Thea looked up at his worn-out face, his complexion scarred by the cold. She smiled helplessly. “Thank you,” she said. She reached down and picked up her bag and climbed the staircase to Grimm’s porch. She turned once to look at Trond already walking back toward the livery, set her suitcase beside the door to the apothecary, and smoothed her dress.
Hosea’s kindness had been her salvation when she arrived in Gunflint, and though she had no right to expect any more of it, she walked into his store. The bell above the door rang. She stood at the threshold, waiting.
There was no one about, so it surprised her when she heard Hosea Grimm’s voice from across the room.
“I’ll be right with you,” he said.
She took a tentative step toward the counter, smoothing her dress again.
“Now,” Grimm said, rising from behind the counter, “what can I do for you?” He appeared almost to flinch when he recognized her. It took him a moment to gather his voice. “Miss Eide! I hardly recognized you. How are you?” He looked behind her, as though expecting to see a companion. “Are you alone?”
Grimm walked from behind the counter and stood in front of her. “Now, there’s a beggarly dress, Miss Eide.” Her dress was indeed filthy and threadbare, its hem undone by the scullery mice in the camp’s mess hall. “Of course,” he continued. “The camp’s shut down for the season. You’ve nowhere to go.”
Thea had yet to say a word.
“You’re back where you started. You need a place to lay your head.” He put the tip of his index finger to his pursed lips and then raised that same finger to the air. “Excuse me a moment.” Now he stepped around her and walked to the base of the staircase. “Rebekah, please come down. Thea Eide is here.”
A moment later Rebekah was standing in front of Thea.
“Miss Eide has finished her work up at the Burnt Wood Camp and is looking for a place to stay until she can get her bearings,” Hosea said. “What do you think, Rebekah, could we take her in?”
Rebekah tapped her foot as though to a song. She wore quite lovely shoes, Thea noticed: ankle-high brown leather boots with mother-of-pearl buttons. A well-pressed gingham dress with lace cuffs and a matching lace bow in her hair. Thea’s own shoes were worn-out brogues. Where Rebekah smelled of lavender, Thea hadn’t had a proper bath in eight months and her muskiness was downright rank. But despite Rebekah’s pearly skin and the scent of her fine perfume and the lustrous hair braided down her back, she appeared more trapped in her finery than at ease. Thea could not help but feel pity for her. She felt, in fact, that she held some advantage over the druggist’s daughter.
“Well?” Hosea persisted, taking Rebekah unkindly by the wrist.
Rebekah shook his hand free. “Of course. We should find a place for her to stay.”
Up on the third floor of Grimm’s apothecary, in the finest quarters Thea had ever seen — the finest by far — Rebekah gathered raiment and hairbrushes and glass bottles of hair oil and bath salts. When all was ready Rebekah led Thea, who had been sitting on the settee with tea, to the bath.
“I thought he’d never shush. He talks just to hear himself. Honestly! Have you ever seen anything like it?” Rebekah was sprinkling the bath salts into the steaming tub. The windows above the tub, looking out over the hills behind their muslin drapes, were clouded with the vapor rising up from the bath. “Be careful of him. Do you understand? Be careful? Especially if he comes around with his camera. He’s swine. Sooey, sooey!”
She stopped for a moment and stood before the mirror hanging above the sink, wiping the corners of her mouth with her thin finger. The mirror, too, was beginning to fog. She turned to face Thea. “Well? Get ready for the bath. You must be the dirtiest thing I ever saw. You smell like a horse. Or worse.”
Rebekah sat on the edge of the tub. She cupped her chin in her hands and took a deep breath and looked directly at Thea. “You’ve been through so much. The Evensens and the watch salesman Smith…” Her voice trailed off.
At the mention of Smith’s name, Thea reddened and turned away. She would have run away were there a place to go.
Rebekah put her fingertips on Thea’s shoulder and walked behind her. She began to unbutton Thea’s dress. What was left of her dress. When she had it loosened, she slid it over Thea’s shoulders and untied her discolored shift and also slid it off her shoulders. For a long moment she let her hands rest on Thea’s shoulders. Then she moved around her again and took Thea’s hands. “My, what a lovely shape.”
Thea reclaimed her hands and crossed her arms at her naked breasts, her chin tucked tightly into her shoulder, her cheeks pink as dawn.
“Why are you blushing? You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
Thea, her chin still tucked into her shoulder, quickly lowered her stockings and bloomers and stepped into the bath. The water scalded, set her entire body tingling.
Without any preamble, Rebekah removed her own dress and stockings and bloomers and slid into the bath with Thea. If Thea’s mother had taught her one thing — beyond piety — it was modesty, and no doubt her expression conveyed this because Rebekah splashed water playfully and said, “Don’t be such a grouch, Miss Eide. In Chicago, we girls took our baths together all the time. It’s fun! Here —” Rebekah took Thea by the shoulders again and twirled her around so they sat back to belly. Rebekah wet a bath cloth and lathered it with soap and pushed Thea’s long braid over her shoulder. She cupped water with her hand and poured it over her back and then began washing Thea with the cloth. “It’s a miracle your skin is still so soft, after the winter we had. And you were living up in the woods like a proper creature. Those lumberjacks must have been quite pleased having you around. I bet they ate you
When Thea did not answer, Rebekah continued, “Some of those fellas came into town on Saturday nights. They were all so
Rebekah watched as Thea’s downy hair spread across her back. She wet Thea’s hair, the warm water drawing the stench from those blond tresses the way a cold rain brought out a hound’s dank odor. She took the bottle of hair oil and poured a drop in the palm of her hand. “This will get the awful stink from your hair. Honestly, you’re as foul as those jacks!”
She hummed as she shampooed Thea’s fine hair. “I hope you’ll sleep in my bed. With me. Would you do that? We can be sisters. I never had a sister, did you?”
Thea glanced over her shoulder, met Rebekah’s eyes, but then looked away. They sat in silence as Rebekah rinsed Thea’s hair, as the bathwater cooled and the steam on the mirror above the sink began to run down the glass. “Never mind,” Rebekah said. She kissed Thea’s shoulder without any warning before rising and stepping from the bath. She crossed the room and turned the doorknob and walked dripping into the next room.
Thea stepped from the tub and wrapped a bath linen around her bosom and stood before the mirror. She saw herself as Joshua Smith must have seen her the night of the wolves, blurred and ghostlike. For a long time she stood at the mirror.
When she finally walked into the next room Rebekah was sitting on the floor, Thea’s bag open before her. There were half-a-dozen dresses and skirts from Rebekah’s armoire spread across the four-poster bed. They were all pressed and clean and in the height of fashion. Rebekah herself was already dressed.
“Hosea thinks if he keeps me in fine clothes I’ll be happy.” She paused to consider her wardrobe. “I suppose there are things worse than pretty dresses.” Now a complicated smile came across her face. “Pick what you like. Anything. You can have it all if you want.” She stood and crossed the room and picked a gingham skirt from the pile. “This would suit you. There are all the undergarments you could ever want in the chest of drawers there.” She gestured to the bureau across the room.
Inside the top drawer Thea found a scandalous collection of bloomers and corsets and bodices. Filmy cotton and soft velvet where she was used to coarse wool.
“Hosea says they’ll never catch Joshua Smith. Says a man as cunning as that deserves to be free. I guess he would know.” Rebekah paused, crossed the room again and stood beside Thea. “I’m sorry. I keep mentioning him.” She squeezed Thea’s hand and then crossed the room again.
Rebekah lay down on her bed, her arms tucked behind her head, her legs folded up under her skirt, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?” The thought had only then occurred to her.
