All in Good Time (5 page)

She clutched her handbag and walked from the bank, conscious that clerks and tellers alike watched every step she took.

4

DESSA STOOD ON
the cement porch of the home on Nineteenth Street that she now had every right to claim as belonging to her. Well, to her, the bank, and the many who contributed cash donations both past and future.

She went inside, an echo and a prayer of thanksgiving following each of her steps as she made her way through the vacant parlor. It was easy to envision the donated furniture that now awaited only collection and delivery. Not every room would be filled just yet, but she had no doubt all her needs would be met soon.

Sophie Pierson herself hadn’t expected to open such a home for another two years, and that at the very earliest. She’d been prepared to work toward it for five!

But here it was. What had once been the home of a Market Street merchant would soon boast the name Pierson House. Mariadela White had been the first to hear it was for sale for far less than it was worth, and Dessa quickly pursued the opportunity. Yes, opium dens and gambling houses had encroached on the neighborhood, which was why respectable families had moved farther from Cherry Creek and the railroad yards that had sprung up in the last decade. They’d left behind those Dessa’s heart ached to serve.

This was precisely where Pierson House needed to be. Surely even Sophie would have followed this quicker plan, despite her caution about borrowing. Hawkins National might have refused
her as easily as those first banks had done. But considering the relative ease with which Dessa had procured the funds, she couldn’t help believing God had hurried the schedule for a reason.

Even though at the moment Dessa had not a single girl committed to joining her. That was to have been the next phase in Sophie’s plan, once the funds were raised—actually getting into the neighborhood, even in a rented room or storefront, to befriend the residents. Dessa’s plans had bypassed that step altogether. Certainly it would be far more appealing for women to find immediate shelter in such a comfortable home!

Dessa knew she had work to do, but it was work she had no doubt God would bless.

On his way home from the bank, Henry instructed his driver to go well past his house and to slow once they reached Nineteenth Street in the Fourth Ward. He wanted plenty of time to assess the building that Tobias—and through him, Henry himself—had allowed to pass into the hands of one young and obviously optimistic young woman.

Seeing the house, he acknowledged it looked sound enough, with a roof that appeared in fine condition over a brick structure that would last many years to come. Fire had taught the city well.

Still, the trim was in need of paint, and he wondered if Miss Caldwell had taken on more than she could handle. Not that any of the homes along this street looked as though their owners took much pride in the neighborhood. It was far too close to the worst vice in the city. Everything was for sale around here, from women to gaming to cheap liquor to opium beds.

Nor was it far from the edge of another section, the one that mimicked respectability. A place where people like Turk Foster attracted a better-dressed clientele to his gambling den.

Miss Caldwell’s house was the filling in a sandwich made of the worst elements of society, and from what he’d seen of her, she wouldn’t last long.

Derision filled him. How long would it be before the darkness around here blotted out the foolish light that had filled Dessa Caldwell’s eyes?

It was a shame, really. He wondered if she would be so pretty once the realities of the harsher side of life snuffed out that light.

One last thought trailed along with Henry as the driver continued their slow progress down the street. It was a wonder Uncle Tobias wasn’t fretting over a woman left so vulnerable in a neighborhood like this. Tobias mustn’t know.

The thought only irritated Henry, because now he wished he didn’t know either.

5

DESSA FAIRLY COLLAPSED
onto her bed, well after dark. In the past week she’d scrubbed, painted, hefted furniture, and unpacked crates of donations in between sewing and hanging curtains and cooking for helpers. Whenever she sat, she worked on a collection of linens to be sold at White’s Mercantile in the hope of starting an income separate from expected donations. All of which left precious little time for sleep.

Yet even as she rested her head on the pillow, a smile spread once again across her lips. She was doing it. Not alone—the proprietors of White’s were her biggest donors and best friends since Sophie’s death—but it was hard not to feel satisfied that Sophie’s vision was becoming a reality so quickly. She’d carefully budgeted the expenses for the next three months, and if everything continued as expected, she could use that time to welcome new boarders and build up an inventory of items to sell.

As Dessa drifted off to sleep, she assured herself that tomorrow’s luncheon with the investors from Hawkins National Bank and, soon after that, a dinner for her biggest donors would prove nothing but successes. They would see she was ready to open the doors to those in need.

If only women were already applying for the help she’d advertised in every corner of the neighborhood and beyond. . . .

Perhaps she dozed, though it felt only a moment later when
something awakened her. Disoriented, she looked toward her bedroom’s freshly curtained window. But it was still dark.

