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Dear reader:
All the characters in this story are over 18 at the time of any naughty behavior.
This tidbit is the background to the period piece of the early twentieth-century story created by PixieHoff, Meet Me In St. Louis. It fills the backstory for some of our characters in her lovely story.
Thank you, Pixie, for allowing me to contribute.
Please note that given the period in which this is set, it contains language and attitudes that may offend modern readers. I have thought long and hard about this point; to adjust the characters or to change the wording would only denigrate those characters or deny the progress that all parties have made in the century since. Therefore, out of respect for the characters, I chose to neither ignore their ethnicity nor alter what I consider to be the natural dialogue between them.
+++++
Things Change
Emily was fatigued but also strangely rejuvenated. It was an odd mix. She was weary with her homeward journeys and long rail delays. Of course, she felt rejuvenated by her recent rest, but her new temporary charge, now softly cooing in her arms, gave her the renewed thrill of life again.
She could not help but smile down at the infant as she sat on the bench holding him. Margaret, who was also on the bench leaning onto her, head lolling while softly snoring as they sat quietly, waiting for the journey to resume.
Baby Robby was cooing the way young infants do; his big eyes gazed up at her in wonder and joy at being noticed while he suckled Emily’s finger dipped in sweet cream.
The train was very late, much later than it should be for a respectable railroad. Emily only hoped that Charlotte would not be too cross with her, as she had sent a telegram before they got underway in Arkansas, but heaven knows if the missive got to her protégé in time.
Unconsciously Emily shrugged, ‘Nothing to be done.’
Days earlier, Emily had insisted on taking Margaret with her to take the cure at the resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas; poor Margaret’s rheumatism was worsening, and with winter coming on, Emily had hoped it would give her some comfort, at least for a few months.
Hot Springs seemed like a possible location for another of their unique establishments. Charlotte, ever the pragmatist, had suggested that Emily travel as much as she wished but that it would not hurt if, as she traveled, she considered potential sites to expand the Club.
The sound of a burp, small by adult standards but huge for a tiny infant, was followed by an equally tiny laugh.
Emily smiled and quietly laughed with the baby holding him up to rub noses before kissing his forehead. She glanced around the car to see where the babe’s siblings were. Circumstances had made her an impromptu caregiver, as fatigue had overcome the parents.
She held the baby as the poor exhausted mother slept. Emily could not imagine how the woman kept up. A husband, three older children, and now another infant? She could not recall any of the older siblings’ names; however, she quickly fell in love with the baby in her arms. He was Robert something. What the something was, she would ask again later.
Her smile simply would not dim, even if she would have wanted it to; the baby smiled back as she dipped her finger into the saucer of cream again.
She had wanted children, but when James passed, there seemed to be so many things to do, and there were enough orphans in need of aid; especially after the flu, there were so many more in desperate need.
The world before the flu seemed like heaven. Her mind rolled over the time since the end of the war and the blessing of Charlotte coming into her life. She smiled again as Margaret snorted in her sleep, sounding like a pig, which caused Emily to snicker herself.
‘The woman is convinced she does not snore,’ Emily chuckled, shaking her head; the first night in Hot Springs, she had been forced to get a separate room. Charlotte had allowed her ‘Pig’ to gain a few extra pounds, which had not harmed the women’s figure but seemed to have made her more pig-like in some respects.
“Children, if you look out the windows, do you see the river below us? See any ducks or geese? How about jumping fish?” Emily directed their attention away from each other; the boys seemed to delight in annoying their older sister, who, at seven, was trying desperately to be a grown woman.
“If you can quietly count ten fishes, I will give you each a penny,” Emily was willing to buy silence and happy that the boys were still young enough to be honest in their counting.
++++++
The years had passed quickly since Charlotte’s party, Margaret and Charlotte were thick as thieves now, and Charlotte had taken to running the Club with the relish of a newlywed to the marital bed.
The pandemic devastated the Club; some urged Emily to throw the girls onto the street. However, she could not do that to them with the flu raging. Although Emily and Charlotte Kurtköy Escort had insisted on keeping the girls safe by isolating the house, the nurses in training could not help but bring it back with them. The result was that everyone in the Soulard house became ill. With twenty girls in residence, they were fortunate to lose only two, but both were loved; their loss had devastated the survivors’ spirits.
