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Susan and Alice exchanged a glance.
“What?” Sydney asked, needing to understand the silent communication between the sisters.
Alice answered for them both. “Only a woman who has grown up in a wealthy family would brag they knew how to clean. Susan and I were both cleaning every day from the day we were old enough to drag a kitchen chair to the basin so we could wash and wipe the dishes dry.”
Sydney felt strange all at once. “My mother didn’t allow me to clean. She said it was servants’ work. But I worked at the orphanage outside of town, and I learned how to cook and clean there. And I learned a lot about children.” She couldn’t cook a lot of meals, but the ones she did know how to make, she made well.
“Do you want children?” Susan asked.
Sydney shrugged. “I do want them. I wanted to adopt one of the boys at the orphanage, but I would have needed my mother’s permission, and she was afraid it would keep me from finding the husband she wanted for me.”
“Your mother sounds perfectly awful,” Susan said.
Alice nodded. “Oh, she was. She was always telling Sydney what she should and shouldn’t do. I was stocking shelves at the store one day, and I heard her give Sydney a whole lecture on how she was to sit when someone was over for tea. It lasted for more than twenty minutes! I was ready to stick cotton in my ears, so I didn’t have to hear another word of it.”
Sydney shrugged. “I remember when she did that. She lectured me about everything from asking boys to race bicycles with me to telling me ladies don’t spit in public. I didn’t listen very often.”
Alice blinked. “Did you spit in public?”
“Never! But I told my mother I liked to spit in public to get a rise out of her. She was very vocal about what was right and wrong for a lady to do. Her favorite was, ‘A lady must never touch a man she’s not married to. Not even when dancing with them.’ How am I supposed to waltz with a man if I can’t touch him? She never would answer that question.”
“Did she allow you to waltz with men?”
“If they were suitable in her eyes she did.” Alice groaned. “I cannot bear the thought of going back to Beckham and being under her rule again. I would simply rather die!”
Susan shook her head. “That’s a little too dramatic. No, you should not go back to Beckham. I think you should marry Lewis. I’ll insist.”
“I won’t have a man who is forced to marry me. We’ll work it out.”
At that point there was a loud knock on the door. A man stood with a huge trunk and a letter for Susan.
Susan eyed the trunk, but quickly opened the letter. “This is from Elizabeth. She told me to find you so I can give you this.” Looking at the trunk once more, Susan’s eyes met Sydney’s. “All those clothes are not going to fit in your small room.”
“Lewis has more room at his house,” Alice said, once again bringing the conversation back to Lewis. It seemed that it would be impossible to talk of anything else with Susan and Alice around.
“I won’t unpack them all,” Sydney said. “But I may unpack all my bloomers. Since no one has seemed shocked by them yet, I think I’ll wear them all the time.”
Susan grinned. “You should. I don’t care if anyone is bothered by them. They look so terribly comfortable.”
“They are!” Sydney insisted. “I love wearing them so much. Especially when I ride my bicycle.”
“You’ll teach me to ride it after the baby comes?” Alice asked, looking toward the front door as if she was trying to catch another peek at the strange contraption.
“Of course I will. It’s really easy.”
Alice looked at Susan. “What about you? Are you going to learn?”
Susan shook her head. “I’d like to, but I can’t risk being injured.”
Alice’s jaw dropped. “You’re pregnant again, aren’t you?”
Susan frowned. “I thought I was too old for more babies after three years without conceiving, but apparently I was wrong.”
Sydney smiled. “That’s wonderful news!”
“Says the woman with no children,” Susan said. “This will give me eleven children. Eleven!”
“Sounds like a good start to me,” Sydney replied. She was mostly joking, but she loved children. The orphanage had been her favorite place to be, and she’d sneaked away to go there every time she could get away with it.
