29 

Sarah flopped onto her bed, hands over her head.

No matter how many ways she turned things over in her head, they never came out right. Lillie refused to understand. Jane was angry. Brad was unpredictable. And Simon was befuddling.

Simon. Sarah had chosen a suit to wear to dinner, a beige lightweight wool with forest-green trim. His kiss had persuaded her to go to dinner with him, but her head argued that she should not encourage him. Serena’s future lay with Brad. Despite Lillie’s stand on the matter, Sarah had not given up hope. One day Lillie would accept Serena again.

Already four days had passed since Simon kissed her, four days since Lillie visited the class—and weeks of not being certain what Brad was thinking. How much more of this anguish could she withstand? Tomorrow night Simon would arrive to take her to dinner, and that would likely thicken the muddle.

Footsteps clunked in the hall, coming to a stop outside her room. Sarah sat up with the first rap on her door.

“Yes?” she said.

Mary Catherine turned the knob and leaned in through the doorframe. “You have a visitor.”

“A visitor? Who would be coming to see me?”

“It’s that Kenny fellow, the one who used to be coachman for the Pullmans.”

Sarah was on her feet. “He was only an under-coachman. What’s he doing here?”

“He says he has to talk to you on an urgent matter. He’s in the courtyard. The poor man can hardly breathe.”

Sarah pushed past Mary Catherine and scrambled down the stairs and out the door off the kitchen that led to the courtyard. Kenny leaned against a ledge, his shoulders heaving.

“Kenny!” Sarah cried. “What’s going on?”

“He’s there. At the Lexington.”

Sarah needed no explanation.

“Are you sure? You’ve never met him.”

“I know his carriage and his driver. He came to the desk to ask after you personally.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “What did you tell him?”

“I said I had not seen Miss Cuthbert all morning. Then he said he would wait for a while to see if the lady might arrive. He’s having a cup of tea in the lobby. So I hightailed it over here. Can you get away?”

“I’ll have to finagle the afternoon off.” Sarah’s mind churned with rapid possibilities. “But Kenny, why would you do this for me? I mean . . . you know . . .”

“I know you’re not really Serena Cuthbert, and I could lose my job for leaving my post. Is that what you mean?”

She nodded.

“I’ve been following the saga for months,” he said, grinning. “I don’t want to miss the drama now that it’s getting good!”

“Oh, stop it, Kenny.”

“No, really. I hope you find the happy ending you’re looking for.”

“Thank you, Kenny.” Sarah nearly leaned forward to kiss Kenny’s cheek.

“What do you want me to tell him?”

“Keep stalling,” she answered. “Tell him you’ve just received word that Miss Cuthbert is due within a half an hour.”

“Done!” Kenny was out of the yard before Sarah could get back in the house.

Mary Catherine lurked in the servants’ hall. “What is it?”

“I need a few hours off,” Sarah said.

“Oh, no. Not this again.”

“It’s just lunch,” Sarah said. “Mrs. Banning is the only one home. I’ll be back in plenty of time for dinner and I’ll do the washing up for you.”

Mrs. Fletcher barked from the stove. “Mary Catherine, the vegetables.”

Mary Catherine glanced into the kitchen. “I have a feeling I’m going to be sorry, but all right. You’re meeting a man, aren’t you! It’s so romantic.”

“Thank you, Mary Catherine!”

Sarah clambered up the stairs, threw open one of the trunks, and pulled out a fashionable blue paisley day dress. She unbuttoned the dark gray calico she had put on in the morning and stepped out of it. The blue dress slid over her head, her shoulders, her hips, and she buttoned it quickly. In the morning funk, she had taken no care with her hair. Now she had to brush it thoroughly and pin it up under a hat.

In twelve minutes, Sarah was ready to leave the house, wearing both the silver rose pin and the sapphire earrings. She took the stairs more gracefully this time, careful not to put her clothing in disarray while she pulled a wool shawl around her shoulders.

