The Last Honest Seamstress (13 page)

"Billy!" She waved to get his attention. She had to shout his name three times, but at last he made his way reluctantly toward her. "I need to unload my machine."

He hesitated. "I don't know, miss."
 

"The Captain gave you orders to assist me, did he not? I need help moving my sewing machine ashore."

Billy eyed her warily. It was a fine thing when a ragamuffin like Billy didn't trust her.

"He didn't say anything about you leaving the ship."

The last thing she needed was Billy fighting her, too. She knew full well the boy didn't like her. She hoped at least he'd listen to reason. "He didn't say anything about me being a captive here, either." She put her hands on her hips and stared him down. "Are you going to help me, or disobey captain's orders?"

He stared at her with steely eyes and finally shrugged. "I'll help you get it off the ship and onto the dock, then my duty's done."
 

She gave him a curt nod. "Fair enough."

They pushed the machine down the gangplank. By the time they got it onto the dock, Fayth had broken into a sweat, from anxiety as much as exertion. Did she even still have a shop to go home to? And how was she going to get there if she did? She didn't possess the Captain's ability to acquire carts out of nowhere.

As Billy made a trip back to the ship for the rest of her belongings, she surveyed the melee around her. The Captain had been right. Militiamen were everywhere she looked, even though the fire had not reached this far north.
 

One saw her looking lost and approached her. "May I help you, ma'am?"

"I need transportation to take my sewing machine and bags back to my shop."

"I can help you secure a cart, ma'am. But if you're looking to get back into the area the fire destroyed, you'll be disappointed. The area is closed, by order of the mayor."
 

Billy appeared at her elbow and unceremoniously dropped her bags at her feet.
 

The officer flagged down a fellow militiaman who was mounted on a sturdy wagon. "Mr. Boggs will take you wherever you want to go, outside of the fire area. Just give him directions."

Billy, who'd been standing by impatiently, tossed her things into the wagon, not waiting to help load her machine before he ran off toward the ship.
 

The militiaman gave Fayth a hand up into the wagon. "Where to, ma'am?"

She gave him directions to her cousins' home. What else could she do?
 

Con had been too busy taking charge of unloading the ship to notice Fayth had left the
Aurnia
until too late
.
He first spotted the empty deck space where her machine had been and was about to call out to Billy when a blonde woman in the sea of men on the docks below caught his eye. He shielded his eyes with his hand. Sure enough, Fayth was being helped into a wagon by a uniformed member of the militia as another loaded her sewing machine. Moments later the militiaman clucked to the horse and they disappeared into the throng.

Con cursed under his breath as he strode back to his quarters. Her letter on the table caught his attention. He picked it up and studied the perfectly formed, flowing feminine hand.

Dear Captain O'Neill,

There aren't words of gratitude enough to thank you for rescuing me yesterday. Your hospitality and generosity are overwhelming. I thank you for your kind offer of transporting me to Tacoma, but I believe it is best for me to return to Seattle. I cannot continue to impose on your gracious nature.

With sincere gratitude,

Fayth Sheridan

Cold, formal, impersonal. He carefully folded the letter and slipped it into his desk drawer. He never should have kissed her. It had been damn reckless of him. Because of his loss of control, Fayth was alone out there in the ravaged city. A city full of vagabonds and looters. Abounding with shysters ready to take advantage of a woman's vulnerability.

He strode back to the bedroom. A lump in the hastily made bed caught his attention. He threw back the covers to find an overturned picture frame. He reached for it and turned the gilded frame over slowly. A handsome, dark-haired man smiled back at him. His eyes narrowed as he stared at it, then looked out the porthole into the startlingly blue sky.

He rose and strode back to the main room where he tossed the frame onto the desk with what he hoped was enough rancor to crack the glass. Whoever the man was, he obviously meant a great deal to Fayth. Why else would she take the man's picture to bed?

The bastard!

God alone knew how much more desperate Fayth would be to find a husband now. She claimed she'd given up the notion, but that was before the fire. He slammed his fist into the desktop. Was she loose in the city with another candidate already in mind?

He had to find her.

Late the first evening of Fayth’s stay, Sterling Kelley related the good will and can-do spirit of Seattleites to his wife and Fayth as they sat in the parlor enjoying their after-dinner coffee. In Fayth's opinion, Sterling could afford to be gracious and rather jovial about the disaster. His home sat well out of range of the fire's ultimate reach. And as a manager for Mr. Hill's Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway, which had yet to reach Seattle, his job and business were in no jeopardy. Even his leased railway office which sat just south of the fire line hadn't been harmed by more than a little smoke. Yes, he was very lucky. And good luck made it easy to be magnanimous.

"You would have been proud, Elizabeth. I've never seen such Christian spirit. When George Adair called for a vote to decide whether we should still send the funds Seattle collected for the victims of the Johnstown flood before the fire, the cry was a resounding.
Send it away! They need it!

"I've never seen such unselfishness."

"That's wonderful, Sterling." Elizabeth held her coffee delicately in front of her as she sat ramrod straight on the edge of her chair. She glanced nervously at Fayth. "Of course, Johnstown
did
lose nearly two thousand lives. As far as we know, there hasn't been a single confirmed death from our fire. What else did you hear in town?"

Poor Elizabeth! She was trying so desperately to be optimistic and steer Sterling away from thoughtlessly throwing Fayth's reduced circumstances in her face.

But Sterling was having none of it. "There may not have been a loss of life, dear, but our people are just as homeless and destitute as Johnstown's survivors." He seemed determined to wear other people's tragedies as if they were his personal stripes of honor.

"Sterling." Elizabeth shook her head subtly at her husband, reproving him for his lack of tact, nodding toward Fayth.