Tragedy was becoming all too common.
A good deal of capital had been spent to keep up with expenses, but fortunately, the flu ran its course, and the Club was given a lifeline – Prohibition.
The 18th Amendment had passed in early 1919, at the height of the pandemic; whether that had anything to do with it was debatable.
Luckily, being a pragmatic sort, Charlotte had foreseen the implications and started preparing.
Emily could not help but flush with pride at the luck of her finding that girl.
To keep the girls busy, Charlotte had insisted they thoroughly clean out the basement of the Soulard house. Emily remembered seeing Charlotte pouring over maps of the city; one day, Charlotte seemed particularly interested in the maze of natural and artificial tunnels beneath the city streets.
“Do you know that there is a veritable rabbit warren under our feet?” Charlotte asked as she passed through Emily’s office with paper rolls under each arm and a large sheet flowing behind her like a flag. “This might work, this might damn well work….”
The Soulard house was within rock-throwing distance of half a dozen breweries of various sizes, including the Anheuser-Busch and Lemp breweries. Both establishments took full advantage of the extensive network of natural caverns beneath the city for easy transportation and free refrigeration.
The scandalous truth was that Saint Louis was born of river pirates who used the natural caves near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi to spring on unwary travelers and then stashed their ill-gotten gains deep in a labyrinth of caves only they knew.
Those tunnels served other purposes with Prohibition and the threatened closure of the breweries.
+++++
Their train, Local
2, was stopped to take on water; the engine had stopped at the water tank near the station just beyond the bridge, thus leaving the rear cars and caboose sitting high above the swirling rain-swollen stream below.
Margaret had complained about the noise and smoke of the engine, and they moved further away. However, Emily suspected that her traveling companion became uncomfortable with the company in first class and the smells of the associated dining car. In addition, poor Margaret seemed to find the motion of the train to unsettle her stomach.
Once Emily found the infant in his exhausted mother’s arms, she was more than happy with the move if nothing else but to hold the child.
Now with the older siblings suitably distracted, Emily walked the baby up and down the aisle of the seats in hopes of easing it to sleep.
There is no knowing what caused her to glance through the car’s rear door and the windows of the empty caboose beyond it. The conductor manning the caboose had gone forward to help with the new passengers boarding at Sulfur Springs. So, there was no one behind to notice before she did.
It took a moment for Emily’s mind to understand the import of the sight. She glanced to either side of the train.
“The trestle is too high and narrow — nowhere to go,” Emily’s heart began pounding. Glancing beyond that to the milky brown swirling waters of whatever river they were over, it was swollen with late July rains and clogged with debris from some flood upstream.
No chance there.
“Children, run to the front of the train,” She took the older girl and pushed her toward the front.
“I am sorry, miss, what?” The girl looked confused; the boys, more intent on their penny than her instructions, could not understand.
“Listen to me, all of you; run to the engine now!” Emily was trying not to sound as panicked as she felt; panic would not help her with the children; however, the intensity of her voice got them moving.
“But what of Mama and Papa?” The girl pled while pulling her brothers behind her.
“I will get them; now run!” Emily’s voice was shrill as she shook Margaret awake. “Margaret, there is a train; you must run now!”
Emily did the same with the parents, who were so dozy they did not understand, but she had a baby and no time. So, she left the addled adults and screamed as she ran, “Run, there is a train on the tracks! Run!”
She continued to scream for them to run until her scream blended into that of the steam whistle as metal met metal.
+++++
Charlotte paced up and down the foyer.
“Two hours late! Why bother publishing schedules if they are only good for birdcage lining!” Charlotte was more than put out. First, she had to move meetings with several difficult people to arrange to collect Margaret and Emily Kurtköy Escort Bayan as it was, now to receive a telegram telling her that was all for naught?
“Feathers!” She glanced at the clock as it chimed 7:15 PM. “I wonder how long….”
At 7:17 PM, her legs went out from under her, crumpling to the marble floor.
“Miss!” Amanda saw her mistress collapse; hiking her skirts, she ran, dropping by an unconscious Charlotte. “Mistress, are you alright, Mistress!”
