Love and Other Wicked Games (A Wicked Game Novel) (10 page)

There was more to the world than what was happening inside of her.

For the first time since they’d met Ellie felt her voice become truly even and focused.

She put her hands on her cheeks and shook her head. “Because of those poor mill workers.”

Oh, hell. As if this entire situation wasn’t complicated enough already.

What did she know about the mill workers? And more importantly, what did she think about them?

At least he hadn’t told her his full name.

Still, he was going to have to approach this rather carefully to avoid getting himself into more trouble than he already was. And tact was not something he was skilled at.

“What do you mean because of the mill workers?” Cal asked cautiously trying to read her face.

She didn’t answer right away. She held her hands on either side of her face and she was shaking her head from side to side in an exceptionally melancholy manner. After some time she looked back to him. Her eyes were damp and red. She sniffled. She hugged herself. He wanted to hug her too.

“What about the mill workers?” he asked again. “You don’t live in the workers’ district, do you?”

“No,” she finally answered wiping her eyes. “We live above the dress shop.”

“That’s what I thought. Your clothes seemed too fine for someone from the slums, but then again that area isn’t the sort of place that people find themselves in unless they have a reason to be there. Or unless they live there, which you’ve just said you don’t. That’s why I have to ask again: what were you doing so near the city slums? And what does that have to do with the mill workers?”

“My mother sent me to retrieve a parcel of fabrics from a textile merchant a few streets down from the shop, but the roadway was blocked off.” She took a deep breath. Her eyes were far off. “There were people filling the streets, which wasn’t so terribly unusual in and of itself, but I could tell right away that something was off. You mentioned my manner of dress being out of place so close to the slums?”

Cal nodded.

“Well, these people—And I use that term because I swear I saw women and children too—were just as out of place in that area of the city as I was in their area. Their clothes—” she gulped loudly, “I can’t even call them that. We have rags in the shop that I use to clean the windows and pick up the refuse that are in better shape than those ‘clothes’.”

“I don’t understand…” Cal shook his head.

“I was confused. I didn’t understand who they were or what they were doing. There were too many of them to be beggars, which is sad enough in its own right. But then they began to fill the streets in greater numbers. They were coming from everywhere and someone began to yell…” Her voice cracked. “And that’s when I realized that the workers were protesting again.”

“Bloody hell…”

“They were blocking off portions of the main roads. I was on Market Street and there was no other way to go but in the direction they wanted. And that was the point. They were funneling us towards their neighborhoods, trying to force us in the direction of their streets and homes. They were trying to force us to see their way of life and their living conditions in a way that made it impossible to ignore....”

Cal felt his blood run cold as he continued to listen to her speak.

“I remember when we first moved here. I knew nothing about the world. The village we came from was quaint. Cozy. Quite sheltered. Which I’m sure is why my parents liked it so much.” Ellie sighed and shook her head with a soft smile. “They meant well, they always have, but I must say I was in for quite the shock when we moved to Manchester. I mean you know how children are. They know everything, even the truly good-hearted ones who just want to test the waters of the world. And no one knows more than a sheltered young woman who’s an only child. Just ask me…”

Ellie leaned against the window sill resting her head on the pane of glass.

“We have a seamstress in our dress shop named Amanda—Mandy we call her. She’s been with us since we moved to Manchester, and what I remember most about her in the beginning was how absolutely
grateful
she was for the job—still is actually. I on the other hand couldn’t stand it and I couldn’t understand why she loved it so much.

“One day, when I was feeling particularly ornery, I just sat there and watched her work. I was supposed to be helping but of course, that just wasn’t what I felt like doing that day. And so I didn’t and she ended up with twice the work. But she just smiled and chatted on like she didn’t have a care in world. And I remember how frustrated I was with her for just accepting it, like she should have stopped working because I didn’t feel like doing anything. When I think about it now, I know it’s because I felt guilty for causing her trouble… for not following my heart, doing what was right, and taking responsibility for how my actions affected her.

