I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.
—JANE AUSTEN, Sense and Sensibility
Eastern Montana
Tuesday, September 4, early afternoon
The train whistled, announcing the arrival to Billings.
Colette laid her well-worn copy of Sense and Sensibility on the leather button-tufted sofa—on what had become her favorite spot to sit on the journey from Denver—as she sat alone in the observation room at the tail end of the “executive charter” her parents had rented. They’d paid additional for it to be placed last on the train if there were other private Pullman cars. Their preference—insistence, actually—to be at the end was as much to be away from the engine smoke as it was for privacy.
After four days of travel from Denver, her real adventure was now about to begin.
“I can do this,” she said as she strolled to the door to the observation deck. She stepped outside. Gripping the railing, she breathed in the muggy mid-morning air; the floorboards vibrated under her boots as the train crawled by buildings on its way to the depot. A church. A hotel. Billings was a fraction of the size of Denver. And dustier.
People crossed the street once the train passed by. A child waved.
Colette waved back.
“Dear Lord,” she prayed aloud, “give to me and the lady that the benefactor provided to help me on this journey…all the wisdom, compassion, and grace needed to help our charges. Oh, and please let her be nice and not bossy like Mother.”
The train’s horn whistled, brakes squealed.
Colette whispered an “Amen” as the train jolted to a stop.
You can do this was the last thing Father had said to Colette before he and Mother de-boarded in Cheyenne, only to board a second executive charter, which would take them to New York City to shop for Colette’s wedding trousseau. No one who saw the three of them board the train in Denver would know Colette had separated from her parents in Cheyenne. As long as everything followed the plan, she would meet them on the twelfth in Salina, Kansas, after she’d delivered the rescued girls to the female academy in Manhattan. Together they would return to Denver and no one the wiser.
First, she had to finish rescuing the girls.
Father said the girls would board the back of the executive charter, one at a time. Could be one girl. Could be as many as eight.
In Helena, per Mother’s instruction, Colette had purchased eight sets of toiletries and hairbrushes, in case there were that many girls. She also purchased two dozen books for the girls to take if they wanted. On a whim, she bought bouquets of fresh flowers to fill vases throughout the car. She even sprinkled the bedding in each stateroom with rosewater she’d made following Grandmother Vanderpool’s recipe. The rented Pullman was as welcoming as Colette could make—
The beignets!
Colette jerked open the door to the observation room, then dashed down the corridor to the parlor where Mrs. Gaines was holding a platter filled with the delicious beignets that Colette couldn’t believe she’d found for sale in Helena.
“Don’t you worry none, Miss Pool,” Mrs. Gaines said before Colette could speak. “I’ve taken care of everything.” Mrs. Gaines sat the platter on the table. “Coffee, tea, and lemonade are available.”
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Gaines tipped her head in acknowledgment, then headed down the corridor to the kitchen. Father had insisted Mr. and Mrs. Gaines served with the strictest of confidences, or they would lose employment with the Pullman Company. Like every other steward, porter, cook, and maid who served on the rented private cars, Retta and Moses Gaines likely had witnessed activities far more suspicious than what Mother, Father, and now Colette were doing under the guise of helping “orphans” to a better life.
Colette adjusted the parlor table’s floral arrangement, then walked back to the observation room. She stopped abruptly. There, standing in front of the door to the observation deck, was a wary-eyed brunette in a calico dress that barely covered the ankles of her scuffed boots. One hand gripped a linen-wrapped bundle. She looked to be fourteen, maybe fifteen. Not strikingly pretty but neither plain. A few years of maturity would help her look less gangly.
“I thought—” Colette cut off her words before she admitted that she’d expected the escort to arrive first so they could greet the girls together. She didn’t move forward per Mother’s warning to wait for the girl to approach. “Welcome to the train. I’m Miss Letty Pool. You can call me Letty if you like.”
“I’m Ada,” the girl answered in a flat voice. “Ada is short for Adeline. It was my grandmother’s name.”
