The clock struck the six o’clock hour. Darcy donned a clean white waist, brushed the dirt off her skirt, and twisted her hair into a tight knot before going down to supper.
A massive, claw-footed walnut table dominated the Shea dining room. Mum favored pressed Irish linen and delicate English porcelain, but Darcy thought it looked out of place, like a top hat on a miner.
Papa set aside the newspaper and downed his daily medicinal of Dr. Caldwell’s Syrup Pepsin, beet juice and vinegar. Mum glanced up as Darcy entered. Her grim expression told Darcy this wouldn’t be easy.
Darcy slipped into her chair. “Sorry I’m late.”
A platter of roast beef sat in the center of the table, surrounded by bowls of potatoes, green beans and carrots from the garden. None of it tempted her.
After Papa said grace, Mum served the beef.
“We missed you at the grange today,” Mum said.
“I’ll roll double tomorrow afternoon. I promise.”
“Tomorrow is too late. You know we ship the bandages out in the morning. Darcy Opal Shea, this wild behavior has to stop. You’re nearly twenty-four, too old to make a spectacle of yourself. Your hair. Your skirt. I was embarrassed. Dermott, did you know your daughter went running through Mr. Baker’s field?”
Papa looked up from the newspaper, clearly only having heard the part of Mum’s harangue that came after her utterance of his name. “Baker’s field? I hear a plane crash-landed there. Did you see it, Darcy? Dennis Allington said it was quite loud.”
“It didn’t crash,” Darcy said. “It had to land due to engine trouble.”
“Is that so?” Her father snapped the paper and folded it against the crease. “Perhaps I’ll go over there and have a look.”
Oh, no. She did not need Papa meddling. “It’ll probably be gone in the morning. I don’t know for certain, of course, but I could ask. Someone in town must know. Hendrick Simmons, for instance. If the plane needed fuel or had a problem, they’d have to go to the motor garage. I could ask him after supper.”
“But it will be dusk,” Mum pointed out.
“We’ll walk there together,” Papa suggested.
Worse and worse. “No reason to waste your time, when I can run over in moments and report back.” A twinge of guilt rushed past Darcy’s conscience too quickly to pay it much mind. With her plan, everyone would gain. Simmons would get the business, Mr. Hunter’s plane would get fixed and she would get her plane ride. It was the perfect solution.
Papa gave her a long look. “You spend too much time with that Simmons boy.”
“He’s just a friend.”
“Exactly,” said Papa. “If you loved him, well, then we’d need to discuss things.”
“I don’t.” Darcy didn’t elaborate. Papa would never understand her refusal to marry.
“Speaking of prospects,” said Mum, “I understand someone new is in town.” She paused dramatically, waiting for Papa to ask who it was. When he didn’t, she proceeded to enlighten him. “Dr. George Carrman, from Buffalo. I ran into him while I was out. He seems a very pleasant, likeable young man.”
“You met him?” Darcy’s mother had an almost miraculous ability to run into any eligible bachelor who happened into town.
Papa furrowed his brow. “We already have Doc Stevens. There’s no need for another doctor—and a young, inexperienced one at that. That’s the way it is these days. The young people get an education and think they can take away a man’s job.”
Mum laughed off his concerns. “George Carrman is not here to take away Dr. Stevens’s job. He’s just visiting.”
“And he’s not a physician yet,” Darcy added. “He’s still studying.”
“Carrman, you said?” Papa pulled his attention from the newspaper. “Don’t know the family. Who’s he visiting?”
“He’s a Kensington cousin.” Mum clearly took pleasure in this announcement. “Must be on Eugenia’s side.”
“Kensington, eh? And a doctor. Don’t suppose he’s married.”
“No, he’s not married,” snapped Darcy. Better to get it over at once. “And don’t worry, Beatrice has already arranged a picnic so I can meet him.”
Father removed his reading spectacles and set them on top of the newspaper. “I’m glad someone is looking out for your future.”
“I’m not interested,” she said.
Mum shook her head.
Papa ran his thumbnail down the newspaper’s fold, creating a knife’s edge. “Don’t go into this with a closed mind, Darcy. He may be a fine young man and deserving of your attention.”
Darcy toyed with the green beans on her plate, separating the two halves and rolling out the little beans.
“Your mother and I only want what’s best for you,” her father continued. “A good marriage will ease our worries. You’re what? Twenty-three? Your sister was already married and had her first child by that age. It’s time to settle on someone.” He unfolded his spectacles and put them on again.
