Loving Helen (17 page)

“Is there a particular reason you prefer red?” he asked.

“Because of a dress I had — a long time ago, when I was seven.”

“Did your father buy it for you?” Knowing what he did of the deceased Mr. Thatcher, Samuel found that possibility highly doubtful but could think of no other reason why a dress would be so long remembered.

“Has Grace not told you of our father?” Helen asked, turning her head to look at him. “He never bought us anything. If it had been up to him to clothe us, we would have been — cold.”

Samuel worked to hide a smile. But their circumstance growing up was nothing to smile about. He cleared his throat again, something he feared he’d do a lot around her as tried to avoid hurting her feelings. Conversing with Grace was much easier; he’d always felt like he could tell her anything and be anything around her, rather like family. He missed that freedom. “Where did you get the dress, then? If it has determined something so very important as your favorite color, there must be a good story behind it.”

“Yes,” Helen said, a wistful smile on her lips.

“Will you not share it?” Samuel asked, wishing he needn’t pry words from her.
Patience
, he thought, giving himself the same advice he’d given Grace. He could not expect Helen to confide in him the very first day of their pretended relationship.

“You wish to hear it?” She glanced at him, wariness apparent in the lines creasing her forehead.

“I do.” They were nearly to the house and would soon part company for a few hours, at least. If their plan was to work, they would of necessity spend much of their time together in the coming days.

“All right. I will attempt to explain.” Helen bit her lip and appeared to consider a moment before beginning her tale. “Grace never let me help with the wash. Have you noticed her hands?”

“I have,” he said solemnly. “Her scars speak of years of love and sacrifice.”

“They do,” Helen said, her eyes bright. “And she did not want me to have similar scars. So I was never allowed to wash clothes. I hung them, folded them, and, when I was seven, she taught me to iron. By then, Christopher helped with deliveries and did other odd work to earn money.”

“Go on,” Samuel said, still uncertain how any of this related to a red dress.

“One day I was ironing what I thought to be a beautiful red gown.” Her face flushed as if embarrassed. “You may well guess that some of the customers we had were not of the type that polite society associates with.”

Or at least they don’t admit it,
Samuel thought ruefully, remembering how it had been suggested by a few well-meaning, but off-the-mark acquaintances that his feelings of loneliness might be abated with a visit or two with women of loose morals. “I understand,” he said. “Continue your story.”

Helen’s eyes reflected appreciation for his lack of censure. “The red gown had several layers. Each had to be pressed, then carefully hung over the side of the board so as not to wrinkle while the next section was ironed.”

“Sounds like tedious work.”

“It was. I hated it. I complained to Grace. I thought her job more fun — after all, she got to play in the water, or so I thought.”

Samuel smiled. “Exactly something like Beth would think. No wonder the two of you are such great friends.”

“Beth is adorable,” Helen said. “Do not ever let her get near an iron or a laundry tub.”

“I intend to keep her safe from all such dangers,” Samuel said in mock seriousness.

“Good.” Helen offered him a tiny smile. “My hands haven’t the scars of Grace’s, but many a time, I suffered burns from the iron.”

“Were you burned while ironing the red gown?” Samuel guessed.

Helen nodded. “Worse, I burned a hole in the dress. One corner of one of the outer layers caught on the board. I didn’t notice, so I ironed it with the other layers, over and over. When I shook the gown out at the end, there was a hole, right in the front. Oh, how I cried.”

“Was Grace very upset with you?” Samuel asked, even more perplexed as to how red could possibly be Helen’s favorite color when it had to do with such disaster.

“She never scolded me. She just looked at the dress and said, ‘Oh, Helen.’ Then she took Christopher with her and left to make the deliveries. They brought the gown with them, and they were gone for hours. I fretted, worried that something terrible had become of Grace, that she was being punished for my mistake, that no one would pay her to do laundry anymore. And if that happened, I didn’t know what would become of us.” Helen’s forehead and nose bunched with worry as she recounted the anxiety of that afternoon.

Samuel could imagine the scene all too well. He’d seen how many ladies of the upper class mistreated their servants and could imagine that those working in a brothel might treat a young wash girl even worse — and that when she
hadn’t
made a disastrous mistake.

“It was dark when they finally returned. Grace had a basket with new laundry to be washed, and Christopher carried a large bag of potatoes. We hid them all over the house — never more than two in the same location, lest Father find them. Grace said they were what we had to eat for the next month, so we had to be careful to make them last.”

“Did they last?” Samuel asked, imagining the three children near starvation. Grace would have been only thirteen at the time, and Christopher nine. And at seven, Helen would have been far too young to be charged with the task of ironing women’s gowns. They’d all had to grow up so quickly.

“The potatoes almost lasted the month,” Helen said. “We went only a day or two without, and that happened most months anyway.”

“And you love the color red because it reminds you of this dreadful time?”

Helen laughed. “Of course not. I love red because of what came next.” Her eyes sparkled. “That Christmas was the one year I received a present — a beautiful red dress Grace had made from the ruined gown. The woman it had belonged to had been furious and demanded that Grace pay for it. Of course, we couldn’t begin to do that, but Grace had given the woman an entire week’s worth of pay — except what Christopher had taken to buy the potatoes — and agreed to pay her most of the rest of our earnings for the month, as well as doing her laundry for free for several months beyond that. In doing so, Grace was able to keep the gown — and kept it hidden from me. When I slept at night, she stayed up, sewing the dress for me from the very gown that had caused so much trouble.” Helen smiled, a faraway look on her face. “I’d never had any new clothes before, or even anything that wasn’t mostly rags. I felt like a princess when I put that red dress on.”

“If you were half as beautiful as you are now, I am sure you looked like one too.” Samuel imagined a younger, smaller Helen twirling about in the made-over gown.

