Terabitha Ann Sipes, with the assistance of the train conductor, carefully managed her long skirts as she climbed the steps into the car of the train and found her way to a seat near the front. With a grateful sigh she sank onto the padded seat and smiled when the man handed her her carpet bag.
“Thank you,” she said softly as she took it from him.
He touched the brim of his hat and hastened back to his station at the rear of the coach.
After settling the bag on the seat beside her, Terabitha hid a yawn behind her lace-gloved hand and closed her eyes as she relaxed against the seat. She was so tired. No, she corrected herself, she was exhausted, and how could she not be? For the better part of two years she had been traveling the world, exploring all the major cities and many of the smaller, less well known towns and villages surrounding them, then writing about her experiences. She would then wire her stories back to New York, to the Sunday Sun Herald, where they would be published and made available for her pantheon of avid admirers to read over Sunday breakfast. From there the stories took on a life of their own as they were discussed and reviewed from every viewpoint, the excitement barely lessening before the publication of her next article. Her stories were read and discussed by every member of society. Men and women from the mayor and his wife to the lowliest street cleaner could hardly wait to read of her next adventure. Why, her stories were even read to children in school as a tool in teaching them of the world. She was famous and she was adored.
And not a soul other than her brother knew that the intrepid T.A. Sipes was, in fact, a woman.
“All aboard!”
The conductor's call was followed shortly by the jerking of the train as it began to pull out of Grand Station Terminal on its way north. In a little more than three hours she would at last be home. She would be able to relax, refresh, and reunite with members of her family and close friends, all of whom believed she had simply been taking a grand tour of the continent. A smokescreen she and her brother had concocted to explain her long absence, and which she had carefully cultivated with gay, chatty post cards and letters from the same places she wrote about much more seriously for the newspaper, taking care that neither sounded like the other in tone or substance.
She eyed the carpet bag on the seat beside her. Most of her belongings were stored in trunks in the luggage car. But her most important items were kept in the old bag. She considered how much of the world's dust still clung to the tapestry fabric, for she had carried it throughout her adventure. It was a good sized bag. Large enough to hold important items such as money withdrawn from the account she had opened prior to leaving on her journey, and into which her brother would deposit funds from the account he had opened expressly for the depositing of the money she earned from the newspaper. In this way they kept her true identity confidential. Along with the currency, the bag contained her latest journal, a selection of pencils, the latest volume written by her favorite novelist, a recent edition of Godeys Ladies Book, three lace handkerchiefs, all perfumed with rose water, and a box of chocolates she'd purchased for herself as a reward for a job well done. She'd eaten chocolate from some of the world's most respected chocolatiers, but none of them satisfied her as much as those from the humble confectioner she'd discovered years ago as a child close by to Grand Central. She'd been delighted to find them still in business and not surprised that they had grown in popularity in her absence.
Reaching out she ran her fingers over the worn fabric and smiled at the memories that filled her mind of Paris, Rome, and Vienna. She'd visited much of the British Empire. Met people from civilized nations and those that were still evolving. Along the way she'd had an assortment of companions, as befitted a woman of her rank, and a host of security agents hired by her brother to see to her safety. There were a few occasions when she had managed to slip away so that she could more fully experience the cultures she was visiting unencumbered. Once she had narrowly missed being abducted and ever after she was more careful of where she went, and with whom. But even then she remained determined to immerse herself as much as she could in her travels.
If this bag could talk, she thought whimsically, she could write a whole book about her adventure.
She stilled as the idea blossomed in her mind. A book! Why, of course! She had written her articles as a man. She could write her book from the view of a young lady. Naturally she would need to use a different style, approach the project from a different aspect. Perhaps she could even present it in the form of a journal. Her smile widened. She could revisit those wonderful places, experience them all over again. This time as Terabitha Sipes, a young woman from upstate New York who had had a grand adventure.
Excitement filled her, and she opened the bag. Withdrawing the journal and one of the pencils, she hastily noted her ideas on a clean page before returning both to the safety of the bag. Closing it once again, she let her hand rest protectively over the clasp as she relaxed and turned her head to watch the passing landscape. It was wonderful to have traveled. But it was good to be going home.
This story is short for you, but certainly does have a twist at the end. Makes me wonder if she will find the publishers of books willing to publish hers without her revealing her all to ego.
New York, Summer 1891