She listened. Around the corner, Holladay Street—now known as Market Street since the Holladay family no longer wanted to be associated with what was sold along the avenue—came alive after dark. She’d heard music from pianos and fiddles meant to draw people in from the boardwalks. Dessa had tried countering with a song of her own on several nights since she’d moved in. Sitting on her porch singing a favorite hymn was quite different from the invitations to cribs and bawdy houses that paid protection money so authorities would ignore what the women were really trying to do. From balconies at the parlor houses or doorways of the cheaper, one-room cribs on the frayed fringes of the neighborhood, women flaunted their wares amid raucous music.

But sitting up in her bed, Dessa realized the streets had gone quiet. Surely she must have slept, because the younger the night, the noisier the neighborhood.

Turning over, she hoped to get a bit more rest before another busy day ahead. She had fresh bread to make in the morning, and a pie. Thankfully, Mariadela White would come early to help—

A crash sent Dessa’s heart to thumping. She threw off her covers and sprang to the cool wood floor. Had she locked the front door before coming to bed? It was her habit to leave the door wide open during the day; although she had yet to receive her first visitor, she wanted curious neighbors to come calling, to ask what their new neighbor was about if they hadn’t seen her flyers. But at night, while she slept, she’d taken the precaution of locking the door.

Yet she’d been so tired she couldn’t recall if she’d done so tonight.

Ear pressed to her bedroom door, she listened again. Whatever the crash had been, it had come from the floor below. That gave
her some comfort. The stairway creaked at nearly every step. If someone were coming up the stairs, she would hear him or her.

In a moment, though, she heard something else. Singing. Loud, off key. And decidedly male.

     
“In Dublin’s fair city,

     
Where the girls are so pretty,

     
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,

     
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow

     
Through the streets broad and narrow,

     
Crying, ‘Cockles and mussels! Alive, alive, oh!’”

With a prayer on her lips, Dessa listened a moment longer as the singer evidently forgot the next verse and filled in with a “la-la-la.” Whoever was downstairs must certainly be lost, and perhaps drunk.

And she must be rid of him.

Grabbing her robe, Dessa donned it while opening the door and rushing to the top of the stairs. There, she stopped once again just to be sure she heard only the one voice, then crept down to determine the best plan to send away whoever had come calling.

The stairway was hidden in a hall of its own, set to the back of the parlor so the wall space was not shorted. She peered around the edge of the staircase hall, noticing first that the chair donated only yesterday was toppled over. Beside it, flat on his back, was a shadow that did not belong—somewhat reminiscent of the smooth, rounded tops of the foothills. His hat had come askew and covered all but his mouth, from which he picked up the tune of “Molly Malone” with a thick Irish brogue.

With a glance around the rest of the parlor to be sure he’d arrived alone, Dessa stepped into the room. The parlor floor was every bit as cool to her feet as the stairs and bedroom floor, despite
what had been a warm July day. Less frightened now than annoyed, she was prompted by the feel beneath her bare feet to think about garnering some rugs before winter.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “You mustn’t sleep here!”

“What’s that?” The man struggled to sit up, slipping from the wobbly support of his elbow and back to the floor, inspiring Dessa to help him to his feet. Between his size and unsteadiness, the task was no less challenging than moving the heaviest of deliveries, but she wrestled him to the settee nonetheless. Thankfully, it accepted both his weight and her own when she fell beside him.

“Many thanks, young Molly Malone,” said the man, the unpleasant scent of strong drink on his breath.

Dessa popped back to her feet, clutching together her robe. “I’m afraid you have me confused, sir. This is Pierson House, and there is no Molly Malone here.”

He laughed, loud and hearty. “To be sure, little lady, that I know. Molly Malone is long dead, if ’twere true she ever lived a’tall.”

She extended a palm toward the door behind them. “Then can I help you out?”

He made a move to stand but fell back on the settee, which creaked to accept him yet again. “Ah, now, miss, I heard a rumor this is just the place for someone in need.”

“But only for women, sir! You must go now.”

He fought for his footing once more, stumbling back, sighing, stumbling again with a laugh until Dessa grabbed his arm to hold him steady.

“Are ya sure ya can’t allow me the night? What’s left o’ it, at any rate?”

“Now, sir, what would the neighbors say if I permitted gentlemen where only ladies are allowed?”

He issued another hearty laugh. “Around here they’d say only, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood!’”

“Yes, but I wish to live in this world yet not be part of it,” she told him, throwing his arm around her shoulder to haul him closer to the door. He wasn’t so rotund as she’d first imagined, his jacket and vest having been rumpled. Yet he was sturdy nonetheless, square of build like a tugboat. It was no easy chore to move him, even with his tottering help.

“Perhaps I might find a place on the porch . . . out of the rain?”

“It isn’t raining,” she said, glancing outside through the open curtains of the parlor window.

“Ah, but it was and will again!”

“Not tonight,” she said with a grunt to keep him moving, when he stopped altogether.

