He stopped and looked at her. “But that’s just it. I wouldn’t even know what to wish for.” He sank down beside her on the bench again. “Everything I own fits into a room in a boardinghouse that I share with three other men. You’re used to . . . to all of this.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm.
“That doesn’t matter. My mother came from a very poor family, too, but my father loved her and married her anyway, and she came here to live. I would gladly share everything I have with you.”
“I don’t know if I could ever get used to a place like this. Besides, I saw the way your grandmother looked at me the first day we talked in Garner Park. You saw it, too, I know you did. She would never accept me.”
“She looks only at the outside of people.” Lucy swallowed the bitter taste of guilt, knowing she had done the same thing before she met Daniel. “If people only knew you the way I do—”
“Don’t give me hope, Lucy. You’ll only break both of our hearts in the end.”
“But it can’t end! Please don’t stop coming to see me. Give me a chance to figure out how to make this work. There has to be a way that we can be together.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her. Afterward, they clung to each other.
“I’ll keep coming as long as you want me to, Lucy. When the night comes that you don’t answer my signal”—he nodded toward her bedroom window—“then I’ll know that it’s over.”
Lucy stayed awake for most of the night, trying to figure out a way that she and Daniel could be together. She considered eloping, coming home a married woman and forcing her family to accept him, but she was too afraid to leave home on her own. She had never ventured anywhere without a chaperone or with friends or family.
Her thoughts kept returning to her mother and how she had come from humble beginnings to live in this house, eventually adjusting to this life. Bebe still wasn’t afraid to “fraternize with the riffraff,” as Grandmother Garner called it. Lucy realized that the only solution was to get her mother on her side. She had to talk Bebe into helping her and Danny so they could be together. After a short, restless night of sleep, Lucy began a conversation with her mother at the breakfast table the following morning.
“I wish there weren’t barriers between rich people and poor people,” she said as she pushed scrambled eggs around on her plate.
“Education is the key,” Bebe said. “If we can help poor children get an education, we’ll give them a better chance in life. That’s one of our Temperance Union’s goals.”
Lucy resisted rolling her eyes. For her mother, the Union was always foremost in her mind. She tried a different approach. “Did you marry Daddy for his money?”
Bebe finished stirring milk into her tea and laid down her spoon. “Maybe I did, in a way. I worked so hard during the war, doing my brothers’ chores on the farm, that I think I liked the idea of having servants. It overwhelmed me to think that such a wealthy, sophisticated man as your father wanted to marry me. But I truly loved him, Lucy. Most of all, I married for love.”
Lucy twisted her napkin nervously. “And what advice would you give someone who wanted to do the same thing—marry for love, I mean—in spite of other differences?”
“I would say . . . that they should think twice. It took me years and years to adjust to our differences, and in many ways I still haven’t adjusted, as you well know. I embarrass you at times. I’m not like all of your friends’ mothers, am I?”
Lucy didn’t know what to say. She remembered how small and plain and out of place her mother looked at the graduation reception a few months ago. As Lucy fumbled for what to say next, her mother suddenly reached for her hand and took it in both of hers. “I know about him, Lucy. I know all about Daniel Carver. That’s who you’re really talking about, isn’t it?”
“How . . . how do you know?” she asked in a whisper.
“The servants told me. They’ve known for some time that you’ve been sneaking out at night to see him.”
Lucy pulled her hand free. “How dare they spy on us!”
“They did it because they love you, Lucy. Robert and Herta and Peter have known you since the day you were born. They would never let you come to harm or allow a stranger to take advantage of you.”
Lucy imagined them peeking at her and Daniel through the curtains, seeing all their private moments together, and her anger threatened to boil over. “If you knew all about Danny, I’m surprised you didn’t lock me in my room and forbid me to see him!”
“I considered it,” Bebe said calmly. “But then I recalled the night that Horatio asked my father for permission to marry me.
And I remembered that it wouldn’t have mattered if my father had refused—I would have defied him. I didn’t want you to make a mistake out of anger or defiance, Lucy. Marriage is one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever make. . . . And you’re so young.”
