Chapter 19 Abby

19

ABBY

Abby spent the night before Thanksgiving in a restless sleep, her legs tangled in her damp sheets.

She fell, hard, from what felt like a great height: in her dream she’d been perched on a high table, splayed on a platter like roasted fowl, Mrs. Van Cleve and Miss Rhoades hovering about her with knives, prepared to carve her up. She sat up gasping, still in her bed, and glad she and Junius had long been sleeping in separate chambers. She reached for the little German clock on her nightstand: just past four in the morning.

She went to her dressing table to pour a glass of water and lit the lamp. In the amber light, her gray hair hanging loose past her shoulders, she studied her reflection in the looking glass. Her scant brows formed a troubled peak above the bridge of her nose. All her life she’d longed to resemble her dear mother, but it was her father’s face that stared back at her in the mirror, weathered and wrinkled; while his visage had been battered by the sea, Abby’s was mottled from years of worry.

She closed her eyes, listening for the still, small voice. When at last she heard it, she nodded.

Faith should attend the holiday supper with the other girls. Little harm could come from that. The next morning, however, Abby would have to turn the girl over to the police. When she’d undertaken this work, she’d promised herself to be firm but kind. To be firm was to be kind. The two were inextricable.

The frown in her forehead had slackened. Perhaps the police would determine that Faith had had nothing to do with Priscilla Black’s death, and the girl could come home.

In any case, it wasn’t up to Abby to decide.

—

After she made her resolution, she felt better. She even enjoyed hosting the tea reception in advance of Thanksgiving dinner, which usually drained her; she preferred not to spend so much time on her feet. With their guests—four couples, all longtime benefactors, plus Officer Nye and his wife—she admired the needlepoint and embroidered linens the seamstress had put on display in the parlor, the sleeping babies lined up in their snowy cots. One of their guests was a judge, someone Abby had petitioned on many occasions to sign adoption papers for a child born at the Bethany Home. He made a light joke that one day he might see one of these infants in court, and she let herself titter with him and his wife, even as the comment broke a corner of her heart.

Longing for a different conversation, she caught Euphemia’s eye from across the room and smiled. Abby was starting to make her way over to her friend, itching to tell her what she’d decided, to remove the burden of Faith’s presence from Euphemia’s shoulders as well, when Cook rang the dinner bell.

“Please, join us for a feast of gratitude in the drawing room,” Abby said, gesturing toward the doors that were now being swung open by two of the inmates.

As hostess, Abby stood back, allowing the guests to find their seats at the long table. The inmates stood in a circle around the edges of the room, waiting for the blessing, after which they’d enjoy their own meal in the dining room downstairs. Junius gave her a light kiss on the cheek and a nod of approval as he went in to sit down; Abby was ready to follow him when she felt a hand tap her shoulder.

It was Charlotte, her round glasses still fogged from the cold. She’d arrived late, which was uncharacteristic. “Abby, a word.” Her thin mouth formed a single agitated line.

“Dinner’s about to begin. Can it wait?”

Charlotte shook her head. She crooked her finger, drawing Abby into the foyer, the heels of her boots leaving wet horseshoe prints on the tasseled rug. Abby nodded for the inmates to let the drawing room doors close behind them.

Charlotte skipped the formalities. “I’ve just been on the telephone with a reporter at the Representative, about a story they’re running tomorrow. An exposé about the Bethany Home.”

“Oh, no,” said Abby. A wave of pain shot through her chest.

“They’re claiming we’ve imprisoned at least one woman here, that we’re keeping her against her will.” She lifted her ear horn, plugged it into her left, the better one, and turned it to Abby. “Tell me it isn’t true, Abby. Tell me you haven’t locked away one of the inmates.”

Any good feeling she’d been enjoying these last few hours drained from Abby. The Representative was a respectable newspaper. People took it seriously.

“It certainly isn’t true,” she said into Charlotte’s ear horn. “We’ve moved Faith Johnson to the tower room, after a disturbance with one of the other inmates. She’s as free to leave as any other.” She couldn’t tell Charlotte the true reason she’d moved Faith to the tower—how could she confess to allowing a suspected murderer to remain here? Even worse, to inviting said murderer to join everyone for tonight’s meal?

“The source is said to be anonymous,” said Charlotte. “Someone with close ties to the home. Someone with access to a telephone.”

Abby tsked. “Anonymous? Could be any liar.”

“Our reputations are on the line, Mrs. Mendenhall. Not only that of the Bethany Home, at which I’m told the new mayor will take a hard look. But yours, even mine. If word gets around that I’m party to imprisonment…”

Abby pressed her lips together so tightly it made her chin hurt. Charlotte had always fretted more about her personal reputation than did Abby or Euphemia. She had to. Her modest fortune had been earned through speeches and personal celebrity, whereas the Mendenhalls and Overlocks could rely on familial wealth. Charlotte had pointed out on more than one occasion that Abby and Euphemia had the luxury of caring about individual inmates more than Charlotte could. She had to consider, primarily, the well-being of the institution as a whole. A blot on the Bethany Home’s reputation would damage Charlotte’s livelihood in a way Abby could scarcely comprehend. The Sisterhood thus existed in fragile symbiosis: the home needed both Charlotte’s renown and fund-raising prowess and Abby’s and Euphemia’s day-to-day work with the inmates in order to survive.

