“I can still be his friend,” I said. It was enough. It would have to be enough.
Mama sighed. “See if the forms are finished and then deliver them yourself. But be careful, Libby. We’re approaching the most difficult years of our lives, and we must be vigilant.”
She left the sitting room and greeted the customer in the front hall.
Their voices faded as they entered the office, and I was left alone with my thoughts.
I was walking a precarious tightrope between two very different worlds, with many unanswered questions. Yet there was one thing I knew for certain: my traitorous heart belonged toHenry Montgomery, no matter how much I tried to deny it or how impossible the situation might be.
The one-story press room sat at the back of our two-story brick home and had a lean-to roof connecting them. Louis and Glen spent twelve to fourteen hours a day wetting the paper, setting type, applying ink, running the press, and then drying the pages after the ink was applied. The room smelled like linen and ink and had all the trappings necessary for running a printing press hanging from the walls or stacked in an orderly fashion around the room. The weekly newspaper was drying on ropes strung from wall to wall.
I didn’t spend much time in the press room, since my work required me to be in the office for most of the day, but I loved to watch the process unfold. It was comforting and reminded me of Papa. His handprint was still on the wall near the door, accidentally left when he had tripped and put his hand out to break his fall. He had prided himself on a clean press room, but before he could have the mark painted over, he had become ill, and Mama and I had kept the handprint as a reminder. He had left his mark on our lives and on the lives of all those who lived in Williamsburg.
Would I leave such an indelible mark?
I put my hand over the print, remembering his large presence. He had been kind yet demanding and had ruled our home with a firm set of principles. Mama had her ways of softening him, but he had very much been a man shaped by his time and place. I missed him dearly, though I was proud of the way Mama and I kept his vision and dreams alive.
“Good day, Libby,” Louis said when he spied me in the room. He was a tall man, just twenty years of age. He wore spectacles as he set the type, but he took them off and straightened. In onemore year, he would be old enough to venture forth on his own and start his own printing shop, if he so desired.
It did not fail to frustrate me that at the age of twenty, in the eyes of society, he was on the cusp of beginning his manhood. Whereas I, at the same age, was considered past my prime and facing a future as an old maid.
Glen was busy putting several small bundles of rags together. We purchased rags from customers and then sold them to the papermakers in England. The plant fibers inside the rags were turned into pulp and used to make paper, which was imported into the colonies. Papa had always purchased all of our supplies from England through Mister Jennings, though I was now purchasing from a different merchant. I hated being dependent on England. There were paper and ink makers in America, but it had always been cheaper to purchase supplies overseas. Soon, we would have no choice but to start relying on other colonies to supply our needs.
“Are you looking for something?” Louis asked me. He wore a leather apron over his breeches and waistcoat. Louis had lived with us for the past eight years, but he was not a member of the family, nor was he treated as such. He ate with us only on very special occasions and spent his leisure time in his room or at a tavern in town. He had been a bit enamored with me when we were younger, and I had spent much of my days trying to avoid him.
“Do you have the forms ready for the capitol?” I asked.
He nodded at a stack of papers on a workbench near the door. “We stayed up most of the night to meet the request. Glen will deliver them when he’s finished with the rags.”
“There’s no need.” I walked to the table to inspect the forms. “I have a few errands this morning and am happy to deliver them myself.”
“You?” His eyebrows rose high, probably surprised that I would leave my other work to attend to such a mundane task.
“Making a delivery is not beneath my abilities.” I tried tomake my voice sound light, though I didn’t like to be questioned by my journeyman. “Please have the broadsheet proof ready for me when I return.”
Louis stared at me for a moment, and I wondered if he would question me further. I knew he felt the sting of being employed by two women, one younger than him. I’m sure he believed he was capable of being the master of his own printing press, yet he had to answer to me. It was an unenviable position for any man, but for a man like Louis, it was doubly so. His pride was often his biggest stumbling block. But his help was necessary for Mama and me to continue our business, so we tried to pacify him. Perhaps in a year or two, when Mama and I had more experience, we could hire someone else to take over the printing.
“As you wish,” he finally said.
I took the forms, which had been tied together with twine, and started to leave the room, but Louis stopped me.
“Libby?”
I turned back to face him and found he had come out from behind the press. “Aye?”
“I was wondering ...” He wiped his hands on a soiled rag and tossed it onto the workbench. “Mayhap you’ll allow me to escort you to the play tonight.”
With the arrival of the burgesses and their families, the playhouse located on the Palace Green was offering a nightly performance ofLove in a Village, a ballad opera I had already seen. I had no wish to see it again, nor did I wish to spend an evening with Louis. Our relationship was that of employer and employee, and it would remain so.
“Thank you for the invitation,” I said, “but I must decline. I will be working late this evening.”
“Then another night this week?”
Why did he want to take me to the play? I had shown no interest in spending time with him beyond the press room.
He took a step closer to me, and I could smell his body odor,which he had tried to mask with bay rum. It stung my nose, making me long for the deodorants available in my other path. Though not all was pleasant in the twentieth century, the sanitary practices were a vast improvement to life in the colonies. Mama and I both followed good hygiene, understanding that it promoted health and well-being. It wasn’t always practical, since a bath required toting water from the well, heating it on the stove, and filling a tub. But we took more baths than our friends and neighbors, who were still under the false belief that frequent bathing could lead to premature death.
“I have tried to find a time to speak to you in private.” He glanced at Glen, who seemed oblivious to our conversation. “I would like to court you, Libby. And I would like to start soon. I’ve waited to speak, since you’ve been in mourning, but time is of the essence. You’re not getting any younger.”
