Eliza nodded. As her maid walked off, she wiped the tears from her lashes and took a deep breath, her chest puffing up as she filled her lungs with the sooty air of the train station. She was free. She was really and truly free. A wide grin spread across her face, and it was all
she could do to keep from spinning in a gleeful, wide-armed circle.
“You look like the cat that just swallowed the canary,” Alice commented, her tone sly.
“Do I? I suppose I can’t quite believe I’m actually here,” Eliza said, falling into step with the two girls as they trailed behind Mrs. Hodge.
“Where are you from?” Alice asked.
“Boston,” Eliza said. “And you?”
“Philadelphia,” Alice replied, swinging her bag in a girlish way as she walked. Catherine opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off. “The most tedious place on Earth. Catherine here is from Georgia. She’s quite quiet. Then again, my mother says I am not quiet enough, so perhaps we will balance each other out.”
Alice laughed, while Catherine met Eliza’s gaze and shook her head slightly. Eliza had a feeling that Catherine would have spoken if she were given the chance.
“Are you both returning students?” Eliza asked, wondering if either of them had known May last year.
“Not me,” Alice said. “I spent last year at a school near home, but this year I begged to be sent away.”
“I’m new as well,” Eliza stated.
“Well, then, I’ll have to help you two navigate the school,” Catherine said, finally able to chime in. “I’ve been here three years. Billings is my home away from home.”
Then she definitely knows May, Eliza realized, a twist of disappointment in her chest. But there was nothing she could do to change the fact that May had attended Billings first. All she could do was make sure to make her own impression. One that showed everyone she wasn’t just a mini May.
Outside the station, the sidewalk bustled with travelers. A young woman took her two children by the hand as a dusty motorcar sputtered past. A few boys Eliza’s age joked around next to a pile of trunks and cases, clearly waiting for their own transportation to arrive. Nearby, a couple of men in open-collared shirts and dirt-caked pants loaded up an open wagon with huge sacks of grain. One of them caught Eliza watching and gave her a wink before grabbing another bag. Eliza blushed and rushed to catch up with the others.
“Here we are, ladies,” Mrs. Hodge said, pausing next to a large black coach outside. “Our driver, Lawrence, will help you in.”
“She should say adorable Lawrence,” Alice commented, quiet enough to
seem as though she was trying to go unheard, but still loud enough that Lawrence did a double take. Eliza raised an eyebrow. Flirting with the help had never been an accepted practice in her world, and most servants were overlooked as if they were invisible. Eliza decided she liked Alice for noticing Lawrence’s doelike brown eyes—even if the attention had clearly made the now-blushing boy uncomfortable.
Alice placed her hand eagerly inside young Lawrence’s as he helped her into the carriage, grinning right at him until he looked away. Catherine was next. When Lawrence held out his hand to Eliza, though, she waved it away.
“I’m fine,” she told him, grabbing the handles on either side of the door and hauling herself up under her own strength. As Eliza dropped ungracefully into the seat next to Alice, Mrs. Hodge shot her a disapproving look. But Eliza didn’t care. She didn’t need a man’s help just to get into a coach, and now that her mother wasn’t around to criticize, she wasn’t about to accept it.
After Mrs. Hodge was situated up front, next to the driver’s seat, Lawrence closed the door and latched it, and soon they were off, rumbling away from the train station and through the small town of Easton. The main street was flat and well kept, with new buildings in brick and wood cropping up on either side. A large general store sat at the very center of town, a mannequin in a silk, slim-bodiced evening dress in one window and a wheelbarrow in the other. Across the street, the Easton Police Station looked as if it had just been built, its redbrick façade practically gleaming in the sun.
“Oh, I’m so excited,” Alice said, clapping her gloved hands as she looked out the window. “I know it’s wicked of me to say, but I’m so glad to be rid of my family, especially my brothers.”
“I have a brother,” Catherine said. She opened a silver, oval-shaped locket around her neck and held it out for the girls to see. Eliza and Alice leaned in. The sepia photo was of a towheaded boy who looked to be about ten, grinning from ear to ear. “I miss Lincoln already.”
“Pssssh,” Alice said, leaning back again. “I don’t believe that for a moment. I have five of those little urchins in my life, and each is more fiendish than the last. What about you, Eliza?”
“No. No brothers,” Eliza replied. She didn’t want to bring up her sister just yet. If she did, Catherine would undoubtedly spend the rest of the ride regaling them with a glowing account of May’s illustrious tenure at Billings.
“Well, count yourself lucky,” Alice said, spreading her fingers. “I am just so sick of boys and their grubby hands and their jam-covered faces and their awful habit of bringing spiders and frogs and all manner of creepy crawlies into the house.”
Eliza and Catherine laughed as the carriage came to a stop at an intersection at the end of the main street.
“But I am looking forward to meeting the Easton Academy boys,” Alice went on slyly, giving Eliza a nudge with her elbow. “I plan to have a new beau by the night of the welcome dance next week. Do either of you girls have admirers back home pining over you?”
Eliza had a feeling Alice would be shocked by the lack of romance in Eliza’s past. Most of the boys in her social circle had been falling all over themselves for May since she could remember. Two summers back, Eliza had fancied herself in love with Charles Morris, a boy who summered on the Cape. But after two full months of trying to get his attention—challenging him to swim races, digging for clams and checking his crab traps with him—he hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye when his family packed up their Victorian home and went back to Baltimore. When she’d complained to May, her sister had told her that acting like a boy was no way to win one.
“What about you, Cat?” Alice asked. “You seem to be quite the blushing Southern belle. I’ll wager the boys are lined up for you.”
“I’ve never had much interest in romance, to be honest,” Catherine said, lifting a shoulder. “My mother calls me a late bloomer.”