Chapter One
{Late July, 1932}
Lily Brewster and her brother, Robert, sat in the dining
room of the mansion known as Grace and Favor Cottage.
Robert was at the head of the long table reading the New
York Times and mumbling to himself as he sipped his
morning coffee and grimaced. "Lily, is Mrs. Prinney
watering this stuff down? It hasn't got any taste."
"I think she is. She said something chirpy about chicory
tasting just like coffee." Lily nearly had to shout to be
heard at the other end. Lily was, as usual, doing the
household books and had receipts, scrap paper, pencil, and
pen spread around her while she munched on her toast with
her left hand.
Between them, halfway along, was their boarder, Phoebe
Twinkle, the dainty young redheaded village milliner and
seamstress. "Where is Mrs. Prinney?" she said, touching a
napkin to her lips.
"Gardening. As usual," Lily said.
She closed her ledger and capped her late mother's
fountain pen, tidied up her piles of paperwork, picked up
her plate and silverware, and went to sit between the
others so she didn't have to scream to be heard.
"Should this be worrying us, Robert? Or is she just taking
up a new hobby?"
Robert, who was seldom without a grin and a smart crack,
was uncharacteristically solemn. "Haven't you been to the
greengrocer's lately? There's almost nothing there except
what that local woman grows."
"But not even Roxanne Anderson can possibly grow enough
for the whole town," Phoebe put in.
"The farmer can't buy enough seeds or hire help," Robert
went on. "The middleman can't afford to ship produce
around the country, and that hurts the railroads. Dominoes
falling. Or a downward spiral, if you want to look at it
that way."
Lily had been working hard at trying (but failing) to
ignore the country's deteriorating financial situation.
She ran her hands through her hair and admitted, "I hate
this. It just gets worse and worse. Thank goodness the
Democrats have nominated Governor Roosevelt for President.
At least he can't make more of a mess of the economy than
Hoover."
"Unless it completely collapses before he takes office β
if he wins," Robert added. "The election is months away,
and the new President doesn't take office until next
March. Anything could happen by then."
"You think Hoover could be reelected?" Lily asked in alarm.
Robert looked at his sister and realized he'd frightened
her more than he should have. Not that he wasn't
terrified. While President Hoover made weekly
announcements of how the economy was improving, it was
obvious that everyday life for almost everyone was getting
much, much worse. "No, Governor Roosevelt will be elected.
He's the only governor who's actually done demonstrably
good things for his own state. He's beaten the state
legislature into funding a few public works projects. Now
I've got to change clothes for my own project."
"And what's that?" Lily asked.
"With Mr. Prinney's permission I hired a couple of young
men from the village, the Harbinger boys, to help me tear
down the old icehouse. There's some good sturdy wood in it
that someone could put to use."
"The icehouse? How will we cool things?" Lily asked.
"Not the one behind the pantry," Robert said, rolling his
eyes. "The one in the woods."
Lily looked at him as if he were mad.
"You don't believe me?" Robert said. "Come take a look."
"No can do," Lily said. "Phoebe and I are on our way to a
special meeting of the VLL."
"The VLL?"
"Robert, how could you forget?" Lily said. "The Voorburg
Ladies League. It's the first meeting I've been invited
to. It's quite an honor and might mean the village is
accepting us as real people."
Robert made an exaggerated motion of slapping his
head. "Stupid of me," he said sarcastically. "How can you
bear to be around that White woman who runs it?"
Phoebe and Lily exchanged a look; Phoebe answered. "She's
not really so bad when you get to know her."
Robert waved this away. "I've met her. To my sorrow. She's
a runaway locomotive."
"But I hear she means well, Robert," Lily objected. "Her
manner is bossy, but people say her ideas are usually
good. She just got back from a visit to Philadelphia and
told Phoebe she's had a brainstorm about how we can help
others in Voorburg. An emergency meeting. Phoebe, are you
ready to go?"
The two young women gathered their handbags and the canvas
bag with their good shoes and set out to take the shortcut
through the woods and down the hill to town. Though there
wasn't much traffic on the road, it wound around so much
that it was at least four times the length of the old
Indian path from the hills overlooking the river.
They would change from their sturdy shoes to their nice
ones once they were close to the village of Voorburgon-
Hudson. Phoebe had alerted Lily that Mrs. White was
obsessed with appearances, and while they wouldn't admit
it to Robert, neither of them wanted to be accused of bad
taste in footwear. Especially not by Mrs. White, who was
always immaculately dressed, thoroughly corseted β and
well shod.
Phoebe Twinkle, who had been in Voorburg longer than Lily
and seldom had access to an automobile, was much more
surefooted on the steep path than Lily, but she held back
with good grace and set her pace to her companion's.
"I don't really know very much about Mrs. White except
that she scares me to death," Lily said to Phoebe. "Has
she lived here long?"
"All her life, as far as I know," Phoebe said, pulling
aside a branch of a decrepit maple that really should be
trimmed. "My former landlady talks about knowing her
since..."
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