Chapter 2
Later that morning, Rose spread out the thick silk of a mid-nineteenth-century ivory ball gown that had ostensibly belonged to one of her long-dead ancestors. She scanned the folds of the fabric, checking its condition.
“This one is in good shape,” she said, glancing back at her older sister Deanna, who was inspecting an ornate black gown that must have been made for someone in full mourning. “I think it just needs to be cleaned.”
“It looks like this one was water damaged when the basement flooded,” Deanna said, her pale green eyes serious as she double-checked the doorway to the dining room of their historic family house in one of the oldest districts in Savannah.
After Rose had taken the girls to school, Deanna had picked her up to bring her over to the house so they could work on these old clothes. Rose was pretty much free until she had to pick up Julie at twelve thirty when her kindergarten class ended.
“Don’t tell Grandmama,” Rose murmured, checking the door just like Deanna had. “Maybe we can hide the damage when we get these all organized.”
Their grandmother was obsessed with the family’s past, treating all vestiges of their history—this old house, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century garments that had been saved, and other heirlooms such as furniture, clocks, and vases—like they were part of the family.
Thanks to the funding of Deanna’s new husband, they had recently had the old house restored, so now their grandmother wanted to have all her “treasures” fixed up and displayed throughout the newly beautified rooms of the house.
Deanna was twenty-seven, two years older than Rose, and she was a practical, good-humored person nearly all the time.
Like the other two Beaufort sisters, she was long accustomed to putting up with their grandmother’s eccentricities, even when, less than a year ago, those eccentricities had landed her in a marriage-of-convenience.
She’d ended up falling in love with Mitchell, her husband, and Rose had never seen her sister as happy as she’d been for the past several months.
But just because that situation had a happy ending didn’t mean their grandmother’s stubborn attachment to history didn’t cause them continual inconvenience.
“You know,” Rose said, an idea coming to her as she brushed at the folds of the silk ball gown, “what if we were to get a few dress forms—you know the kind that dressmakers use—to display some of these outfits that are in really good condition. That would take up a lot of room and would make the clothes look really good. Then maybe we could just put away the rest of them—the ones that aren’t in such great shape. ”
“She’s going to want all of them here in the house somewhere where she can get at them.”
“We could put them in the closets of all those empty bedrooms upstairs,” Rose said. “Then they’d be here but not in sight all the time, and the ones that are damaged wouldn’t be such eyesores.”
Deanna nodded, obviously thinking it through. “Yeah. That’s a good idea. We could pull out some of the prettier handkerchiefs, gloves, and scarves and maybe get them framed behind glass. They would look kind of good that way, and it would be better than just heaping them in a big pile.”
“That would be perfect.” Rose was perking up at the idea of doing something both sensible and attractive with all these old clothes.
She’d had visions of her grandmother wanting them hanging all over the walls on hooks, and she’d been trying to plan an argument against such a scheme.
“So we’d just need to buy some frames and the forms for the dresses and then probably pay to get some of the nicer ones cleaned. ”
“Yeah.” Deanna stood up, shaking out the black mourning dress as she did and wrinkling her nose.
She was a few inches shorter than Rose and had always been slimmer.
Rose used to be jealous of her sister’s figure, but now she simply didn’t have the time or energy to worry about her excessive curves.
“These clothes always did smell kind of musty, and if they’re going to be sitting out as part of the décor, we probably want them to smell nicer. ”
“Well, all of that shouldn’t be too expensive,” Rose said, trying to work out a financial estimate in her head. “I’ve got some in savings I can chip in, and Kelly said they actually had a little extra in their budget this month since you and Mitchell have been helping out.”
Kelly was their youngest sister, the only one still living at home. She had another year left of college, but she handled most of the daily running of the house as well since their grandmother mostly just presided and didn’t actually work very much anymore.
“Mitchell and I can cover the costs,” Deanna said with a frown. “There’s no reason for you to use up your savings.”
“I’m not going to use them up.” Rose had actually very little in savings since she’d been sending most of her income home to help out since she’d started working.
