The Roswell Legacy by Frances Statham (parable of the sower read online .TXT) 📗

he does charity work, too, when he has the time. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he and Morrow knew each other?”

Lila was not to be outdone. “My dear, if I were you, I’d stick to shopping, parties, and sightseeing. Charity work is for plain women who never intend to get married, like that Miss Addams I’ve read about at Hull House. Besides, there’re too many infectious diseases one can pick up at a place like that, with all those poor immigrants. But let’s find something more pleasant to talk about. Tell me, when are you and Jonathan to be married? And have you selected the material for your wedding dress?”

For Ginna, it was difficult to maintain a casual conversation. Talking about her wedding dress only brought back painful memories of the day Cassie had divulged the news of her birth.

When the call came that the dining car was open, Ginna was relieved. The conversation ceased abruptly as Lila left her seat to tidy up before the evening meal.

Ginna, too, left her seat to wash her hands. But she soon returned. And while she waited for the other woman, she gazed out the window, watching the landscape that flashed by in lights and shadows. The chandeliers overhead had not yet been lit, for another hour would pass before the sun went down.

“Ready, Ginna?”

“Yes, Mrs. Montgomery.”

“Then let’s go in and see the table Richard has selected for us.”

CHAPTER

23

After three monotonous days and nights of winding its way past corn and wheat fields and vast expanses of prairie interspersed with small villages, the train bringing Ginna west finally pulled into the Chicago rail terminal at five o’clock in the afternoon.

Lila Montgomery’s patience had ended several hundred miles before their arrival. “I don’t care what they say about the luxury of this train,” she complained. “I’m absolutely exhausted from the trip.”

Richard gazed at his beautiful wife with a sympathetic eye. He should have taken A.C. up on the private railcar. “We’ll soon be at the hotel, my dear. A nice warm bath and a good mattress will work wonders for all of us.”

As others left the train, Ginna began to gather up her belongings, returning a book to the valise beside her. The trip had been long and tiring, and she would be glad to leave the train, too.

Although she was grateful for the Montgomerys’ generosity in allowing her to travel with them, she had paid for it in a dozen little ways. With her maid in another car, Lila Montgomery was helpless and Ginna had become the maid, without Lila’s conscious recognition of that fact.

Whatever she decided to do with her life, Ginna realized that her spirit would never allow herself to be at the beck and call of any demanding relative. To be totally dependent on others for her food and her self-esteem had been damaging enough as a child. Her struggle to emerge as an individual out from under the shadow of her mother and older sister had been a constant one, and if she capitulated now, the battle had been for nothing.

But she had to learn not to react so impetuously. She had signed up for secretarial school when she wasn’t sure it was the direction she wanted to take. But because of Allison, she was now being handed another chance—to plan at leisure, to weigh her alternatives—while at the same time, getting to know the sister she never knew she had.

Yet she was reticent. What had Allison written Morrow in the letter she was carrying? Merely that she was Jonathan’s fiancee? Or that she was her half sister? How was she to react when she met Morrow for the first time?

Quickly, Ginna finished packing, put on her hat, and waited for Lila to give the signal that she was ready to leave the train.

“I do hope Meara isn’t too tired,” Lila remarked, fastening her rose-bedecked hat with a long, jeweled hatpin. “All my gowns will be so wrinkled from the journey. It will take her forever to get them looking halfway decent again.

“Well, Ginna, are you ready to get your first glimpse of this heathenish city?”

Ginna smiled. “I’m ready to leave the train, Mrs. Montgomery, if that’s what you mean.”

“Richard, dear, could you please carry this small case for me?”

The patient Richard took the case, slung it over his shoulder, and then led the way so that he might help his wife and Ginna down the steps.

Once again the platform was filled: a mingling of people going back and forth, looking for loved ones. “I’ll take those bags for you, sir,” a redcap offered, in the hope of getting a good tip. “You got other luggage?”

Richard turned around and acknowledged the man following him. “An assortment of trunks as well. We’ll need a carriage for us and a dray for all of the luggage.”

“Yes, sir. And where will you be going?”

“Hotel Richlieu.”

Farther down the platform, a ripple of laughter floated through the air as Nelly Rose and her girls also stepped off the train.

There was nothing unobtrusive in their arrival. As in Washington, all eyes turned toward the exuberant, light-hearted group. But this time there was an extra girl, carefully made up, with a lime-green silk dress trimmed in black lace and matching black lace stockings.

Richard, who had been watching for Meara, leaned over and whispered in Lila’s ear, “One of those girls bears a remarkable resemblance to your maid, don’t you think?”

“Really, Richard. It would seem you might have better things to do than to stand here and stare at those little tarts.”

Lila moved closer to Ginna, as if she were protecting her from contamination. “Look the other way, my dear. They’ll be out of sight soon.”

Once they had gone by, Lila once again began to look for Meara. Her impatience was readily discernible to both Ginna and her husband.

“If you don’t mind, my dear, I’ll go ahead and see to the baggage.”

“Yes. Do that, Richard. And Ginna and