Under a Gilded Moon(39)

His head jerking right and then left, the salesman appeared to be searching for the owner, Mr. Lipinsky, or anyone else to come to his aid. But no one stood nearby except the doorman, who was engrossed with the patterns of the tin ceiling. The clerk pursed and unpursed his lips, the early attempt at a mustache on his upper lip like a caterpillar crawling in place.

“We here at Bon Marché extend our concern, to be sure, miss. But we are not in the business of feeding the friendless.”

“I’m no more friendless,” Kerry shot back, “than you.”

The salesman’s eyes traveled over the not entirely clean cuffs of her dress. His tone became chillier still. “Much as Bon Marché appreciates its community, we are not a charitable organization for the . . . good people of the mountains.”

Anger swelled in her throat. “I’d like to be clear. I inquired about employment. Not charity.”

“Forgive me if I observe that you are slightly built—hardly suited for this work.”

This from a man who, if his soft, doughy hands told any story, had never plowed a field in his life—much less without a mule. Or churned butter until his hands oozed red onto the plunger.

“You prefer your salesgirls burly?”

“Perhaps I’ve not made myself clear. It’s more that you . . .”

Are too skinny and hungry looking was what he did not say—but she could see it there.

“Don’t look quite the part,” he finished.

Struggling to rein in her contempt, she strained for what Miss Hopson might say. One could never, after all, go wrong with squared shoulders and a good quote: “‘So may the outward shows be least themselves. The world is still deceived with ornament.’”

The salesman looked dully back—no recognition sparking there in his eyes. “I see.”

But he didn’t see, of course. Didn’t recognize the allusion at all.

“The Merchant of Venice,” a voice said behind them.

Kerry and the salesman both turned to find John Cabot there. Eyes on her again. His expression unreadable.

The salesman turned back, squinting—apparently to reconsider the contradiction of Kerry: the clothes that looked as if they had been once rather fine but had since seen rougher wear. Kerry could feel him studying her features—pleasing enough, he probably thought, but with the eyes of an infantryman.

She turned her back to the cluster of Vanderbilt guests, all of them staring now. Kerry began counting to ten, just as Aunt Rema had taught her to do.

“The insides,” Rema liked to muse, “is what the good Lord signifies by—the heart. Most other folks, though, calculate by the outsides. So if you’re wanting to get on in this world, you got to smooth out the packaging some.”

“Thank you,” Kerry said, “for your time.”

Without looking back, she kept her head high as she walked away. What she did catch, though, was the face of John Cabot, inscrutable as ever. His eyes still on her.

“I say,” Grant was observing, “our Miss MacGregor from the train station appears to be having difficulty finding a job. First the inn and now here. I wonder how we might assist.” He made no attempt to lower his voice, as if he wanted her to hear his concern.

Eyes straight ahead, she aimed for the exit, the doorman still studying the patterns of tin.

John Cabot must have thought she’d swept beyond earshot of the conversation. “The fact that you remembered her name, Grant . . .”

It was the last Kerry overheard.

And already far more than she cared to.

Just outside the department store doors, she stopped in her tracks. At the sight of Tully nearly in tears. Sheriff Wolfe standing there, fisted hands on his hips.

Jursey held his twin sister’s hand, and with his other hand clenched at his side, he seemed ready to swing.

“Tully?” Kerry sprang forward. And stumbled over something in her path on the sidewalk.

“Exactly,” Wolfe blustered. “Exactly why I told these two they couldn’t sell a bunch of god-ugly roots outside the nicest store in town. Folks’ll trip over the things, sure enough. Ain’t the kind of image the owner’d want to project.”

In a semicircle near the front doors of Bon Marché, Tully and Jursey had arranged rows of ginseng root. The gnarled brown forms lay there like the bodies of so many malformed dolls. Ginseng root had a thousand uses, and the twins must have hunted and dug for hours for these over the course of days. But Kerry knew how it must look to city folk.

Throwing her arms around the twins, she wished she could cover their ears from what the officer was implying: that poor mountain folks trying their best to survive were unpleasant to look at.

Unless, Kerry thought angrily, you were like John Cabot and cataloguing all this—these humiliations and deprivations of her family, her people, her life—probably for some future book.

“We’ll carry them some other place,” she told Wolfe.

To the twins she added, “To sell them. For cash money you’ll have earned to help out. How hard you two must have worked.”

Kissing each twin fiercely on the top of the head, which she had to pull down to reach, Kerry glanced back toward Bon Marché.

Where John Cabot and Madison Grant stood on the other side of the window. Watching. Two ladies joining them now, each with a strand of pearls at their necks that glowed white and perfect and taunting through the glass.