“Would you rather be called Adeline?”
The girl shrugged. “Ada’s fine.”
“What’s in the bundle?”
The girl’s dark brown eyes never shifted away from Colette. “A Bible and a second dress. They said the academy would provide anything else we will need since we’re on scholarship. Where should I sleep?”
“Let me show you the staterooms.” She led Ada to the first one. “The other one is a mirror image of this one. There are two berths in each. The upper one folds down, while the bottom benches fold together to create a bed. You can sleep wherever you like.”
A loud “Hello?” came from the observation room.
“That’s Victoria.” Ada tossed her bundle onto the bench by the window. “You should go help her. She abhors being ignored.”
Unsure of what to make of Ada’s comment, Colette returned to the observation room to find a girl with black hair in long braids sitting on the sofa, her legs outstretched as if the sofa were a chaise lounge.
The girl, possibly Ada’s age, shuffled through the pages of Colette’s book. “This yours?”
“It is,” Colette answered. “Sense and Sensibility is one of my favorite novels. Have you read it?”
“Yes.” The girl looked up. “Once was enough for me. I prefer Mark Twain.” She returned her attention to flipping through the pages of the book. “Jane Austen wants me to admire Elinor Dashwood because she’s practical, self-sacrificing, and has good sense, but Marianne Dashwood is the fun sister.”
“She makes many imprudent decisions.”
“Imprudent? I suppose she does…from a certain point of view.” The girl’s bright blue eyes settled on Colette. “I like your dress. It’s taffeta, isn’t it?”
Colette nodded. She hadn’t given much thought to her clothes before this moment. In light of what the girls were wearing, she should have invested in a few unobtrusive dresses. Not once during her parents’ discussion of what to do and what to expect on the trip had they mentioned dressing differently. Rule number one—Don’t use your real name or share where you live—was what they’d continually stressed.
“Welcome to the train. I’m Miss Letty Pool,” she said with practiced ease. “You may call me Letty.”
“Your name is…Letty?”
Colette nodded again.
“You don’t look like a Letty.” After a soft humph, the girl shifted her feet to the floor. “Blue is a good color on you. I’d love to wear red or pink taffeta”—her gaze flickered to her unbleached cotton dress—“but beggars can’t be choosers. I’m Victoria.”
Broken and guarded were all character traits Colette had expected the girls to have. This one seemed as cheerful and open as any of Colette’s friends back home. Friendly people were always more enjoyable to be around than morose ones.
Colette smiled. “Would you like to share a stateroom with Ada?”
“Do I have to?”
“There’s a second one.”
“Sounds perfect.” Victoria scooped her linen-wrapped bundle off the floor.
“This way.” Colette led Victoria to the stateroom between Ada’s and the parlor. After demonstrating how to lower the upper berth, Colette stepped out into the corridor. “Girls, once you’ve settled in, there are beignets for you on the table in the parlor. We have coffee, tea, and lemonade. Lunch will be served in an hour or so.” She looked at Ada and Victoria, both standing on the threshold to their staterooms. “I suppose now is a fitting time as ever to go over the rules.”
“There’s also Hazel,” Ada said as if she were bored. “Unless she’s changed her mind.”
When Ada said no more, Colette gave Victoria a questioning look.
“Hazel is scared of everything. Especially trains and strangers.” Victoria sighed. “I’m sure she’ll choose to come with us because she decided Ada is her older sister.”
Ada’s expressionless face betrayed none of her feelings about Hazel’s bonding.
“So, Letty, what’s a ben-yay?” Victoria asked.
“It’s a fried pastry,” Colette explained. “They became my favorite sweet after I enjoyed my first one in New Orleans. The ones I bought are round but taste the same as the square ones that Café du Monde makes. The restaurant manager in Helena said these were made by a French chef.”
Victoria exchanged glances with Ada. “How many can we have, since there’s only three of us?”
Colette paused before answering. She’d purchased all the restaurant had remaining, which thankfully was enough to serve eight, plus some for her, the lady helping her escort the girls, and the Gaineses. “Unless you want to portion these out over several days, you can have as many as you want.”
