Forgiving

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “Do you hear me, Addie? I’ll be back!”

  In her room she closed the door and flattened her spine and palms against it. Her chest ached. Her eyes stung. She squeezed them shut, riveting herself against the door, breathing as if someone had just broadsided her.

  He came here to find me!

  There wasn’t a prostitute in the universe who didn’t have dreams like the girls had been voicing this noon: a man coming to take them out of the trade. No matter how tough they talked, how they hated men, how they disdained men every chance they got, they all wanted to be rescued by one and transformed by his love into a woman of virtue. And Addie was no different.

  Oh Robert, I didn’t want you to see me like this, here in this place where I’ve become soulless. I’ve had to—don’t you see?—to survive. Now here you come to rake up guilt and confusion and wants that a woman like me doesn’t deserve.

  She relived the shock of seeing him downstairs. He had been reading the list of aberrations performed in this place on any man who requested them. Did he think she did all that? What the Frenchies did? In spite of it, he had removed his hat. Oh, he had removed his hat. Still pressing the door, she opened her eyes to the blurred rafters. How long had it been since any man had removed his hat in her presence unless it was to sail it out of the way from the middle of a bed? She saw again the shock Robert had almost been able to hide at the sight of her scarcely covered breasts. She saw his cheeks growing florid as he dropped his gaze, and the hurt in his eyes at her purposely coarse language.

  Don’t come back, Robert, please. I wasn’t worthy of you then and I’m not now. It will only hurt you more if you make me tell you why.

  Downstairs the piano player struck up “Clementine.” Addie had heard it so many times it made her ears jangle. Thrusting herself away from the door, she bolted across the room to her mirror, swiped at the smears of wet kohl dripping down her face and poured water from her pitcher into her bowl. When she had washed her face she applied fresh kohl to her upper and lower eyelids, painted her mouth with carmine paste; glued a black velvet mole on the high inner side of her left breast; atomized her neck, cleavage and thighs with orange blossom cologne; checked the results in the mirror and went to the room next door.

  There, she lit a lantern, put a clean flannel pad on top of the counterpane, wound the clock on the table beside it, stationed it beside the egg timer, glanced at the butter bowl to make sure it was amply filled, moved it over to within easy reach of the bed, filled the pitcher and bowl from the tin in the hall, splashed two inches of water into the china chamberpot beside the door, replaced the pitcher and bowl on the Wash table and smoothed her corset over her round stomach.

  She glanced over the room and discovered Ruler had followed her. She picked up the cat and said, “Come on. You don’t belong in here.” With the care she displayed for no other living creature, she gently put the cat back in her private room, curled its tail around it on the bed, kissed its face and left it there where it could not witness the degrading side of her life.

  Downstairs the men were waiting. One named Johnny Singleton brightened and hurried to the foot of the steps as she descended.

  “Hello, Johnny-boy. You’re back.”

  “You betcha, Eve-ey. To see my favorite.”

  With practiced ease she led him to believe she liked him, felt seduced by him and would rather be with him than with any other man on earth. She teased him in the proper tone, dredged up laughter when it was required, inquired in a seductive whisper if he’d had his carbolic bath, took him upstairs to the room she had prepared, turned over the egg timer, performed the rite with enough false relish to make him feel bullish and virile, collected seven dollars in gold dust when it was over, gave him a goodbye kiss, closed the door behind him, squatted over the china pot to give herself a quick finger douche, washed her hands, dumped the basin in the slop jar in the hall and replaced the pad on the bed with a clean one.

  Downstairs, she deposited the gold in the drop box near the kitchen door, made an x and two l’s on a paper (x equaling five dollars, l equaling one dollar), signed her name and deposited it, too, then went back to the parlor to smoke a cigar and wait for her next trick.

  By four A.M. she had performed the ritual twenty-two times. Beside the bed the butter bowl was nearly empty. In a wooden hamper lay twenty-two soiled flannel pads. In the box downstairs was $236 she had put there.