It took several seconds for Charlotte to breathe, gasping for air; coming awake, she saw Amanda. Beyond Amanda, she could see Emily and Margaret holding hands, looking down at her with sad expressions, their faces somehow full of life and light.
“Mistress, please, are you alright? Did you hit your head?” Amanda’s caterwauling was awful, and Charlotte tried to raise herself from the floor. Amanda was panting so much that her breasts threatened to escape the top of her bodice. Usually, a sight that Charlotte would have appreciated, but not today, for she was fixed on the women beyond the maid.
“How did you two get here from the station? Am I that late?” Charlotte asked, trying to get past Amanda to ask Emily what had happened. But there was no Emily and no Pig; a feeling of dread washed over her like quicksand over a drowning woman.
“Quickly, we must get to the station; we must go now!” Charlotte struggled back to her feet, gathered her gloves and hat, and ran for the door, Amanda scrambling to catch up.
Charlotte would usually call for assistance with the car, but instead, she rushed out to the sidewalk; the auto was there but not running. She looked up and down the street; no one could help.
She hurried to the driver’s side, poor Amanda rushing out behind, trying desperately to lock the house door.
“What is the matter, Mistress? Why the rush? They are not supposed to be in for another hour, or so the telegram said,” Amanda’s voice was filled with fear on the edge of terror.
“Never you mind, the damned telegram, help me start this infernal thing,” Charlotte tried desperately to calm her nerves and remember what Emily taught, not the snide man who sold it to her. ‘Why don’t you have your husband come with you, miss, so as he can learn and you not worry your pretty head?’
“Asshole,” she whispered under her breath, but honestly, she wished Johnathan could come in to learn and perform other duties as well.
“What was it” She pounded the steering wheel with her fists in frustration. ‘Three turns to full choke, Charlotte.’ Emily’s voice was clear as a bell, so clear instinctively, Charlotte looked all around to see where she was hiding. ‘Then turn the crank as fast as you can, and have Amanda advance the spark when she kicks over.’
“Amanda, get in this seat now,” Charlotte ordered, “when I tell you, push this leaver this way to this point,” Charlotte’s voice was cracking with each word, and more than one tear was on her cheeks.
‘I hear her voice, but’ Charlotte would not finish the thought. “I must be remembering something she said….”
The car was the property of the Club; it was generally parked in Emily’s carriage house now that she had no horses. But it had been outside of Charlotte’s since she had dropped them off, expecting to go and collect them at the end of the week; she had not returned it to its usual home.
“I will do as you say, Mistress, but you know I know nothing about…” Amanda started to whine, a habit that Charlotte had no patience for.
“Stop that this instant; do as you are told, Amanda! Do you understand?” Charlotte’s voice was so sharp that Amanda, simple in many ways but kind and sweet, looked like she had been slapped and slapped hard.
“Yes, Mistress, I am sorry, Mistress,” Amanda added, with tears streaming already.
“No, I am the one who is sorry, Amanda,” Charlotte kissed the tears away, not caring who saw. “I am apprehensive right now. So, when I tell you, do as I say, do you understand?” Charlotte added, trying to keep her voice calm.
Sniffling, Amanda nodded, and Charlotte moved to the front of the car. Then, fitting the crank to its place, she squared her stance and wrapped her hand around the handle.
‘Don’t put your thumb over the handle, Charlotte. If it kicks back, you will break your thumb. Now, don’t stand over it, it might flip up, and it could kill you.’ Charlotte could hear Emily’s voice so close it was as if she was standing over her. But Charlotte did not look; she knew the woman was not there.
The warmth in Emily’s phantom voice made Charlotte’s heart melt; it was all she could do to master herself and not collapse into the gutter sobbing.
At that moment, more than any other, she knew how truly blessed she was. Where she had been an orphan for only a few short years, she had lost her mother while giving her life, but now, to be blessed with two strong, admirable women as adopted mothers was a gift beyond measure.
In this instant between Escort Kurtköy heartbeats, a deep screaming terror filled her, that perhaps she had also lost them too. Petrified yet strangely calm in knowing she had had the best of both women. Margaret’s strength in the face of life’s gales, a stalwart determination to carry on, regardless of what comes. No less resolute in her way, Emily kept her natural sweet, loving joyfulness while being filled with a passion for life, even when nearly bankrupt shortly after losing her fortune, family, and then the love of her life.
