Carla Kelly (2 page)

Della picked up her carpetbag, the same shabby thing she had brought with her into the house in 1888, when she was twelve and sad. She had already sent her trunk ahead to the train depot, plus one box of books—all she needed or wanted.

She had her hand on the doorknob when she remembered the pasteboard carton she had leaned against the foot of the stairs and her promise to deliver the fox fur stole to Amanda Knight in Provo. She opened the box for another look, chuckling to see the skinny fox face with the beady eyes that adorned each end, feeling some sympathy for the foxes.

Della closed the front door quietly behind her, tucking the pasteboard box under her arm. Her carpetbag was heavy, crammed with a book to read on the train, a change of clothing, and oddments that wouldn't fit in the trunk, but she was going to carry it only a few blocks. She looked back at the Anderses’ house, three stories of Queen Anne splendor with a porch swing for Sunday afternoons.

Della thought of Christmases and birthdays in the house—strange, lopsided affairs—and graduation parties for her cousins. In a few days, she knew her cousins and aunt were headed in all their splendor to the depot, the first stop on a continental tour.

When the trip was announced last winter and anticipated through an endless spring and equally tedious summer, Della had known she wasn't included. She was deep in her second year of teaching at Westside Primary School and had more on her mind than which was better, two weeks in Paris or a week in Paris and a week in Bruges. When she made it home in time for dinner, she had listened with half an ear and knew most of their plans. From painful experience, she knew what was coming.

The day after Della announced she had signed a contract for another school year, her aunt had come to her with a sad face, the one she wore when she wanted to let down her niece easily at no pain to herself.

“My dear, how unfortunate! We were hoping you could accompany us on this European trip, but you have signed another school contract,” Aunt Caroline had said. Her voice was softly reproachful, as though it was Della's fault for being so thoughtless as to overlook the possibility, however remote, that she might be included this time. Aunt Caroline was complicated.

Della set off at a brisk pace for the taxi stand, resolved not to look back. She had done something so impulsive after her aunt's little fiction. Maybe she had wanted to take this European trip; maybe it was the culmination of years of hurts and slights. It had taken a long time, but maybe her cup just finally ran over.

Whatever it was had sent her to the education department at the University of Utah to find a teaching position far from Salt Lake City. She felt it now, almost liberating. She knew there were women who boldly struck out on their own, but until that moment, she had not numbered herself among them.

There in the education department, she had calmed her nerves with a prayer, then looked at the positions-open board. It was already late summer, and most teachers—including herself—had received appointments for the 1899–1900 school year. All desirable posts were filled; there were no yellow cards tacked anywhere on the Wasatch Front portion of the Utah map or in Cache Valley. Della had glowered at the board, but all the stares in the world weren't going to make a miracle. She was turning away when she noticed a fluttering of yellow in that space of canyons and mountains. She had looked closer and then slowly removed the tack from the yellow card.

It had been there awhile. She could tell because the card was punched with numerous tack marks when hopeful teachers had pulled it off for a closer look, as she was doing, then tacked it back, obviously not impressed.
Winter Quarters School,
she read to herself.
Teacher with Second Grade Certificate and one year's experience wanted. Located in Pleasant Valley, altitude 8,000 feet
.

Della nearly tacked the card back to the map. She would have, if she hadn't kept reading. For the first time in years, she felt something in her heart, some stirring that twelve years living on the sufferance of relatives hadn't entirely squelched.

Winter Quarters is a coal mining camp, located one mile beyond Scofield
, she read.
Salary for a nine-month school is $25 a month, with living quarters furnished
.
Only morally upright educators need apply
.

Della had held the card in her hand, staring at the words “mining camp,” remembering
her
mining camp,
her
father,
her
loss. Standing there, she realized for the first time in years how deep she had buried her mining camp memories, mainly because none of the Anderses wanted reminders. When she was twelve and hurting, they had always stopped her when she tried to talk about the Molly Bee, embarrassed at her roots.

But there it was, a coal mining camp. Papa had been a hard rock miner. Coal wasn't as glamorous, but it would do. She carried the yellow card to the front desk. “This position,” Della began, looking at the student worker. “Has it been filled?”

He looked at it. “No one wants to go there.”

“I do.”

Della could tell it was on the tip of his tongue to ask her why she was interested in Winter Quarters. He didn't, so she was spared the need to explain that her father had been a miner and that she missed mining camps. When she told him her name, he looked at her with respect.

“Anders?
The
railroad lawyer?”

She nodded. Karl Anders's name had been in all the newspapers recently, after his masterful settlement of a labor dispute in the railroad's favor.

The secretary wrote the address of the school district on the back of the card and handed it to her. “You can do some good among those less fortunate, Miss Anders,” he said, respect in his eyes. “I call that commendably philanthropic.”

Embarrassed, Della left quickly. No need for the secretary to even suspect that her own relatives considered her among the less fortunate.

A week later, she had a contract. She withdrew from Westside School, which hadn't been impressed with her philanthropy, since she had to be replaced on short notice. Aunt Caroline had not been impressed either.

“Have you taken complete leave of your senses?” her aunt asked, when Della announced her news at dinner. “You, of all people, to willingly go to a
mining
camp? I am speechless.”

No, she wasn't speechless, which was another reason Della was happy enough to be leaving so soon, and even grateful for the diversion of that upcoming European trip. Now it was her turn; after twelve years, she took it.