“At that time though, oh Lord, I didn’t want to admit that I was just mad at myself for my inconsideration. And so I yelled at her. I don’t even remember what I said. Nothing terrible. I didn’t know any truly terrible things to say, but I could tell I’d hurt her and I felt even worse about myself. But Mandy?” Ellie wiped her eyes. “She didn’t yell back. She just took a deep breath and smiled and then she told me it was alright. And well, I didn’t understand that any more than I understood why she loved working at the shop so much. So I asked. I finally asked her why she was so happy all the time. And you know what she said?”

“What?”

“That’s when she told me about the mills. The hardships, the dangers, the suffering, and the way the people who work there are forced to live.” Ellie took another deep, gulping breath. “And then she told me about her brothers and her father and her uncles and her cousins, even her mother before she was born… all of them working in those mills. Some of them dying in them. Some of them dying because of them. Mandy was the first one from her family for as long as anyone could remember to not have to work in one. She was the only one who made it out…

“And you never heard a young lady cry so hard and apologize so zealously.” Ellie laughed weakly and covered her mouth. “But I never skipped out on my work again, I’ll tell you that much. Well, until today that is…”

Cal’s stomach was on the verge of betraying him. He placed his hand over his belly as it rumbled and growled.

He was wishing to God that he hadn’t pried. He should have known better. If his life had taught him only one thing it was that the surest way to avoid trouble was to keep his mouth shut and not ask questions. But Cal had never been one to avoid trouble, or to keep his mouth shut. It was a particularly bad habit of his, or a good habit depending on the situation. This was not one of those good situations, but he certainly couldn’t un-ask the questions or gloss over the topic now that he knew how deeply it was affecting her. He wasn’t heartless, after all—at least he tried not to be—and that was usually what drew him to trouble in the first place.

“Oh God, those poor people. It just pains me too much to stand.” Ellie shook her head slowly and then put her hands back on her face. When she spoke this time her tone was more level, but he could sense that kindness and concern in her voice that had touched him from the very beginning.

As much as he regretted bringing up this topic, he couldn’t deny that he was glad to know how she felt. It eased him and warmed him to know just how deeply the workers’ plight moved her, to know that they stood on the same side of such an important issue… as if he’d expected a woman with as much care and selflessness as she’d shown him, under such unordinary circumstances no less, to feel any other way.

“It’s so easy to forget how good we have it, you know?” She wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand. “When things aren’t going exactly how we’d want them to go, whatever those things might be, it’s so easy to feel like everything in the world is wrong and bad. And it’s even easier to feel like we are the only one who feels this way and we are the only one who matters. But that’s not true, is it?”

“No. It’s not.”

“I mean no matter how bad we think we have it, if we step back and look at it all from a fresh perspective, from the eyes of other people, we see things so differently. We see we aren’t the center of the world, much less the universe, and that the things we think are so horrible in our life really aren’t that bad at all. Some people have it so much worse.”

“Someone is always going to have it worse…” Cal mused. “But that doesn’t invalidate our own feelings.”

“Oh, not at all. But it does put them in perspective.”

“How so?”

She sniffled again. “Here I was all upset, fuming even, that you wouldn’t answer my questions and that you wouldn’t explain this ridiculous situation that you put me in when you didn’t even really put me in it— it was my choice to come with you!—I could have said no, but I didn’t. And I didn’t want to and that’s not your fault.”

She threw her hands in front of her body pointing at Cal and then herself as she continued, “And I was angry at you for teasing me, I was even angrier at myself for enjoying it… And I was just working myself all up for what?” She exhaled slowly. “I can’t change the fact that I felt these things, or that the feelings were real and valid, but that’s not the important question. What we should be asking is:
are those feelings worth it?
”

Cal shifted his weight and took a step closer to her. “What are you getting at?”

