Alias Mrs Jones Read online

  I removed my boots and my jacket, unbuttoned the collar of my blouse, and took as deep a breath as I could. The night before, I was too anxious to remove any of my clothing. I’d been nearly certain that at any moment the railroad police would whip open the curtain of my berth and haul me off to jail. Now, with the distance between me and New York widening every hour, I was more relaxed. Still, I hesitated to remove my corset. My ribs ached, and I longed to be free of the restricting stays, but once the laces were loosened I didn’t know if I would be able to retie them. The more I thought about it, though, the more the knot beneath my left breast burrowed into my flesh until it felt like a knife was thrust into my ribs. I gave into temptation. I unfastened my belt and removed my blouse and corset, nearly melting in sudden comfort as the ties gave way. I reached under my silk vest, sighed, and slid the fist of bills into my hand.

  I crossed my legs beneath me, dropped the bills in the bowl created by my skirt, and brought my right arm close to the light. The wrist was swollen and discolored, the marks from Robert’s fingers clearly visible. I curled my fingers into a loose fist. It hurt, but I didn’t think any bones were broken. It wasn’t my first injury from Robert’s hands. They usually healed if left alone.

  I pulled my vest up, pressed against my right breast, and craned my head to get a better view of my side. I saw purple, but the angle would not allow me a clear view of the bruise.

  It was cool in the sleeping compartment, but there was one more thing I wanted to do before dressing again. I picked up the roll of money and peeled off the bills one by one. There were thirty-one of them. Thirty-one hundred dollar bills. I had already used one of the bills to finance my journey. That meant I had stolen three thousand, two hundred dollars.

  I shivered. Where could I hide the money? Its last hiding place had been too uncomfortable. My purse was too small, my corset too tight, my lace drawers too loose, and my travel bag stowed too far away in the baggage compartment. After a moment’s thought, I stripped off my fine cashmere stockings and lined them with bills, fifteen for the right leg, sixteen for the left. It was February, after all, and cold. The extra layer would help to keep my legs warm. I donned my corset again, tightening it the best I could, then the blouse, skirt, and jacket.

  The image of the prisoner being escorted to the train by those two lawmen was fresh in my mind. If I were suddenly arrested, I would at least be decently clothed. That taken care of, I turned down the light, lay flat on the cushions, pulled the scratchy wool blanket over me, and was asleep in an instant.

  Of course I dreamed of lawmen, and in my dream I was the prisoner. I sobbed as I walked between them, my hands cuffed behind me so tightly my wrists ached, but the men only laughed over my head at a joke I couldn’t understand.

  I was awakened by the sound of curtain rings sliding above my bed. I sat up, my heart in my throat, but it was not my curtain. The train had stopped. Someone was climbing into the bunk above me. I heard a gasp, a grunt, a giggle.

  “Papa, watch your hand,” someone whispered.

  I leaned toward the curtain, opened it just a sliver, and peered out. A plaid skirt, red and pink, flashed across my vision.

  “Oof!” The bunk creaked as its occupant landed. I instinctively raised my arms to protect myself from a crash, but its supports held.

  “Be a good girl,” Papa said. “Remember, Mr. Dunn will meet your train. You’ll know him by—”

  “I know, Papa, you’ve told me a dozen times. I’ll know him by the red kerchief in his pocket.”

  “Mind him. You’ll be all right,” Papa said, and he left without another word.

  The bunk bounced a time or two as its occupant settled in. The train started up, and I closed my eyes.

  I awoke the second time when I heard whispers coming from above, which was puzzling, since there was no room in the upper bunk for two people. I sat up, peeked out my sliver, and confronted the front panel of a pair of men’s trousers no more than two inches from my nose.

  “I couldn’t believe how long your papa hung about,” the man said. His voice was low, but I was very near. “I thought for a moment he’d decided to go all the way to Hillyard with you.”

  “Him? He can’t wait to be rid of me, but I couldn’t brush him off. He’d have suspected something.”

  The whispers stopped momentarily, replaced by the sound of heavy breathing and wet kisses.

  “Where’s your bag, Mabel?” the man asked finally. “We can get off at the next stop.”

