Jane Higgins was, by her own admission, “the sage observer.” She would not deny the astute observation that she was the wisest member of the group in every aspect of her nature (so long as the contention was voiced out of earshot of any other member of her circle who might disagree). However, Jane was not, by any measure, the most comely of the five, nor ever could she be deemed anything beyond “palatable in appearance” and “pretty after a fashion” by the prevailing consensus, her face being attenuated, arguably equine, her eyes deeply set. These attributes might be appropriate for a Transylvanian or Mediterranean exotic, but for a young woman of English stock, they constituted somewhat of a demerit, for they gave the impression of one fixed to a perpetually sombre, even lugubrious mien, or one robbed of restful sleep, or, more unkindly, one given to occasional neighing and clopping of the hooves. In reality, Jane, though crippled by a diminished upbringing, had overcome a great number of personal difficulties, such triumphs of mettle earning her the right to hold her head high and to wear her pride as a badge of honour, and not to be thought of in any negative way whatsoever, save by one generally unacquainted with all her redeeming traits.
Who was the fairest of the five? Perhaps it was the circle’s youngest member, Molly Osborne, whose flaxen hair set her apart from her dark-tressed circle-sisters. Molly of the long lashes and wispy brows and oh-so-not-very-English softly rounded chin, indented with a dainty, almost capricious cleft. Molly of the arresting milk-blue eyes and the enchaining smile, which curled the plump lips with every glad thought or in response to even the smallest demonstration of spontaneous kindness, or whenever she found herself tickled by the wand of mischievous delight. (For Molly had an impish streak, which drew humour from circumstances not always conducive to the production of jocularity.) Molly, who turned the head of every young mill-working lad in the town of Tulleford and captured the eye of all their fathers as well (the men giving themselves license to partake in a furtive glance, which did little harm and which tended, in the main, to uplift the soul for some time thereafter). Molly was a chatterer and Molly was the one least shorn of her girlhood, and the coquettish nature that sometimes presented itself was nothing more, in fact, than the flit and flutter of a girl not yet molded fully into womanhood, though everything about her look and carriage might argue to the contrary.
Carrie Hale was the musical one, skilled at playing on both the pianoforte and violin, and blessed with an angel’s voice. Carrie’s face was music of a different sort, composed of full bright lips and cheeks, crimsoned by nature’s rouge, and set with hazel eyes that trilled their own song through glimmer and sparkle. There was drama and mystery in these eyes, as well, just as there was drama and mystery in the heart and soul of this lyrical creature, who was Carrie to everyone but her mother, for whom Carrie would always be Caroline (“singer of carols”—or at least this was the derivation assumed by Sylvia Hale, who knew little of the name’s monarchial pedigree).
Ruth Thrasher, by contrast, was quiet and retiring, save for those occasions when, in the company of her friends, she animated herself with clever observations and opinions. Ruth was a little plump (and had been at times quite a bit plumper), possessed of a pillowy frame and doughy cheeks, and a face that might give openness and light in one moment and the adumbrative appearance of brooding introspection in the very next. Whenever there was a matter to be decided, Ruth kept her own counsel until such point as it became necessary to break a tie, and then what Ruth said would rule the day, and that was the way she liked it, for keeping herself in detachment and studying a matter from every aspect was the best way for her to maintain her habit of feeding her intellect (alongside her equally insistent alimentary tract).
Ruth, unlike her circle-sisters, had been an orphan from birth. She was the daughter of an unmarried cook, employed by two maiden sisters of advanced age and truculent disposition. (The identity of Ruth’s father was never discovered.) When Ruth’s mother expired upon the parturition bed, the sisters allowed the baby Ruth to remain in their house, to be nursed with only the greatest of reluctance and to be fed sparingly. To compensate for this act of self-sacrificial Christian charity, Ruth was put into service at a very early age. The two women who superintended her youth were coarse and cruel and overworked her in Cinderella-stepmother fashion. At the age of fourteen, having had her fill of back-breaking chores and lumpy gruel and living in a house without a mote of love to be found within, Ruth ran away and became maid-of-all-work for a Dissenting minister and his sister on the other side of town, who subsequently taught her to read and to respect herself and to love God and do His will, and to sew. The minister and his sister, seeing the need to rescue their maid from a long, dull life of washing linens and scouring floors, sent her to the dressmaker and milliner, for whom she now worked in the company of her four circle-sisters. It was Ruth herself who, in response to Mrs. Colthurst’s promptings, invited her four childhood friends to join her in employment there. (Mrs. Colthurst, you see, had worked in Manchester as an assistant to a successful modiste until she was disfigured in a terrible carriage accident and was no longer able to model the gowns her employeress designed. Having saved a few guineas over the years, the enterprising dressmaker ventured out under her own industry and opened a dress shop in neighbouring Tulleford.)
And what of Maggie Barton? She was passionate and smart and decisive and often precipitant, her manner bold (sometimes when boldness was hardly required). There was something enviably admirable in her determinate stubbornness and her steadfast unwillingness to admit to even the occasional miscalculation. But even for those who may see such wilfulness as a deficiency of character, the flames of her incandescent nature were seldom caustic, and one could scarcely look into her dark smoldering eyes, or take in the contemplative expression of serious purpose, or attend the eruption of mirth from her laughing lips that found ridiculousness in everything not overshadowed by death and illness and the other misfortunes of life, without falling helplessly subservient to her galvanic temperament. Maggie Barton wasn’t beautiful, her face having been pocked (though, fortunately, not deeply so) by a childhood bout with the scourge of smallpox. But there was voluptuous heat and pulchritudinous passion in her soul, and if Molly was the one who turned the male head and put a fluttering butterfly kiss upon the male heart, then it was Maggie Barton who, to put it indecorously, inflamed the male loins.
“Maggie? Maggie, dear, is that you?” The voice, which belonged to Maggie’s widowed mother, was more robust than usual, though it emanated from the bed of an intermittent invalid.
“Can it be anyone else?” returned Maggie, her own voice raised in volume. Maggie, having just shut the front door behind her, was now standing at the foot of the narrow staircase that led to the two companion bedchambers of the diminutive family cottage.
“Have you returned from the market?”
“No, Mamma. I’m still there. Oh, Lor, how my words do carry!”
Maggie chuckled. She set her bundle of greens upon the vestibule chair and mounted the stairs. As she stepped into her mother’s tiny apartment, she found the drapes opened wide and the room flooded with radiant early morning sunshine. (It was clear to Maggie that her mamma had previously risen to welcome the day, and then promptly retreated to her bed, slipping indulgently beneath the cool sheets.)
“Don’t you look pretty this morning? Tell me how long I may have you before you dash off to spend the balance of the day with Mrs. Colthurst.”