  But Adelaide had had no part in it. Eve had done it all, had lain beneath man after man in the dreary room where the bedding was never turned down. Had laughed and coaxed and joked and stroked. Had drawn from them guttural sounds matching others that could be heard through the thin walls. Had satisfied their needs while pretending she was slicing peaches for a family of four; picking colorful flowers in a dooryard while dressed in white organdy; following a collie out to meet a man walking up a lane, a man who looked very much like Robert; ridden in the surf behind him on a galloping horse... whatever fantasy it took to escape the room and the man... all the fantasies she refused to divulge when the others daydreamed aloud.

  And when all twenty-two had expunged themselves within her body, when she had cleansed herself one last time with a potash douche to kill their seeds and had bathed the smell of their secretions from her skin, she slipped into her own room and coiled herself around the warm, purring cat who demanded nothing of her, who neither used, accused, abused nor asked questions.

  Ruler... warm, purring sweet Ruler... don’t ever leave me...

  The following day Addie roused toward noon, her thoughts indistinct. There was something she was going to do today. She tried to grasp it, but the images that drifted through her mind appeared smudged, as if viewed through a fingerprint.

  Her eyes flew open. Oh yes—Sarah. She was going to set Sarah straight today.

  Shortly after two o’clock that afternoon Sarah was helping a customer, Josh was gone on an errand, and Patrick had his hands full, cleaning type with a turpentine rag when the door opened and Addie stepped into the Chronicle office.

  Sarah glanced up and smiled. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Addie waited near the door, wearing a navy blue brimmed hat with a veil drawn down to the chin and tied at the back, partially concealing her face.

  Sarah accepted a nickel for a copy of the paper, bid good day to the customer and followed him toward the door. He eyed Addie warily as he passed her, giving Sarah the distinct impression he knew her but was reluctant to admit it in broad daylight in a respectable place of business. Neither did Addie glance his way but waited, stiff as a dagger.

  When the door had closed behind him, Sarah gave Addie a second glad smile.

  “Addie, I’m so happy you’ve come!”

  “Well, don’t be!” Addie snapped. “It’s the first and last time I’ll set foot in here.”

  Taken aback, Sarah felt her smile wilt. “What’s wrong?”

  “You sent for Robert!”

  “No.”

  “Don’t he to me. He’s been to see me and he told me you wrote to him.”

  Across the room, Patrick—bless his soul—kept his back turned, put his rag away, released the quoins from a chase and began to put type away. The sound of metallic clicks created a welcome sound in the otherwise silent room while the two sisters faced each other.

  “Yes, I wrote to him because he asked me to. But the truth is, I advised him not to come.”

  “Well, he has, and it’s all because of your meddling.”

  “Addie, he simply asked me to let him know if you were all right. He was worried about you.”

  “Seems everybody is lately—him, you—I’m getting more visitors than an Irish wake! Well, I’m not some freak show you can come and stare at whenever you want, so stay away! I don’t know what you came nosing around for in the first place. I don’t need him and I don’t need you. You’re not going to reform me, if that’s what you have in mind, so you can give up that idea. I said it to him and I’ll say it to you—I hav
e a soft life and I don’t have to lift a finger to have it. Just stay away—do you hear me—just stay away!”

  Addie whirled, yanked open the door and slammed it as she left.

  Behind her, Sarah remained rooted, bewildered and hurt, her mouth small, her cheeks burning. She felt the insidious sting of tears build behind her nose and knew in a moment her eyes would be brimming. Patrick had stopped putting away type and stood watching her with a long face, his work forgotten.

  She walked primly to the hat tree beside her desk. If she met Patrick’s eyes she would embarrass them both. She kept her own downcast while methodically donning her coat and plain brown bonnet.

  “I hope you can manage alone for a while, Patrick,” she said quietly.

  “Sure,” he replied with equal quiet. “You just go.”