“Aunt Caroline, it wasn't all bad in that mining camp. I remember good times.” She had never said that before, but it was true. Della smiled at the serving girl when she set the filet of sole in front of her, the girl's eyes filled with terror at someone crossing Aunt Caroline. Even Uncle Karl never did that. “Thank you, Ellie.”

Uncle Karl had broken the silence first. “My dear, I thought you were going to Europe with your cousins.”

Della had regarded him with something close to sympathy.
Poor Uncle Karl, for a railroad lawyer, you never have suspected that your wife has bamboozled you over my care and upbringing
, she thought. Still, he meant well and he did resemble her late father. No point in ruining his evening. After all, he had to live with Aunt Caroline well into the eternities, and Della only had to get through dinner and two weeks.

“Uncle, now that I have been earning my living, I find it quite to my taste. I'll see Europe another time,” she told him, giving him all her attention, even though he had given her none. She dared a glance at her aunt, still silent, her knuckles white around the fish fork—just another dinner at the Anderses’ house.

No more of that ever
, Della thought as she settled in for her ride on the interurban to Provo. She looked out the window as the little towns of Murray, Sandy, and Draper passed in review. The wheels seemed to say
never go back, never go back
, and Della found it soothing. The rhythm of the wheels took her back to her own Colorado mining town, tucked in a narrow canyon deep in the Sangre de Cristos. Papa had told her when they took the train to Pueblo for her baptism that the wheels were saying
Della dear, Della dear
. Maybe narrow-gauge rails sang a different song.

“Della dear,” she whispered to her image in the window and turned her attention to the
McCall's Magazine
she had bought at the depot. She smiled to see an article about “Venice the Beautiful,” thinking how much money Aunt Caroline could save on travel if she just read something as common as a women's magazine.

I believe I will subscribe
, Della thought.
Even if I am on my own, fifty cents a year for a subscription won't break the bank. McCall's can send it to Della Dear Anders
.

She decided to subscribe as Della Olympia Anders, her real name, the one Aunt Caroline winced to hear. It was the name her father had given her after Olympia Stavrakis stole his heart, bore his child, left their baby behind, and took off for points unknown, according to Aunt Caroline. Della Olympia wasn't an all-purpose name, but she loved to say it out loud in bed at night, when no one cared what she did or thought.

“Olympia,” she said, then turned back to “Venice the Beautiful,” satisfied.

Della hadn't meant for her escape from the Anders to turn into bona fide rebellion, but once the stationmaster assured her that her luggage was safe at the depot in Provo, she had no burdens beyond a handbag and a box of fox. The August air was fragrant enough from petunias, zinnias, and asters to turn her generally purposeful stride into a saunter. She decided to enjoy the day and the knowledge that her time was her own, at least for another week, until school started.

She had been to Jesse and Amanda Knight's quirky home several times, but it was noontime and she doubted even as friendly a soul as Amanda, Aunt Caroline's distant cousin, would relish an unexpected luncheon guest. Besides, how many times had she walked down Center Street and wanted to stop at the Palace Drug Store lunch counter?

They had been there once when she was thirteen. She had longed to sit at the counter and watch the man behind the counter pour fizz into brown syrup and see the foam. Aunt Caroline wouldn't hear of it.

Della sat at the counter, eyed the menu, and took her time. Tomato soup for a nickel came with lots of oyster crackers, the better to fill her with, so she asked for that and a sarsaparilla. She watched, fascinated, as the soda jerk let the brown syrup slither down the side of the glass. He poised the glass under the soda fountain handle, savoring the drama, from the look on his face.

“A little or a lot, miss?”

“A lot.”

He filled the glass with carbonation, stirring it with a long-handled spoon and presenting it with a flourish that Aunt Caroline would have called vulgar. Della smiled when the fizz tickled her nose.

The tomato soup came with so many crackers that she wanted to stash some in her handbag. Della refrained, remembering her first meal at the Anderses’, when she had filled her pockets with croutons because she wasn't entirely sure when her next meal would materialize. If her pocket hadn't had a hole in it, she could probably have reached her bedroom, her secret safe.

Satisfied for fifteen cents, Della continued her amble up Center Street. She could come back later and secure a room for the night at the Young Women's Christian Association boardinghouse, which she had noticed on an earlier trip. At a quarter a night, plus an earnest sermon from the matron, the price was right. She could catch an early-morning train to Scofield and be in her own house that evening for the first time in her life.

She couldn't help but smile as she walked up to the front door of the Knights’ home, newly built with a cupola and Moorish arches, a house for Ali Baba. She pulled the doorbell, impressed with the gong-like sound totally suitable for a house that should have a flying carpet.

The maid curtseyed, and Della held out the pasteboard box with the foxes. “Please give this to Mrs. Knight,” she said. “It's from her cousin Caroline Anders.”

Duty done, Della turned away and started down the walk.

“Don't you take one more step, Della Anders!”

She turned around in surprise to see Amanda Knight coming after her. Della stopped, amused. “Not one more step, Sister Knight?”

The woman took her arm. “Really, my dear, what is the idea of dropping off a fox and running away? This isn't May Day.”

By now, Amanda had wreathed her arm through Della's and was gently tugging Della back to the wonderful house. “You'll stay with us tonight, and I won't hear otherwise.”

“Oh, but …” It never occurred to Della that Amanda Knight might want to see her, since she didn't come meekly in tow with her cousins and aunt. “Are … are you certain?”

“Positive,” Amanda said crisply, not loosening her grip. “You and I will go inside, and you can tell me your side of what Caroline has just written me.” She stopped. “No. We will wait until Jesse comes home, and you can tell us both.” She looked around. “You don't have any luggage.”