Then, as if she were no more than a child, he brushed her hands away and turned back. Though he nearly toppled with his first step in the opposite direction, he righted himself and continued through the parlor, past the stairway, and into the kitchen.

“I came round the back first,” he told her. “That porch overlookin’ the yard—it suits me.” He grabbed the edge of a kitchen chair as if the floor had lurched beneath him. But then he continued on his route.

The house had a covered porch, though it offered no amenities. Dessa imagined working out there in the warm afternoons, taking in the fresh air. Perhaps canning there in the fall. Never once had she imagined it as this man obviously did, as a sanctuary for drunken slumber.

She’d left a pile of rags and blankets, ones that had been used to cover the wood flooring while she and volunteers had painted the inside walls. It was to that pile this man headed.

“This will do—ah, yes—just fine for me.” He fell to the floorboards with a thud, softened only by the discarded materials.

“But you can’t stay here!” Dessa told him. “You must go home . . . or wherever you spent last night.”

Her only answer was a deep sigh, followed shortly by a snore.

She bent over him, lifting one of his solid arms. “Oh, no you don’t!” She tugged on him despite knowing she would have no success without his help. “You must wake up!”

To that he pulled his arm free, rolled away, and placed his hands beneath his face, eyes still closed, obviously content to stay where he was.

She shook his shoulder, demanded yet again that he go, grabbed the only arm she could reach, but all to no avail. Looking around, Dessa wondered if she had anything she could use to lift him. On a dolly, the way she’d seen one rather small man lift the heavy new stove that had been delivered earlier in the week?

But there was nothing to be done. With a moan of frustration, she returned to the kitchen. At least he wasn’t inside the house. She shut the door, locked it, and for good measure dragged one of the kitchen chairs over and tilted it under the knob. Afterward she went to the front door and did the same, this time using one of the chairs from the dining room.

There would be no more surprises tonight.

Dessa rushed to open the front door upon hearing Mariadela White’s voice. It had taken so long to fall back asleep that she’d spent half the night without rest. When she finally did sleep, she’d gone an hour past the time she wanted to start the day.

Pulling the chair away from the door and unbolting it with a twist of the lock, Dessa ushered her friend inside.

Mariadela looked from Dessa to the chair, a curious expression on her face. Mariadela might have been beautiful when she was younger, but age had softened her into what could only be called matronly. Her olive-colored skin was still smooth, but her dark
hair was streaked with gray and her middle had thickened. Even now, with an amused smile on her face and a sparkle in her dark-brown eyes, she had the look of a woman who could be almost anyone’s mother. “Isn’t the lock enough?”

Pulling the chair back to the dining room, Dessa spoke over her shoulder. “I had a visitor last night. Let’s go see if he’s still here.”

“He!” Raised brows accompanied the repetition. “You mean a man came here in the middle of the night?”

Dessa had barely finished pinning up her hair and tucking her shirtwaist into her skirt. She checked both on their way through the dining room. “I’ll tell you all about it after we make sure he’s out of here.”

“You should have a telephone installed, Dessa,” Mariadela said as she hurried behind. “You could have called us and I would have sent William over.”

Dessa started to say that if she could afford it, she would love such a luxury, but she had decided days ago not to speak to Mariadela about money anymore. Even though it had been Mariadela who’d told Dessa about the bargain this house had been, she had a feeling Mariadela thought she’d hurried things in procuring the home with the help of a bank instead of waiting for donations to cover the full amount.

The back door not only had a glass window in the top half but was sided by matching windows overlooking the porch. Once Dessa moved the chair out of the way, she peered through first one window, then another, to scan nearly all of the porch and the yard as well. She immediately spotted the pile of blankets, but there was no sign of her late-night visitor.

She unlocked the door, opening it slowly.

He was gone.

“Thank You, Father in heaven!”

“He’s gone?” Mariadela asked.

Dessa nodded, looking out to the small yard just to be sure. There was nothing much to be seen beyond weeds and hardy grass, no trees or flowers, only an old water pump they did not have to use thanks to indoor plumbing. An abandoned wood-framed carriage house took up most of the area, a structure that had somehow survived every fire she’d heard about from the city’s past. A fence marked the rear of the lot. Beyond that she could see the backs of other buildings: another carriage house—that one brick like all the others—and the side of a small restaurant.

“What happened?” Mariadela asked.

Dessa glanced at the watch that dangled from a chain around her neck. “Let’s just say I needed all the protection God had to offer last night. I’ll tell you as we work.” She’d already lost precious time this morning, and they had a lunch to prepare. An important lunch—one in which she needed to impress not only Mr. Ridgeway but perhaps more especially Mr. Hawkins. If a good meal and all the improvements weren’t enough to validate their faith in her, then God Himself would have to intervene on her behalf.