Heiress, p.1
Heiress, page 1
Copyright
ISBN 978-1-60260-768-2
Copyright © 2010 by Laurie Alice Eakes. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Truly Yours, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
One
Hudson City, New Jersey
1858
Daire Grassick paced back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the pawnshop. He possessed only one valuable object, and the dealer didn’t want to buy it.
“I’ve got to get home, Lord. Please.” The murmured prayer sounded strange to his ears. Weeks, perhaps months, had passed since he last spoke to the Lord. He relied on his own wit and strength—and failed.
Head bowed in shame, he plodded on one more circuit of the pavement, hoping, trying to pray further, that the pawnbroker would change his mind and step outside to hail Daire back into the shop. Doors along the street opened at regular intervals, disgorging or admitting men, women, and children. They talked and laughed and skirted Daire, as though they didn’t want to touch him. He supposed he did look a bit odd, a young man in fine, if somewhat rumpled clothes, striding to and fro in front of a door that remained closed, its toys and trinkets obscured behind dusty glass. His own bauble shimmered in his hands, golden glass as delicate as mist, as detailed as a snowflake, too fragile for him to carry about unprotected.
With one last hope that the secondhand shop dealer would see the ornament and step out of his store, Daire leaned against the front window and pulled the cotton wool wrapping from a bag flung over his shoulder. The scent of lilacs rose from the batting, a hint of the perfume his mother kept in the blown glass bottle shaped like a goldfinch, until she gave it to him, as his father’s mother had given it to him.
“For your future wife.”
The wife he’d been so certain he could win if only he left the farm in Salem County and headed for the city.
Another shudder of shame washed through him, and he shoved a strip of fabric around the bird.
“Don’t break it.” Two small hands in gray kid gloves curved around the sides of the goldfinch bottle. “It’s beautiful.”
Daire glanced up at the soft-voiced speaker and caught his breath. The bottle wasn’t the only beautiful creation on the sidewalk. Eyes, the purplish blue of the flowers growing by Grandmother’s summerhouse, gazed back at him from an oval face with skin so fine it resembled rare porcelain.
“May I look at it?” Without waiting for his reply, she lifted the goldfinch bottle from his hold and held it up to the sunlight. “Oh. The detail is perfect, but you can’t see through it.”
“Light ruins perfume. That’s why it’s opaque.”
“I didn’t know that.” She turned and tilted the bottle, drawing out the beak that formed the stopper. Her nostrils flared at the strength of lilac scent rising above the odor of pavement dust and horses. “Is it empty?”
“Momma stopped using this for a perfume bottle a few years ago.” Daire shifted. People were staring at them, and he thought their interaction looked unseemly. Yet if he had any chance that this young lady wished to purchase the goldfinch, he mustn’t send her away.
“Is it cracked?” Her questions and gazing at the object persisted.
“No. I wouldn’t try to sell a cracked perfume bottle.” His tone turned indignant, and he took a deep breath to calm himself. “Momma simply chose to use the bottle for an ornament on the mantel in the parlor until she gave it to me for—” He stopped. The young lady didn’t need to know about his disastrous betrothal.
“It would surely brighten up our parlor,” the young lady murmured. She smiled up at him. “Where did it come from?”
“My grandfather made it.” Daire couldn’t keep the pride from his voice. “It’s nearly fifty years old and the only one like it. It was part of the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London in ’51.”
“That’s truly amazing.” She sounded awed. “You shouldn’t sell it, or be standing about with it in the middle of all these people.” She held the bauble out to him. “It might get broken.”
“I was hoping it would get purchased.” Daire glanced at the shop. “But the broker said it’s useless. I’m afraid he’s right.”
“Nothing that beautiful is useless, especially not if your grandfather made it.” Wistfulness added smoke to the purple blue of her eyes. “If I owned something so precious, I’d keep it safe.”
“Do you want to own it?” If he didn’t need the money so desperately, Daire would have given the young lady the ornament right then and there, without knowing her name, without her being his future bride. Stomach knotted like a sail line, he held the goldfinch up to the sunshine as she had. “You can have it for twenty dollars.”
“Twenty—” She laughed. “No wonder the broker wouldn’t buy it if that’s what you expected.”
The trill of her mirth made Daire chuckle. “You can’t blame a man for trying.”
“No, but I can blame a man for dishonesty.” She took a step backward. “Good day.”
“Wait.” Daire shot out one hand and touched the sleeve of her dress. “Why are you saying I’m dishonest?”
She tossed her head, sending maple syrup–colored curls bobbing against her cheeks. “You ask twenty dollars for a piece of glass? However pretty it is, it’s not worth that much, so you really have no intention of selling.”
“But I do.” Daire’s cheeks heated despite the coolness of the spring day. “I—need the money to get home. This is all I have other than the clothes on my back.”
“I’m sorry.” She gazed up at him in silence while a score of people passed them, some staring, others scurrying along and looking straight ahead.
