The Invention of Sophie Carter Read online

  “But Mrs. Ellis pays for the paints and supplies,” Mariah said. “And provides us with a home.”

  “Some home,” Sophie scoffed.

  Mariah held up a letter. “On the way back, I ran into Postmaster Green, and he thought I was you, so he gave me this letter. At first I thought there must be some mistake, because we’ve never received a letter before. But then he said that you had posted a letter last week.”

  Sophie released the minute wheel and looked up at her sister. “I was going to tell you about that.”

  Mariah continued as if her sister hadn’t spoken. “He asked me who we knew that lived in London, but I couldn’t answer because I don’t know anyone who lives in London.”

  “Mariah…,” Sophie started to explain but found she didn’t have the words.

  Her sister handed her the letter, and Sophie cradled it in her hands.

  “Well, are you going to open it?” Mariah asked.

  Sophie looked at her sister, standing so close that their shoulders nearly touched. Mariah had the same bright red hair, blue eyes, dainty nose, and mostly straight teeth. Sophie looked down again at the letter in her thin hands. Both she and her sister were slight of frame—from too much work and too few meals.

  She tried to break the seal with her thumbnail, but her hands were as shaky as Mr. Ellis’s sober ones. Sophie finally handed the letter to her sister. “The first letter I’ve ever received and I’m too afraid to read it … You do it.”

  Mariah took the letter. “Why should you be afraid?”

  “If Lady Bentley refuses to let us stay with her, I’ll never be able to go to London and see the Great Exhibition,” Sophie said. She took a deep breath before she continued. “I’ve almost saved enough money for a round-trip train ticket to London, but not enough for lodging or food.”

  “You wrote to her?” Mariah asked, her surprise evident.

  “I know that she’s refused to have anything to do with us,” Sophie admitted. “Twice. But I only asked if I could stay at her London house for a short time and see the Great Exhibition. I read about it in Mr. Fisby’s newspaper. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert built a special palace all out of glass for it.”

  “Out of glass?”

  “They call it the ‘Crystal Palace,’” Sophie explained, fiddling with her hands and tapping her foot. “I thought, perhaps … perhaps I could find an inventor and become an apprentice and make my fortune.”

  Mariah’s face lit up like a candle in surprise. “I should have known you’d have a plan.” She broke the wax seal and unfolded the letter. “All right, stop wiggling and I’ll read it.”

  Sophie began to tap her foot again. Her heart pounded as if she were running from a charging bull. Mariah put one hand on Sophie’s shoulder as she read the letter aloud:

  To my niece Sophronia,

  I received your letter and I am prepared to receive you, my namesake, in my home.

  “Oh my goodness, Sophie!” Mariah exclaimed. “I can hardly believe it!”

  “Keep reading,” Sophie begged, her heart beating even faster.

  I believe it is my Christian duty to see my poor dead sister’s daughters established creditably. I shall pay for your clothing and see that you are introduced to good society—not to exhibitions where anyone may enter who pays the fee.

  “Not go to the exhibition?” Sophie snapped. “Then why go to London at all?”

  “Hush and let me finish,” Mariah said.

  You will have one season and one season only to find a suitable husband. I am unable to receive your sister as well at this time.

  Sophie heard Mariah’s breath catch, but she continued.

  I can’t possibly be burdened with the care of two young ladies with my health being in decline. Once you are married, it will be your responsibility to see that your sister is well cared for. I expect to see you within a fortnight.

  Yours sincerely,

  Lady Bentley

  Mariah set the letter on the table. “That’s settled then,” she said in a voice not quite her own. “You’ll go and find yourself a husband.”

  “But I don’t want a husband,” Sophie protested. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hide her disappointment. “I want to be an inventor. You should go. You’d like a husband, I daresay. Besides, you’re prettier than I am.”

  “We’re identical. I can’t possibly be prettier than you.”

  “Your hair is a shade darker and I have half an inch on you.”

  “She asked for her niece named Sophronia, not Mariah.”