The front door opened, ushering in a tumult that could only be Darcy’s sister, Amelia, children in tow. “Hello, Mum, Papa.” Her greeting trailed through the house.
Darcy had never been close to her older sister. Besides the eight-year difference in their ages, they had nothing in common. Amelia loved clothes and babies. Darcy wanted to be a great explorer. They hadn’t fought—well, not that much. They simply didn’t like the same things.
“I must tell you. I simply couldn’t wait.” Amelia winged into the dining room, coat and gloves still on. Pale and willowy where Darcy was short and dark, Amelia had commanded
numerous beaus before settling on Charles Highbottom, a local dairy farmer with enough income to buy the fancy hats and gowns she favored.
The girls, aged five and eight, ran to Grandmum while ten-year-old Freddie went straight to his grandpapa.
Darcy’s father broke into a wide smile. “How’s my Frederick? Find any treasures lately?”
Ordinarily shy Freddie dug in his pocket and extracted a handful of dusty baubles, which he dumped on the table.
“Let’s see what we have here.” Papa bent over the treasures while Freddie explained where he found each one.
Meanwhile, Mum doled out one piece of taffy to each girl. Darcy pushed aside her plate, appetite gone. Amelia was the pretty one, the smart one, the good one. She knew how to carry herself. She knew her place. Darcy had heard the comparisons all her life.
“Papa.” Amelia tugged off her gloves in irritation. “I have news. Are you listening?”
Papa looked up from the army of treasures. “Darcy, do you remember that bear claw I gave you? Wouldn’t that be a fine thing for young Frederick?”
Darcy’s mouth dropped open. The bear claw? Papa had given it to her. That claw was his prize, taken from the grizzly bear he killed years ago on his grand adventure. Give it to Freddie? He’d only ruin it.
“Papa!” Amelia stomped her foot.
“Forgive your father, dearest,” said Mum. “He’s partial to his grandson. Dermott?” Mum managed to capture Papa’s attention. “Your daughter has something to tell you.”
Amelia’s porcelain complexion had turned faintly pink. “It’s terrible timing, what with Charles having to sign up for the draft tomorrow, but that can’t be helped. You’re going to have another grandchild.”
Mum and Papa stared, dumbfounded.
“I thought you didn’t want any more children,” Darcy said.
Amelia hugged her gloves to her chest. “Well, Papa? Aren’t you pleased?”
“Oh, my dearest Amelia,” Mum gushed. “We are. Of course we are. It’s just that it’s such a surprise.”
Papa rose, brushing crumbs from his gray waistcoat. “Amelia, my dear. Good job.” He enveloped her in a hug.
“Congratulations,” Darcy said, though an unreasonable peevishness smothered any true celebration. Marry. Have children. Would nothing else please her parents?
“Good girl.” Papa beamed, pride elevating him an extra inch. “Let’s make it another boy.”
Another boy. There were more important things than having babies. Any woman could bear children, but precious few had the nerve to travel to the ends of the earth. Tears stung Darcy’s lids as she slipped out of the house. She would make her mark. She would do something no one had ever done before. Yes, she would.
Extricating Jack Hunter from the blind pig, or illegal saloon, had seemed like a good and noble idea at the time, but as Darcy approached the drugstore’s back door, the nerves set in. Her hands sweated, and she shivered in the cool evening air. She hadn’t exactly told Papa she’d be going here.
Since the state had gone dry two years ago, Vanesia Lawrence had run her saloon out of the back of the drugstore. Papa called it the blight on the apple of Pearlman, but his opposition hadn’t begun with prohibition. He had drilled the evils of drink into Amelia and Darcy from an early age, their Aunt Meg, who’d married a drunk, serving as his primary example.
Now Darcy stood at the door of a saloon, calling on a man, a drinking man, a man she barely knew. If Papa found out,
he’d yank her home by the ears and never let her step outside again.
Dark and damp descended on the narrow alley, trapping the smells of rotted cabbage and horse dung between the brick buildings. Darcy hesitated outside the plain wood door, gathering her courage.
“Shouldn’t be here,” Simmons muttered.
He was right, of course, but Darcy couldn’t back down now, not when she stood this close to her dream. She turned the cold iron knob. The door didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”
“Good, we can go.” Simmons edged away. “I didn’t wanna come in the first place.”
“No, no. We can’t give up yet.” She knocked.
“What’re you doing?” Simmons hissed, tugging her away from the door.
“Finding Mr. Hunter.”
