by Jane Steen
“The women won’t go, from what they’ve told me,” I pointed out. “And we’ll open the store tomorrow morning, won’t we? After all, we have the state troops just around the corner to protect us.”
“Maybe.” Martin glanced at the window, then stood up, reaching for his jacket. “Come on, the two of you. Let’s check the fire precautions again and then shut the shop.” He adjusted the black band on his sleeve; both of us were wearing black for the Lombardis, and my mourning dress made me feel even hotter. “I’d like to see the shutters closed. If the saloons and taprooms are indeed closing at six, the streets may get a little rowdy this evening. Chicago men don’t appreciate going thirsty.”
“Oh, and Nell?” Joe put a hand on my arm as I rose to leave. “Happy birthday.” To my surprise, he lifted my right hand to his lips and kissed it, retaining his grip to admire the large peridot that now sparkled on my middle finger. “I’m glad Martin found a moment to give the ring to you—and I’m glad you’re wearing it despite being in mourning.”
“It seemed churlish to refuse to wear my rings,” I admitted. “Especially when they’re so new.”
“These might have to wait for later.” Joe grinned as I opened the small box he presented to me and exclaimed in wonder at the exquisite earbobs nestled on the velvet lining.
“I’m afraid so; I can’t cover these with black gloves.” I held up one earring so that the elongated teardrop peridot caught the light. “They’re ridiculously extravagant, Joe, but thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Not as costly as you imagine.” Joe raised his eyebrows comically at me. “I drove a hard bargain—this is one of the jewelers we’re trying to inveigle into an exclusive arrangement. You wait till you see some of the work he’s done when we begin selling his pieces in the new store.”
“He’s extremely good.” I squinted at the gorgeous filigree mount.
“He’s a genuine artist. Rutherford’s is going to become as well known for its jewels as for its gowns.”
“If it’s not burned to the ground while its principals indulge in chatter.” Martin was pointedly holding the door open. “You’d almost think we weren’t in the middle of civil disorder.”
The store opened the next morning, but it was a brief attempt at normalcy.
“We’ll close at noon.” Martin spoke into my ear as I leaned over the cutting table in the atelier, checking the positioning of some pattern pieces. “You must let the women know; there isn’t room on these premises for me to make a proper announcement to everyone at once, so I’ve decided we’ll do this quietly and without fuss. Make sure they understand that if they’ve changed their minds and want to go home, we’ll provide an escort.”
“None of them will leave. They’ve all made that clear.” I straightened up and tipped my head back to look at Martin’s face. “Even with the store closed, we can keep working. Why are we closing anyway?”
“The banks are at a standstill. ‘Short at both ends and in the middle’ is how they put it. Our takings have been so low in the last couple of days that we’re starting to run out of change. People are deserting the streets.”
“Is there any danger?” I asked.
Martin shrugged. “They say there are as many as twenty mobs. At the moment, they’re visiting the industrial parts of the city, threatening or arguing the men into striking and joining the crowd.”
“Well, I suppose that with the store closed we could bring the buckets of water and sand down onto the sales floor in case of fire.”
“Indeed. And we’ll spend the afternoon ensuring that as much stock as possible is secured out of harm’s way.”
The women near us were blatantly listening by now, and those in the farther corners of the workroom had stopped what they were doing and turned their faces toward us. I looked around at the pieces laid out on the cutting tables, the dress forms with half-finished work, the embroidered panels. So much effort, and so easily damaged—that night in February the flames had devoured almost all our hard toil.
“Please fetch Madame,” I instructed one of the nearby seamstresses. She nodded and hurried off toward the door.
“We’ll take care of things here,” I assured Martin. “I don’t intend to lose a stitch of this work if I can help it.”
“I have to go to a meeting,” Martin announced almost as soon as he’d finished his last bite of luncheon.
