Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles 03] Read online

  © 2013 by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  Print ISBN 978-1-61626-443-7

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62416-040-0

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62416-039-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Müllerhaus Publishing Arts, Inc., www.Mullerhaus.net

  Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  About the Author

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to the memory of

  God’s extraordinary women

  In every place

  In every time

  CHAPTER 1

  Emilie Rhodes couldn’t remember a single time in all of her eighteen years that she’d failed to charm Father out of a sour mood. But there was something about his grip around her wrist today that sent a chill up her spine as he pulled her out of the press room. Something about the insistence with which he propelled her along the narrow aisle that ran the length of the newsroom. And something about the posture of the handful of men bent over their work like acolytes bowing before an icon. Not a single one looked up as Father and she passed by. Not even Tom Tomkins, who’d always treated Emilie like something of a mascot for the Beatrice Daily Dispatch. As for the typesetter she’d been helping—when Emilie glanced back at him, Will Gable looked unusually concerned. If Will was worried… Emilie shivered.

  Father released her as soon as they crossed the threshold to his office. He closed the door firmly and pulled a shade down, obscuring the sign on the window that read EDITOR IN CHIEF, BEATRICE DAILY DISPATCH. Emilie found her voice just as he reached for the second of the shades mounted above the two large windows that usually afforded him a view of his universe.

  “Don’t you want to be able to see when Mr. Shaw arrives?” When Father looked surprised, Emilie shrugged. “I heard you and Uncle Roscoe discussing who to feature in the inaugural Chautauqua edition. Y–you said you were meeting with Mr. Shaw as soon as he arrived on June 24th. Tuesday. Today.” When Father merely continued to lower the last of the shades, she defended herself. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. I was helping clear the dining room table. We all heard you. Talking about Mr. Shaw. Something about ‘spellbinding pathos.’ You wanted to be the first to speak with him. To beat out the Journal with an interview.”

  For a moment, Emilie thought she might have succeeded in diverting Father’s attention from the fact that she’d disobeyed him. But all he did was open the door and call to Tom Tomkins. “Let me know if Mr. Shaw arrives before I’ve finished my business with my daughter. And whatever you do, don’t let him get away.” He closed the door firmly and, without so much as a glance in her direction, marched around his desk and sat down.

  Emilie knew he’d sat down only because she heard the chair creak. She hadn’t dared to look at him. Instead, she clutched her ink-stained hands before her and waited to be told what to do. After what felt like eons, Father cleared his throat and told her to sit down. She perched on the edge of the simple oak chair shoved into the corner. As she looked down at the jobber’s apron she’d donned earlier, a hank of hair tumbled into view. She reached up to tuck the ash blond strands back into place, but the ink stains on her hands made her hesitate. Instead of repairing her coiffure, she curled her fingers into her palms and dropped both hands back into her lap. Maybe Father hadn’t noticed her hands.

  Of course that was a false hope. Father noticed everything. “Exactly what,” he said, accenting the ts in both words, “do you think you were doing just now?”

  “Will—” No, don’t call attention to Will. You’ll get him in trouble. She lifted her chin and made herself look at Father, concentrating on the tip of his immaculately groomed handlebar mustache. “I was setting type.”

  “I am familiar with the process,” Father snapped. “Allow me to rephrase the question. Exactly what do you think you—the accomplished daughter of Mr. William T. Rhodes and Mrs. Henrietta J. Rhodes—were doing—especially in light of recent conversations in regard to your notion of a ‘career in journalism.’”

  Emilie swallowed. “I want—” She reached up to scratch her nose, then realized with horror that she’d probably just blackened it. Leaning down, she rubbed it with the hem of the apron, taking note of the new black smudge that had just joined a host of others. She took a deep breath. “I want to understand the process,” she said.

  “The process.” He elongated the sound of the o.

  Emilie had learned to judge the state of Father’s temper by his pronunciation, and that long o was a bad sign. A very bad sign. Still, she persisted in trying to make him understand. “I want to do more than just write a column announcing church ice cream socials and Ladies’ Aid meetings. I want to write real news someday. Why can’t you understand that? You praised everything I wrote when I was away last year. So did my teachers. They said I have a real talent, Father. I want to use it. And I don’t just want to write. I want to understand every part of what it takes to produce the paper.” Finally, she dared to look at him. “Some of my earliest—and best—memories are of visiting you in this very office.” She shrugged. “It’s in my blood. I don’t see why you can’t understand that.”

  Father removed his watch from his vest pocket. He glanced down at the watch before looking over at her. “Let’s talk about that word understand, Emilie Jane. Apart from the issue of the news, I wonder…Do you understand that it’s rude to keep people waiting?” He held the watch up so that she could see the time. “Or did I misunderstand your mentioning a four o’clock rehearsal over breakfast this morning?”

