The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,8
family and their tragedies and triumphs whirled in her head. And their future too.
“When Mr. Pendergast was here yesterday, Aunt Murdoch was accommodating, as if she had some grand plan in her head, and kept him here longer than it would be necessary for him to return my bag. Then one of us mentioned the canning business and he glanced around the room, taking the parlor and its decorations all in, and mentioned that it must be successful. Aunt hurried him out of the house as if he’d begun speaking a Catholic mass.”
“Like she didn’t want to talk about the canning business? How odd.”
Elspeth straightened and realized she did not want to voice her thoughts on the subject of money to her younger sibling. There was too much likelihood that she was imagining things, and she would only worry them. “Go now. I’ll get dressed and meet you in the kitchen. We’ll drink our tea and peel beets until our hands are stained, and we’ve got a new grocer to sell to also. Perhaps we’ll go this afternoon.”
Elspeth rinsed her face with the warm water that Kirsty had brought her and brushed through her thick hair, pausing to rub her finger over the engraving on the back of the ivory. Muireall and Kirsty had a comb-and-brush set just like hers with the same shield and sword etched into it. She’d wondered over the years how her family paid for such extravagant things. She’d seen the high price of a comb-and-brush set at Wanamaker’s Department Store on Market Street when she’d gone there with her friend Cecilia Delasandro, and that set had not been as nice, nor was it etched.
But as they were comfortably situated in their home, she’d not thought all that much about how all those comforts came about until recently. It was almost as if Aunt Murdoch had not wanted her to speculate on Mr. Pendergast’s comments, but it did not matter. She was speculating, especially now as she’d come to some understanding of their business’s finances. How was this house paid for? And all the furnishings? How did they pay Mrs. McClintok’s salary? James couldn’t make enough in prize money . . . or could he?
What had they lived on when they first arrived in the New York harbor after a ten-day steamer voyage from the Port Charlotte dock in Scotland? The days before her parents’ death had been the grandest adventure of her nine-year-old life, and of course she’d never questioned the price of the hotel they’d stayed in or the meals delivered to their rooms once they’d arrived at their destination. She’d never questioned Muireall or Aunt Murdoch when they’d set out from New York City on a train, their baggage and trunks handled by uniformed porters. She’d been too sad, far too wrapped in a child’s grief to wonder about any of the realities of life. She missed her mother and father with an ache those long weeks, and she could still feel the lump in her throat and the panic on some occasions even to this day.
By afternoon, her hands were bright red and her fingers were sore. They’d boiled, skinned, and chopped bushels of fresh beets, and the storeroom was still full. James and Mrs. McClintok’s son, Robert, would put the beets and boiling water in the Mason jars all evening, top them with the shoulder seal lid, and boil the jars for thirty minutes. Payden dried the jars and fixed the labels on them. The kitchen was steamy with two stoves burning and all the heat from the boiled water. Elspeth was glad to escape.
Once bathed and in clean clothes, she found Kirsty talking to Muireall.
“Come along,” she said. “If we’re to talk to this new grocer before they’re closed, we’d best be on our way.”
Muireall looked up from her account book. “Do you have a list of what we have on hand? I’d like to sell those jars from last fall, even at a lower price, before the new crops are here and we’re putting up fresh items.”
“I have a list,” Elspeth said. “Mrs. McClintok said the beans from last fall were still very nice. I was going to take a few jars to this grocer. What is the name of the store, Kirsty?”
“Flemming’s Market. It’s near City Hall.”
“City Hall? That far? We’ll have to take the trolley,” Elspeth said.
“Do you have coins?” Muireall asked. “I have cash money in the safe.”