A breeze off the harbor caught at the girl’s wide skirt, lifting the ruffled blue fabric to reveal a mended bit of lace edging. Considering they stood outside a pawnshop and no maid accompanied her, Daire figured she must be heading inside to sell something of her own concealed inside her basket.
“But my troubles aren’t your concern.” With more care than before, Daire began to wrap the goldfinch in its protective cloth. “Maybe another broker or shopkeeper will be interested.”
Except he’d tried every place in town since receiving the telegram telling him to get home as quickly as possible.
“I’m interested.” She glanced at her mended ruffle. “I’ve never owned anything so pretty.”
Words burned on the tip of Daire’s tongue, the notion of telling her she owned something more than pretty and would see it if she only glanced into a mirror. But his days of wooing compliments like that ended with his last failed attempt at love and business.
“I only need enough money to get home,” he said instead.
“How much?”
He told her. He expected her to laugh at him again.
Instead, she drew a threadbare silk purse from a pocket in her voluminous skirt and extracted several coins. “My aunt told me to purchase something pretty. This will fit the request.”
She held out the money. Silver and one gold piece glimmered against the dull gray of her glove. With great restraint, Daire managed not to snatch the wealth from her and run to the train station.
“If you’re certain.” He cradled the goldfinch bottle as though it were alive and injured.
“I’m certain.” She tilted her head and peered up at him from beneath gold-tipped lashes. “Are you?”
“I—um. . .” He swallowed.
Sun warmed the glass. For a heartbeat, he pictured the ornament forming at the end of his grandfather’s blowpipe, the silica still hot from the furnace. The coins glittered before his eyes. The bird clung to his hands.
“I have no choice.” He thrust the ornament toward her. “Take it, please. The train leaves in half an hour.”
They made the exchange with care, while several passersby gawked at them and the wind, smelling of the Hudson River and smoke from the steamboats, billowed the girl’s skirts against his legs. Once the goldfinch left his fingers, he felt as though he’d just sold his soul for thirty pieces of silver.
But it was only a piece of glass. A cunningly designed piece of glass, formed at the hands of a master, and only a bauble for a lady’s vanity. Its purpose of gifting a beloved lady had only been for two generations, so ending with him wasn’t all that serious.
He slipped the coins into the pocket of his trousers and turned away.
“Thank you.” Her tone held awe. “I’ll take good care of it.”
“Do that.” He took several paces then swung back to face her. She stood where he’d left her, her head bowed over the goldfinch, the brim of her hat obscuring her delicate features. “Give it to someone you love.”
She glanced up at him and smiled. “I will.”
A whistle from the harbor reminded him he needed to hurry to buy his ticket and board a train. He nodded at the girl and ran for the station. In his pocket, the coins jangled like discordant notes on a pianoforte. His bag flopped against his side, as empty as his heart.
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In a few hours, he would be home. Reaching his father’s bedside on time was worth losing the goldfinch. If Father forgave him for his failures in business and love, for selling the goldfinch instead of giving it to the love of his life, Daire could maybe forgive himself, maybe start again.
❧
Susan Morris resisted the urge to stop on her way home and take out the bird to gaze at it one more time. Never in her life, as the fourth daughter, had she owned anything quite so pretty, so unique, so entirely hers. The young man who had sold it to her must have suffered a serious catastrophe to part with something so old and cherished.
His face had been troubled, his emerald green eyes holding a grief she’d only seen at funerals.
No young man with his looks and manners should appear that devastated. Susan wanted to give him every coin in her purse, if a lack of money was all that troubled him. She regretted not presenting him with a higher amount for the goldfinch bottle. But a lifetime of frugality insisted she negotiate for every purchase, even one as frivolous as the glass ornament tucked into her basket along with thread for her to alter one more of her elder sisters’ gowns.
Maybe she should have purchased fine fabric instead of the bird. With three older sisters, she had never owned a new gown, and perhaps Aunt Susan Morris had meant her namesake great-niece should use her inheritance to buy pretty clothes made to fit her.
That she could afford to buy fabric and frivolities hadn’t sunk into Susan’s mind. She knew how much her great-aunt had left her, but she couldn’t bring herself to visit the banker, her trustee, and find out if she could spend more than she would normally pay out of her allowance. She remained frugal with her funds the banker had given her—until she saw the stunning ornament glimmering in the hands of an equally striking young man. She couldn’t wait to tell her family of her purchase. Surely, they would be in as much awe as she was and notice her instead of everything else that distracted them.
“Momma, I bought something pretty today,” she rehearsed beneath her breath. “As Aunt Susan Morris told me to in her will. . . .”
Momma would be more interested in the man from whom she’d bought it, since Susan, at twenty-two, hadn’t yet found herself a husband. Not quite as bad as Deborah at twenty-four, but she, at least, had a steady beau. Susan didn’t have one, and she certainly wouldn’t mention her attraction to the young man. He’d been catching a train out of town. Even if he hadn’t, he would never find her interesting with her toast-colored hair and funny-colored eyes, too-pale skin even for fashion, and figure so thin she only wore a corset because not doing so was indecent. A man who looked like the one she’d bought the ornament from sought out ladies like her older sisters, who had china blue eyes and golden curls, fine figures and flirtatious demeanors. Susan would be left at home, playing governess to the younger two of her three brothers and whatever nieces and nephews happened to be in the house on any given day.