  “She would never know the difference,” Sophie retorted. “Mrs. Ellis still can’t tell us apart and we’ve lived with her for eight years. Lady Bentley’s never laid eyes on either of us.”

  “Sophie, you silly thing. This might be your only chance for a better life, to join good society,” Mariah said, her voice thick with emotion.

  “I pray that it is, and that you will take it,” Sophie said, tapping her foot again. “Can you see me dancing and flirting? I can’t. But you would be so happy. You could go to art museums and become a proper artist—”

  “What about the Great Exhibition?”

  “Lady Bentley clearly wrote that I wouldn’t be going,” Sophie said glumly. “Society has the most ridiculous notions about a woman’s place. I can bake bread or go to local balls, but I’m not to work with mechanisms or create machinery.”

  “I wish we could both go,” Mariah said wistfully. “Mrs. Ellis is with child again, and they don’t really have the space for us anymore. Sarah and Agnes are getting big enough now to help with the smaller children. We’re only a burden on them.”

  “Is that why she’s so cantankerous? I should’ve guessed,” Sophie said. “Well, then we both should go.”

  As soon as Sophie spoke those words aloud, her tapping foot stilled, the nervous tension that had caused her fidgeting dissipated. It was the perfect solution, a chance for them both to start afresh. The fragile hope that had sparked within her chest at the prospect of attending the exhibition began to grow into a flame of resolution.

  Sophie grabbed her sister by her bony shoulders. “Come with me, Mariah.”

  “Lady Bentley can only stand the burden of one of us,” Mariah reminded her. A tear slipped from her eye and fell down her cheek.

  “We won’t tell her that there are two of us,” Sophie said.

  “What?”

  “We’ll both be ‘Sophie’ and take turns going on outings and such. We could wear the same clothes and share a bedroom.”

  “And what exactly will the second Sophie do while the other is with Lady Bentley?” Mariah asked doubtfully, wiping away another tear with the back of her hand.

  “Explore London! Perhaps the window to our room will be accessible by a roof or balcony of some sort,” Sophie said loudly, her excitement bursting out into her voice. “Either way, I daresay I could come up with an invention to aid in our exits and entrances.”

  “The whole idea is ridiculous,” Mariah said with a sniff.

  “The best ideas always are,” Sophie assured her, feeling more and more confident with every passing moment.

  “We may be identical, but we are not at all the same.”

  “Mariah, you know we have nowhere else to go but the workhouse,” Sophie said. “And you also know that we can’t stay here forever. You can find a husband in London or become a painter, but there is nothing for us here. Unless you’d like to marry the butcher’s son. His attentions have been quite marked, and Mrs. Ellis likes the extra meat it gets her.”

  “I couldn’t marry Mr. Adams,” Mariah said with a shiver. “He has leering eyes.”

  “Then stop arguing with me and come to London.”

  “I suppose we could try…,” Mariah said. “But what if we get caught?”

  Sophie shrugged. “Lady Bentley would send one or both of us back here, but we wouldn’t be any worse off than we are now.”

  Mariah nodded her head slowly, as if considering the po
ssibilities. “It would be a great adventure to go to London.”

  “That’s the spirit, Mariah!” Sophie said, hugging her sister. “You start packing and I’ll finish Mrs. Bidwell’s clock.”

  * * *

  Sophie and Mariah stood waiting at the train station in Dorchester—a newly built brick building with a steep roofline. Five other people stood on the cement platform: two ladies in fine dresses and three gentlemen wearing tall black top hats. The fashionable travelers gave the sisters a cursory glance before turning away from them as if they were dirt. Sophie looked down at her worn gray dress and scuffed, secondhand boots. Mariah held their shabby carpetbag, and Sophie held a basket of bread and fruit. She had baked the bread herself, and she had been quite touched when Mrs. Ellis had given them some fruit to go with it.

  “You’ll be hungry on your journey,” Mrs. Ellis had said. “Keep your money and belongings close. There are thieves on the train.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Ellis,” Sophie said, managing a handshake for each of the Ellises.

