CHAPTER4
“Blanche, I need your help,” Daisy whispered standing close to her.
Daisy was one of the nicer girls and she’d helped Blanche adjust to living among the women. She was kind and friendly and Blanche knew Daisy also had no choice but to leave Charleston.
“What do you need?”
“Not here,” Daisy said, glancing at the other young women who sat around crocheting or doing needlework. They all looked like such perfect young women, but most of them had a past. Most of them were hiding something or running from something.
“Meet me out by the barn,” Daisy told her.
Daisy waited for Blanche to slip out the door, and a few minutes later, she joined her outside. The women paid no heed when she disappeared. Only Mary and Daisy had become her friends. The others were merely acquaintances.
Daisy opened the barn door and the two slipped inside. “You know what happened to me, right.”
“Yes,” Blanche said. “My papa said I would never have a season for that very reason. Too many scalawags.”
Not that they really had the money or even the clothes for her to wear. Her one nice dress was old and Mrs. Newton had tossed it, saying it was out of fashion. Whatever that meant.
“He was right,” Daisy told her. “I need your help. Tonight, late, I want to sneak out and hang this sign on Thomas’s gate, so that everyone will see it in the morning.”
Blanche glanced at the sign and laughed. It was perfect to get Daisy’s message across. “Oh, this sounds like what I’ve been missing. I’ve felt so stifled sitting around in that house all day just waiting for the time for us to leave. I’m sick of it. Needlepoint bores me and the women are so depressing. Wish I didn’t have to leave.”
The thought of Rusty brought tears to her eyes.
While she knew she had no reason to stay – there was nothing for her here – this was her home. And she was about to go someplace far away where she knew no one. It was a huge risk. A guaranteed new start or a complete failure. She couldn’t take many more failures. She just couldn’t.
“Agreed. What do you think of my sign?”
Blanche smiled and read out loud. ‘Beware Defiler Rapist. Guard Your Daughters.’ Perfect.”
“I’m so excited. We’ll need to slip out around midnight, sneak through the streets, and then put this on his gate. We can’t get caught.”
Yes, she was taking a huge risk, but she needed some excitement. Blanche had gotten a small amount of revenge and Daisy needed to get hers.
“I’ll meet you out here at midnight,” Blanche told her. “I’m so excited we’re doing this.”
Later, at the stroke of midnight, Blanche stood waiting for Daisy out by the barn. She’d dressed in her old men’s clothing that she refused to let Mrs. Newton throw out. It felt good to have her familiar clothes on. But it also brought back memories.
The girl in these clothes could no longer exist. Now she must become a lady in order to get what she wanted.
“You look great,” Daisy told her. “If I had some men’s clothing I would have done the same.”
“Sorry, I only saved the one set. I’m hoping once I get settled, I can wear them again.”
Though that would depend on if her husband would accept her wearing pants.
“Let’s get this done and get back. We’re leaving early in the morning,” Daisy said.
Blanche was so glad to finally be getting on the train out of town.
“Let’s go,” Blanche said, picking up the sign. “Grab some more wire. Let’s make this difficult for him to remove.”
“I like your way of thinking,” Daisy told her, grabbing the small spool of bendable wire.
They opened the barn door glanced out and then took the back alleys to the mansion that sat on a small rise in the middle of town. They were quiet as they snuck along the shadowy passages and streets to reach the home they were searching for. Once, they heard voices and hid in the shrubbery until two drunks went stumbling by.
“Geez, it’s past midnight. Don’t they know they should be home?” Daisy whispered.
They reached the gate and stood there for a moment watching to make certain Jones didn’t have guards or someone watching the house. No one. It was silent.
Quickly they began to work on hanging the crudely made sign on the gate. They wrapped wire around the iron rods so it would take a while to get down.
When they finished, they stood back and admired their handiwork. Giggling quietly, they ran down the street toward the alleys that would lead them back to Mrs. Newton’s home.
When they reached the house, they snuck back inside. Daisy hugged Blanche.
“Thank you. That meant a lot to me.”
“You’re welcome. That was the most fun I’ve had in two weeks. Now we better get in bed. We have a long day tomorrow.”
A day that would be so difficult. So hard to leave, once and for all, everything behind.
Quietly they went to their separate bedrooms to await the morning sun.
Early the next morning, Mrs. Newton had them all up, packed, fed, and out the door before the clock struck nine.
Today was the day.