Chapter 3

"How was your day, Victoria?" Mother asked, as we sat in the parlor with Grandmother and had tea. Grandfather doesn't like tea time and usually finds an excuse out of it, and Father was at work.

"I read a book," I said lightly.

"Did you enjoy it?" Grandmother asked.

"It was delightful," I answered. I asked them how their days had been as well, and theirs were equally, if not more, boring than mine.

Yet I couldn't help but notice how Grandmother kept giving Mother a look, and Mother would shake her head. Finally, Grandmother burst out, "Just tell the girl, Margaret, for heaven's sake!"

"Mother," my mother said in a controlled, hushed voice, "She doesn't need to know yet."

"Know what?" I asked.

Mother straightened up. "See what you've done?" she hissed at Grandmother, then turned to me. "Well, you know how I've always wanted to have more children?" she asked me. I nodded politely. Was she planning to become a schoolteacher? I almost laughed at the thought of my mother teaching arithmetic. "Well, I'm… with child."

I stared at her. 'With child'? "You're having another baby?" I blurted out. My tea cup overturned from its saucer and fell into my lap, staining the pale pink dress.

"Oh, no," Grandmother breathed, reaching forward with her napkin to try to blot the dress. "You'd better go give that to Rose right way. Perhaps she'll be able to treat it…" She shook her head. I stood up, placing my cup and saucer back on the table, and hurried from the room and up to Rose's attic room.

Rose is one of our maids, and she clucked her tongue at my dress. "Really, Victoria, when are you going to learn?"

"Well, when Mother springs information on me like the fact that she's going to have another child, what else am I supposed to do?" I glared at her. She ignored the look, twirling me around to unbutton all the buttons in the back.

"You should be happy for the Madame, Victoria," she answered softly, raising her eyebrows at me after she'd pulled the dress over my head and gotten to work on the stain.

I sighed and left the room, pulling on a blue robe over my underclothes and walking to my room. I looked around it, and saw all the things that were mine—fluffy white bed, white dresser and bureau, white vanity, gilded mirror. Would I have to share all this with a baby? I walked to the bureau and opened it, pulling out a light blue dress with pink ribbons. I pulled it on, and called to Bonnie, another of our maids, to button me into it. She did so and I scrutinized myself in the mirror. I looked at what Mush must've seen: big, dark blue eyes, dark brown hair. A petite frame. I reflected on the fact that I wasn't too bad-looking, and perhaps even pretty.

That night, I climbed into my bed completely dressed, and pulled the covers up to my chin. Mother and Father came in, and I said goodnight. They left the room, and shortly after, the clock downstairs chimed nine times. I lit a candle. By the soft glow, I brushed my long hair out. It was wavy from the braids of the day, and seeing it down made me look a whole different person. I rather liked the way it looked, though. I decided I didn't like the blue dress any longer, so I put on a dark green silk that only rustled slightly. I put on my bedroom slippers, because my boots would make sounds on the stairs. Then I waited, and waited. I heard Grandfather shuffling around, then enter his room on the opposite side of mine. I knew Grandmother was already asleep.

Usually by this time my eyes would be heavy, but tonight I was wide awake. I still couldn't believe that I, Victoria, could be leaving my house at night to meet a boy! But, I reminded myself, it wasn't just any boy. It was him. Mush.

I made a face in the mirror. Mush? The name wasn't romantic, like in those novels Rose liked. I wondered what his real name was.

To pass the time, I picked up a book from my bedside table. It was Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare. Mother dislikes Shakespeare greatly, so I was really not supposed to read it. But Grandfather is a big fan of Shakespeare, and got me the forbidden books anyway.

Before I knew it, the clock downstairs chimed ten times. My stomach rose to my throat. I rose from the bed and, holding my candle, went slowly to the door. I opened it and cupped my hand around it to shield the light from being so harsh that someone behind the closed doors noticed it, and padded my way towards the stairs.

I wished that I had stayed in the blue dress, because despite the fact that in the day the dress was a soft shuffle, in night's silence it seemed to be screaming for attention. I held my breath as I descended the stairs, each move of mine seemingly accented by the rustling silk. I breathed a sigh of relief as I got to the main floor, but I wasn't home- free yet. Bonnie's room was on this level, and she was my worst threat, as she woke up at the slightest noise. I tiptoed past her room and went out the side door onto the wrap-around porch—she would have surely heard the creak of the front door, but the side door was purely silent.