“We should get outta here.” Simmons glanced each way down the alley.
“Please stay, Hendrick. I need you. You’re the ace mechanic who can fix Mr. Hunter’s motor.”
“If you say so.” He drew a circle in the dirt with the toe of his shoe.
“Don’t worry. Remember your dream. Hendrick Simmons, aeroplane mechanic. You’ll have your own shop.”
“Garage.”
“Garage. Your name in big letters on the sign over the door. You can go places, Hendrick.”
“I don’t want my name up in big letters, and I don’t wanna go nowhere else. Them kind of dreams are fine for you, Darcy, but I’m a simple kinda guy. I like Pearlman, and I like my life fine just the way it is.”
Darcy sighed. Squeezing ambition out of Hendrick Simmons was tougher than getting Cora to stop listening in on telephone conversations. “Pearlman is fine, but maybe your
children will want more. You could leave them an inheritance. You could be the Henry Ford of aeroplanes.”
Simmons rubbed his brow against his shoulder, somehow managing to smear black grease across his forehead in a faint echo of his sparse mustache. “Aw, Darcy, I don’t even have a girl. There’s no sense talking about children.”
“You’ll find someone.” It might be true, if he ever got up the nerve to ask a girl out. “She’ll appear one day, and you’ll know she’s the one. Who knows, maybe she’ll fly in on an aeroplane. But if a plane’s to come here, there needs to be a mechanic. You could be that mechanic. Imagine, she’d step out of that aeroplane and sweep you off your feet.”
“Aw, Darcy,” he mumbled, burying his hands in his trouser pockets. “I don’t think…”
Mrs. Lawrence—though to Darcy’s recollection there’d never been a Mr. Lawrence—threw open the door. Music and laughter emanated from inside, but Vanesia Lawrence’s orange silk gown filled the doorway. Even on tiptoes, Darcy couldn’t see past her.
“What do you want?” the proprietress said.
Darcy squared her shoulders. “Mr. Jack Hunter. Is he here?”
Mrs. Lawrence hesitated long enough that Darcy knew he was. “Now why would he be here, sugar? I don’t even know the man.”
“I saw him come here this afternoon.”
Mrs. Lawrence smiled lazily. “You must be mistaken. Now run along home to your papa.”
Darcy fumed at being treated like a child, but she couldn’t think up a deserving retort.
“Let’s go,” Simmons whispered. “He’s not here.”
“Yes he is.” Darcy faced off against Mrs. Lawrence. “I know what I saw, and I know what your business is, so you
can stop pretending. Either you fetch Mr. Hunter now, or I write an editorial about your little establishment.”
Mrs. Lawrence’s artificial smile curved slightly, the blood red of her lips garish against the orange gown. “A threat, Miss Darcy, needs teeth to be effective. Our newspaper would never print such a piece.”
Which meant Devlin frequented the place, too. Darcy set her jaw. Vanesia Lawrence might block her now, but Darcy would not give up. “Then I’ll find him myself.” She darted past Mrs. Lawrence, but got only three steps into the dark, smoky hallway when she ran into something very solid and very alive.
“Back you go, Miss Shea,” said that all-too familiar voice.
A second later, Jack Hunter deposited her in the alley beside a wide-eyed Simmons, who looked ready to bolt. Mrs. Lawrence calmly closed the door, leaving Darcy alone with both her bait and her quarry.
“What do you want?” Hunter sounded almost bored.
“A moment of your time.” Darcy gave him her broadest smile.
“Couldn’t it wait until morning? This is no place for respectable ladies.”
“I know that, but—” she began, but he’d already turned on Simmons.
“You should know better than to bring her here.”
Simmons backed away.
She was going to lose Hendrick unless she talked fast. “I have a proposition for you, Mr. Hunter.”
“Is that so?”
“A business proposition,” Darcy clarified. She dragged Simmons forward as witness to her honorable intentions. “We only need a few minutes.”
Hunter looked faintly amused. “I already told you I’m not giving rides in my aeroplane, not to you or to anyone.”
“I’m not talking about a plane ride. I’m talking about solving your problem. We can repair your motor.”
To his credit, he didn’t laugh. “I have a mechanic. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Late tomorrow,” she emphasized. “We can save you time, get you on your way more quickly.”
“And you, out of pure goodness, want to help me leave as soon as possible.” The shadow of the doorway masked his expression. “That does run counter to your goal, doesn’t it?”
“I do want to help you. Mr. Simmons here is a mechanic. He can fix anything.”