The superintendent turned in his chair, but again he did not stand or offer the visitor a chair. “Miss Worthen here asks to know the charges against her.”
Mr. Marsden coughed. Lyddie looked up despite herself. At her glance the overseer blinked quickly, then composed himself, his lids hooding his little dark eyes, his rosebud mouth tightening to a slit. “This one is a troublemaker,” he said evenly.
She leapt to her feet. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. “A troublemaker? Then what be you, Mr. Marsden? What be you, ey?”
The agent’s head went up. His body was spread and his eyes bulged like a great toad, poised to spring. “Sit down, Miss Worthen!”
She sank onto the chair.
Her outburst had given the overseer the time he needed. He smiled slightly as though to say, See? No lady, this one.
Satisfied that he had stilled her, the agent shifted his gaze from Lyddie to her accuser. “A troublemaker, Mr. Marsden?” For a quick moment Lyddie hoped—but the man went on. “In what way a troublemaker? Her work record seems satisfactory.”
“It is not”—and now Mr. Marsden turned and glared straight at Lyddie, all trace of nervousness gone—“it is not her work as such. Indeed,” and here, he gave a sad little laugh, “I at one time thought of her as one of the best on the floor. But”—he turned back to the agent, his voice solemn and quiet—“I am forced, sir, to ask for her dismissal. It is a matter of moral turpitude.”
Moral what? What was he saying? What was he accusing her of?
“I see,” said the agent, as though all had been explained when nothing, nothing had.
“I cannot,” and now the overseer’s voice was fairly dripping with the honey of regret, “for the sake of all the innocent young women in my care, I cannot have among my girls someone who sets an example of moral turpitude.”
“Certainly not, Mr. Marsden. The corporation cannot countenance moral turpitude.”
She turned unbelieving from one man to the other, but they ignored her. She fought for words to counter the drift the interview had taken, but what could she say? She did not know what turpitude was. How could she deny something she did not even know existed? She knew what moral was. But that didn’t help. Moral was Amelia’s territory of faithful attendance at Sabbath worship and prayer meeting and Bible study, and she couldn’t ask for consideration on those counts. She hardly ever went to worship, and Lord knew when she read, it wasn’t just the Bible. Still, she was no worse than many, was she? At least she was not a papist, and no one was condemning them.
She opened her mouth. They were both looking at her sadly, but sternly. In the silence, the battle had been lost.
“You may ask the clerk for whatever wages are due you, Miss Worthen,” the agent said, turning to his desk.
Mr. Marsden gave his superior’s back a nod and tight rosebud smile. Did he click his heels? At any rate, he left quickly without another glance toward Lyddie.
“You may go now,” the agent said without turning.
What could she do? She stumbled to her feet and out the door.
They paid her wages full and just, but there was no certificate of honorable discharge from the Concord Corporation, and with no certificate, she would never be hired by any other corporation in Lowell. She walked out of the tall gate benumbed. She had often dreamed of this last day, but in her dream she would be going home in triumph, and now there was no triumph and no home to go to even in disgrace.
22
Farewell
The bear had won. It had stolen her home, her family, her work, her good name. She had thought she was so strong, so tough, and she had just stood there like a day-old lamb and let it gobble her down. She looked around the crowded room that had been her home—the two double beds squeezed in with less than a foot between them for passage. She thought of Betsy sitting cross-legged on the one, bent slightly toward the candle, reading aloud while she, Lyddie, lay motionless, lost in Oliver’s world.
And Amelia. Amelia would know what turp—turpitune, turpentine, whatever the wretched word was—Amelia was sure to know what it meant. She could see the older girl’s eyebrows arch and her lips purse—“But why are you asking?” Indeed. So I can know what they charged against me—why I’ve lost my job, why I’ve been dismissed without a certificate. “You?” Betsy would laugh. “Not our Lyddie—Mr. Marsden’s best girl.” Meanwhile, Prudence would be busy explaining the meaning of the cussed word.
Thank God Rachel was safe. She had a home and food and school. She had a mother. And Charlie. I will not cry. She began to pack her things, stuffing them unfolded into the tiny gunnysack that had been her only luggage when she came. She almost laughed aloud. The sack wouldn’t hold her extra clothes, much less her books. Well, she was a rich woman now. She could afford a proper trunk for her belongings even if she had no place to take them.
“They let me go,” she explained to Mrs. Bedlow.
The landlady was incredulous. “But why?” she asked. “You were Mr. Marsden’s best girl. Everyone said so.”
Lyddie gave a laugh more like a horse whinny than any human sound. “Then everyone is wrong.”
She could not bring herself to describe to Mrs. Bedlow the two encounters in the weaving room. She must, somehow, have caused the first. She knew so little of the ways of men and women that she must have, without realizing, given him some sign. Mr. Marsden was a deacon in his church. He was not a likable man, but surely … And last night. Mercy on her—she’d acted like a crazed beast. Why, even her own mother who died in an asylum had never gone wild like that.
She did not like Mr. Marsden. She had never liked him, but she had tried to please him—tried to win his approval by being the best. And though she needed to know what it was exactly that he was accusing her of, she knew he had not told the agent of those encounters. So, it was something else she had done wrong. She would have asked Mrs. Bedlow, but she was afraid the word would come out “turpentine” and Mrs. Bedlow would laugh. She couldn’t bear to be laughed at, not just now.
“I’ll be out of my room by tomorrow—the next day at the latest.”