“I’m older than you were.”
“Not by much. And that’s why I’m glad you’re asking me for advice.”
“But I’m not asking for advice—I’m asking you to help us. You can give Danny a decent-paying job in the tannery. You can let him move in here, like you did.”
“What about your friends? What advice do they have for you?”
“They’re so shallow and superficial. I can’t talk to any of them the way I talk to Danny. And never about important things.”
“So you haven’t told your friends about Danny?”
“They wouldn’t understand. But Danny lost his father, too. He shares the grief I’ve felt all these years.”
“I share it, too, Lucy. I lost your father, too. And I found comfort in God, not in another person. He knows what it’s like to lose someone dear to Him.”
“Why do you keep changing the subject? Are you going to help me or not?”
“I am trying to help you. You need to think everything through so you can make a mature, informed decision.”
Lucy exhaled, forcing herself to be calm so her mother would take her side. “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“Can you picture Danny at all your social events? Or are you going to give up your social life?”
“He could learn to fit in. He’s very smart, Mother. And the rules of etiquette aren’t that hard to learn.”
“Danny Carver could hire the finest tailor,” Bebe said quietly, “and get every detail of your social world letter-perfect, and he still wouldn’t be accepted. Believe me, I know. Besides, have you asked him if he wants to be part of all that? I know I never did. I hated it. What if Danny hates it, too?”
Lucy saw him in her mind, seated at her grandmother’s elegant dinner table, hiding behind his careless half shrug and his laugh-at-the world grin, and knew that he would hate every minute of it—especially Grandmother Garner’s cold, undisguised disdain.
Lucy let her mother’s question go unanswered.
“So the real question is,” Bebe continued, “are you willing to change for him? That’s what you must decide. Don’t expect him to change. You’re the one who must change. Do you love him that much? Could you give up your way of life and live in his world for his sake? Or are you expecting him to fit into yours?”
“It doesn’t matter where we live. I love him, Mother. I know you’re going to say that I’m too young and that I don’t know what love really is, but it’s true—I love Daniel Carver!”
“I believe you. But even when people love each other, it doesn’t always mean that they should get married.”
“Are you talking about Daddy? Are you sorry that you married him?”
“No. I’m talking about someone else.” Her mother looked away, sighing softly. “After your father died, someone else asked me to marry him.”
Lucy’s jaw dropped in shock. “Who?”
“It doesn’t matter, dear. I loved him but I didn’t marry him because . . . because I knew it would hurt you and Grandmother Garner. You would have felt that I was betraying your father. I can tell that I’ve shocked you now, even though your father has been gone for more than a decade.”
Lucy struggled to digest this news as her mother continued. “Grandmother Garner will feel even more shocked and angry and betrayed than you do right now if you marry Danny. It will break her heart. You’re all she has. That’s why you need to carefully consider if you really want to do this to her.”
Lucy recalled how her grandmother had yanked her away from Danny on the day the memorial stone was dedicated. But she also knew that her grandmother had never denied her anything she’d wanted. “Grandmother always lets me have what I want. She won’t stand in the way of my happiness.”
“You might be surprised, Lucy. She would have gladly had my marriage annulled even though she knew I made Horatio happy. . . . Listen, there is one more question you need to consider, and it’s an important one. What about Danny’s faith? My mother tried to advise me to make sure your father and I had a common faith in God. No marriage can get along without Him at the center.”
Lucy had no idea what Danny believed. They had never talked about God or religion. “What difference does it make what church he goes to?” she asked.
“I didn’t ask about his church—I asked about his faith. There is a huge difference.”
Bebe’s questions frustrated Lucy. She wanted answers, not questions. “So, will you help Danny and me or not?”
Bebe wrapped her hands around her teacup, staring down at it as if deep in thought. “I want you to make a well-informed decision, not one you’ll long regret,” she finally replied. “If you promise to agree to my conditions first, then I’ll agree to help you.”
Hope and suspicion battled inside Lucy. “What do you want me to do?”
“Tell Danny you can’t see him for two weeks.”
“Mother, no!”