  “Not the next stop, sweetums,” my upstairs neighbor said. “You know I’ll go with you wherever you want, but I have to at least let Mr. Dunn know I can’t teach for him after all.”

  “Why? What’s Mr. Dunn to us? You’ve never even met him, and we’ll never see him again.” His voice turned wheedling. “Come with me now, honey.”

  I heard a gasp and a giggle and more heavy breathing. A movement in the front of Floyd’s trousers made me avert my eyes. “Stop it, Floyd. Not here. There’s somebody sleeping down there, you know.”

  I released the curtain and sat as still as I could.

  “I’m serious, Floyd. Papa arranged it. Mr. Dunn is expecting me to start teaching on Monday.”

  Floyd heaved a loud sigh. “Mabel, honey, he only gave you that job because your father asked him to. You think he can’t find another teacher?”

  “Don’t you think I’d be a good teacher, Floyd?” Mabel’s voice was sulky.

  “I think you’d make a better wife.”

  “Oh, Floyd,” she said as if she enjoyed his answer and followed it up with more kissing.

  I wondered about the odd coincidence of hearing about Hillyard, a town I’d never known existed, twice in the same day. It was like learning a new word and suddenly hearing it everywhere. Then I realized it was no coincidence at all. The train was stopping in Hillyard, after all. Presumably other passengers would alight there as well.

  I thought about my pending arrival in Seattle, a destination I’d chosen for no reason except a desire to flee as far as I could from New York. I knew no one there. What would I do when I got there? I envied Mabel, not for her “sweetums” Floyd, but for having a destination with a purpose, for being met by Mr. Dunn, and for having a job when she got there.

  “Don’t you want to come with me now, Mabs?” Floyd’s voice shook.

  “Oh, I do, I do.” Mabel’s breathy voice shook as well, and I wondered what Floyd was doing with his hands up there. “But...Oh, Floyd, I need to at least let Mr. Dunn know I’m not coming.”

  That’s when I opened the curtain, stuck my head out beside Floyd’s hip, and said, “I’ll tell him.”

  Chapter Three

  MR. STANFIELD INVITED me to join him for breakfast in the dining car the next morning. With his assistance, locating a table and getting service was much easier than when I had tried it myself that first day. I ate a surprisingly good omelet, gazed out at the Montana scenery, and asked, “How long will you be in Hillyard, Mr. Stanfield?”

  “Perhaps a week,” he said. “Or two. Possibly as long as a month. The incorporation vote won’t be held until the middle of March. They shouldn’t need me for that, but the company may decide to keep me there anyway, just to be safe.”

  I sipped my coffee. As long as a month. If I decided to leave the train in Hillyard, I might have the comfort of Mr. Stanfield’s friendship for as long as a month. It was a tempting thought when compared to a cold and friendless arrival in Seattle.

  But the plan that had seemed flawless to Mabel, Floyd, and me the night before revealed its holes in the light of day. It was a simple plan. I would leave the train in Hillyard and present myself to Mr. Dunn as Miss Mabel Chumley. He had never met Mabel, had never even met her father, and only offered her the position as a favor because of some investment advice from Mr. Chumley that had made Mr. Dunn money. Mr. Dunn would have no reason to suspect I wasn’t the new schoolteacher. Mabel and Floyd would be able to run off and get married without any worry of pursuit, since
Mr. Dunn would telegraph Mr. Chumley that his daughter had arrived safely. Mr. Dunn would get his schoolteacher, and I would get a new life.

  I knew nothing about teaching. That was the first hole in the plan, but frankly, it didn’t concern me much. If a flighty miss like Mabel Chumley could teach, I certainly could. More troublesome was the worry that eventually Mr. Chumley was bound to learn that a stranger was impersonating his daughter. He would tell Mr. Dunn, and I would be caught. It would not happen right away, though. Miss Chumley had boarded the train in Minot, North Dakota, nearly a thousand miles from Hillyard, too far for spontaneous visits. Mabel assured me her father would not be troubled if he received no letter from her for several weeks.

