Fallen Women Read Online Free PDF

stars, one earring a little different from the other because it had been damaged and a diamond replaced. “I was the princess,” Lillie had said when she returned in the early morning from a ball. She’d been too excited to wait until breakfast and had awakened Beret. “Oh, dearest, I wish you could have been there. The evening lacked only your presence. It was such a triumph, and the earrings set off the dress splendidly. Oh, you were right to tell me anything more would be too bold. You should have seen the Hartford girls looking like hoydens with their diamonds—paste, if I’m not mistaken.” Beret had taken her sister down to the kitchen, where she built a fire and prepared cocoa, and the two had gossiped and laughed until long after sunup.
    Beret lifted the blue dress until it touched her face, and she tried to feel Lillie’s warmth, but the dress was cold and stiff. Still holding on to the thin fabric, she stood back and stared at the clothes in the wardrobe. Beret had brought only a few dresses with her, but the wardrobe was full. The clothes were Lillie’s. Like the blue dress, many of the gowns had been purchased by Beret. She felt the heavy velvet of a second gown, the fine cashmere of a coat. And she knew that the last person who had used the room, who had sat at the dressing table and stared into the mirror as she arranged her hair, who had slept in the bed, was Lillie. Beret put her head into the blue dress, which smelled of her sister’s lily of the valley perfume, and wept.
    *   *   *
    Beret had expected to take only a nap, but she slept until the next morning, and when she dressed and went downstairs, she found that her uncle had already left for the courthouse.
    “He must consider me terribly rude not to have been awake to greet him,” Beret said to her aunt, slipping into a chair and nodding at the butler, who held out a coffee cup for her approval.
    “Nonsense. He considers you tired and in great sorrow. Both of us were glad that you slept. I imagine you have had little enough of sleep since you received our telegram. Lord knows, neither have we.”
    Beret reached out her hand. “You did not deserve this.”
    “No” was the reply. “Neither did you.”
    “Or Lillie,” Beret said.
    “Yes, Lillie most of all.” Beret’s aunt dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. “I suppose you will want to see her grave.”
    Beret looked up, startled, then felt ashamed of herself. She had been so anxious to talk to the police that she had not thought of visiting her sister’s resting place. She had planned to go to the police station that morning, but now she reproved herself. Her aunt would consider it inexcusable to confer with the police before paying her respects to Lillie. The police visit would wait until the afternoon. “Yes, I should like to do that,” she said.
    “I thought as much. I have told Jonas to ready the carriage. We shall go after you’ve breakfasted.” She rose. “I have taken the liberty of inviting an old friend to tea. You remember Emily Merritt.” Varina paused when William came into the room and set a plate with eggs and toast in front of Beret.
    “Of course.” Beret remembered her well, a woman shaped like a potato who talked incessantly and was unlikely to leave before the lamps were lit. She wondered if her aunt was purposely delaying Beret’s trip to the police station. Still, there was no hurry. The visit could wait until tomorrow—two days after her arrival. After all, Lillie was dead. Nothing could change that.
    *   *   *
    Jonas was standing at attention beside the carriage when Beret and Varina emerged from the side of the house, and Beret wondered how long the little man had waited. He was an odd fellow, she thought, molelike, sullen, with small, narrow-set eyes. He was twisted, with one shoulder higher than the other, perhaps broken in a fight or accident. He was like many of the men she encountered in the slums of New York, their stories almost