Holding my candle and still shielding it, but this time from the wind, I rounded to corner of the house to the front porch. "Mush?" I whispered as loudly as I dared. There was no reply, and a quick overview showed he wasn't sitting on the porch swing or in the chairs. I sat down to wait.

"Miss Victoria?" came an urgent whisper five minutes later. I shifted uncomfortably—I'd forgotten from last Christmas, when I'd first worn the gown, how incredibly stiff and torturous it was to wear; I'd just realized it now, after an hour wearing it. I held out my wavering candle to see, and a scuffed boot tentatively stepped up the stairs. I rose, and looked happily into his face.

He looked just as he always did. He hadn't put on his Christmas best to see me. For a second, I was disappointed, but then I wondered if he even had Christmas best. Both days I'd seen him, he'd been wearing black pants that ended just below his knee, a green shirt over a white shirt, and a brown vest, with brown boots. I wondered what it would be like to wear one outfit all the time.

"I'm sorry I was late," he whispered, taking my free hand, "but I couldn' get away. The boys were much more awake than usual today, on accoun' of all the strikin' against the papes we's been doin'. I couldn' even shake Snap off. Sorry, he's down there. He promised not to bother us." A hat was raised into the air from below the porch's rail, and I held my candle out. A grinning face came into the light.

"Evenin', Angelface."

I exhaled slowly, then turned back to Mush. "So how was your day?" I wondered, looking at him in the soft candle light.

"How's 'bouts we sit down?" Mush offered, taking me by the elbow and helping me sit in a chair. I felt the harshness of the dress come back into reality, and winced. Mush was too busy sitting down himself, and didn't notice. I made sure I had a pleasant expression when at last those eyes wandered back to my face. He told me all about the paper strike, and it was incredible—I couldn't believe all that the New York newsies would go through, united like this.

The still night air stretched away from us as he told me about his friends and his life. He asked about mine, too, but I found his answers so much more liberating that I kept my responses brief.

"Is it really amazing?" I asked softly in a lull in the talking. "Being on your own? Not having to worry about family pressures and such?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I wouldn' say amazin'," he finally said. "Just… differen' than youse." He shrugged. "I tell ya, I wouldn' mind livin' in this here house!" We both looked up at the grandeur. He let out a low whistle. "Youse got it made, Victoria."

I made a face. "My name sounds so… formal. I hate it."

"I love it," he answered softly. The candle was almost burned out, but it spread its feeble light enough to show me that he was bending closer to me. I let myself lean in, too, and a moment later felt his lips touch mine. I'd never been kissed before, but it certainly wasn't bad. In fact, it was amazing.

It just went on and on, and I didn't want it to end. Then, Snap whispered loudly, "Golly, when you guys's gonna come up for air?"

Mush laughed and the mood was broken. I wanted to kiss him some more, but I didn't need to, because his laughter was so bright and glorious, his spirit so vibrant and carefree, I was happy just being with him.

"So you really don't like your name?" he said to me, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Well, if youse was a newsie, your name would be…" He was silent for a moment as he thought. "Daffodil."

"Daffodil?" I repeated. "Why that?"

"'Cause it's me favorite flower," he answered with a grin.

"Are you almost done?" Snap whined from the lawn. "Mush, we's still gotsta sell papes tomorrow, brigh' 'n early. So tell your girl goodnight, an' let's go home t' bed!"

"I guess he's right," Mush said, standing up and helping me to stand too. I still held my barely-lit candle, which was more like a pile of wax with an miniature flame now. He brushed my long hair from my face, and kissed me, lightly, again. "Goodnight, Daffodil."

"Goodnight," I whispered as he moved from the porch. "Wait!"

"What?" he asked, turning back.

"What's your real name, Mush?" I asked shyly.

He grinned at me again. "I don't rightly know. Me parents died when I was but two, an' I went to an orphan's home. Theys there always called me Peter, though, up until the time I was ten an' theyse realized that no one were gonna adopt me, so theyse turned me out." He walked down a step, then stopped. "When can I see ya again?"

"I'll try to come tomorrow," I pledged. "If not, come again tomorrow night."

"I will. Goodnight again, Victoria."

"Goodnight, Peter."

As he and Snap moved into the darkness, I looked down at my candle, which finally gave up and extinguished itself.