"It's fine, Elizabeth. Sterling is right to be proud of Seattle. How much did we collect?" Fayth was only half engaged in the conversation. The full force of her mind wrestled with weightier issues, namely self-preservation.
 

She was still reeling from the devastating afternoon blow of discovering the bolts of cloth the Captain had saved from the fire were not the wools and broadcloths she needed to sew for her male clientele and rebuild the business. No, he’d rescued the bolts of pink and yellow figured silk, and the light, watery blue plain silk from her office, the costly material to bring her sketches to life. Costly, but basically worthless to her here in Seattle. Even those smelled of smoke, but then, what in the city didn't? She could air them out, for all the good they'd do her.
 

The Captain had risked his life for nothing. She couldn't blame him. The smoke had been blinding. He'd grabbed what he could. Now she'd have to rely on her slim savings to get started again and hope she could get a shipment of cloth in time to get back in business soon.

"Doesn't everyone know the amount? It's been in all the papers since the day before the fire," Sterling said. "Five hundred and fifty-eight dollars, and every penny of it could just as easily be used here in Seattle." Sterling sobered and lowered his voice, "That is, if the bank vaults weren't destroyed by the fire."

"What?" Fayth nearly sloshed coffee all over herself. With one simple statement Sterling had captured her full attention. She hadn't considered that the vaults
could
melt. The money in the bank was her last line of salvation. If all her money had been lost as well . . .
 

"You don't think they were?"

Sterling looked at her sympathetically. "I hope not, Fayth. I sincerely do. But no one knows yet. At best they're all buried under layers of rubble. The mayor has asked the militia to help with the excavation. It's hoped the vaults will be recovered within the week. We'll just have to wait and see."

"Thank goodness the bulk of our assets are still back East," Elizabeth added, evidently operating under the misapprehension Fayth hadn't moved her money west, either.
 

Unfortunately, Fayth
had
trusted the local banks and had put all of her money in them when she'd severed her ties with Baltimore.
 

Sterling cleared his throat. "Well, not to worry now. I have more news to report—the powers that be are talking about raising Front Street and replatting the city. Imagine! Roads that lie on a grid and actually make some kind of sense on a map!"
 

By changing topics, Sterling surely meant to be kind and distract, Fayth. Unfortunately, he was failing miserably.

"How much higher of a regrade are they talking about?" Just another worry. How would the replatting affect her ability to secure another location for her shop downtown? And what would the cost be to local merchants?

"Nothing's been decided yet. Though the mayor was reported to say, when the question was brought up,
High enough so we don't have to put our bathrooms on the third floor or suffer the indignity of our crapper devices spouting geysers at high tide!
" Sterling chuckled.

Elizabeth silenced Sterling with a reproving look.

Everyone complained about the inadequate sewer system. The sewer pipes laid into Elliott Bay to flush sewage out into the Sound were not extended far enough, or laid high enough above the incoming tide. Every day the outgoing tide washed Seattle's waste out to sea and every day the incoming tide washed Tacoma's waste right into Seattle, backing up the sewer pipes and erupting out of Seattle's toilets.
 

“Of course the water system must be improved," Sterling said. "If we'd had proper water pressure, we wouldn't have lost the city."
 

Fayth's mind was already at work on how to get back into business.
 

Elizabeth misread her faraway look. "Sterling, you're upsetting Fayth."

"Sorry. Didn't mean to be inconsiderate. But everyone's saying that Seattle will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. And so shall you, I say."

"Who, specifically, is saying that, Sterling?" Fayth asked.

"The entire city, I should imagine. I first heard Captain O'Neill give voice to it."

Fayth's heart beat in an odd rhythm.
Captain O'Neill.
Why did everything come back to him? Especially when she was trying to forget him.

"Sterling, I believe you're right. We will be like the phoenix. And I intend to start the transformation." Fayth set her cup down. All that pretty fabric might be of some use after all. She had vowed to come out of mourning and get rid of her drab clothes. If she was going to be destitute, she may as well do it with style.

Elizabeth smiled at her. "Good! You’ll brighten everyone’s spirits when we begin helping out at the relief tents tomorrow."

Fayth worked less than a full morning beside Elizabeth before being dispatched from the Armory to help the people from Tacoma in their relief tent at the corner of Third and University. All morning she served endless loaves of bread and plates of donated foods to hungry, flirtatious men under the watchful eye of the former Occidental Hotel steward, Thomas Moore, who, she was certain, intended to operate the tent like the fancy restaurant she had frequented so often. She worked in the stifling heat until the underarms of her gray work shift were ringed with perspiration and her arms leaden.

She wondered briefly about Coral. Lou Gramm's parlor house had burned to the ground, too, but she doubted Lou would let that stop business for long. Seattle's men may have lost their homes, sources of income, and places of occupation, but they had not lost their appetite for women. There were rumors that tents of prostitution were already being set up in the Tenderloin to service the restless men. And she worried about Olive, asking after her of any man that had been in the area of the fire that day. No one had seen a stray cat.

The Tacomans were cheerful and neighborly in their generosity toward their rival, now disaster-plagued, city. Despite their charity and good-natured attitude, Fayth didn't feel completely comfortable among the badged volunteers. She wondered to herself all day at how they had managed so quickly to secure the large white badges they wore that read "Tacoma Relief." She would have preferred to continue on at the Armory, surrounded by her sisters in disaster and empathy, but at the end of the day, when Sterling came to pick her up, they pleaded with her to come back the next, early in the morning to help take down cots and set up tables for breakfast. Fayth demurred, giving them a noncommittal answer as Sterling escorted her to the door.