We were eating in the basement refectory with the rest of the staff, “to encourage the troops,” as Martin put it. The steamy dampness, the loud talk, the clatter of heels on tiled floors, and the pervasive smell of cooked vegetables were powerful reminders of my brief career as a shopgirl, except that there was no line of employees waiting for the next lunch shift. We were down to about a hundred souls, all of us wondering what the coming hours might bring; but spirits were high and appetites good, and the remaining personnel would have plenty to keep them occupied.
“Another meeting?” I asked. Martin had spent much of the last two days talking to his fellow merchants along State Street.
“This is big, from the sound of it. A grand mass gathering of businessmen at three thirty.” Martin patted the region of his breast pocket, and I heard the rustle of paper—more telegrams. “I’ll take Joe.”
“Men only, I suppose. Does the term ‘businessmen’ include women?” As discreetly as I could, I pulled a wry face at my husband.
“I’ll take you too, if you want—but you’ll have every man in the place staring at you.”
“No, I won’t insist.” I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “I don’t resent being left out of these meetings, partner or not. You are the senior partner, and besides—this is all about organizing safety guards and the like, isn’t it?”
“Oh, there’ll be a lot of speeches, and then we’ll pass a resolution and issue a declaration and all the rest.” Martin came around the table to pull out my chair as I rose. “It’s essentially political; the point is to show that the merchants are on the side of law and order and support the authorities. There was too much talk in Pittsburgh about sympathy for the plight of the working men, and it’s believed that encouraged the communists.”
“Do you think it did?”
“No, I’ve told you that mobs attract troublemakers. That’s the problem with strikes—but I’ll concede that they do draw attention. They make people think. They make me think. I wonder if it might be more productive to hire more employees to work shorter hours.”
“Start by sending yourself home after eight hours,” I suggested, squeezing the arm under which I’d passed my hand.
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” The arm squeezed back. “I’ll probably have to meet with the State Street men after the bigger meeting too. You may not see me till midnight.”
7
Heroes
I didn’t see Martin till the next day. Waiting for him, I had spent the night in the store with the other women; by midmorning, having had a note from him that he was at the Palmer House Hotel, I went in search of my errant spouse.
“Martin?”
I pushed open the door to our suite as quietly as I could and stepped onto the soft Turkey carpet, my heels sinking deliciously into the thick pile. Our suite contained only a parlor, a dressing room, and a bedroom, and I didn’t see my husband in the parlor. A gentle snore and a movement in the room beyond reassured me that my guess as to his whereabouts had been correct.
Martin lay sprawled across the bed, dressed in the clothes he’d worn yesterday. He had taken off his boots but was otherwise completely clothed, right down to jacket, cravat, and tiepin. His pale hair was mussed, every item of clothing bore creases, and there was dirt under his fingernails, but his chin was smoothly shaven and eminently kissable. So I kissed it. And his cheek, when the first kiss produced no effect.
“What? What’s happening?”
“I couldn’t leave it any longer.” I sat on the bed, comparing its luxurious springiness with the much harder one I had occupied in t
he women’s dormitory. “Your note said you were getting a shave and a change of clothes, but that was four hours ago.”
“Four—oh, for heaven’s sake. Why didn’t someone from the hotel wake me?”
Martin heaved himself up and retrieved his watch from his vest pocket. “It’s stopped.” He blinked stupidly at the golden object.
“You didn’t ask anyone from the hotel to wake you,” I pointed out. “I’m glad of it. You can’t patrol all night and work all day.”
“Is the store all right?”
“Do you think I’d be so calm if it weren’t? The men have been rounding up the delivery drays, as you asked. Madame’s getting a little agitated about not having the silks for the Van Studdert trousseau, but we’ve completed several rather complicated gowns ahead of time. Where we’ve been lacking a fabric, we’ve substituted something more costly if we can, so our customers should be delighted.”
“Huh.” Martin lay down on the bed again, staring at the ornate woodwork of the canopy. His stomach rumbled.
