Chapter 4 - The Stray in Whitmore House
Evelyn spent the next morning learning two things.
First, Abigail would not explain the note.
Second, Mrs. Crowley disliked being questioned before coffee.
“Did Percival Harrington ever visit this house?” Evelyn asked.
Mrs. Crowley continued arranging breakfast dishes.
“Once.”
“When?”
“Shortly after Mrs. Whitmore’s funeral.”
“How long did he stay?”
“Three days.”
“And Abigail?”
The housekeeper stopped.
Evelyn noticed.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
Mrs. Crowley’s face hardened.
“You have been mistress of this house for approximately seventy-two hours.”
“Seventy-three.”
“That hardly entitles you to interrogate staff who have served Mr. Whitmore for years.”
Evelyn drew one slow breath.
The old Evelyn might have apologized.
The hungry woman outside the hotel certainly would have.
But she had two children upstairs.
Children who were afraid.
“My title entitles me to nothing,” Evelyn said. “But those girls clung to me while a dog tried to bite them, and they’re clinging to me now because something frightened them long before I arrived.”
Mrs. Crowley said nothing.
“So you can dislike my dress, my manners, my marriage, or the fact that your employer brought home what you called a stray.”
A flicker of shame crossed the older woman’s face.
“But if you know something that helps me protect Abigail and Margaret, you will tell me.”
Mrs. Crowley looked toward the doorway.
Then lowered her voice.
“Mr. Harrington arrived four days after the funeral.”
Evelyn waited.
“He insisted the girls should return east with him.”
“Josiah refused.”
“Nearly threw him from the house.”
That sounded plausible.
“What happened with Abigail?”
Mrs. Crowley’s hands tightened around the napkin she held.
“I found her hiding beneath her mother’s desk after he left.”
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t say.”
Mrs. Crowley looked at her.
“The girls had already stopped speaking after their mother died.”
“Was Abigail frightened of Percival before?”
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn did.
Or at least she suspected.
“Where is Clara’s desk?”
The housekeeper hesitated.
“Her sitting room.”
“Show me.”
The room had been locked for fourteen months.
Josiah carried the key.
Evelyn asked him for it that afternoon.
“No.”
They stood in his study.
Evelyn crossed her arms.
“That was quick.”
“That room stays closed.”
“Abigail hid beneath Clara’s desk after Percival visited.”
Josiah stopped writing.
“Who told you?”
“Mrs. Crowley.”
His expression darkened.
“Why did no one tell me?”
“Maybe because everyone around you is terrified of adding weight to a man already carrying a mountain.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
Evelyn raised one eyebrow.
“Then unlock the room.”
His jaw tightened.
For several seconds neither moved.
Finally, Josiah opened a drawer.
He removed a brass key.
The hallway seemed colder as they approached Clara’s sitting room.
Josiah unlocked it.
Dust floated in afternoon sunlight.
Everything remained exactly as Clara had left it.
Books.
Embroidery.
A shawl across a chair.
Pressed flowers on the windowsill.
Josiah stood at the threshold.
He could not enter.
Evelyn saw immediately.
She did not shame him.
“I can go alone.”
“No.”
He stepped inside.
Pain transformed his face.
Evelyn looked away to give him privacy.
She approached the desk.
There were drawers.
Letters.
Writing paper.
A locked compartment.
Abigail had hidden underneath.
Evelyn crouched.
At first she saw nothing.
Then she noticed scratches beneath the desk.
Small.
Repeated.
Not random.
Letters.
Someone had carved them into the wood.
Evelyn leaned closer.
J.
H.
Then a crooked line.
Josiah crouched beside her.
“What is it?”
She pointed.
His expression hardened.
“Could Abigail have done that?”
“Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
Evelyn touched the marks.
“I don’t know.”
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Abigail stood in the doorway.
Her eyes locked onto the scratches.
Then she began shaking.
Evelyn rose immediately.
“Sweetheart.”
Abigail stepped backward.
“No one is angry.”
The girl looked toward Josiah.
Then at the desk.
Then turned and ran.
Josiah moved.
Evelyn caught his arm.
“Don’t chase her.”
“She’s afraid.”
“Exactly.”
He stopped.
Evelyn followed Abigail slowly.
She found the child beneath her own bed.