“Yes, Emily,” Charlotte whispered to someone who was not there. Then she pulled as hard once, twice, then the beast woke from slumber on the third pull.
“Quickly now, Amanda, do as I said” Charlotte pulled the crank free as the motor coughed to life; not tempting fate, she waited till the engine was steady before stowing the crank and then moving to the driver’s seat.
“Scoot,” she gave Amanda the kindest smile she could muster. “I am sorry for being cross; you did not deserve it. Now let’s go see what it is, shall we?”
The drive to the station was mercifully short; she made it in record time fifteen minutes to cover the six or so miles. She parked and left the machine running without a thought. Amanda, ever diligent, turned it off as best she could by finding and turning the key before she hurried after Charlotte.
The scene that greeted Charlotte was what she had most feared.
Usually, the cavernous hall of Union Station was filled with sound and activity. It was the largest railroad terminal in America, with tens of thousands of passengers walking its halls. But today, the normally bustling and noisy place was as deathly quiet as a tomb.
Here and there, small clutches of people huddled, exchanging hushed whispers.
Men in livery moved from group to group; as one moved past, Charlotte caught his arm.
“Please, sir, pardon me, but is there any news about Local
2, is it delayed again?” Her voice was quivering, her heart frozen by the pained look on the man’s face.
“I am sorry, ma’am, but you must go to that gentleman there; I don’t know the particulars.” His face said he was lying, but she did not challenge him.
“Please excuse me, ma’am.” He gently pried her clenching fingers from his jacket.
Charlotte nodded, her lips pinched, she took a shallow breath, but her voice had failed her. She only nodded again. The man, understanding, returned the nod, then turned and walked away.
Taking a shaking Amanda by the hand, Charlotte pulled them both to the official-looking man trying to answer questions from pestering reporters all surrounded by a throng of desperate people.
“I will answer all I can…. Yes, there was an accident down in Jefferson County, I don’t know the specifics…. Yes, yes, there were injuries…. No, no word on deaths. I am sorry don’t know anything more.” He was harried on all sides like a sickly wildebeest among hyenas. Finally, Charlotte decided not to join in the feeding.
For several minutes she and Amanda moved from small group to small group, listening to the sobbing and prayers. Then, of course, she prayed; she and Amanda prayed together beneath the high ceiling above them. They even walked out to the empty platform that would never receive Local
2.
She did not need to hear the news of the crash or how many had lost their lives; she already knew about the only two that mattered to her.
She and Amanda drove back to her home in utter silence. Although it was dark by then, it was good she had decided to upgrade the lights, for it was difficult to see through tears.
She parked the car; then, together, they climbed the stairs.
“Mistress, do you need me tonight?” Amanda sounded hopeful.
Charlotte, not trusting her voice, shook her head. She only wanted to be alone.
It was not to be, of course; rumors had swept through the town already, and the staff was waiting for her just inside the door. Even Deborah and Grace were there; having felt the need for companionship, they had walked across the park to Charlotte’s home, hoping that Emily might be only delayed with Charlotte. Amanda was clutching onto Charlotte with all her might. Everyone silently held each other, waiting for Charlotte to tell them it would be all right.
“I know nothing for certain, no word has been sent, but my heart tells me that we have lost dear loved ones today,” Charlotte’s voice broke. “We love them, as I believe they still love us. But, tomorrow, the sun will dawn, and we will all go on, as best we can, in faith and love, and hope that we will see them again….”
Her voice failed her, and she needed to breathe, as tears would not stop.
‘Stiff upper lip, Charlotte, remember’ Emily’s voice now just a whisper, further away this time.
“Now, off to bed with you all; there is much to do tomorrow.” Charlotte could not look at anyone; she just climbed the stairs. She kept her composure until she entered her room and saw Pig’s bed on the floor beside hers. Margaret seldom slept there now, only occasionally when they played.
Charlotte crumpled to the floor and sobbed.
+++++
The sun did indeed rise on August 6th, although some wished otherwise.
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