James paid her a more-than-fair salary and she had no living expenses herself, but until Deanna had gotten married, there had been almost no money between them to keep food on her grandmother’s table and the old house not falling down around their heads.
“There’s no reason why you and Mitchell have to pay for everything.
It’s your money. Not family money. We don’t want to be leeches on you. ”
“You’re not going to be leeches,” Deanna said with a scowl. “Why on earth wouldn’t we want to contribute to the family?”
“You can contribute. You do contribute. But we shouldn’t get used to just relying on you.
It’s not fair.” Rose was serious about this since she’d been thinking a lot about it recently, and her voice broke slightly in her earnestness.
“I know Grandmama will take everything you give her since she prides herself on getting you and Mitchell together in the first place, but it’s not right.
I’m not going to let us take advantage of your generosity. ”
“But Mitchell doesn’t care! I know he was kind of snotty at first, working out the limits of the budget he was willing to spend on the house. But he’s different now. He loves us. He wants us to use his resources.”
“I don’t care. Of course we’ll let you help out, but you shouldn’t have to pay for everything. If you’re going to contribute to the cost of taking care of these clothes, then I’m going to contribute too.”
Deanna rolled her eyes and shook her head, looking annoyed, but she didn’t continue to argue.
It was always that way growing up. Rose was always the milder and quieter of the two, but she was also the most stubborn.
Deanna might be more forceful in arguments, but Rose held out the longest—which meant she usually won.
“So let’s pick out the prettiest dresses to put on the forms so we’ll know how many we need.” Rose’s tone was light and friendly, and as usual, their argument was forgotten almost immediately.
Deanna started rooting through clothes that were piled up on the floor. “The lace wedding dress is gorgeous, and it’s still in good condition. And what about that green flapper dress?”
“I love that one. And also the gold empire waist gown. Those three and this ball gown here would make four. Surely that’s enough.”
They kept working for another hour, and Rose was in a good mood when she and Deanna went out to grab a sandwich for lunch.
She’d often felt a little distanced from her family since the Harwoods lived in an upscale suburb on the outskirts of town, and her life with James and the girls felt so different than her upbringing with her grandmother and sisters.
She liked to be able to help as much as she could. And she liked to spend time with her sisters, who had always been her best friends.
Occasionally someone would ask her how long she planned to be a nanny, and she’d never had an answer for them. She assumed she wouldn’t be a nanny all her life, but doing something else would mean leaving James and the girls.
And she wasn’t ready to do that yet.
“But I wanted to go the skating rink and have strawberry cupcakes,” Julie wailed, leaning back in her seat in the car, her small face crumpling.
“I know,” Rose said calmly. She’d picked them up from dance practice with the unfortunate news of the birthday party being canceled because the birthday girl had caught a stomach bug. “You’ll still get to do it. They’re going to reschedule the party in a few days as soon as Mya feels better again.”
“It won’t be the same!”
Rose used the same light tone she always did when Julie bemoaned the world not being perfect. “Yes, life is tragically hard, isn’t it? But better to reschedule than going to skate tonight and have poor Mya throw up all over the place.”
“Gross,” Jill said with a little giggle.
“Gross!” Julie agreed, her woe the moment before considerably lessened. “When will it be?”
“Mya’s mom didn’t know. Maybe Thursday or Friday. She said the strawberry cupcakes would definitely be there for the taking though.”
Julie let out a long-suffering sigh. “Oh. So what will we do tonight?”
Rose glanced out the window at the cars passing them on the highway.
James always had her and the girls driven around in a hired car, something Rose appreciated.
She didn’t own a car herself since she’d never been able to afford one.
She did have a license, but she hadn’t driven in years.
She would have hated having the stress of getting used to driving again while being responsible for two little girls.
“I don’t know what we’ll do,” she said cheerfully. “Your daddy has a business dinner, so we’ll have to think of something fun to do.”
“Can we go to a movie?” Jill asked.
“Maybe. Let’s think about it and see what’s playing.”