ve set up a law practice, and I’m doing well.”
“And you are courting Lydia Corland.”
“Courting?” He was silent for a moment. “Far from it. Damn it, Alice, will you tell me if it is truly all over for you? I have to know. I’ve made no promises or proposal, and I am not marrying anyone until I do know.”
“You left me standing on the sidewalk; you knew I was there.” She started to cry. Watching him leave Lowell that night, taking with him all that had been locked in her heart, had been so fully and finally an ending.
“Alice, you didn’t know
why
you were there. I understood that; I knew if I walked over to you, if I told you again how much I loved you, you would have pushed me away.”
It was true. She could have called out to him, too—but there had been nothing to say.
“I have but one question for you,” he said. “Where are you now?”
One chance. She could almost feel Lovey encouraging her, prodding her to reach out for what she wanted. “I love you,” she said. “I have loved you for so long.”
“Oh, my darling, then stop being afraid.”
She searched for the right words, but they would not come. And then it didn’t matter; there were no right words. She took a step forward, letting go of the chain.
“Samuel, will you take a walk with me?” she said.
While this story is wholly fictional, the bones are true. There was a real Sarah Cornell, a young mill girl whose brutal murder in 1832 sparked a sensational trial, causing an uproar throughout New England. The fact that the suspected murderer—who was named Ephraim Avery—was part of a burgeoning evangelical camp movement set the stage for confrontation between religious groups fearing scandal and the industrialist mill owners—whose reputations depended on protecting the farm girls who flocked to their mills. This came at a time when their own workers were becoming restive and angry about low pay and dangerous working conditions. The atmosphere was volatile.
The Lowell textile mill was not the only one operating in the 1830s. Francis Cabot Lowell’s prodigious memory had made it possible for him to bring the British secrets of machine-made fabric back to the United States years earlier. Capitalists had bought land and water rights in 1821, and the first textile mill was built in 1823.
That’s where reality ends and fiction begins.
Fiske was a common name at that time, but my Fiske family is purely fictional.
And although I have used much of the actual testimony from the murder trial of the Reverend Ephraim Avery, and several of the real names of those who testified, I have compressed some geography and time frames in the interest of the story.
The Lowell Offering,
for example, did not begin publication until 1840—but there was indeed a “Mill Girl Manifesto,” submitted by an anonymous young woman who knew something about demanding her rights.
Lovey would have been proud of that.
Kate Alcott
Once again, I gratefully tip my hat to a loyal group of friends who read patiently and tell it like it is: Irene Wurtzel, Judith Viorst, Margaret Power, Ellen Goodman, Linda Cashdan, and my sister, Mary Dillon.
High-fives to you, Esther Newberg, you are a dream agent.
And Melissa Danaczko, nobody edits with the wit, exuberance, and ferocity that you do. You are a dream editor.
Frank, always to you. Friend, husband, critic: you are all of it, rolled into one. No dreams, just reality.
Kate Alcott is a journalist who has covered politics in Washington, D.C., where she currently lives.
Other titles by Kate Alcott available in eBook format:
The Dressmaker
• 978-0-385-53562-5
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