“Like this?” Flora asked. Josephine noticed how she glanced at Ellen, nervous. Ellen was a painstaking baker. She had her methods.
“Yes, and then you sprinkle in the sugar and the nutmeg.”
The room was at once kitchen, dining room, living room and study. Ellen’s chair by the window held a basket with indigo-blue and grey wool. Josephine’s armchair, in a corner, was flanked by a pie-crust table loaded with newspapers, books, a wooden writing box. She sank into her chair, working spectacles onto her nose.
“It’s from Lucy. Shall I read it aloud?”
“Mother, is she coming home for Christmas?”
“I hope so, Maudie. We shall see, I guess. Here’s what she says.”
December 21, 1888
Dear Mother,
Cousin Carrie invited me for Christmas dinner so I will go there. I get only one day off.
Josephine set down the letter. She was silent for a long time before sighing, resuming.
I’m sorry to miss all of you but at least I will be with family. Aunt A. and Uncle N. are coming.
Work is hard. I objected when our lunchtime was cut short. It is not a place for someone who talks back. My overseer for work discipline and production is nasty. He has already given me two fines which are taken from my wages. One was for inferior work which I could not see was fair at all. The other was for giving one of the doffers a snack from my apron pocket. There is a man who pinches me every morning when I go through the door. He waits for me. What should I do?
“Pinch him back,” Ellen said, savage. “The brute.”
“Tell the overseer?” Maud suggested.
“No.” Flora overturned a spoonful of sugar. “That don’t…that doesn’t work. They get worse if you snitch.”
We have to eat our dinner in the same room we work. There are chairs in the corner. That is when we can use the convenience which the men use as well so it is very sticky and smelly. When I am not too tired I go to the Free Public Library reading room in the evenings. That is where I am now. It is quiet and my roommate is not here to stare or chatter at me and drive me to want to slap her face. There is a section about law and I am reading a book called “Blackstone’s Commentaries.” It is the history of English common law and it is very interesting. Did you know about “the doctrine of marital unity”? It sets out that at marriage the woman becomes absorbed by the man and is nobody aside from him. It makes me see why we women are treated like brainless non-persons and why it is so important that we have the right to vote. Cousin Carrie’s meetings are SO exciting. Oh how I wish you could come to them one day with Maud and Flora. We are working on many fronts, as we say. One of us writes to the WCTU…
“Women’s Christian Temperance Union,” Maud murmured to Ellen, who had raised her eyebrows.
…who as you know are endorsing our petition calling for full suffrage. We keep each other up to date on our efforts. Also we are going to have a woman come to speak who is an authority on child labour laws and the needs of women factory workers. Ha ha I could do that. There is no fire escape from this building, for one.
How are all your pampered boarders? Is George coming home from school for Christmas? I suppose he will stay with Uncle Charles and Aunt Lavinia, the spoiled thing.
Did you put up a tree in the parlour? I don’t know when I will be home again but likely when Carrie starts going around to give talks about suffrage and labour. I miss you, Mother, and I hope you are well.
Love,
Your daughter,
Lucy
No one spoke. Maud concentrated on her stirring. Josephine opened her writing box, slipped the letter inside and closed the lid. She felt a prick of jealousy, picturing Lucy’s animated face at Carrie’s Christmas table, seeing Carrie take hold of her headstrong daughter, convincing her that to remain unmarried was a political act. She could not bear the thought that Lucy would forego the love she herself had had with Simeon, or that Maud, over whom Lucy had great influence, might do the same.
Flora’s spoon batted the side of the bowl, a rhythmic knock as she mixed the butter and egg.
Josephine rose and left the room with apparent purpose; then stood in the hallway, dreading her cold bedroom, the line of mourning clothes hanging as still from their hooks as if they dressed a row of corpses. She remembered her delight in Harland’s window display. She could visit again, to see if he had added anything new.
She pulled on her wool coat, wrapped a scarf around her neck and let herself out the back door. She headed down the hill, following a pathway in the snow beneath the branches of naked elms.
They had skated together as children, before Simeon came to town. Hand in hand, the band playing. Recently, in a schoolbook she had gotten out for Flora, she’d found the note he’d written to her when they were children. Dear Josephine, will you mary me?
I am drowning, Josephine thought. Drowning people reach up for something to grasp. Why will I tell him I have come?
She remembered that he had started a petition for an almshouse. She would ask if she could help. She would go into the store and offer to circulate Harland’s petition.
Lucy’s letter had made her feel old and relegated to another era, but now her steps quickened. The smell of wood smoke was on the air, and her heart lifted at the thought of Christmas cookies. She would ask Ellen to make some, after