“True love can certainly endure a separation of two weeks. You both could use some time apart to get some perspective on your relationship. That’s my first condition—and the servants will be sure to let me know if you try to cheat. During that time, I want you to come with me to get a firsthand look at the world that Daniel comes from. It’s important that you understand him and why he thinks the way he does. You’ve never been to New Town, have you?”
“Danny and I aren’t going to be living there, so I don’t see the point. But I’ll go, if you insist. Is that all?”
“No. I know that you’ve been invited to the Midsummer Ball at the Opera House later this month. Grandmother Garner is looking forward to showing you off to the town’s royalty. I want you to go with her and enter into the festivities with the same enthusiasm you would have shown if Daniel Carver wasn’t in the picture. Those three things are all I’m asking you to do.”
Lucy knew that her mother was trying to shock her by taking her to New Town, but she made up her mind not to be shocked. As for Grandmother Garner and the ball, Lucy didn’t see how it would hurt to go. She could get on her grandmother’s good side by being cooperative, and maybe then she could talk to Grandmama about Daniel. The hardest condition would be spending two weeks away from him, but that was a small price to pay for a lifetime together.
“I’ll agree to all three conditions,” she told her mother, “so start counting off the two weeks. I’ll tell Danny tonight.”
Two days later, Lucy accompanied her mother to New Town. “A woman who attends my church just had a baby,” Bebe told her. “Our ladies’ group always brings a meal to new mothers, along with some clothes and things. I told the other ladies that we would deliver everything.”
The working-class neighborhood was just as Lucy had expected it to be: overcrowded, smelly, and disgusting, but she worked hard to hide her shock from her mother. She thought of her beloved Daniel growing up in such a sad environment, and she was all the more determined to lift him out of this way of life.
So many ragged children played in the street that Lucy feared the horses would trample one of them as the carriage waded through the melee. The driver halted in front of a dilapidated two-story building with several of its windows boarded up. It looked as though it already was falling apart, even though the neighborhood had been built only eleven years ago, after the flood. Lucy hooked the basket of food over her arm, steeling herself to go inside and get this “lesson” over with. But before she could take a single step, dozens of children mobbed her, thrusting their filthy hands in her face and shouting, “Please, miss! Please! You have a penny for me?”
She wanted to turn and flee to the safety of the carriage, but her mother simply smiled and shouted to them above the noise. “All right, children. Let us through, please. We have to bring these things to Anna Walsh and her new baby. We’ll have something for all of you when we come out.”
The clamoring mob parted, and Lucy and Bebe made their way up the steps and into the building. The smell of urine assaulted Lucy in the vestibule. “Oh! That’s revolting!” she said before she could stop herself. Bebe said nothing as she led the way upstairs to the second floor. The apartment door was open, and she knocked on the doorframe and peered inside.
“Anna? It’s me, Bebe Garner.”
“Come in, Mrs. Garner, come in.”
The room was tiny and smelled of kerosene and perspiration. It was so hot that Lucy couldn’t breathe. Not even a hint of a breeze blew though the windows, which stood dangerously open to the two-story drop below. Two toddlers sat bare-naked on the wooden floor. A line of laundry was strung across one end of the room, dripping into a sink and onto the floor. Anna Walsh sat on a sagging bed on the other end of the room, nursing her baby. She couldn’t have been much older than Lucy was, but she looked as timeworn as Grandmother Garner. She thanked Bebe over and over for the food and clothing and other supplies.
“Is there something more we can do for you while we’re here?” Bebe asked. “Do you have some work that my daughter, Lucy, and I can help you with?”
Mrs. Walsh wouldn’t hear of letting them work for her, and after Bebe rocked the new baby for a few minutes and the two women chatted, she and Lucy left again.
“An apartment like this is all that Daniel can afford on his salary,” Bebe told her on the way down the stairs. “This is how you would have to live, unless he relies on you to support him.” Lucy nodded, refusing to reply. “My experience tells me that most men take a great deal of pride in being the breadwinner. How do you think Daniel will feel, knowing he has to rely on his wealthy wife for charity for the rest of his life?”