The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [54]
“I’m used to walking.”
“Well, of course you are.”
I wondered if this woman was the domestic, but she wasn’t dressed as one. She wore no apron, and she moved through the house as one who owned it. She showed me into a finely furnished room. Elegant vases holding peacock feathers stood beside divans with smooth lines and fur throws over the back. In fact, almost all of the furniture had some accessory of fur. “I’m Miss Louise Gubner,” she said, then suggested I sit in a high-back chair. I sank onto a throw of silver fur, adjusting it against my back. “I believe you’ve met my associate and cousin, Miss O. S. Ammundsen.”
“Olea to my friends,” Olea said as she entered the room. Tall and elegant, she put out her hand and I stood. “Welcome, Clara. I hoped we’d meet again. You remember meeting on the train? Yes, I knew you would. Louise and I returned to New York after that trip. But earlier this year we decided to make the move permanent, manage our business from the West. Rather exciting, we decided. And we have need of a bookkeeper. We hoped you’d wish to assist? Mary Latham is a friend of ours. She suggested you. Please, sit.”
“I’m good with numbers, but I have no training, none at all as a bookkeeper.”
“Something to remedy. You’ll be attending Blair Business College when the session begins in the fall. We’re sure you’ll qualify. You qualified for the university some years back, I understand.”
“Yes. But.” My mind spun with the goodness of what was offered. “I’ll pay you back, I will.”
“You’ll keep our books, maybe assist in the household duties.”
“I’m a fair cook,” I offered.
“I rather like doing that myself,” Louise said. “I hope you have a good appetite. You look a little puny if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Puny? I like to eat.”
“Well then, we’ll work out your wages. We’re hoping you can start immediately,” Olea said. “We’ll need to go to the college and get you enrolled. Then you can return home at the weekend and pick up your trunks.”
“I only have the one,” I said.
They were a whirlwind, and I was at the center.
It occurred to me that I ought to put on a business head and negotiate for wages. But I was too excited by the possibilities ahead to quibble over details. I wondered if that same anticipation had affected my mother when she first agreed to that wager so long ago, hopefulness blinding her to truth.
TWENTY-FOUR
Moving Forward
I think it would have been better if I’d gotten the job,” Ida said when I returned on the weekend for my trunk. “It’s not a domestic job, right, Clara?” This was Olaf. “It’s bookkeeping.”
“A little domestic work,” I said. “But Louise, I mean Miss Gubner, likes to do the cooking and cleaning. She’s round as a pumpkin and really sweet. Miss Ammundsen is always looking at birds through these little binoculars she wears like a necklace. But she’s the one with a good business sense. She’s a good teacher too. I’ll learn more at Blair College.”
“You’re going on to school?” Ida said. “No, that doesn’t seem fair.”
“You’re needed here, Ida,” my stepfather said.
Ida nodded agreement, and part of me envied her for being told she was needed, that she had a place to belong. Now I would too.
Mama sighed. “Maybe I can do more of the cooking, resume my duties,” she offered. “Then you could work in the city, Ida.”
“Nonsense,” Ida said. “You need care.”
“Have you met the instructors?” Olaf asked me.
“Yes. There’s only one female, for English. The typewriting and shorthand and penmanship classes and commercial law instructors are all men.”
“Ja, as it should be,” my stepfather said. “Men know how to lead.”
I caught my mother’s gaze; then we looked away. The meal was completed in silent chewing, only Olaf enthusiastic about my good fortune.
Mama and I walked to the pig shed, where I slopped the hogs for the last time, at least for a while. She leaned over the half door, as slender as a child. Her hair had begun to turn white at the temples.
“I’ll visit,” I said. She looked so sad.