Page 59 of The Wallflower Manifesto
Hannah Lazarus appeared, fleeing past the maid into the study. She wasn’t angry like Millie had been. Her face was tear streaked and she was gulping for air, trying hard to push the maid out of the room so she could shut the door behind her.
“Miss Lazarus!” Dot cried out, coming to her feet to shoo the maid away.
Hannah looked around the room and chose Millie to collapse onto, her little body shaking like she’d been struck by an errant bolt of lightning.
She just kept repeating, hiccuping like a child who’s just had a crying jag, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” over and over again.
Ember, for her part, quietly slipped out of the room to demand a tray of tea from the frazzled maid while chaos unfolded in the study.
Millie thought perhaps she was not a very honorable person, because as she held Miss Lazarus and watched the scene change in front of her, she felt something very odd.
Relief.
It tooksome time for things to calm down in Dot’s study.
The poor maid who had failed to properly vet and announce both Millie and Hannah had been given the rest of the day to enjoy as she saw fit. Millie thought that was fair. The poor woman had already worked a full day, and it wasn’t even time for luncheon.
Hannah, for her part, plied with tea and cool cloths and a nibble of biscuits, eventually got herself under control. Her face was splotchy but no longer ruby red, and the only remnants of her crying were the occasional stutters in her breath.
Then, only once the poor thing was no longer on the verge of unspooling completely, did she begin to explain.
“I found the manifesto,” she began, choosing, perhaps without full understanding of the weight of her words, to begin with an explosion. “The night of the ball. I wanted to watch the dancers from above and I came upstairs and it was in the hallway, on a table.”
“It was in my study,” Dot protested.
“It was in the hallway,” Millie corrected immediately. “I moved it out there after …” She trailed off, her mind holding up a firm barrier.
After I showed it to Abe. After he kissed me.
“After I read it through once more,” she decided, warmth building under her collar.
“Miss Yardley, do you remember that night we met, how upset I was about Mr. Danvers abandoning our dance to instead have a second turn with Gretchen Waters?” Hannah said, eyes wide and pleading. “Do you recall that?”
“Of course I do,” said Millie.
“It was the strangest thing,” Hannah continued, relief tinging her words. “Because that night I found Gretchen hiding upstairs too. She was so … sad? And I knew I should hate her, but I just sat beside her and we watched the dancers below in silence. And then we started to … to talk.”
“Do you know where Miss Waters is?” Dot put in, a reasonable and pressing question, but one that seemed to fluster little Hannah.
“I … we started to talk,” Hannah repeated, sounding as though if she deviated from the timeline of events, she’d lose her ability to explain entirely.
She looked up at each of them in turn, even Ember, a total stranger, as though she wanted to ensure they understood. “We talked about a lot of things. Gretchen’s papa is very hard to please. And then we found it, the manifesto, and I know this is silly, but I felt like it was written to me. For me, specifically. It felt like it was mine. And I said that, but Gretchen said she felt that way too, like whoever wrote it was writing it directly to her.”
Millie blinked in surprise.
She didn’t think it was the appropriate time to say, but of course, that letter had been written for Miss Lazarus in a way. It had been intended for her to eventually see, but Gretchen? Gretchen was a classic English rose, not a wildflower.
Wasn’t that right?
Hannah continued, oblivious. “When she said that, we realized that maybe every debutante would feel that way, every single one of us, and Gretchen, she … she said we ought to publish it. I know it was wrong, Mrs. Cain. I know I betrayed you.”
She started to cry again, big warm tears springing from the corners of her impossibly huge blue eyes.
Dot, who had consumed each word as it was given, looked unsatisfied. “But Hannah,” she said, leaning forward to put a hand on top of the girl’s. “What has happened today? The letter was published a week ago. Something else brought you here, didn’t it?”
Hannah nodded, a little miserable whimper escaping from her lips.
“Gretchen told me she planned to run away,” she continued, drawing deep sharp breaths in through her nose so she wouldn’t collapse completely again. “She’s been … taking things, little things so she could afford to flee. But she got caught by a maid.”