  Emilie focused on the watch: Four fifteen. Oh, no. She reached behind to untie the apron. “I lost track of time.” She pulled it over her head, newly aware of just how much of her coiffure had been affected by her afternoon in the press room. “If I hurry—”

  “If you hurry,” Father snapped, “you will still have kept your cousins waiting. You will still have demonstrated a rude disregard for their schedules for the day. And ultimately, they will ‘understand’ that you were thinking only of yourself. Again.” He snapped the watch clos
ed and tucked it back in his vest pocket. Then he rose, came around the end of the desk, and reached out to tap the back of one of her hands. “And Mother, Emilie Jane. What will you say to make her understand these hands of yours?”

  Emilie uncurled her fingers and inspected the distressing amount of filth beneath her fingernails. It was as if Father’s touch had deflated her resolve. She sighed. I won’t say a thing. Why would I bother? Nothing I say changes anything. She seemed to have been born with a talent for behavior that horrified Mother and consequently upset Father. She preferred balls to dolls and had little patience with the culinary arts. Doing a sewing stint made her want to scream, and she was never content to just sit on the grass and watch Will Gable and Bert Hartwell play baseball. She wanted to play. In recent months she had steadfastly maintained friendships with several young men while just as steadfastly resisting Mother’s attempts at matchmaking. Just last week she’d declared that it was wrong for women not to have the right to vote—and come very close to suggesting there was something wrong with a woman who didn’t agree with the idea of women’s suffrage. An embarrassing moment, since Mother didn’t support the idea of women’s suffrage.

  Poor Mother. The voting discussion had been particularly distressing because it took place in the company of Aunt Cornelia, Mother’s only living relative. Aunt Cornelia could bask in the joy of three perfectly genteel daughters. Any parent would be proud to claim those three, while poor Mother’s fate allowed her only one child—and a faulty one, at that.

  The sound of Father clearing his throat brought Emilie back to the moment and the subject of her ink-stained hands. “Dinah will know what to do,” she said. It wasn’t the answer Father wanted, but it was the best she could do. And it was true. Aunt Cornelia might not envy her sister her only child, but she did envy Mother Dinah Brooks, the best housekeeper in Gage County.

  As for Emilie’s cousins, also known as the popular ladies’ trio, the Spring Sisters—they were the least of Emilie’s worries at the moment. April would scold, but more out of a sense of duty as the oldest than from any real anger. Junie would roll her eyes and mutter something about “Emilie being Emilie again.” And May, the middle child, would understand. May always understood, because she shared Emilie’s desire to become something more than ornamentation for a man’s life—even if May was more subtle about her leanings.

  With a sigh, Father stood and stepped over to his office door, pausing with his hand on the brass knob long enough to say, “Get that apron off. I’ll have Hartwell see you home. He can wait while Dinah helps you get cleaned up, and then he can drive you out to the assembly grounds for your rehearsal.”

  “You don’t need to bother Bert. I can—”

  “Do not tell me what I do or do not ‘need’ to do.”

  Obviously Father wasn’t open to suggestions. The best thing Emilie could do was to keep her head down and do as she was told. Even if it was 1890. Even if she was eighteen years old. Not that Father seemed to remember that very often.

  “I’d take you myself,” he continued, “if I hadn’t arranged to meet with Mr. Shaw about that column.” He cleared his throat. “Unlike others, I do not make a habit of missing appointments.” He paused. “Hartwell can be counted on to get you home—and not to snicker behind our backs.” He opened the door and called for Bert.

  Emilie dared a look at Father as he waited for Bert. At the set of his jaw. The glum expression. The disappointment. Over her. The only child her parents would ever have. Even if Father had gotten over the disappointment of her not being a boy, he was still disappointed. And why? Because she couldn’t even manage to be the next best thing—a lady like Mother. And this time, Father wasn’t just upset. He was ashamed of her. He wanted her out of the newspaper office as quickly as possible, and he was calling on someone who wouldn’t “laugh behind their backs.” As she ducked her head and waited for Bert, Emilie blinked back tears. It was one thing to be a disappointment, and quite another to think you might have been the cause of people laughing at your parents.

  “This conversation is not yet finished,” Father said. “We’ll continue it when you return from rehearsal. In my study at home.” He sighed. “I thought giving you the Ladies’ News column would—help, somehow. Now I see that it’s only put more ideas into your head.” Taking a deep breath he said, “Be thinking of who you’d recommend to replace you. The column performs a worthy service to the community—but I realize now that it was a mistake to put you in charge.”

  The air grew close. Crumpling the soiled apron into a ball, Emilie sprang to her feet and blurted out a promise. “No, Father. Please. I—I didn’t think—”

  “Indeed, you did not. For such a bright girl, you seem—” At the sound of a familiar, shuffling gait approaching the office, Father broke off and stepped back to admit Bert Hartwell.

