I think he already is a little, she said. A little more than he was a month ago. Lily considered this. Then she said with the precise, unscentimental logic of a 10-year-old who had seen too much. A little is better than nothing.
A little is exactly where everything starts, Clara said. She stood held out her hand. Lily took it, and they walked back to the house together, and General Sherman watched them go with an expression that Clara could have sworn was slightly less hostile than before. The first real confrontation with the town came on a Friday. Clara had taken the girls to the market.
Rose between her and Lily. Emma walking slightly ahead with the deliberate independence of a 14-year-old who wanted it known she was not a child being escorted, but a person choosing to go in the same direction. They were at the dry goods counter when Mrs. Patricia Hollis arrived. Patricia Hollis was a substantial woman in the way that meant she occupied space in a room the way furniture does. You arranged yourself around her without being asked.
She was married to the man who ran the bank. She was the head of the town's ladies aid society, and she had an opinion about everything and the social authority to deliver it in public. She looked at Clara, then at the three Hayes girls, and smiled with all her teeth. "Miss Witmore," she said, "I heard you'd settled in at the Hayes place. I've been there 3 weeks, Clara said pleasantly.
Patricia tilted her head. I do hope Daniel knows what he's doing bringing a strange woman into his house with three impressionable girls. She said it lightly conversationally as though it were a mild concern and not a grenade set on a counter. Emma had gone very still. Clara felt Rose's hand tighten around her fingers.
I imagine he does, Clara said in the same pleasant tone. He strikes me as a man who thinks carefully about his decisions. Of course, Patricia smiled again. We're all just so concerned about those girls. They've been through enough, haven't they?
The last thing they need is disruption. I think what they need, Clara said, is for the people who care about this town to direct that energy towards something more useful than worrying about a governness. The smile on Patricia Hollis's face thinned at the edges. Rose whispered very quietly against Clara's arm. She's making the face.
Hush, Lily whispered back. I'm simply saying, Patricia continued, that people talk. And what people are saying is that a woman alone with no family, no property, Mrs. Hollis. Clara kept her voice gentle and her spine absolutely straight. I am here because I was hired to do a job.
I am doing it. If the town has concerns about a woman working honestly for her wages, I respectfully suggest that says more about the town than about me. Patricia stared at her. Emma, 3 ft away, pressed her lips together hard. Well, Patricia said at last, "I can see you're very certain of yourself.
I'm certain of my purpose here," Clara said. That's all. She paid for the dry goods, gathered the girls, and walked out. They were halfway down the boardwalk before Emma fell into step beside her rather than ahead of her. She didn't say anything for half a block.