Thoughts of showing off her prize quickened her footfalls. Her house came into view, where it perched on the corner, a two-story brick building in need of paint on the trim, inside a wooden fence in need of whitewashing. Now that spring had come, the lawn and garden appeared more ragged than her mended ruffle.
Susan shuddered and ducked her head in a vain hope that none of the neighbors would see her enter the gate and recognize her as a member of the Morris family. The rest of the houses on their block sported fresh paint and gleaming fences, trimmed lawns and spruce gardens. One would think the Morrises were poor. Probably people thought they were with their seven children.
Three of those children, boys ranging from nine to sixteen, tossed a ball around the yard, accompanied by shouts of glee for a good catch and jeers when one of them let it drop. Paul, the youngest, called Susan’s name. The ball flew in her direction. Remembering her precious burden, she spun around instead of reaching for the ball, and it smacked her on the shoulder.
“You little scamp.” Tears of pain stung her eyes. “What did you do that for?”
“You were supposed to catch it.” Paul looked stricken.
The other two boys slunk around the corner of the house.
Susan glanced from their retreating forms to Paul then to the sun. “Why aren’t you boys in school?”
“No one made us go.” Paul retrieved the ball. “You and everyone else left, except for Gran, so we just stayed home to play.”
“You wait until Daddy hears of this.” Susan frowned at him. “He’ll make you regret playing hooky here at home.”
“Aw, Sue, he won’t do nothing.” Paul grinned, his bright eyes dancing. “He’s too busy writing another poem.”
“Is that why he didn’t say good morning to me?” Susan sighed. “I won’t waste time telling him then. But you’ll go to school tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday.” Laughing, Paul scooped up his ball and ran after his older brothers.
“If you don’t get an education—” Susan stopped in midcall.
No sense in drawing attention to her brothers’ delinquency. From the corner of her eye, she saw two neighbor ladies in their gardens and making no pretense of working on weeding or planting. They were watching the antics of the Morrises yet again.
Wishing she owned a poke bonnet that would hide her features, Susan entered the house through a front door left half open. A few leaves from last autumn had blown in through the gap, and she used the toe of her shoe to shove them over the threshold. They had a maid. Laundry and cooking for the eight Morrises still living in the house kept Bridget too busy for mundane tasks like sweeping. Susan would get the broom later. Right now she wanted to show off her new purchase.
Gran was the only family member home. She sat in her corner of the parlor, sketch pad on her knees, an array of colored chalks in a box beside her. She didn’t look up when Susan entered.
“Gran, I bought something pretty today.” Susan set the basket on the floor and began to unwrap the goldfinch bottle. “This young man was selling it outside a pawnshop. I was going into the haberdashery to get thread. . . .” She sighed.
The only part of Gran that moved was her hand holding a pencil. It flew across the paper in quick, decisive strokes.
“It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever owned,” Susan murmured. “The young man said it was part of the Great Exhibition in London.”
She held the bottle to the light, marveling at the rich golden color of the glass, the detail of wings and feathers. Were it not so delicate and shiny, she could imagine it taking off from her palm. And to think it was nearly fifty years old, had survived all this time for her to see and buy, a bauble good for nothing but the pleasure of its beauty.
Unless she poured perfume into it, of course. The bottle smelled of lilac. Susan thought she would prefer something crisp and clean like lemon.
“If I put this on the windowsill in my room,” Susan continued, “the morning sun will make it glow.”
“Hmm.” Gran tore a sheet off the pad and dropped it onto the floor.
Susan set the goldfinch into its nest of cotton wool and reached for the sketch. It showed her in caricature form, her eyes double normal size, gazing at a giant bug captured between her fingers.
“Ugh.” Susan dropped the picture back onto the floor. “Why a bug?”
“It’s useless and destined to be smashed.” Gran kept sketching. “You’d best tuck it away before the others get home.”
“But I want Momma to see it.”
“No, child, you don’t. She’ll never approve. Now run along and get us some lunch. Bridget is busy with the laundry.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Susan tucked the basket behind a chair and headed for the kitchen.
Bridget, as plump as Susan was thin and as dark as the Morrises were fair, stood over the stove, stirring a pot of soup. “It’ll be ready soon, Miss Susan. I made the boys hang out the sheets as punishment for not going to school.”
“You should have made them go to school.” Susan snatched a handful of raisins out of a bowl on the table. “They’re going to end up working on the docks if they don’t get an education.”
“And what’s wrong with working on the docks?” Bridget cast Susan a glare. “Me entire family works on the docks, and we’re all respectable. Seems to me that eldest brother of yours would prefer that to his sums.”