  Bert had a unique walk. It was more of a shuffle, really—a shuffle caused by a poorly set broken leg suffered six years ago when Emilie and Bert were twelve-year-olds chasing each other in and out of the trees along the banks of the Blue River one Sunday afternoon. It was long before the city had staked out ninety acres and designated it for a ten-day extravaganza called the Interstate Chautauqua. Back then, the woods meandering along the clear river were just a favored spot for family outings. Now they provided the perfect site for a regional event that drew thousands of visitors to Beatrice to hear lectures and attend reunions, to savor concerts and endure sermons. But back before all of that, twelve-year-old Bert Hartwell had taken a dare from his best friend, Emilie Rhodes.

  “Bet you can’t climb that tree,” she’d said. And now Bert shuffled.

  The scent of his cologne preceded Bert into the office. Emilie scrubbed at her nose with the soiled apron. It came away with still more evidence of her hours setting type. What she must look like! She glared an unspoken message in Bert’s direction. Don’t you dare laugh. He gulped and looked at Father, who was giving instructions in the no-nonsense way he had that sounded of authority—and yet of kindness.

  Kindness. How Emilie wished Father would have flavored his words to her just now with even a hint of that. Perhaps he would have even been proud of a child taking an interest in the business—were that child named Emil. What a difference two letters could make.

  “You can take my buggy instead of collecting one from the livery,” Father said. “I’ll walk home after I’ve concluded my business with Mr. Shaw. The fresh air will do me good. Please wait through the rehearsal and see that Emilie goes directly home when the ladies are finished.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bert said. “You can count on me.”

  “I knew I could.” Father waved them both out of his office.

  When Emilie glanced back, he was rolling up the window shades to once again reveal the part of his world over which he had absolute control.

  “Whew,” Bert said as he helped Emilie into the buggy hitched in the alley behind the newspaper office. “I haven’t seen him that angry in a while.”

  “You haven’t seen him around me in a while,” Emilie said, suddenly aware of the fact that she was still holding on to the soiled printer’s apron. They made their way toward Sixth Street and then north, past the construction site of the new county courthouse and, finally, to North Seventh and the new home Father had had built for Mother only last year. When Bert pulled the buggy to a halt beneath the porte cochere, Emilie didn’t wait for his help before jumping down. “You might as well come in,” she said. “I’ll hurry, but it’s still going to take a few minutes. Dinah made lemon pie yesterday. I’ll tell her to get you a piece.”

  Bert followed her along the narrow porch that extended from the front of the house, around the curved corner turret to the porte cochere, and then all the way to the back, where it widened to create a modest sitting area just off the kitchen.

  Dinah liked to sit there in the evening, knitting while she waited for her husband Calvin to finish his work in the barn or elsewhere on the half-acre property. But this afternoon
, Dinah was standing at the sink, trimming the tops off a bunch of carrots. Emilie peeled off her gloves and went to her side. Holding out her hands, she said, “Help. And can Bert have the last piece of pie, please?”

  Dinah spoke to Bert first. “It’s right there under that cloth.” She pointed at the worktable on the far side of the kitchen. “All you need is a fork.” Dinah peered down at Emilie’s hands. “What you been doing?”

  “It’s printers’ ink. Will Gable was showing me how to set type. And I’m late to rehearsal with the cousins.” She shrugged. “And Father caught me, and he’s fit to be tied.” She bit her lower lip. “He asked Bert to drive me. And to bring me home later.”

  Shaking her head, Dinah trundled into the pantry, returning with a small tin, which she set on the counter. The foul-smelling mixture she ladled out of the tin and into Emilie’s open palm removed the ink from her hands as she scrubbed. Dinah helped her remove the smudges from her face and soon all traces of the ink were gone, except for the dark lines beneath her nails.

  “You gonna have to soak your hands to get rid of those,” Dinah said.

  “I will when I get home tonight. For now, gloves will have to do. I’ll just have to hope the cousins don’t notice while I’m playing.” Planting a quick kiss on Dinah’s leathery cheek, Emilie raced up the back stairs and into her room. One look at herself in her dressing mirror and she almost understood why Father had been so upset, especially when her imagination recreated the smudged face and a filthy apron.

  Repairing her hair would take too long. Pulling a dozen hairpins out, she let it tumble down around her shoulders, then quickly drew a brush through it and tied it back with a green ribbon. Grabbing a straw bonnet, she headed back downstairs, landing in the kitchen just as she heard her mother call Father’s name from the front hall.

  Emilie sent a panicked look in Dinah’s direction. “I thought she was at a library meeting.”

  “Must have finished early.” Dinah headed into the pantry with the tin of cleanser.