Chapter Text
Young lady, clean of habit and mild of disposition, wanted to keep house and do light bookkeeping for respectable officer of the law in Purgatory. Room and board included, $10 weekly. Renegotiation at one year. Submit references by post care of Xavier Dolls. Triflers need not apply.
Waverly stared intently at the scrap of newspaper, holding it up to the candlelight that illuminated her room and reading it over and over. Ten dollars a week was an unfathomable sum. Working as she did now at the mill, breaking her back from sun up to sundown six days a week brought her barely five. Her tips from her uncle’s saloon brought two or three at the most. There was rent and food to pay besides and she was docked 15 cents for every broken spindle or warped yard she made. If a drunken sailor left without paying his bill, she was made to buy his whiskey. Some weeks she had only a few pennies left over to stow away in her hidden purse, tucked from prying eyes in her Sunday boots.
She had been saving for years, ever since her pa and her sister Willa had died and her ma had run off. She had started working then alongside her sister Wynonna, though Wynonna was just twelve and she was barely six. They were always looking for workers at the mill and even the smallest children could be put to work threading machines with tiny hands or crawling into tight spaces to retrieve lost bobbins. The few meager cents they earned (because of course they could pay the little ones a little wage) went right to their Uncle Curtis and Aunt Augusta for their keep. Their aunt reminded them often how much it all cost- their clothes and shoes, extra coal for the fire , medicines when they got sick. She seemed to be especially hard on Wynonna - who was wild and constantly questioning her. It was Wynonna who started to squirrel away part of her earnings and encouraged Waverly to do the same. “Baby girl” she’d said “You and I are going to get out of here someday”.
But one day Waverly woke up in the bed they shared alone. Wynonna was gone and along with her their father’s gun and winter coat and $17 dollars from the lockbox their uncle thought no one knew about. For Waverly, she had left only a note.
“I’m sorry little sister. I’ll come back for you.”
Waverly was still young enough then to hope that was true. She had kept an old pillowcase stuffed with all her things under her bed for years. But time passed and they moved to a new house, then a new neighborhood entirely. Her uncle had opened Shorty’s Saloon and Waverly had started working there too in the evenings, smiling at the rough men that came through and pocketing the tips they gave her. Wynonna’s name in the house became like a curse word, completely verboten.
Waverly eventually unpacked her bag and tried to forget about her big sister and her promises. She worked and scrimped and paid rent to her aunt and uncle. She went on dates with Champ Hardy from next door and let him give her sloppy kisses and fumble with the front buttons of her best dress. Soon she was sure, he’d ask to marry her. And when they were married, she’d live in his tiny house with his family and work at the bakery or another saloon or another mill. She’d have baby after baby until she was used up. She’d be like her Aunt Gus, cooking and cleaning for her husband, wearing herself to the bone.
Waverly was fairly certain she didn’t want these things. In fact she sometimes laid awake at night contemplating them with a distant sort of horror, but there was nothing else to be done. She had managed to save enough for a ticket out west, where she was fairly sure she could find work as a barmaid. There were stories of how rich everyone was out there and how much money there was to be made. Then again, there were stories about how few women there were in the wild parts of the country. A lady could find herself in a whole mess of trouble in that wicked place. There were whispers amongst the women of savage attacks and locked brothels and diseases that rotted your woman parts from the inside.
At least here her uncle shooed away the men that assumed she was for sale along with the whiskey and the gin. Or at least he had. Her uncle had been dead nearly a week now. Waverly squirmed in shame. How could she have forgotten even for a second? She felt very selfish then, to be lying in bed dreaming of leaving her aunt in her mourning. Her aunt and uncle had been the closest to parents she’d ever had. She had even fewer prospects now. She was for all intents and purposes an orphan, no family name or reputation. Her widowed aunt was the only family she had that gave a damn about her.
Waverly’s eyes burned as she tried to keep in her tears. There was a terrible uneasiness in her chest. What would happen to Shortys without the firm hand of her uncle to run it? She had no idea if her aunt would be able to do it alone or even if she would be allowed to. There was talk of her uncle’s smarmy cousin Robert coming to take over, him being the closest male kin. He was disgusting, all hands and leering eyes. If he ran the saloon and owned the house, he would feel like he owned Waverly as well. She was sure of it. Waverly shuddered to think of the time he had cornered her behind the bar and grabbed her to his chest, pressed her close against the ratty fur coat he always wore and whispered filthy things he’d like to do to her. So staying here in her uncle’s house was out. There was no way. Marrying Champ,pushing out his babies and barely scraping by sounded no better. It was an unavoidable fact that a woman alone was not safe. At least a lawman was, well, lawful. Surely he wouldn’t dare to do anything untoward.
Her fingers creased the thin newsprint as she scanned the ad again “clean of habit…housekeeper…” finally landing on the most important portion. “$10 a week”
She could save it all, have enough to do anything she wanted in a few years. Once she figured out what that was. Waverly thought idly of the old saying “better the devil you know than the one you don’t”. The devils that she knew weren’t worth spit. She was going to have to move on to an unfamiliar devil if she wanted to get anything in this life.That thought fell heavy and final on her chest. It felt like a decision.
Waverly pulled the thin quilt off her body and rose from her bed, moving carefully so as not to wake her sleeping aunt. She pulled a blank sheet of paper from inside her favorite book and a pencil from the nightstand and sat at the kitchen table. Pulling the candle closer, she started a letter “ Dear Sir, It is with great enthusiasm I read your letter requesting a housekeeper. I would be able to travel to you immediately and fulfill the position if only you would send me notice. I am 21 years old and currently living with my widowed aunt…”