Every Perfect Gift (2 page)

“Careful, miss!” A farmer, his arms laden with boxes of supplies, jumped back as she approached Mr. Tanner’s livery. She slowed the rig and nodded an apology.

Truth to tell, she’d always felt she had something to prove. All those years at the orphanage, where she was treated as inferior, had left a mark on her soul. If she made a success of the
Gazette
, perhaps then she could vanquish those taunting voices in her head and prove she was as good as anybody, despite the whispers, rumors, and unanswered questions about who she was and where she came from.

Was that such a crazy thing to want?

She left the horse and rig at Tanner’s livery and, drawing her shawl about her shoulders, walked the short distance to the newspaper office. The key slid into the rusty lock. The door groaned as she pushed it open. A dull gray light barely penetrated the dirt-streaked windows. In the corners, cobwebs undulated like ghosts. Wooden crates, an empty filing cabinet, and a broken-down bookcase littered the small space. The musty smell of old paper and lead mingled with the dust that rose in clouds when she plopped down in the chair behind the scarred walnut desk, bringing back a memory so sweet and sharp that her eyes filled.

What’s that smell?
She was ten years old and away from the orphanage for a glorious afternoon with the woman who soon would become her guardian.
Smells like an adventure!

She still felt the same way. What could be more exciting than newspapering? Every day brought new stories that needed to be reported, examined, and remarked upon. As soon as her typewriting machine and her supplies arrived, the
Gazette
would be back in business. Assuming she ever got rid of all this infernal dirt and grime. She ran one hand along the dusty windowsill and checked the small gold watch she wore on a chain around her neck. It wasn’t yet noon. There was time to do a bit of cleaning before leaving to conduct her first interview.

Ethan Heyward had been a hard man to pin down. It had taken three wires and two weeks’ worth of handwritten notes before he finally agreed to talk to her about his role as codeveloper and manager of the new resort. Finally he’d promised to give her a brief tour of the grounds this afternoon.

Last night she’d tossed and turned, trying out interview questions in her head. The last thing she wanted was to have Mr. Heyward think she was frivolous and simpleminded. It might be 1886, but plenty of men—and women too—thought females were unsuited for business and their only place was in the home. Not that she didn’t dream of falling in love with the most wonderful man on earth, making a life with him, having children. What woman didn’t? But she didn’t want to give up the newspaper business either.

She opened a desk drawer, thumbed through a dusty stack of old invoices, and slid the drawer shut. Why so many people of both sexes thought she had to choose one or the other was the mystery of the ages. Writing for newspapers and magazines was the perfect occupation for a woman who didn’t mind persevering in a man’s world, and there were plenty of women who agreed. Just look at Nellie Bly. And Mrs. Lydia McPherson, who not only wrote for but also owned one of the biggest newspapers in all of Texas. And Sophie’s old boss at the Dallas paper was a woman too. The country was hurtling toward a brand-new century. It was high time for a new attitude about what women could accomplish.

She removed her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and pumped water into the pail she’d left there yesterday. She dipped a rag into the water and tackled the grimy window overlooking the street, noticing with a sigh that several of the gold letters had worn away. She would have to fix that situation right away. Potential subscribers and advertising customers would be less than impressed by a shabby-looking façade.

She wiped the window clean inside and out and dried it, rubbing the glass until the streaks disappeared, then started on the woodwork. Potential interview questions for Mr. Heyward still swirled in her head. What was he like? She knew little about him, apart from what she’d gleaned from other newspaper accounts—that he was the scion of an old Georgia family, that he was an architect, and that he’d teamed up with a Maryland businessman named Horace Blakely to build the resort many compared to those in Saratoga, New York.

Coming up from Texas on the train, she’d bought a copy of the
Chattanooga Times
that carried a photograph of the balding and rotund Mr. Blakely. No doubt Mr. Heyward looked about the same. Birds of a feather flocked together, didn’t they? Especially wealthy birds. And Mr. Heyward surely must be rich as Croesus to build such a palatial hotel. The
Times
article said Blue Smoke was meant to rival the Greenbrier, the plush West Virginia resort that attracted wealthy guests from all over the country.

