“Where are they?” Matt asked. It wasn’t like any of them to be late to a meal unless they were working. “Did they go shopping?”
“Perhaps, but Mrs. Heaton didn’t say,” Stephen Adams explained. “Just that we’d eat when they got back. I hope it’s soon. I’m hungry. I know I had those Cracker Jacks at the game but they don’t hold one forever.”
“No they don’t,” Matt said. He’d enjoyed his day off going to the Giants game with Stephen and Joe. But the weather had been so nice, they’d walked back from the Polo Grounds where the game had been played, and all that walking mixed with the cool crisp air made him even hungrier than normal.
They heard the front door open and the three lady boarders entered—Matt knew because he’d come to recognize Millicent’s tinkling laugh anywhere. They seemed to be quite excited about something, from all the chattering going on between them.
Then suddenly everything went quiet and Julia Olsen, the boarder who’d been there the longest, peeked into the parlor. “We know we’ve kept you waiting for dinner. I’ll go tell Mrs. Heaton we’re here now.”
“Sorry we’re late.” Millicent Faircloud hurried into the parlor. She looked very pretty, her cheeks flushed and her deep blue eyes sparkling. It was evident she’d enjoyed the outing.
“We’re glad you’re finally here. We’re starving,” Stephen said.
“I don’t see any packages—you didn’t go shopping?” Matt smiled, thinking they’d gone to the Ladies’ Mile for the day. Shopping was one of their favorite things to do.
“No,” Emily Jordan answered. She was one of the newest boarders at Heaton House, along with Stephen and Joe. The three of them had moved in at the same time a few months earlier.
“Where’d you go, then?” Joe asked.
“We went to a suffrage meeting,” Emily offered. “First time I’ve even been to one. It was wonderful!”
“You went to one of those meetings?” Joe asked.
“They can be dangerous, Emily!” Stephen said.
“It was in broad daylight, gentlemen. Nothing happened,” Emily said. “I quite enjoyed it. Don’t you think women should have the right to vote?”
“Vote!” Joe exclaimed. “I—”
“How would you feel if we had that right and you didn’t?” Emily asked.
Her questions left both Stephen and Joe speechless for the moment and Matt turned to see Millicent shaking her head at Emily. “So you’ve brought Emily ’round to your way of thinking now, Millie?”
“I don’t control anyone’s thoughts, Mathew. If I did, I’d have changed yours by now.” Millicent came back at him. “Emily found out Julia and I were going to a meeting and wanted to know what they were all about, so we invited her to come with us.”
“Oh, I see and—”
“Dinner is served,” Mrs. Heaton said from the foyer. “Come along, all. I’m sure you must be starving by now.”
They all moved toward the dining room and Matt fell into step beside Millicent. “I don’t know why you—”
“Shush, Matt. No more talk about the meeting,” Millicent whispered. “We’ll never agree about them and we don’t want to upset Mrs. Heaton with our arguing. You know she doesn’t like any of that at her dinner table.”
Matt let out a huge sigh and gave a short nod of agreement. He loved their landlady. She was a mother figure to them all and no one liked seeing her upset. Besides, Millie, as he thought of her, was right, he couldn’t see them ever agreeing on the women’s movement. From what he’d heard about it, it wasn’t all about getting the right to vote; they encouraged women—even married ones—to be more independent. And how much more independent could Millie get—wanting to open up her own business? And why did it matter to him anyway?
Before he could offer Millicent his arm, Stephen beat him to it and Matt’s chest tightened as he watched her put her hand on his arm. He turned to Julia and offered her his, escorted her into the dining room, pulled out her chair and scooted it in closer to the table. He then took his own seat next to Millicent.
When Mrs. Heaton asked him to say the blessing, he had to take a minute to put all thoughts of Millie’s desire for independence and those suffrage meetings out of his mind.
“Dear Lord, we thank You for this day and Your many blessings. We thank You for this meal we are about to partake of, and for Mrs. Heaton, who always takes such good care of us. May we keep that all in mind as we enjoy the meal she planned for us. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.”
* * *
Millicent breathed a sigh of relief at Matt’s prayer. She hoped his words would serve to remind everyone that some conversations didn’t belong at the dinner table.
To keep peace, and from past experience, the women had decided it best not to mention the meetings or anything about the movement around the men, if possible. But she and Julia evidently forgot to inform Emily when she moved in. It wasn’t that they didn’t want the men to understand; they very much did. But one couldn’t force a man’s comprehension. Millicent sighed inwardly. It seemed impossible that the men living at Heaton House would ever grasp why the women were all so interested in the movement—especially Mathew Sterling. She’d discovered since they both moved into the boardinghouse within days of one another the year before that he was one of the most stubborn men she’d ever met.
As Mrs. Heaton’s maids, Gretchen and Maida, began to serve the meal, Millicent tried to put her and Matt’s differences out of her mind and concentrate on the wonderful dishes being passed around.
“How was the ball game?” their landlady asked, guiding the conversation to a safe subject. Mrs. Heaton seemed to have a way of quieting any disturbance between her boarders almost before it began.
“It was great,” Matt said. “Our Giants won by one point in the last play of the game.”
“They did a bang-up job!” Stephen added.
“Oh, Millicent, I forgot to tell you—Elizabeth telephoned and asked me to remind you about having Sunday night supper with them tomorrow,” Mrs. Heaton said.
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten.” Millicent smiled at her landlady. “I’m looking forward to it. She said they want to talk to me about something but didn’t say what.”
“Maybe they want you to take more photos of one of the apartments in the tenements,” Julia suggested.
“They might. It’s been a while since I took any for them.” She’d been blessed when Elizabeth and John, one of the couples who used to live at Heaton House before they married, asked her to take photographs for some articles they were doing. It’d brought her some much-needed business and continued to do so now. But it still wasn’t enough that she felt she could open her shop yet.
Matt handed her a basket of rolls and smiled at her, as if asking, Are we okay now? She sighed, raised an eyebrow and smiled back, trying to let him know that if he didn’t bring up the topic of the meeting again, neither would she.
But as she took the basket from him and their fingers brushed, what she wished for most was to quiet her suddenly racing pulse. Why did this man have the ability to do that to her? He was very nice looking—with his almost black hair, sky-blue eyes and smile that showed even, white teeth. But he also could make her more frustrated than anyone else. She’d felt that way ever since the first night she’d moved in, when he’d made clear he disapproved of any woman wanting to open her own business.
He’d brought Robert Baxter to mind, the man