“Your parents let you go?”
Some of the honesty in her eyes shuttered. “My parents don’t care what happens to me as long as I don’t burden them. Plus, like I said, I’d been working in a house for a few years by then.”
“And did you get work at the fair when you arrived?”
“Well, I arrived here along with a slew of other females desperate for work and a bit too ignorant to know better. The group of us got a couple of rooms at a rickety boardinghouse, then appeared at the address listed in the paper.”
She rolled her eyes. Managing to look both embarrassed and contemptuous, she said, “I discovered soon enough that there was only one way to earn the money the papers had been talking about, and that was on my back.”
Rosalind was surprised, but not as shocked as she would have been just a few short weeks ago. “What did you do?” she whispered. “Start selling flowers?”
A pained look entered the girl’s gaze before she diverted her eyes. “Listen, I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t understand why you’re asking me so many personal questions. But I think I’m done answering them.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“I’ve got to sell these flowers. Otherwise I’ll be out here a lot longer than I had intended.” Her voice hardened, layering a thick shell around herself that assured Rosalind that she wished that layer to be impenetrable. “Leave me be.”
Before Rosalind knew what she was doing, she pulled out a nickel. “I’ll take a nickel’s worth.”
The girl looked at the nickel and was obviously judging it against the last bits of her pride. The look made Rosalind embarrassed for them both.
The girl paused, then shrugged and held out her hand. “A nickel’s worth three carnations, miss.” Her voice was clearer now. Subservient.
“I’ll take them—if I can know your name.”
The girl looked stricken. And for some reason, on the verge of tears.
For a moment, Rosalind was sure the girl was going to refuse her, to turn her back on Rosalind and hold on to her pride, whatever that was still worth.
Then, with great reluctance, she held out her hand. “It’s Minerva.”
“My name is Rosalind. Thank you for talking to me. It was nice to talk to someone from a small town, like me.” She handed over the coin, then took the three worst-looking carnations, imagining that taking them and not the nicer ones might help the girl some.
After she took the flowers, she paused, half expecting Minerva’s gratitude, or smile. Anything to prove to her that they had become more than strangers.
But Minerva had already turned her back. She was walking toward a trio of young gentlemen, her steps suggestive. “You handsome gentlemen be needin’ some flowers today?” she said, her voice thicker. Huskier.
When the men stopped and chatted a bit, Rosalind continued on her way, wondering if she’d just been taken in by something as blatantly fake as Minerva’s ploy to the men.
Perhaps the flower girl had seen she was an easy mark and had said whatever it took to get her sale. Because standing out on street corners, hawking flowers to strangers in all kinds of weather, was difficult.
Rosalind realized that everything was all a matter of perspective. She’d been feeling a bit sorry for herself working in the mansion because she’d become almost inanimate. Almost a nonentity. But she’d only thought that because she hadn’t imagined anything worse.
Minerva, or whatever her real name was, had certainly known worse, and was living it at the moment.
Yes, it was indeed time to stop dwelling on her problems and begin looking for answers. And, to an extent, looking for happiness in her situation. She had to do anything it took to find her answers. And then, with either her sister or her sister’s story in her heart, she would go home. Back to Wisconsin.
And before she knew it, Rosalind knew her experiences here would soon fade away into her past. Like a train’s departure, her time as a maid at Sloane House would be gone in a flash.
Almost forgotten.
CHAPTER 12
“Where have you been?” Nanci demanded the minute Rosalind walked through the servants’ entrance.
Looking around the area, she noticed at least seven people all working frantically. Some were polishing silver, others ironing table linens. Even Jerome was pulling out handfuls of white tapers and examining them for flaws. Every person looked upset and more than a bit ill-tempered.
For a brief second, Rosalind worried that she had something to do with everyone’s attitude, but for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what she could have done. “I went to the farmer’s market and posted a letter. Why?”