Evelyn sat on the floor.
She did not reach underneath.
“When I was nine,” she said, “I broke my mother’s blue serving dish.”
Silence.
“It was ugly.”
A pause.
“I hated that dish.”
Two frightened eyes appeared beneath the bed.
“I buried the pieces beneath the chicken coop.”
Abigail blinked.
“For three weeks my mother accused my father of misplacing it.”
A tiny change in the girl’s expression.
“Eventually I confessed.”
Evelyn sighed.
“She made me dig up every piece and apologize to my father.”
Abigail edged closer.
“The point is… adults don’t always know what happened.”
The child watched.
“And sometimes children keep secrets because they think secrets protect people.”
Abigail’s eyes filled.
Evelyn lowered her voice.
“But some secrets get heavier the longer you carry them.”
A tear slid across Abigail’s nose.
“You don’t have to tell me today.”
Another tear.
“But whenever you’re ready, I will believe you.”
Abigail crawled from beneath the bed.
She threw herself into Evelyn.
Evelyn held her.
Outside the doorway, unseen by either of them, Josiah stood listening.
That evening the seamstress returned.
Her name was Mrs. Lovell.
Her behavior had changed dramatically.
“Mrs. Whitmore,” she said with forced sweetness.
Evelyn smiled.
“Still not a tentmaker?”
The woman turned scarlet.
Mrs. Crowley nearly dropped a stack of linens.
Evelyn did not need Josiah to fight every battle.
She preferred this one herself.
Mrs. Lovell fitted her for three dresses.
Evelyn chose practical cuts.
No excessive ruffles.
No ridiculous corseting.
When the seamstress suggested dark colors were “more forgiving,” Evelyn replied:
“I have nothing to apologize for. Make the blue.”
Josiah heard about that later.
He found Evelyn in the library.
“I’m told you frightened Mrs. Lovell.”
“I chose blue.”
“Apparently with violence.”
“I was very firm about sleeves.”
He sat opposite her.
A silence settled.
Comfortable this time.
Then he said, “Thank you.”
“For terrorizing the seamstress?”
“For Abigail.”
Evelyn looked down at her book.
“She needs time.”
“I’ve given them fourteen months.”
“No. You’ve given grief fourteen months.”
He absorbed that.
Then the front bell rang.
Samuel Reed arrived carrying a stack of documents.
He looked grim.
“The hearing has been moved.”
Josiah stood.
“When?”
“Three days after Harrington arrives.”
“That was expected.”
“This isn’t.”
Samuel placed a document on the desk.
“He has witnesses.”
“Who?”
Samuel looked at Evelyn.
“The hotel manager.”
Her stomach tightened.
“The restaurant owner who refused you.”
Another page.
“The seamstress who declined to employ you last week.”
Evelyn went cold.
“They’re going after me.”
Samuel nodded.
“They intend to argue Josiah married an unsuitable woman solely to manipulate the custody proceedings.”
Josiah’s voice dropped.
“He did.”
Everyone looked at him.
He continued.
“I married her because of the hearing. That part is true.”
Evelyn’s chest tightened unexpectedly.
Of course it was true.
She knew that.
So why did hearing it hurt?
Samuel continued.
“They’ll make her poverty the issue. Education. Family background. Reputation.”
“She has no reputation.”
“Then they’ll create one.”
Evelyn stood.
“Let them.”
Josiah looked at her.
She folded the newspaper article closed.
“I have been insulted by better people while hungrier than I am now.”
Samuel stared.
Evelyn smiled without humor.
“If Mr. Harrington wants to explain to a judge why being poor makes me dangerous to children, I would very much like to hear him try.”
For the first time, Samuel smiled.
Then a servant entered.
“Mr. Whitmore?”
“Yes?”
“There is a woman at the back entrance asking for Mrs. Whitmore.”
Evelyn frowned.
“Me?”
“She says she knew your mother.”
Every trace of confidence disappeared from Evelyn’s face.
“My mother has been dead twelve years.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s her name?”
The servant looked uneasy.
“She won’t say.”
Evelyn and Josiah exchanged a glance.
The woman waiting outside would bring Evelyn the first piece of a history she never knew existed.
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And it would connect the penniless orphan from Kansas to the Harrington family in a way nobody in Whitmore House could possibly have expected.
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