  Mr. Ellis had palmed her a shilling coin as he shook her hand. He then patted her shoulder and said his usual phrase: “You’re a good girl, Sophie.”

  Mariah had wept freely and hugged each Ellis child twice. Then she’d sniffed the entire twenty-five-mile ride to the Dorchester train station. Mr. Fisby had been kind enough to let them sit in the back of his wagon, which saved them a long, dusty walk.

  Mariah started to cry again as they stood on the platform. One of the gentlemen raised his quizzing glass and studied Mariah as the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Would you please stop crying?” Sophie begged. “Your face is redder than your hair.”

  Mariah sniffed loudly and blew her nose in their shared handkerchief, which was already soaked through. “We may never see them again.”

  “I sincerely hope so,” Sophie said remorselessly. “We were Mrs. Ellis’s unpaid servants for eight years, and the only thing Mr. Ellis ever did was spend every penny on drink or laudanum.”

  “But what about the Ellis children?”

  “I hope to never change another nappy,” Sophie said. “The world is ours, Mariah. Stop weeping over an attic.”

  Mariah eventually stopped crying and even accepted a green apple from her sister.

  Sophie saw the steam before she saw a train for the very first time. She turned to watch the locomotive arrive into the station; it was beautiful. Smoke billowed around them as they made their way to the third-class coach. A porter opened the door for them and took their one-way tickets.

  The lower-class coach was quite crowded. Sophie wished she could have ridden in the engine car and learned all about how it worked, but she knew that was not possible. The sisters squeezed onto a bench between a very large matron and a short man who smelled strongly of tobacco. They watched out the window for the first several hours before the green fields started to blend together. Mariah eventually fell asleep on Sophie’s shoulder and Sophie allowed her head to rest against her sister’s.

  * * *

  Sophie awoke to a bump and the sound of squealing brakes. She looked out the window and saw that the sun had already begun to set. In the dim light of dusk, she could only make out the shadows of tall buildings.

  She shook Mariah, who was still asleep on her shoulder. “We’re here.”

  Mariah rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “It’s already dark. How late is it?”

  “Past eight o’clock,” said the large matron. “Is someone meeting you two girls at Waterloo Station?”

  “We are to go to our aunt’s home, near Hyde Park,” Sophie replied.

  “That’s not too far,” the matron said. “Only a couple of miles after you cross Westminster Bridge.”

  “Oh dear,” Mariah said. “Do we dare arrive at our aunt’s house so late in the evening? Is it even safe for us to walk after dark?”

  “If you’re looking for accommodations for the night,” the matron said, “my sister runs a respectable boardinghouse not a block from here, and her rates are most reasonable. I could take you there myself. That’s where I’m headed.”

  Sophie looked first at the rapidly fading light outside and then at Mariah, who nodded. “Thank you, ma’am. We’d be most pleased to accept your offer.”

  The short man who smelled of tobacco helped them out of the train car, and they thanked him. They followed the matron through the various platforms and train tracks to the exit and saw an endless sky of rooflines and air filled with black smoke. The streets went in every direction like a maze. Sophie was glad that they’d decided to wait until the morning to find Lady Bentley’s house.

  The matron led them to a small house on a dark alley. The boardinghouse was run by Mrs. Mangling, a woman with a red face and large hands, and the establishment looked clean enough. Sophie paid the woman all the coins in her purse, but it still wasn’t enough. Mrs. Mangling agreed to let them stay if they shared a bed and left before dawn. For once, Sophie was too tired to argue. She followed Mrs. Mangling up a narrow staircase to a cramped, airless room without any windows.

  “It’s very nice,” Mariah said kindly.

  Mrs. Mangling harrumphed and took her candle with her as she ambled back down the narrow staircase.

  “I suppose we should go in,” Sophie said, stepping into the cramped room.

  Mariah followed behind her and closed the door—the room was pitch-black. But they were used to darkness. Mrs. Ellis had never bothered to give them a candle. Trying not to bump into each other, they took off their dresses and lay down on the dusty bed. Sophie pulled at the blanket until it covered them.

