Pearl leaned forward and covered Rainey's hand with hers. 'You had good reason to leave home,' she said. 'Don't ever look back. It may have been the first time you chose a path for yourself, but you done right. You'll be safe here in Austin, I can feel it.'
Staring at Pearl's hand, Rainey understood. She hadn't said much about her father, only that he tried to make her marry a man she didn't know, but Pearl had picked up on how it had been for her.
They spent the afternoon talking. Rainey held the baby while Pearl waited on customers and helped her stock while little Jason slept. Rainey insisted on making a peach pie to pay Pearl back in a small way for having eaten half her lunch. The smell of baking peaches filled the kitchen and drifted into the store. Pearl swore she sold three bags of peaches that afternoon because of the smell customers enjoyed while in the store.
'I wish we had the money to hire you,' Pearl said as Rainey organized the spices. 'The place looks better today than it has since the baby came. I don't seem to be able to do as much out here with him holding on to my skirts, but my Owen never complains.' She laughed. 'In fact, he told me yesterday that he wouldn't mind if our little Jason had a brother or sister.' She blushed.
'I'll find something.' Rainey tried to sound hopeful. 'But first I'd better be off to find a place to board for the night. In this dress I could never go down to the creek to sleep tonight.'
She'd just walked through the door when she noticed a tired man climb from his wagon and walk toward the store. He was stout, and balding, with a mustache that seemed to run from ear to ear. 'Pearl!' he yelled as he neared the door. 'Are you in there, or did you finally get an ounce of wisdom and leave me?'
Rainey heard Pearl's laughter. She rushed into his arms a moment later, and they hugged wildly, as if it had been days not hours since they'd seen each other. Rainey smiled as she walked away. She'd made a friend today. And to know her new friend was loved made Rainey feel good, even hopeful.
The good hotels all had Full signs swinging above their doors. A few places said they took men travelers only. She'd asked a man at one of the hotel desks, who looked like he might have been in Austin a while, if he knew of a place where respectable young women boarded. He said there was one fine women's boardinghouse and one not so grand on opposite ends of a street called Congress Avenue. One stranger asked if she might be the new schoolmarm, and Rainey realized she looked exactly like what she'd always been, an old maid schoolteacher. She'd been thirteen when students first called her Miss Adams, and she felt she'd aged a decade for each of the eight years she taught.
She didn't want to go back to teaching, but at present it seemed her best option. Jobs for women were few in this part of the world, and respectable jobs were almost nonexistent. She walked the busy streets reading posted notices in windows. A cook needed at one place, but offering less money than a boardinghouse would charge each week. Several notices were posted for house servants, promising room and board and a half-day off each week, but little pay. She found two ads for clerks, but one business wanted a man, and the other position had been filled before Rainey could find the address.
By dusk she decided to drop her bag off at the less expensive boardinghouse and make sure she had a bed for the night.
When she first saw the rooming house, she thought it looked respectable enough, only it was gray, the one color Rainey decided she hated. The old woman who ran the Askew House said she only had one room, a small third-floor space with a tiny window overlooking the alley.
'I'll take it,' Rainey said and followed the rail of a woman up the carpeted stairs.
'I'm Mrs. Vivian. My husband and I came here with Mr. Stephen F,' the owner said.
'Stephen F,' Rainey repeated as she followed.
Mrs. Vivian stopped and turned around. 'Stephen F Austin.' She raised her chin. 'We were part of the original three hundred.'
Rainey wasn't about to repeat anything else. Whatever Mrs. Vivian thought she was because she and her husband arrived first seemed to be very important. 'Yes, ma'am,' Rainey whispered.
'I run a respectable house.' The landlord continued up the steps.
'I understand,' Rainey said without having a clear idea what the woman meant but guessed if she asked for a list of what wasn't respectable, horse borrowing would probably be on it. So she followed up to the second flight of stairs.
When Mrs. Vivian learned Rainey was looking for work, she insisted on collecting the entire first week's rent in advance. It was twice what Rainey hoped it would be.
'Don't know if you'll find work.' The old woman pulled her mouth into a bow of wrinkles. 'Most places don't pay women enough to live on.' She raised one rather bushy eyebrow. 'I guess they figure any proper woman would find a husband to provide for her.' The landlord looked her up and down. 'You're not very big, but you should have no problem finding a man to marry you if that's what you came to Texas looking for.'
'No.' The last thing Rainey wanted was Mrs. Vivian trying to match her up with a man. 'I came to work and make my own way.'
The old woman raised her nose. 'It's not easy. Leastwise if you plan to make an honest living, and I don't rent rooms to those of them that don't.'
Rainey touched the top button of her blouse, making sure she looked totally respectable. 'My parents died of fever on the boat from New Orleans,' she lied. 'We'd planned to start a girls' school in this area.' It was the only thing she knew, she realized, and she'd never be able to start a school without a great deal of money.
Mrs. Vivian shook her head. 'I wish you luck, but staying alive seems more important than reading and writing in this part of the world.' She appeared to have lost interest in the conversation. 'The room comes with supper at seven each night and breakfast the next morning also at seven. If you miss either serving, I don't keep a plate warm for you, and I don't refund any part of your board.' She handed Rainey a key, pointed to the door, then headed back down the stairs mumbling rules she'd memorized years ago. 'Male visitors are not allowed past the parlor, and there are no exceptions or refunds if I ask you to leave for breaking that rule. You'll use the bathroom on the second floor, but you'll have to carry your own water up from the pump in the kitchen. If you ask Mamie, my slave, to tote or wash clothes for you, I expect you to pay me a quarter a bundle. The first outhouse in back is for my ladies, but after dark I recommend you use the chamber pot. My house backs up to Saloon Row. I won't be responsible for your safety after dark.'
'I can take care of myself,' Rainey said.
The landlord glanced back over her shoulder. 'I hope you carry a loaded pistol with you, 'cause someone your size wouldn't have a chance against a man.'
Rainey nodded, not wanting to admit she carried nothing for protection.
Mrs. Vivian left without another word. Rainey unlocked the only door on the third floor and looked around her new home. The room reminded her of a cabin on a ship. It could not have been a smaller space and been called a room. But on the bright side, it was clean. She leaned across the bed and opened the window. If she looked up, she could see the sky, but if she looked down, she not only could see but smell the filth of the alley below. Heaven and Hell. She had her own little slice of each.
While unpacking her few belongings, she listened to bits of conversation drift up from below her window. Two women on the porch behind the saloon were complaining about their late night as they smoked thin cigars. Parts of a song reached her window from the kitchen below, and one man, already drunk for the evening, talked to himself as he found his way to the privy.
Rainey looked out and decided the buildings along the alley must act as a chimney, for sound carried everything said, even softly, to her window. She smiled, remembering a place in the great hall of the school. One spot in the entire room where a person could stand and hear everything said within those walls. She used to love standing in that spot and feeling a part of all around her.
She almost laughed. This window could work to her advantage. If she listened closely, she might be able to pick up the accents that seemed to have blended into a way of talking that sounded slightly different from any dialect she'd ever heard. Then, alone in her room, she could practice until she sounded like a Texan. She'd be safest if she blended in here.
A few minutes later, when she walked into the dining room at exactly seven o'clock, Rainey found the other seven residents of the house.
A stout woman named Margaret Ann Mathis stood and introduced everyone.
One mother and her grown daughter from Germany spoke little English. Margaret Ann explained that they were waiting for the woman's husband to finish with the fall crop so he would have time to come and get them.