After scrubbing the baseboards and windowsills and dusting the desk and the chair, Sophie straightened the picture on the wall behind the desk, a fanciful painting of ladies at tea on a calm lake. For a moment she stood still, drinking in its quiet beauty.

“Hello? Anyone here?” A slender young woman, her white-blond hair woven into a thick plait down her back, peered through the open doorway, looking for all the world like a water sprite in Sophie’s favorite childhood storybook.

Sophie looked up. “May I help you?”

The water sprite stepped inside, holding a thin brown envelope sealed with a blob of blue wax. “Miss Caldwell?”

“Yes, but please call me Sophie.” She pulled her sleeves down, buttoned her cuffs, and set aside her cleaning rag. “What can I do for you?”

“You probably don’t remember me. I’m a few years older than
you.” The woman leaned one hip on the corner of the desk. “But I remember you. It caused quite a stir in Hickory Ridge when Wyatt Caldwell and his Boston bride lit out for Texas and took you with them. Jasper Pruitt still marvels at it.”

A mental picture of the hard-eyed mercantile owner rose in Sophie’s mind. Had the intervening years softened his opinion of those who were different? Perhaps that was too much to hope for. “I’m sorry. I don’t . . . I didn’t have a chance to make many friends when I lived at Mrs. Lowell’s orphanage.”

“I’m Sabrina Gilman. But I much prefer to be called Gillie. My father owns the bank.” She handed Sophie the envelope. “Your deposit receipt. Father said you left it in his office yesterday.”

“So I did.” Sophie smiled and dropped the envelope into the top drawer of her desk. “I was so eager to get settled and get over here to take a look at things that I forgot all about it.” She studied her visitor. “I do remember you, though. You and Jacob Hargrove played Mary and Joseph at the Christmas pageant the year Mrs. Lowell brought us to church to sing carols. You aren’t that much older than I am.”

“Twenty-eight as of last week.” Gillie sighed. “Well past my prime for marriage, according to Mother and her friends.”

“I thought you and Jacob—”

“He left Hickory Ridge a couple of years after you and the Caldwells.” Gillie shrugged. “I can’t blame him. There was no work here for years. He finally got a job at a factory up north and married someone else.”

“I’m sorry.”

Gillie laughed. “Well, I’m not! It was only a childhood flirtation. Though I will admit, for a while I was in such a state that Father sought Dr. Spencer’s help in sorting me out.” She traced a scar on the wood desk with her fingers. “At first I couldn’t imagine any other life than the one I’d dreamed of with Jacob. Watching our children
grow up on our farm. Watching the seasons change. Growing old and wrinkled together.” She sent Sophie a rueful smile. “Sentimental beyond all words, I know, but that’s what I thought I was meant to do. God had other plans, though.”

Sophie nodded. She had been visiting Ada Wentworth the day Robbie Whiting’s father rode in to report that Wyatt Caldwell was taking the next train to Texas. That was the day Ada put her trust in God’s plans and changed all their lives.

“I’m devoting my life to helping the sick,” Gillie said. “It’s my true calling. And I owe it all to a . . . woman of loose morals.”

“A . . .” Sophie wasn’t a prude, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak a word polite ladies only hinted at.

“Exactly.” Gillie bobbed her head. “Annie Cook. She owned a house of ill repute in Memphis. A very nice one, so they say. When the yellow fever epidemic broke out several years back, people left town like rats leaving a sinking ship, but she stayed and turned her place into a hospital. She took care of the sick folks till she herself died of the fever. It was in all the papers.” Gillie looked up, her face full of light. “If that doesn’t prove that God can use anybody for the good, I do not know what does. Annie Cook gave her life for other people.”

Sophie made a mental note to look into Miss Cook’s story. It might make an inspiring piece for the paper one day. “I hope you won’t be called upon to go that far.”

“So far my career has consisted mostly of tending colicky babies and patching up farming injuries. But Doc Spencer is teaching me to deliver babies. At nursing school we weren’t allowed to attend a mother on our own.”

Outside, the train whistle shrieked. Gillie shot to her feet. “My goodness—noon already. I didn’t intend to take so much of your time.”

