The door swung open again. The blonde motioned her inside, her demeanor lit with frustration. The other girl had disappeared. “Come in, Miss Werner. I’ll show you to your room. Miss Munro will call you in for a conference this afternoon.”
“Oh, thank you.” Deirdre bustled over the threshold, relief flooding through her. “And it’s just Deirdre,” she said with a smile, hoping to warm the girl’s icy manner.
“Miss Munro asks that we not address one another with our Christian names, Miss Werner. But I’m Phoebe Darrow.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
Phoebe sighed. “Likewise.”
They went through a vestibule lined with empty cloak hooks into a large, squarish foyer with hallways shooting off in three directions and a staircase at its edge. The house was fine enough on the inside to match the outside, if a bit plain, but cobwebs hung in the corners. Deirdre could hear muffled voices coming from behind the closed doors along the halls. She wondered how many students lived here, and whether she’d find friends among them.
Phoebe motioned toward the staircase. “You’ll have to room on the top floor. The attic. It’s the only dormitory with an open bed.”
Deirdre cast a wary eye up the dizzying rectangular spiral above her. The steps seemed to go on forever. But she was a mountain girl. She could climb. And she reckoned it would be good practice for when she became Robbie’s wife. There were even more steps to the top of the lighthouse.
She hefted her valise, heavy with her clothes and the added weight of Oma Anneliese’s grimoire, and followed Phoebe, her dress snagging on the sharp corners of the balustrade as they went up, up, up.
By the time they reached the fourth landing, her legs had gone as soft and useless as bread left too long to rise. She stopped to reclaim her breath in the heavy, Carolina-wet air. This wasn’t anything like walking up the slow and steady climb of Tin Mountain. This was terrible. She clawed at the high neck of her bodice, desperate to cool off.
Phoebe shot an impatient look over her shoulder. “You’ll have to get used to going up these stairs. Scrubbing them, too. We don’t have housemaids, only kitchen help.”
“Didn’t reckon so, given all the cobwebs.”
“Miss Munro won’t favor your sassy mouth.” Phoebe huffed another annoyed sigh and flounced to the third door on the right. “This is it.”
Deirdre trudged down the hall, her lungs still heaving, and followed Phoebe into the room. It was spare, but brightly filled with afternoon sun. The clip-clop of horses’ hooves came through the window on a sea-rich breeze. Two beds stood on opposite sides of the garret; on one of them sat another girl.
She raised her neat brown head from a book. Dark-lashed eyes blinked behind wire spectacles. She was the prettiest thing Deirdre had ever seen, with a narrow, pointed chin and freckles sprayed like stars over her nose.
Suddenly self-conscious under the girl’s quiet regard, Deirdre ran a hand over her sweating brow. She must look a sight.
“I’ve brought your new roommate.” Phoebe’s lip curled. “This one’s from the sticks. You should hear how it talks.”
It. Deirdre clenched her teeth. She had the feeling if she didn’t stand up for herself from the start with Phoebe, things would only get worse. “My name’s Deirdre, like I told you. And you should know, Miss Darrow, if you aim to cast aspersions, I give as good as I get.”
Across the room, a tiny smile lifted the corner of the pretty girl’s lips. Deirdre couldn’t mark whether the smile was friendly or merely amused.
“Dinner’s at seven.” Phoebe crossed her arms and eyed Deirdre’s rumpled clothes. “Surely, you’ve brought something better to wear? What you’ve got on now won’t do.”
“I’ll manage.” Deirdre set her valise on the bed by the window. The springs creaked in protestation. Phoebe gave a curt nod and stalked off.
Tears pricked at the corner of Deirdre’s eyes. It wasn’t right, coming to this big city school with these rich girls who thought themselves better than she was. They didn’t need someone else’s charity in order to be here. She should have been bolder—should have run to Robbie and eloped. He’d have protected her from Gentry.
“Phoebe will come around,” the other girl said softly. “She just thinks she’s in charge, being one of the oldest. And she’s having trouble finding a suitor. You’re very pretty, and she’s jealous. That’s all.”
“That ain’t no reason for her to be so mean. I can’t help how I look.”
“That isn’t any reason for her to be so mean. You’ll need to use proper grammar here. Miss Munro doesn’t tolerate country talk, even if it’s how you were raised. Phoebe was rude and didn’t introduce us. I’m Esme Buchanan. From Missouri. You?”
“Deirdre Werner. Tin Mountain, Arkansas. Just over the border between our states.”
Esme smiled and closed her book. “Well. We’re compatriots, then.”
“What brought you all the way here?” Deirdre started unpacking, shaking out her plain dresses. Everything was hopelessly wrinkled.
“My grandmother insisted on sending me here,” Esme said, coming to her side to help. “Mostly because I was getting on too well with our gardener. I’ve something you can borrow. We’re the same size, I think.”
At first, Deirdre’s pride reared up, then embarrassment. None of her dresses were good enough, then. “That would be real kind of you.”
“I was new once. I remember how it feels to be so far from home.” Esme went to the end of her bed and opened a leather trunk. She started pulling out beautiful dresses, perfumed with lavender and as fine as anything in Hannah Bledsoe’s wardrobe.
Hannah had given her money—tucked it into her hand before Pa drove her to the station. Nearly twenty dollars. She would put some of it toward summer muslins and the new corset she’d already been needing.
“What’s your favorite color?” Esme asked. “Blue? Yellow?”
Deirdre smiled. “Blue.”
“I figured as much, with your eyes. I’ve got just the thing. And we’ll need to do your hair. I plait well. Would you like braids? They’ll tame your curls in this heat. It’s really something, isn’t it? It took me a time to get used to it. But the rain is a blessing when it comes. Cools everything down. And best of all, there’s the ocean. From the top of the cupola, you can see the whole harbor. I’d never seen the ocean till I came to Charleston.”
So, the coopla was the tower. The tension drained from Deirdre’s shoulders. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad here after all, so long as Esme stayed as nice as she seemed. She never knew if kindness would last with other girls. She glanced outside the window, at the waving, strange trees. “What are them funny-looking trees called?”
Esme laughed. “Those trees are called palmettos. Or palms. You’ll get used to them, too.”
FIFTEEN
GRACELYNN
1931
Abigail Louisa Cash loves me. I can hardly believe it.
I gather myself in one of Granny’s crocheted afghans and go out to feed the chickens, my head and my heart abuzz from the night before. A fool grin is still plastered on my face. Circe, our prize laying hen, cocks her head at me and clucks.