Ada’s face brightened with a smile. “I like your answer.”
“Me, too.” Victoria followed Ada to the parlor.
Colette strolled back to the observation room, hoping to see Hazel waiting. The girl wasn’t there, so Colette stepped to the observation windows on the side of the unloading platform. She looked left to the Headquarters Hotel. No one seemed to be paying the executive charter any attention, so she sat on the sofa and picked up her book. With Billings being a water stop, passengers had plenty of time to board. Maybe Hazel needed a few moments to find the courage to be brave.
Father said the girls had been rescued from brothels in Helena. With Billings being in the same territory, this stop on the journey would be the only place anyone might possibly recognize the girls, and the odds of that were slim. The girls had been hidden at a secure location for over a year since they “disappeared” from the brothels. Another slim-but-possible danger was people reporting wayward girls sneaking about an executive charter. Railroad personnel, too, could interfere. Not that anyone ever had over the years. Once the executive charter left Billings, Mother and Father had insisted that any potential for danger would be gone and the girls would be as safe as anyone could be while traveling on a train. With a chaperone and an escort guarding the girls—not to mention Mr. and Mrs. Gaines—the girls had nothing to fear.
If Colette could talk to Hazel, she’d tell her that.
Lord God, help Hazel be brave.
Time passed.
Bellows of high-pitched, girlish laughter came from the parlor. Colette looked that way. It must be humorous because Mrs. Gaines was laughing, too. Instead of going to the parlor to find out what was so funny, Colette resumed reading her book. Now was a moment for prudence and duty. Socializing had to wait, because she was going to do the sensible thing and stay here to greet Hazel and show her that she had nothing to fear.
Colette turned the page. As she neared the bottom of the page, she felt a slight bump of the train. She looked up in anticipation. A petite blonde with frizzy hair hesitantly climbed the steps to the observation deck; she clutched a linen-wrapped bundle to her chest. She couldn’t be more than thirteen, if that. To think a girl that young had been forced into prostitution…
The girl opened the door and stepped inside the observation room.
Colette stood. “Hello. You must be Hazel.”
The girl nodded.
Colette smiled. “Welcome to the train. I’m Miss Letty Pool. You can call me Letty.”
“Where’s Ada?” Hazel asked in a soft-spoken voice.
“In the parlor—”
Hazel hurried off before Colette could finish saying, “with Victoria.”
Colette looked at the wall clock. With the three rescued girls on the train, all they needed now was their escort. She stepped out onto the observation deck and looked around again in hopes of spying her partner for this trip. Other than a man reading a newspaper on a bench in front of the Homestead Hotel, the twenty or so people in the depot were walking around; all seemed apathetic to the executive charter at the end of the train.
Clearly if anyone had seen three wayward girls climbing aboard, no one cared. Was that a good thing? Or a sad thing? Colette sighed. When she traveled, she was too focused on taking in the views and getting where she was to go next. In light of the small potential for danger here in Billings, she had to see everyone’s self-focused-ness as a good thing.
What was taking the escort so long to arrive?
Colette snorted a laugh. For all the times she was tardy for things, she probably deserved being made to wait. Oh well. It would all work out.
After one more look around for the escort, she headed back inside to inform the girls of the rules. She reached the parlor just as Mrs. Gaines was refilling the lemonade goblets. Ada, Victoria, and Hazel all seemed happy, despite Hazel’s solemnity.
“Girls,” Colette said, drawing their attention. “While we wait for my partner on this trip to arrive, I want you to know how honored I am to be chaperoning you to your new school. In addition to new sets of toiletries, I’ve purchased books for you to read and take with you.”
Ada and Victoria looked longingly at the credenza next to their end of the table, books stacked on the credenza’s top.
“We can have any book we want?” Ada asked, her eyes wide.
“Any and all,” Colette answered. “But wait to choose until after we discuss the rules. Oh, and, Ada, be sure to let Victoria and Hazel choose some, too.”
