Chapter Three #2
But the man quickly remembers his courtesy, holds fast to the unruffled civility required of a bannerman of the Thorne clan, and with another quick clearing of his bow-tied throat, he offers a bland smile. “If you’d be so kind as to wait for just a moment, I shall see if Mrs. Thorne is at home.”
The door shuts, leaving us in the flickering puddle of light thrown down by the entryway sconces. Mamma lets out an audible exhale. “ ’Course she’s at home,” she says, her voice low. “Christmas Day, suppertime, where else would she be, the greengrocer’s?”
“Church?” I venture.
Mamma shoots me a dart of a look, answering: “She needn’t go to church when she can do some good right here. Doesn’t the Good Book tell us to feed the hungry? And love our neighbors?”
But we aren’t her neighbors, I think. We are from a very different part of town.
I don’t dare voice that aloud. A moment later the door opens again, and we all shift on our feet as Mamma rearranges her face into a look of graciousness itself.
A woman stands before us. Older than Mamma and shorter, too, but with a ramrod posture that makes it look as though she’s got an iron pole for a spine.
Her thin hair is pulled back, tidy and high on her head, the same ashy color as her eyes.
Her velvet gown is dark, the blue of a cold midnight, with a froth of white lace at the neck and wrists.
Her gray eyes sweep our trio gathered on her doorstep, and when she locks gazes with me, I can’t help but think of lemons, for it looks like she’s just sucked one dry.
“What is the meaning of this?” she asks, her voice so quiet that I take a step forward to hear better.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Thorne,” Mamma says, managing a bright tone in spite of this woman’s unsmiling, bone-white face. Mrs. Thorne, the richest woman in Pittsburgh, the widow of the legendary railroad tycoon and the lady of this sprawling castle, looks to be about the furthest thing from merry.
She throws a quick glance back toward the interior of her house, then meets Mamma’s eyes as she answers: “And the same to you. And as it is indeed Christmas, I am occupied at present with my family. But I do not know you.”
Nor does she wish to, from the look of it.
I nod, hoping we can excuse ourselves and be on our way.
But Mamma forges on, showing a determination entirely unlike her recent behavior.
“The name is Mrs. Goodwin Talbot. Florence Talbot, if you like. And these here are my young ones. See…I’m a widow, like yourself, ma’am.
And I work hard. I can show you my hands to prove it.
But food isn’t cheap. And with the two young ones to feed…
and I figure, with it being Christmas and all…
” Mamma’s words drift off like the misting of her warm breath in the bitter night air.
Mrs. Thorne, somehow, pulls herself to stand even straighter. And then, her colorless eyes fixing squarely on Mamma, Mrs. Thorne declares: “You’ve come to beg for a handout.”
Mamma lets out a puff of sound, then falls momentarily silent.
I feel my heart hammering, and I see Kit fidget at her other side.
I’ve had enough of this; I long to return home, even to that dingy boardinghouse, where at least the cat will be waiting for us.
But with her gaze tilting downward, Mamma breaks the unbearable silence: “Well, ma’am, I heard talk that you’re a churchgoing woman”—Mamma raises her eyes and glances around the place—“and blessed in ways that some of us aren’t. ”
Mrs. Thorne folds her gloved hands before her slender waist, looking down at me and then at Kit.
When she looks back to Mamma, Mrs. Thorne offers a tight nod of her chin, saying, “Of course I go to church. And I give generously there. Might I suggest you attend Sunday services, where you will find that not only your body but also your soul may be fed?”
Mamma shifts at my side. “I’ll be there. Sunday morning. But until then?”
Mrs. Thorne throws another vexed look back toward the inside of her warm home, then she stuffs a hand into the fold of her fine velvet dress.
A moment later she says only, “Oh, very well.” And then she puts something into Mamma’s hand.
I steal a glance and see that it’s a five-dollar bill.
More than two months’ rent! Sure, the rumor is that Mrs. Thorne’s got hundreds of millions in the bank, left to her by her dead tycoon husband.
But for us? This much money at one time feels like a fortune.
Mamma was right—this outing was worth it.
Our benefactress offers one final scowl, two streams of warm breath slipping out of the nostrils of her narrow, patrician nose. And then, with a voice that sounds perhaps just slightly less irked, she says: “Walk around the side there. I’ll have Cook send out plates for you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Thorne. We’re so very grateful. Aren’t we, children?” Mamma squeezes the bones of my hand so hard that I almost wince.
But I remember myself in time and flash the fine lady another big smile, another flourish of a curtsy. “Thank you, ma’am,” I say, as Kit mumbles the same.
As we scurry down from the doorstep, Mrs. Thorne’s shrill voice calls out into the frigid night: “But remember this!” We turn to listen, looking up at her figure, a thin wraith wrapped in the glow of her doorway’s warm light.
“I am not running an almshouse, and this is not a food canteen. You’d be better off putting your hands to good honest work and finding yourself in the church pew on Sunday.
See to it that you don’t come disturb our family peace again, Mrs. Talbot. ”
Mamma shifts on her feet. Mrs. Thorne slides away from the door; then she’s gone, leaving her butler to shut the three of us out in the dark night.
I can feel the fury seeping off Mamma like steam.
Or perhaps it’s shame. Probably both, I figure, as I feel her grip tighten around my hand and, with that, the hardness of resolution.
Because a moment later, under her breath so that only Kit and I can hear, Mamma whispers through gritted teeth: “If that’s the finest lady in town, who needs this place?
Good riddance. I’ll use her five dollars, and I’ll get us out of here. ”
“To where?” I ask, as we resume our weary steps, back toward home, far away from this neighborhood with its stone castles and bare trees. It looks like Mamma doesn’t plan to wait for the offered food after all, I realize, with a pang in my hungry belly.
When Mamma answers, her tone sounds as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world: “Philadelphia, Florence. I’m going to make dresses for fine ladies, but I sure won’t do it for Mrs. Thorne.”