Abby hurried to take Charlotte’s arm. “Enough catastrophizing. We’re needed at dinner.”

Charlotte hesitated, fixing Abby with one small brown eye, magnified behind its round lens. “Are you sure there isn’t something you’re not telling me?”

“Quite. Come, now. We mustn’t keep our guests waiting.”

As she entered the drawing room, Abby’s eyes took a quick dart around the walls, searching for Faith. She was there, Abby noted with some relief, looking presentable, her dark hair plaited in a crown from ear to ear. She leaned around the girl beside her, craning her neck at someone: May, Abby realized, following Faith’s line of sight. Faith bobbed and ducked her head, trying to catch May’s attention without saying a word. Yet May didn’t notice, or pretended not to; she stared down at the table, a glazed, fixed look in her eyes.

Abby pulled her chair in at the head of the table. The guests, and the inmates, looked to her expectantly; as hostess, she’d be the first to eat, although she’d lost her appetite. She tried to forget what Charlotte had just told her, instead taking in the picture as an outsider would: the lovely young women of the Bethany Home, their faces scrubbed pink and calico dresses brushed clean. The inmates had decorated the drawing room with boughs of autumnal grasses tied in russet ribbons, with gourds and white pumpkins strewn over the creamy tablecloth. In the flickering candlelight, warm against the pewter clouds gathering beyond the tall windows, the girls’ faces looked serene—ethereal even—as if they were a choir of angels surrounding the table.

Charlotte’s husband, Lieutenant Van Cleve, stood to deliver the blessing, and the inmates and guests bowed their heads. Words trumpeted from Horatio’s mouth—he, like Charlotte, was a gifted orator—though Abby heard none of them. She’d never been much for Presbyterian table-graces, their rote nature, the way your mind wandered as you listened to someone recite familiar and thus meaningless words. She preferred the Quaker moment of silence before a meal, which allowed for reflection.

She took a deep breath in through her nose, eyes closed. Today was Thanksgiving. A line came to her, from Thessalonians: In every thing give thanks . What did that mean? Deep down, she still felt like a bad child; she’d never understood why she must always be grateful. What was there to thank God for, when her life’s work might soon collapse around her? If the new mayor shut down the Bethany Home, would she be expected to bow in appreciation if she had to send all thirty-seven of these women, some of them far gone in pregnancy, to the nuns in St. Paul or, much worse, the workhouse?

“Mrs. Mendenhall.”

Euphemia, seated two places to Abby’s left, squeezed Abby’s arm, and she opened her eyes. She’d kept them closed far too long; the blessing had ended, and everyone, it seemed, was looking at her. A bowl of mock-turtle soup had materialized on her plate. The inmates were already filing from the room, excited murmurs traveling through them like a current, their bellies no doubt growling for the meal. Faith, Abby was glad to see, had already gone downstairs.

“Is everything all right?” Euphemia whispered.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Abby said in a low voice, and she smiled benignly at their company and picked up her spoon, tilted it into the broth, and lifted it to her lips to sip. A relieved ripple traveled down the table as everyone followed suit, silver flashing, conversation picking up. Junius stared at Abby a little longer, frowning, before turning to his bowl.

The soup was good, a testament to Cook’s talent: the dark broth rich and complex, the meat tenderly cooked. As Abby’s belly filled, she felt brought back to her senses. She set her spoon down and took a sip of tea. Euphemia was engaged in a lively conversation with the man sitting between them, something about banking.

She caught Abby’s eye. “I was just telling Mr. Edwards about the money one of our girls came in with, the counterfeit bills. He says he’s come across some as well.”

Abby studied Mr. Edwards, who’d once worked for her husband’s bank and had since started his own. A stout man with very little neck, he’d never been someone Abby particularly enjoyed talking to, though he gave generously to the Bethany Home. He pointed a thick finger in her direction. “You know, you should hand over that money to the police.” A sprig of the soup’s tarragon stuck out between two of his teeth.

Abby was about to reply when a snippet of another conversation pricked her ears. She’d heard the name Priscilla Black. In the middle of the table, Officer Nye was seated beside Charlotte, who’d set down her fork to hold up her ear horn.

“…likely one of her own girls who committed the crime,” he was saying. “But they scattered, after her disappearance, and they haven’t been easy to track down.”

He lowered his voice. Abby couldn’t hear what he said next, especially when Mr. Edwards launched into a lecture on free silver and the gold standard, peppered with Euphemia’s polite replies. But she could see Charlotte nodding thoughtfully, listening to whatever Nye had to say, staring, all the while, straight at Abby.