“Hazel won’t want any,” Victoria said.
Hazel took that moment to eat another beignet.
Colette looked to Mrs. Gaines. “Would you bring me a cup of coffee?”
Mrs. Gaines nodded and returned to the kitchen.
Colette stepped to the empty chair next to Ada. “Rule number one: Keep identities secret. Just as you don’t know the names of the benefactor or financier, I don’t either. Secrecy is for the protection of all involved. This is why you three chose new names for yourselves. Because of this rule, I cannot tell you the name of the school or the city where it resides until we arrive.”
Hazel stopped chewing on her beignet. “So the caretakers’ real names weren’t Elijah and Ruth?” she asked in that soft-spoken voice of hers.
“Probably not,” Colette gently answered. “Letty Pool isn’t my real name either.”
Hazel’s teary-eyed gaze fell to her empty luncheon plate.
Victoria leaned close and whispered something to Hazel, who then shrugged. “She doesn’t like lies,” Victoria explained.
Colette nodded with understanding. She didn’t like lies either, or understand the secrecy that the benefactor insisted upon or understand the reasons for the rules themselves. It shouldn’t matter if the girls knew Colette’s real name or if she bonded with them. But she’d promised Father she would adhere to all the benefactor’s requirements, which was why instead of sharing her thoughts with the girls, she chose to focus on explaining the rules.
“Rule number two: Don’t form attachments. My…employers gave me a list of etiquette skills to work with you. Since this is a sleeping car, our travel to the academy should take three full days, but sometimes issues with the train lengthen the trip. The longest trip was two years ago and took nine days. Whether the trip is three days or nine, I promise you’ll have plenty of time for leisure amid the lessons. Any questions?”
Ada nodded. “Do these etiquette lessons include dancing?”
“They do.” Colette paused. “However, I am not at liberty to require you to participate in any lesson you don’t wish to learn. And that brings me to rule number three.”
“I want to learn to dance,” Ada interjected.
Victoria looked at Colette. “Hazel and I also want to learn.”
Colette grinned. “Then you will be pleased to know Mr. Gaines, our cook, is a highly skilled fiddler who has agreed to play for us during dance lessons.” She paused as Mrs. Gaines quietly returned with coffee service. “Rule number three: Respect the girls’ choices. The benefactor insists that you each have the freedom to choose. Nothing will be forced upon you, not lessons, not attending the female academy. At any train stop, if you wish to de-board and start a new life on your own, I cannot stop you. Nor am I at liberty to try.”
“The caretakers gave us ten dollars,” Victoria shared.
“It’s not a lot to start a new life,” Ada said, “but they also taught us how to launder and mend clothes and how to clean so we could get jobs as hotel maids. If we wanted. I don’t want to be a maid.”
“What would you like to be?” Colette slid onto the chair next to Ada and listened as Ada and Victoria took turns sharing their hopes and dreams for their grand futures. They weren’t wealthy futures—Victoria wanted marriage, Ada wanted to be a librarian—but the dreams the girls had were better than what they would have experienced in a brothel.
Colette smiled, a newfound determination growing in her heart. Between here and Manhattan, she would do everything in her power to better equip Ada, Victoria, and Hazel for their new lives at the academy. It could be done, without breaking any of the benefactor’s rules.
The train whistled, and Colette glanced to the corridor. Where was the escort? The time to board was rapidly ticking away. Of course, she could very well chaperone the girls on her own to Manhattan. She didn’t need a partner on this trip. That the benefactor insisted on two guardians for the girls rather annoyed Colette. For all the benefactor’s insistence the girls have the freedom to choose, the benefactor gave little choice to those helping the girls: Follow my rules or I will find someone else who will.
The benefactor really ought to learn to trust those in the rescue ring to use their own judgment in caring for the girls.
Being closer in age to her charges, Colette could be an even better mentor than her parents had been. This trip—this adventure together—would change the girls for the better. She was sure of it.