The Paper Marriage. Bronwyn Williams
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valuable. “It should keep her for at least a month, providing she’s frugal,” he confided to Bess that evening over teacups of fine, aged brandy. “Seems a sensible sort, but you never know. At least now she’ll be able to set herself up in a decent rooming house until she can find herself another husband. Shouldn’t take too long, even with mourning and all. She’s a bit long in the shank, but a widower with children might not be so particular.”
“If marriage was the answer to every maiden’s prayer,” his companion observed dryly, “the two of us wouldn’t be sitting here drinking brandy and smoking cigars.”
Horace lifted his teacup in silent acknowledgement.
Unable to sleep after all, Rose dragged her trunk down from the attic and began emptying the wardrobe, folding and packing layers on top of the layers she’d never even got around to unpacking. Most were black, except for a few old summer things and the wedding gown she’d saved as a bitter reminder of what could happen when a woman made the wrong choice. She’d been in mourning for so long, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to wear colors.
The next afternoon she divided the proceeds from the sale of her jewelry among the three remaining servants, thanking them again for their support. “I’m sorry it isn’t more. Goodness knows you deserve far more, this hardly even covers your salary, but it’s the best I can do, I’m afraid.”
They seemed to understand, to appreciate her appreciation, and they wished each other well.
Not until the last one had left did Rose allow her guard to drop. And then the tears came. She wept until her eyes were swollen, her throat clogged, her handkerchief a sodden lump. “Oh, Lord, this is a waste of time,” she muttered, and then cried some more. On the rare occasions when she allowed herself the luxury of tears, she made a fine job of it, weeping noisily until every last dreg of emotion was spent.
She cried for her parents—the charming rascal of a father she’d adored, her dainty, beautiful mother who had never quite known what to make of her gawky misfit of a daughter—and for the grandmother who had changed so drastically from the woman she dimly remembered from her childhood.
But most of all, she wept for her baby, who had never even had a chance to live.
Eventually she mopped her face, smoothed her skirt and stood before the heavy hall mirror, recalling the words her grandmother’s housekeeper had spoken when she’d tucked her share of the money in her purse. “There now, you’ll land on your feet, Miss Rose, you see if you don’t. You might not be much to look at, but you’ve got backbone aplenty.”
Not much to look at, she thought ruefully. Never have been. Never would be. At least she would never have to worry about aging and losing her beauty, which had been her mother’s greatest fear.
At thirteen Rose had been tall and painfully shy. At eighteen she’d still been shy, and even taller, but she could walk without tripping over her feet. She’d even learned to dance so that on those rare occasions when some poor boy had been forced to do his duty, she wouldn’t disgrace herself.
“No, you’re not much to look at,” she told her mirror image. Given the choice between beauty and backbone, she would have chosen beauty, which just went to show she still hadn’t learned anything.
Fortunately, the choice wasn’t hers to make. She’d been stuck with backbone, which was a good thing, because backbone was just what she would need until she could find a position and establish herself in a decent neighborhood.
With the house empty and her luggage stacked beside her, Rose sat on one of the delicate chairs that flanked the inlaid hall table and waited for her grand-mother’s friend, Bess Powers, who had located a suitable rooming house and offered to drive her there, as her grandmother’s horse and buggy had already been claimed by a creditor.
Limp with exhaustion, she was afraid to relax for fear she might fall asleep. Afraid the few dollars in her purse would not be enough. Perhaps she should have kept back part of the proceeds from the sale of her jewelry in case the landlord insisted on being paid in advance.
What if she couldn’t find a position right away?
And even if she could, it would be weeks, perhaps months, before she could expect to be paid.
Choices. It came down to making the right one. Unfortunately, women were rarely given a chance to learn, their choices being made for them, first by parents and then by husbands. The first time she’d had to make a choice, she’d made a disastrous one. After suffering the consequences, she’d had no choice but to turn to her grandmother.
This time she was fresh out of relatives. It was a criminal shame, she told herself, that well-bred young women were never trained to be self-supporting.
Bess arrived on the dot of four. “There you are,” she declared, as if she’d been searching everywhere. Parking her umbrella in the stand, she stood before the mirror and re-skewered her hat atop her freshly hennaed hair with a lethal-looking hatpin. “Shame about the house, but I’ve been telling Gussy for years that this was too much house for one lone woman. Don’t be possessed by your possessions, I always say.”
Which was all very well, Rose thought, as long as one possessed a roof over one’s head. A bed in hand was worth two in the bush.
Giddy, that’s what you are. Good thing your feet are as long as they are, my girl, because you’re going to have to stand on them from now on. “Grand-mother’s housekeeper gave me the name of a reliable agency where I might look for work.”
“What kind of work can you do?” Bess didn’t believe in mincing words. As a woman who supported herself with words, she valued them too highly. “Can you take shorthand? Can you cook? Not that I’d recommend it, but better to lord it over a kitchen than to have to wait on every oaf with the price of a meal.”
Rose had never even considered serving as a waitress, but it might well come to that. “I’ve never tried it, but I’m sure I could learn. I’m good with invalids, too.”
“You want to be a doormat all your life? I haven’t known you long, child, because I’ve been away so much these past few years, but we both know Gussy was no invalid. What she was, poor soul, was crazy as a bedbug, not to put too fine a point on it. Now, don’t tell me you want to go to work in one of those asylums, you wouldn’t last out a day.”
Rose knew the woman meant well. And after all, she was one of those rare creatures, a truly independent woman. “All right, then what do you suggest? Governess? Companion? Surely I could qualify for either of those positions.”
“I thought about hiring you as a secretary-companion.”
Rose waited for the catch. She was certain there would be one.
“Trouble is, I couldn’t afford to pay you enough to live on. My publisher pays my expenses when I’m traveling, but I doubt if he’d pay for a secretary.”
On her good days, her grandmother used to talk about her friend, Bess Powers, who was considered a minor celebrity after the diaries she had written while growing up aboard her father’s ship had been published. Rose envied Miss Powers her freedom and independence but, celebrity or not, she wasn’t at all sure she could abide the woman for any length of time.
“I’m afraid I don’t take shorthand. I’m sure I could learn, though, and my penmanship is excellent.”
“’T’wouldn’t work. I’ve traveled in single harness too long. As it happens, though, I have another problem on my hands. You might be just the one to tackle it. I don’t suppose you’ve got a drop of brandy in the house, do you? This miserable weather goes right to my knees.”
“I’m sorry. Knowing I’d be leaving today, I let the servants take home all the food and drink, but I’m sure there’s some tea left in the caddy.”
“Never mind. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, Matt. My nephew. Poor boy, he was desperate enough to write to me for help, which means he’s at his wit’s end. Last time I saw him he called