Chapter 2 May

2

MAY

S omeone to care for. Someone who needed her. It was all May Lombard had ever wanted, though in her dreams her dependents took the form of a doting husband and an array of children, not a bedraggled, silent wretch who’d crawled here from God knows where.

The afternoon Faith arrived to take over half her room, May had found a spare moment to work on her embroidery, a cheroot cigar case, which she sat busily embellishing with a pair of mallard ducks. She had given careful thought to the design: subtly romantic—a drake and a hen with wings crossed—yet masculine enough so that Hal would be well pleased.

May still found it bewildering that she’d ended up here, at the Bethany Home, among girls with all manner of tragic backgrounds and circumstances. Her own trouble had started in the most honest way possible. Her late father, who made what he proclaimed were the finest leather shoes in the Midwest, had chosen the youngest son of their closest neighbors, the Riccis (of Ricci it was why her mother would never let her come home unless she’d found a husband. Enzo, unfortunately, was long since off the market. Hitching one’s wagon to an eligible bachelor was not an easy task when one lived in a home with thirty-some other women, but May was resourceful. Though no male visitors were ever allowed upstairs, or in the nursery, she kept her room tidy and cheerful, a bowl of wildflowers on the sill when she could get them, floor swept, and baseboards dusted. She even washed the white curtains that billowed around her window, so they wouldn’t turn drab and yellow, or gray and cobwebby.

Sometimes, when she had a spare moment, she’d take the others’ curtains down and wash and iron those, too. Incredibly, the other inmates never bothered to thank her for this effort. They seemed annoyed, in fact. Many of the girls here had worked in some of the houses of ill fame that lined the Mississippi. The very thought of it made May shudder, but she tried to remember that not everyone was raised in a home like hers, where her mother taught her to respect her elders and the space in which she lived, to be a good steward to God’s Earth. Her father educated her to be kind, gregarious, helpful to her neighbors. May had never once poked fun at a resident of the Bethany Home, no matter how disheveled or feebleminded she seemed, nor had she whispered behind the back of her hand about how ugly so-and-so’s baby was, the way Pearl and her nasty lot liked to do. They were all God’s children, after all, no matter what they’d done before they got here, and deserved a clean slate. Especially the babies. Nothing any of their mothers had done was the babies’ fault.

“How sweet.”

May jumped, knocking her embroidery hoop to the floor; the thread unspooled, her needle lost somewhere in her skirts. Pearl—the most beautiful girl here, but as mean as they come—stood at the door to May’s room. The pearl of great price.

“Land sakes, Pearl.” May began wrapping the loose thread quickly round her embroidery so that Pearl wouldn’t comment on it. “You could learn to knock.”

“Who’s that for? Wait, let me guess.”

Sighing, May stood, and the missing needle fell to the floor with a pixie plink . She went to her mattress and knelt before it as though she were in confessional, Pearl watching, smug now in her silence. From under her mattress May retrieved her eyelet handkerchief and unwound a snippet of Mail Pouch tobacco. Stolen from Cook, daily, for Pearl, who also worked in the kitchen but had found a way to make May do her dirty work. She handed it to Pearl, who tucked it into her own handkerchief with one finger.

“Thank you, Miss Lombard, how kind of you,” Pearl said, patting her pocket.

May took a deep, long breath in through her nose, the way the matron had taught her. She shut her eyes, briefly, and imagined she sat alone in a peaceful maple grove.

“Don’t let them get your goat,” Miss Rhoades liked to say, but she didn’t know what Pearl held over May. Hal, May’s beau, had no idea May lived in the Bethany Home, and she needed Pearl to help her keep it that way.

“I came to warn you,” Pearl said. “The matron’s on her way. She has a present for you.”

“A present?”

“A bunkmate.”

May’s heart sank. She could hear the matron climbing the curved staircase to the second floor. It had been weeks since she’d shared her room with someone, and she looked now at the other narrow bed, which she’d covered in needlepoint pillows and a soft blanket, a makeshift love seat where she could do her sewing or fold her laundry.

If only Pearl would go away, take her prying, perfect nose back to her room across the hall. Trip, for good measure, and land flat on her face. But that was an evil thought; May tried to push it down as she shuffled everything from the other bed to her own, leaving the bare mattress exposed. She gathered her embroidery from the floor—the needle nowhere to be found—and heaped it atop her desk. Terrible, an awful mess: she’d give a slatternly first impression, and that simply wouldn’t do.

“Do you mind—” she began to snap at Pearl, but Pearl had vanished, and standing in her place were Miss Rhoades and some sort of horrifying creature.

“Miss Lombard,” Miss Rhoades said crisply, “this is Miss Faith Johnson.”

Not her real name, of course; the place was crawling with Smiths and Johnsons. Despite her horror at the newcomer’s appearance, May curtsied. “How do you do?”