  It was the immediate problem, though, that convinced me to abandon the plan. How could I live in Hillyard and be known to Mr. Dunn as Miss Chumley and to Mr. Stanfield as Mrs. Jones? I would be caught in a lie by at least one of them, a lie that would only raise questions about who I really was. I couldn’t risk it.

  Of course, I could still get off the train in Hillyard if I wished, without impersonating Miss Chumley, but I had told Mr. Stanfield I was going to Seattle. How would I explain my changed destination? He would think me a dime novel railroad adventuress, or worse. In trying to maintain my friendship with Mr. Stanfield, I could lose it.

  “Are you always such a quiet breakfast companion, Mrs. Jones?” Mr. Stanfield asked. “I must say, you’re very different from my wife and daughters. They chatter so much I have to take my newspaper to the office to read it.”

  “What sorts of things do they talk about?” I asked, diverting him once again into talking about something other than me. It wasn’t difficult. His face lit up when he spoke of his family.

  “Violet, as I said, is nearly sixteen. When she’s not talking about some young man she saw the day before, she talks about those she hopes to see later that day, or she tells us of hats and dresses and other fripperies girls her age enjoy. I confess I don’t listen to her much. My wife is very kind with her, but even she grows impatient after a time. My wife has grown interested in reform work, like Miss Addams in Chicago, and thinks young girls ought to devote some of their energy toward helping others.”

  “She sounds like a worthy woman.” I felt some envy for Mrs. Stanfield. I tried to teach English to immigrant children one time at a settlement house in New York, but after I came home excited about what I’d seen and done there, Robert forbade me from ever going again.

  “And your younger daughter,” I asked. “What does she talk of?”

  “Oh, my little Dora. It changes every day. Just yesterday, she couldn’t stop talking about a toy steam engine that she saw in the Sears Roebuck catalog. I don’t know what she wants to do with it, but she wants it very badly. She’s not interested in boys at all yet, thank heaven.” He laughed. “Sometimes I think she wishes she was one.”

  I smiled. “I think most girls do, at one time or another, especially when looking at toys in the Sears Roebuck catalog. There’s really not much you can do with a doll, after all, except hold it.”

  He laughed again. “I never thought of that.”

  Mr. Stanfield continued to entertain me with stories of his family all the way through Montana, which took most of the day, and into Idaho. After taking so long to traverse Montana, I was surprised at how quickly we crossed the narrow northern strip of Idaho and entered Washington.

  “Yes, we like to joke that the front of the train leaves Idaho before the back of the train gets in it,” Mr. Stanfield said. He checked the pockets in his jacket, his bag, and glanced around the seat as if making sure he had everything. I had no idea where in Washington Hillyard was, so I was unprepared when, only minutes later, the conductor announced our arrival there.

  I looked out the window. It was not quite dark. The land was flat and covered in snow.

  The train slowed, and Mr. Stanfield rose. He swayed with the movement of the train and felt the pockets of his trousers. His mind seemed already on the business waiting for him, but then he leaned forward and braced himself with one hand on the back of his seat and the other on the back of mine. His eyes, steady and brown, were only inches from mine.

  “Mrs. Jones, do you have funds?”

  “Funds?” I thought of the money in my stockings.

  “Will you be all right?” he asked in a stern voice.

  He was asking if I needed money. I nearly laughed and lowered my head. “I’ll be fine,” I said to my gloved hands.

  Apparently he did not believe me. The train screeched to a halt, and two ten-dollar bills fluttered onto my lap. I looked up to protest and saw only the back of Mr. Stanfield’s coat as he exited the train.

  I snatched the bills and rose to follow him and return it, but I paused and slowly sat back down. I was not the helpless and penniless widow he apparently thought me, but it would be easier to accept his twenty dollars than to explain why I didn’t need it.

  I peered out the window at the little depot. Several men stood about in the gathering twilight, but there was no sign of Mr. Stanfield. He must have gone in a different direction. I did see a man with a red handkerchief bulging from his breast pocket.

  Mr. Dunn. He watched the disembarking passengers searching, I knew, for Mabel Chumley. I thought of Mr. Stanfield again, so kind and devoted to his daughters. How devastated he would be if one of his daughters vanished on a journey across the country. Would Papa Chumley feel the same when Mr. Dunn telegraphed him that his daughter had not arrived on the train?

