“She told me it was merely a mint, like one would make tea with.”
“Who is Marty?” Cecilia asked.
“My daughter, Martha,” Mrs. Broadbank said.
“Is she acquainted with Miss Inglewood?” Cecilia asked.
“She was, all the young people know each other, even if they don’t socialize together. I don’t believe she was a close friend of Miss Inglewood; her parents wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“Yes, she was,” said a small voice from almost behind Mrs. Rutledge. Summer came around her mother.
“How can you know that, Summer?” asked her mother.
“Because Marty, and Gussie, and Miss Georgia met once a week if the weather were nice to talk of boys and clothes and such. Sometimes they let me come, too. Georgia gave me this dress when it was too small for her,” Summer said, pulling the skirt of the dress out from behind her enveloping apron.
Mrs. Rutledge frowned. “I thought I told you to stay away from her. She was no better than she ought to be,” her mother reproached her.
“No, Mama,” Summer countered. “She was friendly and nice to everyone.”
Her mother laughed coarsely. “I’m sure she was.”
“She was nice to me. And I helped her, and that’s why she gave me this dress.”
“How did you help her?” her mother asked, her voice now low and her expression like a thunderstorm about to break.
Summer backed up a step, her face draining of color as she looked up at her mother. “Just…just little stuff. –Umm, like thetime I found a handkerchief she lost once, and I washed it and pressed it before I gave it back to her. She was impressed with my attention to do that.”
Cecilia was certain the girl had done more than find a lost handkerchief, but her mother’s manner scared her from relating more. She wished she could talk to her without her mother around.
Cecilia purchased the baby biscuit and four sweet buns from Mrs. Rutledge, then she and Sarah left the bakery.
“Milady,” Sarah whispered after the door closed behind them, “I’ve never seen a person change so swiftly as that Mrs. Rutledge did from the nice, smiling lady to the angry-faced woman she became when she addressed her daughter.”
“I know. And by Summer’s expression, she’s seen that anger before. It frightened her. I hope she does not punish Summer for speaking up.”
“I didn’t get the feeling it was because she spoke; it was more because she talked about Miss Inglewood having friends and Summer doing favors for her.”
“This has been an interesting morning. Let’s go to the drygoods store to see about fabric for new infant gowns for Hugh and what they have to say about Miss Inglewood and Mrs. Jones there.” Cecilia said. “It seems everyone has an opinion.”
The drygoods store was busy, but not with shoppers looking at the different products that could be found in the store. They stood in a queue before a clerk’s tall desk, where Mr. Sandiford—dressed like a city clerk in a neat brown suit and waistcoat—sat writing. He took payments for what was immediately available in the store and wrote what must be ordered from larger market towns in a ledger book.
Mrs. Sandiford, speaking with one of the customers in the queue, broke off her conversation when she saw Cecilia enter thestore. “Lady Branstoke, to what do we owe the pleasure of your commerce?” she declared.
Cecilia, looking around at the store’s merchandise, slowly brought her gaze to Mrs. Sandiford. “I beg your pardon if I stare at everything I see here in your store!” she said. “You seem to have a bit of everything.”
Mrs. Sandiford laughed indulgently. “We have a little of a lot.”
Cecilia looked at her quizzically.
“What I mean is, we do not carry many multiples of items. We prefer to show what we can get easily and take orders for what our customers want,” she explained. “With the Folkestone, Canterbury, Maidstone, and London markets so close, we generally fill orders in less than two days. We do sell the merchandise we have on hand and immediately order replacements—or order what has become the newest trend.”
Cecilia nodded. “Wisely done.”
“It seems to work for us,” Mrs. Sandiford said, rocking back on her heels, while clasping her hands before her. “So what brings you here today?”
“Fabric for infant gowns,” Cecilia said. “Our son, Hugh, is rapidly outgrowing his newborn gowns.”
“And you’d like to make him new ones,” the woman said.