Faith did not answer, only gave May a small nod. Her hair was a wreck, damp and tangled, undone, but that wasn’t the worst part: she wore a bright purple gown, a color suited exclusively for a king or a queen. Here in this plain white room, it could only be a strumpet’s color, a beacon of shame. When May closed her eyes, she could still see it tattooed on her eyelids, like a mark left by the sun. With it came unspeakable images of what this girl might have done to get herself sent here.

“Oh my, Miss Rhoades,” May said, gesturing toward the new girl as if to say, What do we do with her?

Miss Rhoades offered a weak smile. “Faith just arrived this afternoon and will be sharing your room. Won’t you help her feel welcome?”

May swallowed the lump in her throat and went to her dresser, the one she’d now have to split with Faith. “Let’s start with a clean chemise.” She smoothed the garment out on the spare bed, then took a step back.

The stranger stared at it. She reached one scabbed hand forward to stroke the plain fabric.

Miss Rhoades coughed lightly. “May, come with me so that Faith can change in peace. Faith, after you put that on you may come down the back staircase to have your bath.” She placed the back of her hand on Faith’s forehead. “A tepid bath will do.”

May could hear Pearl complaining in the hallway: “She gets her own bath?! ”

Miss Rhoades sighed. “Yes, she gets a bath,” she called. “May, a word in the corridor?”

Out in the hallway, Miss Rhoades took May by the arm. The matron had very thin skin, freckled and spotted; now it gathered between her eyebrows like a drawn curtain. “As you might have noticed, the girl doesn’t speak.”

“Doesn’t speak?” Of course they’d stick May with a roommate like this, right when they were poised to show her the door. They were probably hoping this beast would scare her away. Her hands balled into fists, but she kept her voice calm. “Can she hear?”

“Yes, we think she’s a mute. She can hear you, but she seems unable to talk. And, May…” The corners of Miss Rhoades’s mouth crinkled. “I believe this girl has been treated poorly. It may feel a shock to you to have been given such a roommate, but I ask you to be gentle, and show fortitude, for her sake.”

“I’m more worldly than you think, Miss Rhoades.”

“Right. Thank you, May. That’ll be all.”

May bent her knees in a curtsy, and the matron hurried away. The door to May’s room was closed. It didn’t feel like her own anymore, and she felt sheepish entering, but it was possible Faith needed her help and couldn’t ask. She knocked softly, then, not expecting an answer, pushed open the door to the room.

The girl still stood in the center of the knotted rug, as purple as ever. Her neck was twisted toward May, and her elbows bent at odd angles as she struggled with the pearl buttons on the high, boned collar of that awful dress.

“Oh, goodness, here,” said May, “let me help you. I used to do this for my cousin. My aunt and uncle lived right next door to us…”

Faith turned so that May could undo her buttons, which were slightly too big for their snug little buttonholes. May chattered on as she worked at the buttons, somewhat pleased to find that Faith wouldn’t interrupt her. She told Faith about her two siblings and the cousins who would tumble in and out of one another’s houses, the bean soup her mother kept at a simmer on the stove every day in winter, so that any child who hungered could help himself to a bowl. It was a cozy picture she conjured, and she felt Faith relax, slowly, into wistful silence.

The final button gave May trouble; her fingernail stabbed the pad of her thumb in her effort. Faith turned to see why she’d yelped and the purple collar fell open, revealing her neck.

May dropped her hand. Now it was she who was speechless, fixated on the stranger’s pale throat.

It was circled in bruises, purple ones that matched her gown. The marks were shaped like ropy fingers. The bruises were darkest in the middle, over the voice box, where phantom thumbs had pressed hard into the skin. May’s fingers crept to her collarbone. She swallowed hard.

“Oh dear.” Perhaps this was why the girl wouldn’t, or couldn’t, speak. “Why don’t you…” May cleared her throat. “Turn around, now, let’s get you out of this dress.”

Faith obeyed. Her shoulders drooped. May worked the last button above the black velvet waistband, afraid of what else she might find underneath the fabric. As she undid Faith’s corset, the girl sighed audibly in relief, but still said nothing.

May had never been able to abide a loaded silence. A question burst forth. “Who did this to you?”

Faith hung her head. May wasn’t sure why she’d asked, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer. She tapped Faith on the shoulder to let her know the gown was fully unbuttoned, and Faith began peeling off the sleeves. As she did, she lifted her chin slightly over one shoulder, toward May.

The voice was tiny, nearly inaudible. Hoarse, from lack of use, or worse.

“Oh,” it said. “You know.”

“No, I don’t,” May replied, waiting for Faith to elaborate. Faith had the gown down to her waist now, and May could see the top of her chemise, stained yellow with age, her breasts soft under the fabric. Totally indecent. Completely inappropriate, this entire interaction. The air was too close; May needed out.

“I thought you were a mute,” she said, and before she backed out the door she saw Faith flinch at her comment, as though she’d been struck. Whatever had opened behind Faith’s eyes closed itself off again.