“I’ll order you some food if you get in the bath,” I said in response to the gastric noises. “It’ll be ready by the time you’re clean.”
“I haven’t got time for a bath or a meal.” Martin pulled himself up anew.
“You need a bath.” I sniffed delicately to drive my point home. “And eating will take you ten extra minutes. There’s nothing for you at the store except correspondence—and listen, I have some excellent news.”
I plucked a telegram out of my reticule. “I’ve been opening your personal telegrams, for which I make no apology. This is why I couldn’t wait one more minute.”
Martin rose and half staggered to the window, slipping on the polished wood in his stockinged feet as he stepped off the rug. He stared at the paper in his hand, attempting to focus his sleep-fogged brain on the words.
“It’s from Dr. Spedding at the seminary,” I said helpfully.
“I can see that.” Martin yawned. “Is he saying Teddy was there, or were both of them there? Why didn’t he contact us weeks ago?”
“Why should he?” The excitement I had felt when I’d opened the telegram earlier in the morning bubbled up in me again. “I left just after he arrived—he probably didn’t realize I was such friends with the Lombardis.”
“True. ‘Am told you seek Edward Lombardi. Here briefly. Left heading west.’ West?”
“In the wrong direction,” I remarked. “It would have been nice of Dr. Spedding to give us more information, but my guess is that Teddy was still on his own. I’ve wired the seminary—I wanted to make sure Dr. Spedding knows to tell him to contact us if he comes back.”
“That’s wonderful news, in any event.” Martin shucked off his jacket and threw it over a chair, then tensed in the act of removing his tiepin as a huge shout sounded from somewhere in the direction of the lake.
“Don’t worry. It’s just people cheering the troops,” I reassured him. “More regulars from the frontier—all veteran Indian fighters. They’re quartering them in the Exposition Building and the park.”
“Write a note to Joe,” Martin called from inside the bathroom. “Tell him those drays need to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
“Why?” I pressed the bell near the fireplace to summon a page. “What will you do with them?”
“Transport police officers, most likely. They don’t have enough vehicles to get to where the trouble is—when it starts.”
By midafternoon, the only people left in the store were the women and the elderly men.
“I hate having to wait like this,” I said to Madame.
“Men have the easiest part of a battle.” My mentor’s crown of gray hair wobbled as she nodded emphatically.
“Where do you think they are?” I shaded my eyes against the sunlight. I had spent an eternity gazing to the south; I felt I would be able to recall every detail of the street for years to come.
“We will not find out until they return.”
Martin’s arrival at the store had been swiftly followed by the call he’d expected, and all the younger men had left with him to drive the police reinforcements down to the viaduct. The rest of us had tried to work but had soon abandoned the attempt.
We had spent the day living on rumor. The workers had thrown stones; in retaliation, the police officers had wounded some strikers with rifle fire. A mob had torn a horsecar apart. Colonel King had brought two companies of regulars down La Salle Street with Spencer rifles. Sometimes I thought I heard shouts to the far south, but it was hard to tell. Sometimes the distant crack of a rifle pricked the air. I often heard cheers to the west of us, which must be the crowds saluting the Indian Wars veterans arriving to reinforce the troops already in the city.
There always seemed to be people, singly or in small groups, dashing back and forth on State Street in search of information or excitement, even if the normal throng of shoppers was absent. With the presence of the soldiers ensuring their safety, the remaining Rutherford’s staff had straggled out onto the sidewalk to see what was happening, abandoning their defensive posts behind the shuttered windows.
It seemed an age—two ages—before a gentleman in shirtsleeves, sans hat, coat, or gloves, brought us some news. I recognized him as one Mr. McTigue, the proprietor of a pleasant nearby store that sold perfumes, soaps, and hair oils. Our seamstresses quickly surrounded him.