“Sometimes I wonder what we could do if we spent as much time caring about the world as cursing it.” She waved her hand and crossed her arms again. “Oh, I know there isn’t anything I can do right now about those workers… If there’s even anything I could do at all… I’m just blabbering. And after I gave you a hard time about wasting energy…”

“Oh, no.” Cal said reassuringly with a bob of his head. He was once again moved by her spirit. “Compassion and caring are never a waste of energy. Even if you can’t actually do anything at the moment. Often times I find it takes quite a sturdy foundation made from a history of compassion and caring in order to be strong enough to actually make a real difference.”

“You may be right, but it sure is tiring.”

“I’m sorry I asked you,” he mumbled. “What you’ve just told me about your friend, and then what you went through yesterday… I can’t even imagine. It sounds awful. And—and frightening.”

“Oh, I don’t care about any of that. Sometimes we have to be a little afraid to have the strength to make a difference, I think. Or else why would we even care? And ever since I learned the truth from Mandy I’ve always wished there was something I could do. Some way that I could make a difference, even just a small one. But…” She shrugged through her tears. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I’m not even sure that I’m strong enough…”

She hugged herself again and shook, reminding him how desperately he wanted to hold her, especially now. He shouldn’t do it, he knew that now more than ever, but he did it anyway. He reached out to her, wrapping his arms around her tired body, and pulled her in. She did not resist. She welcomed it. Her head rested against his chest and she sighed. She smelled like salt and fine linen. Her touch was a cool drink on a hot day.

“You are strong enough,” he mumbled into the top of her head. Her hair was all warm and damp with her frustration and it had a slight spicy smell of soap. “And you’re not alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know this sadness as well.”

“About the mill workers?”

“Yes. I’ve also wanted to make a difference. For so long…”

He felt her move against him, looking up in his direction. When he looked down her eyes were wide and full of questions. Yet another time he should have kept his mouth shut, and yet another time he was glad that he hadn’t.

“You know the way that they live and work, then?” she asked. It was just as much of a surprise for her to find a kindred mind as it was for him.

“Oh,” he nestled against her. “Oh, that I do.”

“That comforts me.”

“How so?” he asked. He thought he knew the answer but he wanted to hear her say it and confirm the connection he felt growing between them.

“To see that you haven’t turned a blind eye and just ignored them. There are people that do that, you know. They pretend the mills don’t exist and neither do the people working in them. As if textiles or cotton or whatever comes from a magical place… but certainly not a place where someone is being mistreated! And then when they do see the workers they just look them right in the face and walk the other way as if they aren’t even there. Like they were a ghost or a shadow or just nothing at all. But certainly not a person.” She leaned back and rested her hands on his arms. “I’ve seen people do it, just ignore them and the whole situation, and it makes me sick to my stomach. How can a person see something like that and just pretend it never happened? I don’t understand how anyone can be so heartless.”

“Believe it,” Cal swallowed and his voice caught. “I used to be one of them.”

She didn’t even have to say a word. In fact, she didn’t. She just pulled away. Her hands lifting off of his arms in a quick jerking motion.

She stood there for a moment, straight faced, hands and arms still out in front of her, and eyes far and calm. It looked like she was staring off into the distance but she wasn’t. She was staring right through him, into him, and trying to understand.

“Explain.” One simple succinct word. It wasn’t mean or ill-willed or ill-tempered, just direct.

The reaction made Cal ache. He knew he was taking a chance by bringing up this story, this piece of his past. He hadn’t really thought it through before he said the words but he had expected a much different reaction. For her to be angry maybe, to cry or yell even, but her reaction was something entirely different. It was disappointment. And Cal felt like he had been punched in the gut.

Cal had to sit down before he fell down in shame. He turned slowly and walked back to the bed, sitting and resting his elbows on his knees.

“When I was a boy I had a friend named Andrew Hartington,” Cal smiled sadly, “but we all called him Hart…because he had so much of it.”