Page 1 of Bride in Blue
Chapter 1
Spring 1893, New York
Cassie Stockton opened the window of the tenement and allowed the noise and the air of the city to invade her room. It wasn’t the most pleasant smell, but she couldn’t take being cooped up in the room for one minute longer.
Living on the east end of New York, her family was crammed in a four-room apartment. She was fortunate to have a room to herself. But that was simply because she was a young woman and it wouldn’t do for her to share a room with her father or her brother.
She did share a room with her brother when they were little, but as soon as little Charles wasn’t a boy anymore, Momma forced him to sleep in the living room.
After Momma passed from the fever, Charles moved his mattress and bed clothes into the corner of his father’s bedroom. It was simply a place to sleep for him. For her, however, her room was a sanctuary. A source of escape from the day-to-day existence living and working in one of the seedier areas of town.
It wasn’t always this way. When her family first moved in, they had the whole floor to themselves. Then Mr. Weston had to go and rebuild the apartment so that more families would have places to sleep. What was once a beautiful brick building was now a jigsaw of brick, wood and mud.
The back of the building had been expanded, so now there was a small patch of dirt where grass once had been. People would gather there to socialize, do laundry and barter for goods or services.
She heard Father complain that the rent didn’t change even though their space was smaller, and more people lived there to share the costs. Father didn’t like Mr. Weston much.
Mr. Weston only gave them half a day off when they buried momma. And it was without pay. It was the price of doing business, he said.
Employment was scarce, and once you worked from Mr. Weston, trying to find employment elsewhere provided difficult. It appeared that many other factory owners were afraid of the clothing tycoon.
Cassie looked out the window and she could see Mrs. Graham boiling her laundry in the small courtyard below. Her two children played in the mud.
They were going to need baths, Cassie giggled. Unfortunately, there wasn’t running water inside the building, so they would be forced to bath in the laundry tub once their mother was done.
Cassie was grateful that they had a privacy closet in the house where they could bathe and relieve themselves. It was much better than taking care of ones needs in the street.
She went back to her bed – a thick mattress filled with straw and picked up her sewing. Mr. Weston provided her work from his factory down the road. Mainly hemming pants and adding buttons to jackets. She had been doing this work since she was old enough to hold a needle and thread.
Since the factories could be fined for each child under the age of 14 it employed, she worked at home all those years. After she turned 14, the factory didn’t have enough room, so she was able to continue to work from the small apartment.
She made three cents per ten buttons sewn and five cents for each pair of pants she hemmed. A penny was deducted if the garment became dirty in her care. She was very careful making sure nothing touched the dirty floor in the building.
It wasn’t much, but it at least allowed her to provide some basics for her family. Her father and brother both worked at the clothing factory. Her brother cut the fabric and her father was responsible for overseeing the sewing team.
A portion of the rent on their apartment was provided as part of their salary. But it didn’t put a dent in the $13.00 a month they paid for the small four rooms.
Mr. Weston also owned the factory where they were all employed. He wanted to make sure that his workers were nearby at all times in case there was an immediate order that needed to be taken care of.
She finished sewing the last wooden button on the cuff of the dark jacket and was folding it when she heard the front door open.
That’s odd,she thought. She wasn’t expecting anyone until much later – closer to suppertime. She heard the solid footstep, followed by a foot dragging across the floor.
Her father.
Cassie heard him sit down in his chair. She walked out of her bedroom and looked at him sitting there with his hand over his face.
Her father had aged considerably since her mother died. Even though it had only been three years, he looked a decade older. His shoulders, which she thought were so strong, were now hunched and he appeared as though he was trying to curl himself into a ball.
There was no sign of her brother. Not that Charles would have come straight home. Instead he’d be down at the poolroom drinking and playing billiards.
Her father removed his hand and looked at Cassie. He didn’t look pleased. He pointed his knotted finger at her. “Get me a drink, girl,” he spat, “and make it quick.”
Cassie had learned to ignore her father’s tone and quickly went to get a glass of water from the pitcher. “You’re home early,” she said. “Are you hurt?” She knew that his leg bothered him something fierce, especially if there was any kind of dampness in the air. With all the springtime rain it had been bothering him more than usual.
She watched her father take a sip from the cup and grimace. “You daft twit. You can’t even do a simple thing as getting me a drink, can you?” He pushed himself up and dragged his lame foot to the cupboard.
He opened the cupboard door and closed it again. He repeated the action until he was satisfied that what he was looking for was in the cabinet.