“They’re quite all right, ladies.” Mr. McTigue, finding himself mobbed by women, puffed up his chest. “They just can’t get back till the police officers no longer have a use for them. Right now, they’re busy taking the wounded to the hospitals.” He caught sight of me standing by the store’s front entrance. “Mr. Rutherford’s just dandy, ma’am.” He put his hand to his head to tip his hat to me and then looked around, puzzled, for the lost article.
“No wounded?” I shouted so he could hear me above the buzz of voices.
“We were safely behind the cavalry.” Mr. McTigue’s teeth showed beneath his abundant mustache. “Ma’am, you should’ve seen them.” He made his way through the crowd in my direction. “Swords drawn, riding at a gallop—I swear at a gallop—toward the rabble. All their accoutrements flashing and jingling like sleigh bells on a Christmas morning, and those horses—” He let out a long whistle. “Just in time too.” He coughed hoarsely before continuing. “The police were going to get murdered for sure. The mob chased them all the way from the Halsted Viaduct clear up to Fifteenth Street soon as they ran out of bullets.”
He coughed again, turning aside politely to spit into the street. “I must’ve swallowed a half pound of dust. I figured there wasn’t much else I could do, and Mrs. McTigue must be having a fit of the vapors by now. She’s of a nervous disposition.”
He hurried off, followed by our shouts of thanks for his information, and I resumed waiting. Now I was sure Martin was unhurt, I was impatient to see him—but it was half past four before the Rutherford’s wagons rounded the corner from Van Buren Street. The horses moved at a walk, their heads sagging; the men too looked subdued, their faces flushed from the day’s heat. They were begrimed from head to toe with dust and less acceptable substances, including what seemed to be brownish smears of blood. None of them showed any obvious signs of injury.
Our drays appeared empty except for the Rutherford’s men; the ones in the back stood as they approached and waved tiredly. The wagons themselves were filthy, the yellow paintwork of their wheels and trim almost hidden by dirt.
Martin sat on the fifth dray, driving the horses; he was in the same flushed and dirty condition as the rest of the men. He too was hatless, his coat abandoned next to him, his collar gone.
“Goodness, you’re dirty.” I had an absurd impulse to climb aboard the wagon and hug him tight, but it didn’t seem proper for a partner to give in to a fit of hysterics. “Where’s Joe?”
Martin’s answer was to twist around and look into the body of the dray.
“Ha. Asleep. Joe!”
Laughter
sounded from above me as two of the men pulled a tousled Joe Salazar to his feet. Martin jumped down from the driver’s seat and went to the head of the huge draft horse, running his hand over the animal’s downy nose and wise, patient face.
“We need to get the horses back to the stables,” he said over his shoulder to me as I approached. “I won’t be back for at least another hour, Nellie.”
Something in his tone of voice checked my movement toward him and prevented any display of affection or relief. Joe, his chin and cheeks stippled with sprouting black hairs, joined us beside the horse, which snorted and jerked its head up and down until Martin calmed it with a few soft words.
“Bad?” I asked my husband.
“They shot at the crowd.” Martin’s eyes were on the animal, his jaw so rigid that the words emerged with difficulty. “The police reinforcements we took to the scene shot at the working men. As soon as the rioters saw the cavalry and the fresh contingent of police, they turned to run—and the lawmen fired at their backs.” Martin scuffed at the dust of the street with the toe of his boot. “The cavalry mostly held off—they threatened with their swords, but they didn’t try to cut anyone down. But the police . . .” He shook his head.
“Their blood was up,” Joe said quietly to me. “They’d seen their own men being chased by the mob—within inches of being torn apart, I think, when we arrived. Some fired shots, and the police officers who’d been running from the rioters turned back around and laid about them with their clubs, hitting anyone they could reach.”
“They weren’t all men, those so-called rioters.” Martin pushed a dirty hand into hair dimmed by a layer of dust and looked at me at last. “There were women, boys . . .” He let his hand drop. “I know there were toughs and troublemakers in the crowd, but I think most of them were just regular people caught up in the heat of the moment.”