  I rose, a decision made. Despite my vow of silence to Mabel and Floyd, I would tell Mr. Dunn about their runaway marriage. I would then return to the train and continue my journey to Seattle. Mr. Dunn would be disappointed, but at least Mr. Chumley would not have to endure the horrific worry of the unknown.

  The porter helped me descend from the train to the depot platform. It was colder than I’d expected, and the wind was harsh. I stepped forward. As I did so, Mr. Dunn stepped forward as well, a welcoming smile on his face. “Miss Chumley?”

  I opened my mouth to deny it and explain, but a man behind him on the platform turned in that instant. A shiny badge glinted on his lapel, and he cradled a shotgun in his arms. I glanced at him. His eyes moved rapidly over my hat, my dress, and my face as if he were noticing and memorizing everything about me. His eyes narrowed when they reached my split lip. A woman alone is always suspect, but one who looked as if she’d been in a fight and who interfered in the runaway marriage of an innocent school teacher would arouse suspicions even more. From the way he looked at me, I was already convinced he would not forget me. I couldn’t risk his questions.

  So when Mr. Dunn asked again, “Are you Miss Chumley?” I answered, “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  Chapter Four

  BY THE TIME Mr. Dunn retrieved my travel bag from the baggage car, it was completely dark, and the wind now carried a few stinging snowflakes with it.

  “The sleigh’s at the livery stable,” Mr. Dunn said. “It’s just a step this way.”

  We walked parallel to the railroad tracks across a frozen road lined on both sides with berms of snow. A building on our left blazed with electric lights that reached out and illuminated our path.

  My traveling hat provided little warmth. I pulled the collar of my coat around my neck and hunched my shoulders to try to protect my ears. Mr. Dunn seemed not to feel the cold, though his black wool overcoat and sealskin cap may have accounted for that. He was a stocky man, not very tall. His face was clean-shaven, and his cheeks puffed out round as if he held a jawbreaker in his mouth. He was older than me and not as old as my father, but beyond that I could not tell his age.

  “That’s the streetcar terminal.” Mr. Dunn inclined his head toward the brightly lit building. “You can take a trolley from Hillyard into Spokane any time. A car leaves every fifteen minutes during the day. Well, not right now. Our trolley workers are currently on strike. They’re still running a few trolleys, but nobody in this town uses them. We’re a wo
rking town. We won’t go against a strike.”

  “How far is it to Spokane?” I asked. My breath was white.

  “Five miles more or less. Do you know about Spokane? It’s the biggest, fastest growing city this side of St. Paul. There must be a hundred thousand people living there, or nearly so. It won’t be long before it’s the biggest city in the entire state.”

  “What about Seattle?”

  “Seattle?” He scoffed. “That poor city’s got nowhere to grow. They spend all their time and money now just moving dirt around, tearing down hills and filling in mud holes, just to find room for the people they’ve already got. They picked a poor place to build a city. But Spokane is limitless. Did you see the prairie as you came in? It could become a western New York.”

  I reflected that New York’s founders also chose a poor spot on which to build, but I said nothing. It was clear that Mr. Dunn felt great pride in his neighboring city. We reached the livery stable, and Mr. Dunn stowed my travel bag beneath the seat of the sleigh and helped me into it. We headed west, away from the railroad tracks, on a wide road upon which streetcar rails were laid leading from the trolley terminal. A restaurant beside the terminal did a brisk business, from what I could see through their painted windows. A saloon on the far side opened its doors to let out a burst of laughter and two staggering men in denim overalls. On my left a glittering theater advertised vaudeville acts, and a few men and women stood on the sidewalk chattering and laughing as they waited for the doors to open, seemingly oblivious to the snowflakes that swirled about them.

  The coldest of those flakes seemed to find their way underneath the hood of the sleigh to strike me. Mr. Dunn turned right onto a darker street. I ducked my head and pressed back against the seat to try to keep warm. Almost immediately, though, Mr. Dunn pulled on the reins and stopped the horse.