He still struggled to imagine any family that cruel. “Are they truly so bad?” he asked.
“That,” Nora replied, “you’ll soon see for yourself.”
* * *
Charles and Meredith arrived on a rainy day exactly a week after Nora and Simon returned from Olympia. The harbormaster had sent word to Nora at the Kellogg brothers’ store, where her sewing customers met her, so she was standing on the pier, umbrella over her head, when the longboat bumped the pilings. She smiled as the sailors helped Charles and Meredith to the wide wood planks of the pier and hoped they would attribute her shiver to the cool weather. She was only glad she’d had an opportunity to send a note to Simon through a miner headed north. Her husband should be able to reach her by dinnertime. She only had to survive until then.
“Wretched trip,” Charles greeted her as if it were somehow her fault. No one who did not know them well would ever have taken Charles for her brother. Though he wasn’t a tall man, he was certainly taller and thinner than she was. His hair was lighter than hers, a fine chestnut, and it was pomaded back from his square-jawed face. His well-tailored coats were always crisp and clean, and his trousers always held a crease.
“Do tell me you brought the carriage,” Meredith said, her feathered hat taking a beating from the rain. She plucked the umbrella from Nora’s grip and huddled under it. Meredith was the very epitome of a grand lady, her gown with its top cape festooned with lace and ribbons and tucks that had fairly worn out Nora’s fingers and patience to arrange to her sister-in-law’s liking. Everyone in Lowell had talked about how the fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty had married above herself when she’d snagged noted accountant Charles Underhill, but Meredith always acted as if she were the one born to privilege.
“There isn’t a single carriage in the city and precious few horses,” Nora told her sister-in-law. “Most people either travel by wagon or walk.”
Meredith gasped. “Walk! I cannot be expected to walk all the way into town from the harbor.”
“It isn’t so far,” Nora assured her. She waved toward the hillside rising above them. “That’s all there is.”
Charles and Meredith exchanged looks of dismay. Perhaps they would be concerned enough to turn tail and leave on the first ship out. Hiding the hope that thought engendered, Nora motioned to the waiting teamster to come take her family’s belongings.
“Mr. Mercer will carry your things up to the house,” she explained as the fellow pushed past them with a nod. “He’s the older brother of the Mr. Mercer who escorted us here. You remember him.”
“Indeed,” Charles assured her, giving Asa’s brother a sharp look. “He was quite persuasive about the opportunities to be found in Seattle.” He returned his gaze to the hillside, clearly dubious.
Nora managed to lead them up the hill to Third Avenue, where most of the finer houses had been built. She’d found one owner ready to leave the area and willing to lease his framed home to her family. Now she climbed up to the wide front porch and let Charles and Meredith into the house. She thought it might suit them. The walls were papered and hung with pictures, the heavy wood furniture covered in floral. She fancied she could already smell the perfumed powder, essence of roses, that Meredith favored.
But of course, nothing was good enough. Charles did not appreciate the view down to Puget Sound. “If I wanted to look at water, I would have moved to Boston.”
Meredith was certain the house was too small for her purposes. “How am I to entertain with a single parlor? And I don’t know where you think you will sleep, Nora, with only one bedchamber.”
“I suppose we could put a pallet on the floor of the attic,” Charles mused.
“No need,” Nora said. “I have my own room at the ladies’ boardinghouse.”
“And do you expect us to wait for you to arrive each morning?” Meredith exclaimed. “Honestly, you are so impractical.”
By the time a knock sounded on the door that afternoon, Nora was worn-out from placating them. She couldn’t help beaming at the sight of Simon on the porch. He was dressed for work, bulky brown coat open at the throat to reveal a red-and-blue-plaid wool shirt over red flannels. His thick wool pants were tucked into heavy boots. At least he took the trouble to knock the worst of the mud off his feet before following her into the house.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” she told him. “Please, come meet my brother and sister-in-law.”
Meredith and Charles were seated on the overstuffed chairs at opposite ends of the parlor, her brother by the multipaned window, his wife nearest the stone hearth. Charles had the Puget Sound Weekly Nora had left him open before him, his brows drawn down as he studied the news. Meredith had already instructed Nora in the unpacking of her things and was taking dainty stitches in the pillow cover she had been embroidering for as long as Nora could remember. Like everything else she did, Meredith put on a good show while managing to accomplish very little.
“May I have your attention?” Nora asked.
Neither looked up. “Not now, Nora,” Charles said. “Shouldn’t you be seeing to dinner?”
“She has no concept of time,” Meredith complained. “I suppose it is too much that you would consider our needs after we took the trouble of traveling thousands of miles to care for you in this wretched wilderness, with no friends and a thorough lack of opportunity for your talented brother.”
Each word felt like a nail pounding into her heart, but Nora held her ground. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you, Meredith. But you see, I got married.”
She knew she should not take such delight in the way Meredith’s head snapped up and her pretty pink lips gaped.
Charles lowered his paper at last, blinking at Nora and Simon as if bewildered that they’d appeared in his parlor. “Married, you say? What nonsense is this?”
“It’s hardly nonsense. You can’t miss him standing here beside me.” Nora looked pointedly to Simon, who seemed a bit bewildered himself. She supposed Charles and Meredith might have that effect on people. Still, he stepped forward and nodded to her brother and sister-in-law.
“Mr. Underhill, ma’am. I’m Simon Wallin, and I had the honor of marrying your sister last week.”
Now Charles stared, his face washing white and his hands shaking so hard the paper rattled. Whatever reaction Nora had been expecting, it was hardly that.
Meredith recovered first, rising from her chair. “I know you are given to odd fancies, Nora, but this is too much. How could you leave your brother out of what must surely be the most important day of your life?”
Her guilt rose like the tide on Puget Sound. She would not allow it to swamp her this time. “It was expedient.”
“Expedient?” Meredith clutched her beribboned chest. “To ignore your family, run off with some stranger? Expedient?”
This was not going as she’d hoped. Again she glanced at Simon for help.
“We are properly wed,” he assured them both. “You can ask Mr. Bagley at the Brown Church. He performed the ceremony.”
Charles climbed to his feet, shoving the paper away. “You can be sure I shall, sir. No clergyman has the right to perform a marriage ceremony for an impressionable young woman without consulting her family. And I hold you responsible as well, turning her head with your promises, your flowery phrases.”
The picture of the practical, stern-faced Simon Wallin swaying her with flowery words brought a giggle to her lips. She hastily clamped them together to keep it from coming out.
“Your sister is a grown woman, of age under Washington territorial law,” Simon informed