  “I’m scared,” Mariah whispered. “London is so much bigger than I thought it would be.”

  “You have me,” Sophie said, squeezing her sister’s hand, “and I have you and we don’t need anyone else.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Mangling pounded on their door just before sunrise. Sophie and Mariah cracked the door open for some light. Once dressed, they finished eating the meager food left in their basket. Sophie was terribly thirsty, so she traded Mrs. Mangling the basket for two glasses of water. They left the boardinghouse and walked out into the cobbled street, which despite the early hour was already filled with carriages, merchants selling their wares, and street sweepers cleaning up the muck from horses.

  “I know it’s only a few miles, but I think we’d better hire a hansom cab,” Sophie said. “I don’t think we’ll ever find Lady Bentley’s house on our own.”

  “How would we pay for it?” Mariah asked.

  “I forgot,” Sophie said, pulling a coin out of her dress pocket. “Mr. Ellis gave me a shilling when we left.”

  “I just hope it’s enough to get us to Hyde Street.”

  Sophie nodded, then took her sister’s arm and walked up to one of the many hansom cabs that waited outside Waterloo Station. A driver, half-asleep, rubbed his eyes as the sisters approached.

  “I’m not seein’ double,” he said. “There’s really two of you.”

  This comment annoyed Sophie to no end, because it had been said so many times before. Still, she forced herself to smile. “Kind sir, we have only a shilling and must get to number forty-eight Hyde Street. Would you be willing to take us there?”

  Mariah smiled sweetly at him and added, “Please, sir?”

  The driver accepted their offer with a wink and even jumped off his perch to open the door and assist them into the two-wheeled carriage. The cab smelled of mothballs and horse, but the ride was not too long. They paid the driver their last shilling and stood in front of number forty-eight.

  Hyde Street looked like a row of navy officers standing at attention. The white buildings stood erect in an endless line, all sporting black shutters, impeccably clean windows, and tall black doors with brass knockers that sparkled like the buttons of a uniform. Even the trees on the street stood in a perfect row, spaced precisely the same distance apart.

  “What do we do now?” Mariah asked.

 
Sophie gave her sister a small shove toward the front door.

  “Knock,” Sophie said. “I’ll walk down the street a bit and come back. Hang my pocket watch in the window of your room and I’ll find a way to get in.”

  “What if you can’t get in?” Mariah asked.

  Sophie could hear the worry in her voice.

  “I’ll find a way in,” Sophie assured her. She gave her sister a quick hug, then turned and walked down the street, trying to swallow her own fears as well as Mariah’s.

  TWO

  IT TOOK ALL OF MARIAH’S nerve to walk up to the front door. It was still the early hours of the morning, and she feared no one would be up yet. She looked down the street and watched her sister walking away. There was no turning back now.

  Mariah picked up the knocker and tapped loudly three times. Several moments later, a man with white wig askew and black coat unevenly buttoned opened the door.

  “The servants’ entrance is in the rear,” he said condescendingly. “Through the alley.”

  “I’m not a servant,” Mariah said, handing the man her aunt’s letter. “I’m Lady Bentley’s niece. I’ve come to stay with her.”

  The man looked her up and down. Mariah could practically feel his narrowed eyes take in every wrinkle of her best dress and dowdy straw bonnet. He sneered at her but took the letter and read it before opening the door wider to allow her in.

  “I am Mr. Taylor, the butler. The mistress will not be up for several more hours,” he said in a monotone voice. “I will place you in the care of the housekeeper, Mrs. Kimball. Wait here. And don’t touch anything.”

  He turned away, walking down the hall and out of sight, leaving Mariah alone in the grand entry. It seemed as large as Mrs. Ellis’s entire house—larger even—with gleaming white and gray marble floors. The staircase swept up in an elegant curve of crimson carpet.

  Subconsciously, Mariah tried to wipe the dust of her journey off her sleeves, but it was a hopeless cause. She was a dirty speck in this perfectly pristine home.