  She went. Retreated. Hid. In her room at Mrs. Roundtree’s where she sat on a hard chair beside the window and let her tears flow at last. She cried silently, motionlessly. Her hands lay listlessly in her lap, the teardrops plopping between them and making dark circles on her brindle-colored skirt.

  Addie, Addie, why? I only want to be your friend. I need a friend, too, don’t you see? We share bonds that cannot be broken, no matter how you try. The same mother, father, memories. On this entire earth we are the only blood relatives to one another. Does that count for nothing?

  How consuming, the loneliness of the discarded. To reach out in love and have that love flung back hurt as nothing Sarah had experienced before. She felt an aloneness as deep as that of the orphaned, or the aged who have outlived their offspring. Sitting at her window, depleted, motionless, she felt as if the tears rolling quietly down her cheeks drew from her her last reserves of strength. With a great sigh she rose and stretched across the bed to escape in sleep.

  The window had darkened to the blue of early gloaming when Sarah awakened. Someone was knocking.

  “Yes?” she called. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Mrs. Roundtree. Are you all right in there?”

  Sarah sat up unsteadily. “I’m fine.”

  “Supper’s been on the table for ten minutes already. Aren’t you coming down?”

  She made a muddled mental search for a time reference—What day? What hour? Why am I in my dress?—and answered, “I’ll be right there.” She dragged herself to the edge of the bed and waited for reality to return. Her head hurt. Her entire body felt shaky. Her pulsebeats seemed to be magnified until they jiggled the bed. Horrible feeling, coming out of a deep sleep that way and groping for crisp edges.

  As those edges returned she stood, moved about in the gloom, touching her tender eyelids, straightening her hair, wetting the sides with a comb, brushing at her skirt, tugging at her sleeves. When she’d put herself in reasonable order she descended into the light below. Entering the dining room, she felt each man turn and look.

  “You all right, Miss Merritt?” Mr. Mullins asked. She had come to be regarded as an ingenue over whose welfare all the men presided.

  “I’m fine, really. Go on with your meal.”

  She took her chair across from Noah Campbell and saw his hands stall over his food as he studied her wrinkled shirtwaist and puffy eyes. Without speaking, he reached for a platter of fried fish and extended it her way. “Thank you,” she said, avoiding his eyes. The others resumed their mealtime chatter. Noah Campbell took no part in it but watched Sarah surreptitiously as she nibbled at the food on her plate, leaving much of it untouched.

  “Why, you haven’t eaten enough to keep a sparrow alive,” Mrs. Roundtree chided as she collected plates.

  “I’m sorry. It’s very good, really, but I just don’t seem to have an appetite tonight.”

  “There’s blackberry sauce for dessert.”

  “No, none for me,” Sarah replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some writing to do.” She rose and left the room.

  The marshal watched her go, guilt-stricken for having brought this on with his outburst last night in her newspaper office. He hesitated less than five seconds before hastily rising, sending his chair scraping back. “No sauce for me either. Good meal though, Mrs. Roundtree.”

  He took the stairs two at a time and reached the upper hall just as Sarah’s door was closing.

  “Miss Merritt,” he called, “could I talk to you?”

  She reopened the door and stood waiting, the room behind her black, only one lantern shedding dim light from its wall bracket two doors down.

  “Yes, Marshal?”

  He stopped before her, hatless, gunless, the star on his black leather vest catching the light. “I’ll be going out again to give the town the once-over. If you need Doc Turley I can send him up.”

  “Mr. Campbell, I’m not certain I can handle all this concern from you. Have you taken it upon yourself to become my personal guardian angel?”

  “I got a little heavy-handed with you last night. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I’m trying to apologize,” he said.

  She looked square into his eyes and saw the potential of a good man. “Apology accepted.”

  Eye to eye, they stood and felt their misgivings beginning to slip, uneasy as they so often were when this happened. Foes... friends... antagonistic... sympathetic. It seemed they could not find an even emotional keel with one another.