Mary Catherine was at the bottom of the stairs holding two heads of lettuce. “Are you really not going to tell me where you’re going?”

“That’s right.” Sarah was out the door.

Simon paced around his desk. The orphanage board was pressing for his recommendation. He could think of no good solution to the dilemma, but he knew he could not accept forty-eight more children at St. Andrew’s. That was more than a ten percent increase at a time when cash donations were dropping off severely. Despite the recent party, fund-raising efforts were falling short of what he had hoped for. He could not ask the cooks to thin the soup or minimize the portions any further for growing children. He had no bed space. He had no money to hire more teachers for the school or more staff for the afternoon hours. The overcrowding would escalate the safety problems already weighing on him.

In his mind, Simon turned phrases and arranged sentences of his written decision. He did not know where else they could go, but the extra children could not come to St. Andrew’s.

One thing intruded on his concentration: Sarah. It was barely lunchtime on Tuesday, and fragments of a dinner yet to come on Wednesday bounced around his mind. Simon was convinced Sarah had felt something when he kissed her. Tomorrow he would seek confirmation.

He reached for a fresh sheet of paper and dipped his pen.

“I’d prefer to go somewhere else,” she said when Brad suggested that he and Serena might have an impromptu lunch in the restaurant at the Lexington. “For variety.”

“Yes, I suppose you eat a lot of meals here.” Brad took his pocket watch out of his vest pocket and examined it. “I guess I have time to go somewhere else, if it’s close.”

“There’s a place I love only a few blocks over,” she said brightly.

In truth, Sarah had never been in the restaurant, but she had heard the Bannings recommend it. If the Bannings would dine there, surely it would satisfy Brad.

He offered his arm. “The carriage is just outside.”

Inside the restaurant, landscapes of the European countryside adorned the limestone walls, spaced tastefully apart so the viewer could focus on one image at a time. Elegant calligraphy identified each of the featured locations. Sarah immediately noted the precision with which the tables were set, the plates and goblets situated in precise relation to each other and strict measurement apart. The tablecloths dropped exactly the same length on each side of the table, and the napkins, tented slightly in the center of the plates, were creased identically. Sarah doubted Brad would appreciate the care it took to make a table look this elegant.

Brad ordered. Sarah barely heard what he said. She was still recovering from the shock of his midday appearance at the Lexington. Whatever the price was when she returned home, a stolen lunch with Brad would be worth it. The waiter bowed slightly and backed away from the table, assuring Brad that he had made an admirable selection.

“I’m so glad you waited for me,” she said. “If I had known you were coming by, of course I would not have gone out this morning.”

“I did not know myself,” Brad said. “A meeting nearby concluded sooner than I expected, and I found myself in your neighborhood. I thought I could at least try to see you.”

Sarah’s heart swelled. “I’m flattered.”

“You’ve probably wondered about my intermittent attentions,” Brad said.

“I know you are busy.” Sarah spread her napkin in her lap. “Your political involvements and business affairs must be quite demanding just now.”

“The fact is I’m never sure when I’ll have some free time. It makes it difficult to plan social engagements.”

“I’m quite busy myself,” she said. “I’ve barely kept up with writing to my parents, and making afternoon calls can be so consuming.”

“I have been pondering our dilemma,” he said, “and wondering how we might see each other more regularly.”

“Oh?” This was the turning point Sarah had been waiting for. She put one elbow on the table and leaned toward him. “And have you discovered a solution?”

“I think so.” Brad answered. “We need more flexibility, don’t you think? Formal invitations and notes back and forth—we lose precious time with the social conventions.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. What was he saying?

“And then of course, we lose more valuable time with the carriage. I don’t like to just send my driver for you, but it’s cumbersome to come myself, and then there’s the time we spend driving to our destination. It seems to me there ought to be a simpler way.”

This was not the romantic proposal Sarah had envisioned, but her heart quickened anyway. Yes, if they were married and living together, they could see each other so much more easily.