“Grace sewed Christopher a pair of fancy knee pants from one of the layers, though he never seemed to care for them quite as much as I cared for the dress.”

“I should think not,” Samuel said. “Most nine-year-old boys wouldn’t wear such breeches, preferring to be — as you said before — cold.”

Helen pressed her lips together and attempted a stern look, though he suspected she wished to laugh, however inappropriate the topic was.

“Grace used every scrap of that fabric,” Helen continued. “She tied strips of it onto a string, which she wound all around the house for Christmas. We thought it very festive. And we had sweet potatoes — instead of regular — for Christmas supper. Father wasn’t home, so we stayed up late and danced and played. It was glorious. How I loved that dress — and Grace.”

Samuel loved the look of rapture Helen wore as she finished the story. He could sense the depth of her love for her sister and was beginning to understand why Helen had agreed to pretending a relationship with him if it meant Grace’s happiness. His affection and admiration for the Thatcher family swelled at hearing the story of the red dress, and he thought that red might be his favorite color now too.

“Whatever became of the dress?” he asked.

“I outgrew it,” Helen said sadly. “Twice Grace altered it and then lengthened it as much as possible. Still, I loved it and kept it hidden safely away, beneath our mattress, so Father couldn’t gamble it away.”

“Where is it now?” Samuel asked. Perhaps Helen still had the gown, or maybe it had been left behind when the siblings fled their grandfather’s house.

“I don’t know where it is, exactly.” Her wistful smile returned. “I was eleven when Grace began taking me on deliveries. Some of the places we passed were worse than our own little hovel, and one day I saw a girl wearing only a large shirt with a rope tied around the waist.”

“You gave your red dress away.”
Of course.
What else would generous, kindhearted Helen do? He recalled the way she had jumped in to help with Beth that first morning at breakfast and the many hours she’d spent making things for his daughter’s Christmas present. He remembered her kind words at Elizabeth’s grave and the empathy she had shown him whenever he had bad days.

“It made the girl so happy that
I
became happy doing it,” Helen said. “Peculiar how that works, isn’t it?”

“One of life’s more curious phenomena,” he agreed. “You are fortunate to have experienced it when you were so young. You’ve more wisdom than many people twice your age.”

“I am not
so
young now,” Helen insisted, her annoyance apparent from the way her curls shook as she tossed her head. “But I
am
fortunate to have Grace as a sister. She deserves to be happy.”

“And she shall be,” Samuel predicted. “We will succeed. Nicholas
will
want her back, and he will know that nothing is in his way.”

“I hope you’re right,” Helen said. “I have never seen Grace so miserable, and that is saying something.”

He was certain it was, given their upbringing — or lack of one.

They reached the house, and the butler appeared to open front doors as if he’d been there waiting for their arrival.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” Beth launched herself at Helen the moment she’d crossed the threshold. Samuel caught them both from careening back out the doors.

“Beth, that is no way to treat a guest,” he scolded, but only half-heartedly. He loved seeing his daughter so happy, though he knew he needed to curb her wild ways. Strong-willed though Elizabeth had been, she was a lady in every sense of the word. Each morning on his walk, he mulled the problem over.

“Miss Helen isn’t a guest,” Beth declared, laying claim to Helen’s hand and towing her toward the staircase. “She’s my friend.”

“Thank you for walking with me,” Helen called to Samuel over her shoulder.

“My pleasure,” he said, for the benefit of any servants who might be watching — and also because it was true. The story of Helen’s red dress had touched him. He wouldn’t have guessed that a simple question about one’s favorite color would reveal so much about a person. He suspected, however, that Christopher knew otherwise.

“No small victory,” Samuel murmured as he reflected on their walk and watched Helen ascend the stairs. She’d spoken more the past twenty minutes than during all of their previous conversations. Perhaps, as she’d declared, she really wasn’t as shy as he’d believed.

“Let’s play Going to a Ball.” Beth gathered her dolls from the various rooms of the dollhouse. She held up the two girls, clothed in the finery Helen had sewn for them. “I’ll be these.” She thrust the boy doll at Helen. “And you be him.”

“Very well.” Helen leaned forward to accept the assigned doll. “But I really don’t know much about balls. I haven’t been to very many.” She sat the doll in front of her on the rug.

“You went to the Christmas Eve ball with Papa,” Beth said.

Not
with
him, though that would have been lovely.
“And like your father, I did not stay long.”

“Did you dance?” Beth lay on her stomach, chin propped on her hands.

“I did not,” Helen said.

“Not even with Papa?”

“Not even with him,” Helen said, wistfully. “I wanted to,” she admitted, remembering the awful moment when Samuel had asked Grace to dance instead of her. “But I didn’t.”

“Why not?” Beth asked.

“Well …” Helen considered how to best explain. Beth was the sort of child who proceeded to go after whatever she wanted. Helen smiled as she imagined Beth all grown up and marching across a ballroom to request a dance from the gentleman she favored. Perhaps by then, if there were enough grown-up girls with Beth’s temperament, such a thing would be in vogue. “When a lady attends a ball, she must wait for a gentleman to ask her to dance. If he does not, then she does not get to dance with him.”

“That isn’t fair.” Beth stood one of the girl dolls on the carpet in front of her. “This lady is going to ask the gentleman with the brown hair to dance with her.” She pushed the doll toward Helen’s. “I would like you to dance with me, sir.”

Helen stifled a laugh as she stood the requested “gentleman” on the floor beside Beth’s “lady.”

“I would be honored,” Helen said. She bent the doll forward in a bow. “Now the lady must curtsy,” she whispered.

“Why?” Beth asked.

“Because it is proper and polite.” Samuel’s voice above them startled Helen.