  “Now, about Doc Turley...”

  She gingerly touched her eyelids. “Do I look like I need him?”

  “Well, something’s wrong, I can tell.”

  “I’ve been crying,” she admitted point-blank. “I don’t do it very often, I can assure you.”

  His eyes settled on hers and stayed. “Was it about your sister?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “There was scuttlebutt in town that she came out of Rose’s and went to see you today.”

  “Yes, at the newspaper office. It was about Robert Bay-singer. By now you probably know who he is.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “We all grew up together in St. Louis. He was Adelaide’s first suitor when she was sixteen years old.”

  “Adelaide’s?”

  “Yes. When I left there Robert asked me to write him and let him know if I found Addie, and how she was. I did that after I arrived in Deadwood, never suspecting that Robert was planning to come here himself. When he showed up yesterday no one was more surprised than I. Except, perhaps, Addie.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I don’t know what passed between them, but he went to see her at Rose’s, and she came to me today accusing me of bringing him here to try to reform her.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I told you, I had no idea he was even coming. He simply arrived unannounced.”

  “At Rose’s, too, I take it.”

  “Exactly.”

  Noah crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “What does he want from her?”

  “I don’t know, but she’s so angry at me and I don’t understand why.”

  “Ask her.”

  “I have. It’s as if she doesn’t hear me. For a while I thought I was making some progress. I didn’t push her, but I didn’t let her forget I was here. I went to visit her regularly and thought if I just let her know I cared, that I was here for her to rely on if she needed anything, it would effect a slow healing of whatever it was that had come between us.” She paused thoughtfully before continuing. “For a while it seemed to be working. Especially after I gave her the cat. She actually let me sit on the foot of her bed. She named the cat after... oh, I already told you that, didn’t I? Well, I took it as a good sign. The first memory of our childhood she allowed, you see. But today...” Sarah’s expression became dejected and she leaned against the opposite doorframe. “I’m afraid I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

  They stood facing each other, their enmity forgotten for the moment. After some silent reflection Noah said, on a sigh, “Ahh, sisters and brothers...” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “We’re reared being to
ld to love them, but sometimes it’s hard, isn’t it?”

  Tom Taft and Andrew Mullins came upstairs and excused themselves as they went by the couple at the near end of the hall. Noah removed his shoulder from the doorway to give them room to pass, then resumed his pose.

  “Addie and I have always been so different,” Sarah continued, as if the interruption hadn’t taken place.

  “So have Arden and I.”

  “You and I are the older ones. We’re supposed to set a good example, but even when we do they don’t always follow it, do they?”

  “Not at all.”

  They spent some time pondering before Sarah went on. “When we were girls I always worked and Addie never did. Our father made me learn the newspapering trade while she was never required to do anything. I couldn’t understand why he babied her so, why she didn’t have to at least run errands for him. Now I see that I was the lucky one. She told me this afternoon that she has no intention of reforming, because she has a soft life with no work.”

  “She said that?”

  Sarah nodded.

  He left the doorframe, settling his weight on both feet. “At the risk of treading on forbidden ground, I don’t think the life of those women in the badlands is soft. The men who go there aren’t always gentlemen. I know because I’ve been called up there more than once to arrest some of the customers.”

  “For... for hurting the girls, you mean?”

  He leveled his gaze on her without replying.

  “Answer me, Marshal.”

  He did so reluctantly. “It happens, whether you want to believe it or not.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. She looked at Campbell again and asked, “Then why won’t she leave it?”

  “Maybe she feels caught. Where would she go? What would she do?”

  “I’m here. She could help me with the newspaper.”

  “No offense, Sarah, but your sister isn’t exactly... well, let’s say she’d have to go some to get as bright as you.”

  “I could teach her.”

  “Maybe you could, but how much would she earn?”

  “Enough to live decently.”