The men would make their beds with folded tarps and blankets arranged on the floor by the fireplace.
After sweeping out years of dust and debris, Virginia James took charge of setting up the women’s area and working with Lilly to pile the blankets that would make a suitable if somewhat lumpy mattress for them. She was pleased to have something to do to distract her worried mind while releasing some of the nervous energy that afflicted her.
Life with the Quarries had left her unaccustomed to hardship.
Everyone in the family called her Ginny and had since she’d first come into their employ—many, many years before—and she often thought back on the arrangement with a mixture of pride and sadness.
It had never been her intention to stay in perpetuity, but life had thrown a cruel twist at her that had watched her slowly move from a short-term position as maid to a live-in governess tasked with caring for the young Lilly.
Virginia remembered the first days of working for Archibald “Gusher” Quarrie very well because not long after accepting a position in his house, she had lost the love of her life.
A handsome Texan had visited one evening, a dashing and daring fellow with whom she had quickly been smitten.
She still kept the note he had given her that first night that they’d walked and laughed and finally come together as lovers beneath a tall ash tree.
“Wait for me. Love always, Q.M.” the note said as straightforward and honest as that. Q.M. her darling cattleman who’d gone away. She’d been 17 years old the night they’d met at the Quarrie mansion, and her but a maid to this beautiful, wealthy gentleman who spoke of marriage and children, and of settling at his family ranch.
There had been no official betrothal, only his proposal on bended knee there by the ash before they kissed and...
He was off to see a friend in England the following day, leaving his promise to return for a spring wedding, and the note.
“Wait for me...” it said, and she had waited for a year dreaming of the brief moment they’d had together, unaware of the eternal thing she’d lost.
Then the devastating news of his untimely death had reached her.
Virginia was never told the cause only that her lover had come to an unfortunate end while adventuring in the east, and so would never return; and as a mere maid for the Quarries with a verbal promise and a simple note, to whom could she have brought her suit?
If she even had one.
But Virginia would not be party to something silly or sordid, and so she hid her grief at the terrible news by burying her lost hopes in the years that followed as a maid-cum-governess.
Virginia continued on at the Quarrie place and was there when Gusher lost his wife Lizzy-belle in childbirth. The dear man had soldiered through that tragedy exhibiting a strength of character that his maid later came to emulate with a vigil of her own, for indeed, as time passed Mr. Quarrie foreswore the taking of another wife to honor his dead love.
Nurses had cared for baby Lilly at first as Gusher quietly educated Virginia to be her governess. She had always been good in school, and was able to guide some of Lilly’s education in letters with that. However, Mr. Quarrie added tutors to extend Virginia’s knowledge that she might be ready for the task of shepherding his daughter into womanhood.
Looking back, it seemed that time had flown ever since.
Now at 36 years of age, Miss Virginia James had abandoned all thought of love and marriage.
Such a fate had never been expected, but years into her employment—years in which she had prayed each night for her dead lover’s eternal rest—word had reached the young governess through Gusher’s associates that Q.M. had made a similar declaration of love and proposal to an English girl when he was visiting her country.
A month after receiving Virginia’s innocence in exchange for his promise, he had made a similar offer to another.
Virginia lost her faith in love at that, but she did not harden her heart against the man who had betrayed her. Instead, the truth simply strengthened her resolve to hold onto the spirit of what he had declared to her, and what she had given him in return.
Since she could not bear to think that she had wasted the time between her loss and this revelation, Virginia ignored the fleeting nature of human love and honor by seeking enduring satisfaction in her own loyalty, integrity and unshakeable resolve.
Virginia James kept her broken heart and her monumental embarrassment to herself, and like the heroines in romance novels, she chose to live in spiritual isolation, the mistress to a vaunted yet imaginary love, and keeper of a false flame.
There was a point many years into their individual sojourns of honor that Virginia suspected Gusher might have been developing some affection for her, but then his business speculation had taken him away on trip after trip, and their resolve was never tested or questioned again.
Virginia, her ward and family soon began a nomadic existence in which they were constantly following Gusher to some new and exotic location or awaiting him in some equally alien geography or conveniently positioned cosmopolitan center better suited to their amenities.
While Gusher labored under a desert sun, or upon an icy wasteland, his daughter Lilly awaited him while dancing in ballrooms.
Virginia was proud that she had kept her own youthful beauty, and credited it in part to the luxurious life she shared with her young pupil. Many years exposure to the world’s finest salons, cosmetics and beauticians