“We need to be out of the public eye,” Brad said, his voice low.

“I beg your pardon?” Sarah said.

“If we had a place where we could meet,” he said, “without all the time-consuming entrapments, we could spend so much more time together. I can arrange such a place. We can shut out the whole world and focus only on each other.”

The waiter arrived with the soup. Sarah sat back in her chair as he served. If Brad would say something suggestive to Serena Cuthbert, what would he say to Sarah Cummings?

With the arrival of food and the hovering attention of the waiter, Brad shifted the conversation to the progress of the political campaign and the opportunity he had to meet with Mark Hanna. He did not mention again his suggestion that they should meet out of the public eye. When they finished the meal, he dropped her back at the Lexington, politely seeing her into the lobby and kissing her hand before proceeding to his next business meeting with no mention of when he would see her again.

Sarah stoically held herself together to help prepare and serve the Bannings’ dinner on Tuesday evening, but on Wednesday afternoon, when her time was finally her own, she lay on her bed red-eyed and stunned for several hours. When Mary Catherine knocked, Sarah told her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business. At five o’clock, though, she splashed cold water on her face, brushed out her hair, twisted it on top of her head, and donned the beige wool suit. Hurting Simon’s feelings would not change what happened with Brad. By six o’clock she was downstairs in the servants’ hall. When Simon arrived, she took his arm and let him lead her to the streetcar.

The restaurant he had selected was an Irish pub. Simon assured her it had the best corned beef outside of Dublin. One waitress served the small cluster of tables, and Sarah suspected the girl had not had a clean apron in three days. The walls were unadorned rough brick.

They bantered about the Colts and Sarah’s growing interest in base ball.

They talked about the girls in the sewing class—carefully avoiding Jane.

By the time their food arrived, Sarah felt a hundred miles away from the previous afternoon.

Sarah learned that Simon’s parents farmed rented land in Pennsylvania but had scraped and sacrificed for their son to earn a college degree. Out of gratitude, he sent them a few dollars whenever he could, which was not often. His two older sisters were married with children. He played the banjo. He loved his church, though most weeks he could not attend because he felt he should be with the children at St. Andrew’s. He made sure Sunday mornings brought hymns and sermons sensible for children to hear. He was a good storyteller, making her smile with his descriptions of the farm and his accounts of conversations with some of the smallest children.

Simon Tewell had a life.

She’d been so busy inventing Serena Cuthbert’s life, Sarah had never imagined what was plain to see now.

She knew nothing of Brad’s life, beyond politics and the board of trade.

Simon said nothing of Serena Cuthbert, asked nothing of Sarah. He set aside the formalities of his position as the orphanage director.

After dinner, they ambled back toward Prairie Avenue.

“Do you ever think about going back?” Sarah asked.

“Back?”

“To Pennsylvania. Not to the farm, but Philadelphia, perhaps. You could be closer to your family.”

“I think of it occasionally,” he admitted. “I’ve had offers. But something holds me in Chicago.”

“The children would be lost without you.”

He nodded. “Among other things. What about you? If you had the chance to leave Chicago, would you?”

“I’ve never even thought of it seriously.” She glanced at him. “In my circumstances, how could I?”

“What if I were to take you?” Simon asked softly.

Sarah turned her eyes forward again, warmth oozing through her chest. I might just go, she thought, but she said nothing.

“I’m getting ahead of things, aren’t I? I don’t mean to embarrass you. Let’s catch a streetcar on Indiana Avenue,” Simon suggested. “I can tell your feet are hurting.”

She had to admit he was right. But how had he known? Even she had not noticed her limp until that moment.

At the servants’ entrance to the Banning house, Sarah wondered if he would kiss her again.

She hoped he would. When she saw him glancing down the side of the house in both directions, as if to be sure they were alone, she felt her shoulders relax.

“I don’t want this evening to end,” he said, “without making it unequivocally clear how I feel about you. You don’t have to say anything.”

When he leaned in to kiss her, she leaned into him.