“That’s all right. Truthfully, I’m glad for your company. I’m
afraid I don’t have friends here. Except for Robbie Whiting, I never did.”

“Their loss.” Gillie’s voice was warm with welcome. “But you’ve got one now.”

Sophie returned Gillie’s smile. How wonderful it would be to have someone near her own age to laugh with and confide in. “I hope so. Thanks for bringing my bank receipt.”

“No trouble.” Gillie waved one dainty hand and headed for the door. “I’ll see you later.”

Sophie emptied the dirty water from her cleaning bucket and draped the rag over the windowsill to dry, then headed for the hotel to freshen up before her trip up the mountain to Blue Smoke. Despite her education and practical experience contributing stories to the
Galveston News
and the
Oklahoma Star
, the mere thought of interviewing someone as powerful as Mr. Heyward made her stomach tight with nerves.

If she made a mess of this first real interview, folks would talk, as they always did in small Southern towns. If that happened, nobody would take her or her newspaper seriously. More than anything, she wanted her newspaper to succeed—to prove to the Caldwells that their faith in her was justified and to secure her future. She couldn’t depend upon Wyatt Caldwell forever. He and Ada had their own children, Wade and Lilly, to consider.

The hotel parlor was quiet. A mother cradling a sleeping infant sat in the wing chair beside the window and gazed onto the busy street. Two salesmen in wool suits and bowler hats occupied the settee. Sophie retrieved her key from the room clerk and climbed the creaking stairs to her room. She changed into her best dress, a dark green frock with lace collar and cuffs, and picked up the new spring hat Ada had made for her. The jaunty little toque, adorned with netting and a single white silk flower, complemented her creamy skin and gray-green eyes.

She studied her reflection in the mottled mirror above the washstand and fought the fresh wave of apprehension moving through her. Despite her fair skin and straight hair, rumors that at least one of her parents carried African blood had marked her childhood and set her apart. Suppose she encountered the same thing now?

Back home in Texas, among Mexican
vaqueros
who worked Wyatt’s ranch, hundreds of German and Czech immigrants, and African sugar plantation workers who sailed to Galveston to begin a new life, it had been easy to avoid questions about her family. Living with the Caldwells, moving through the world under their protection, had given her entrée into the finest homes and schools in Texas. Even so, without a blood family and a history to anchor her, she hadn’t fit in with most of the other girls at Miss Halliday’s School for Young Ladies. As much as she’d loved learning, graduating and starting her work in Dallas had come as an enormous relief.

She secured her hat with a pearl hatpin and brushed at a smudge of dirt on her nose. Maybe Wyatt was right and it was a mistake to come back to a place where some people—Mr. Pruitt at the mercantile, for instance—would remember the old gossip, and the hurt and rejection might well catch up with her again.

Fighting a wave of homesickness for Texas and the Caldwells, she gathered her bag, her notebook, and her pens and hurried from the inn to Mr. Tanner’s livery. No sense in borrowing trouble. She’d made her choice. And the venerable Mr. Heyward must not be kept waiting.

TWO

“Mr. Heyward?” Tim O’Brien, the lanky, red-haired young Irishman Ethan had lured away from Gilman’s bank with the promise of higher wages and shorter hours, stuck his head into the room. “That newspaper reporter is here.”

Ethan set aside the payroll ledger he’d been perusing and glanced at the leather-bound appointment calendar lying open on his desk. He’d nearly forgotten his promise to give the reporter a tour of the facilities. Normally he enjoyed showing visitors around the marvel that was Blue Smoke, but today he was preoccupied with half a dozen headaches—delayed deliveries, absentee workers he’d been counting on to finish the flooring in the ballroom, and rumors of growing unrest among Negro workers and the Irish boys he’d imported from back east. Besides, the way he understood it, the
Gazette
was not actually in operation yet. It was only someone’s dream—the way Blue Smoke was his.

Still, once the resort opened, he’d need the newspaper, not only to keep people apprised of goings-on atop the mountain, but to act as a jobber for printing stationery, menus, guest cards, and daily activity sheets. If an afternoon with the reporter would put the resort into the good graces of the paper’s owner, perhaps he could negotiate more favorable terms when the time came.