by Jane Steen
“A little bit.” Sarah sniffed. “I don’t want the rich ladies to look down on Tessie for marrying a—well, Donny doesn’t even know where he comes from, does he? He doesn’t have a real last name. His last name is Clark because somebody left him at a priest’s house in Clark Street.”
Bastard. That was Sarah’s ‘bad word’—the one Thea Lombardi had taught her when she was only three years old, and she’d never forgotten it. Why hadn’t I spoken Jack Venton’s name out loud to my mother and stepfather? But if I’d married Jack, I’d have lost Martin. And we were so happy . . . my selfish heart would not have wanted it any other way, but my selfish actions had left a scar across the heart of the child who had been the first genuine love of my adult life.
“Listen, darling.” I kissed Sarah again. “There’s a long path to walk between liking someone in a courting sort of way and getting married. It probably won’t even happen, but if it does, any rich lady who says anything against Donny won’t be allowed into our house. Most of the rich ladies’ husbands and fathers got their hands dirty once. We’ll stare them in the face and not fret about their opinions, won’t we?”
But that was easier said than done. We’d built our lives in Chicago on the untruth that I’d been a widow when I married Martin—and some ‘rich ladies’ suspected the lie. Perhaps Sarah was right to be so worried about what Chicago society thought.
I waited almost a month to tell Martin about what Sarah had said. I decided to observe Tess and Donny for a few days first and then forgot to talk to Martin because both Sarah and Miss Baker fell ill with the mumps at the same time as Tess took to her bed with a bad cold. Two weeks of confinement and worry had tried my temper, my crotchety behavior had tried Martin’s temper, and we had a tendency to find ourselves out of sorts with one another. I might, perhaps, have found a better moment to broach the subject of Tess and Donny than the day Martin had asked me to visit the new house, now receiving its decorative touches.
“So what you’re in fact saying,” Martin pointed out after listening to my concerns, “is that you’d far rather Tess gave up her happiness to secure yours by ensuring our household arrangements never change.”
He swiped impatiently at the sleeve of his jacket, which was covered in fine sawdust. The sound of hammers, saws, and planes from the adjacent hallway shielded us from listening ears, but we were talking quietly, having retreated to the bay window of our future front parlor to get away from as much of the noise of the workmen as possible.
“I neither said that nor meant any such thing,” I responded with indignation. “Of course I want Tess to be happy.”
“But with the right man, not the wrong one.”
“It’s not as if we know what Donny’s feelings are. I was trying to gauge them when everyone fell ill. He admires Tess, certainly. He thinks she’s very clever—and given that she takes every opportunity to engage him in talk, I agree with him.”
Martin smirked, and a stab of annoyance made me grit my teeth. “She’d manage him all right if they married,” he said. “And I get the impression he has no idea she has some money. He doesn’t seem to spend much on himself in any case.”
“No, of course there’s no suspicion of self-interest on Donny’s side. It’s cynical of you even to mention it.”
“I suppose I am cynical.” Martin ran a finger over the yet unpolished marquetry pattern in the wood paneling. “But I’m not the one who’s objecting to a hypothetical marriage based on class distinction.”
“I am not—oh, stop being provoking. These last two weeks have been bad enough; at least you’ve been able to go to the store. You haven’t spent your nights with a feverish, fidgety child.”
“That’s rather unfair. It was you who insisted I take another room, precisely so I could get some sleep and do my work. I wouldn’t have minded getting up at night for Sarah.” His face softened a little. “Don’t you remember that when I first met you, you had the mumps? Gave them to me too, although at least I didn’t get nearly as sick as you did. It was the first time I saw how brave you were—three years old and your cheeks swollen like a pumpkin, but still insisting you were ‘in excellent health.’”
I crossed my arms, refusing to be mollified. “Be that as it may, I did have a lot of broken nights, and I was confined to our suite. And still no word of Teddy and Thea. I feel like all Creation is conspiring against any attempt I want to make to find them. I don’t mind telling you that the last two weeks have tried my nerves.”
“You hardly have to tell me that.” Martin chucked me under the chin as if I were once more that three-year-old child. “You’ve been as irritable as I don’t know what. I can’t imagine why I married someone who turns into a shrew if she’s not allowed to work her fingers to the bone producing gowns.”
I looked up into clear gray eyes that reflected the even light of the cloudy sky outside.
“And I don’t know why I married someone who says such infuriating things.” But I was unable to stop the corners of my mouth from twitching up, momentarily delighted to see Martin’s answering grin. “I’m just worried about how awkward the situation might become. I’ve had too much time to reflect, I suppose—it’s never good for me.”
“How very observant of you,” Martin drawled, widening his eyes at me. “I must ensure in the future that you have no time to think at all. Exactly which awkward situations has your underemployed brain invented?”
“We may have to discharge Donny if he rejects Tess and makes her unhappy.”
Martin shrugged. “I could find him another situation if it comes to that.”
“Or she might embarrass him by expressing her feelings, and then he’d be unhappy. Tess is so . . . forthright about such matters. She’ll probably walk right up to him and propose marriage.”
“She might, at that.”
“It’s not funny—don’t grin like a baboon.”
“Again, the solution would be to find Donny another situation. I might give him a job driving for Rutherford’s, with a little training. Or he could work in the company’s stables. He’s good with horses.”
“I suppose so.” I pouted. “But the notion of either of them being unhappy just—”
“Sticks in your craw?”
“If you must put it so vulgarly, yes.”
“You can’t make everyone happy, Nellie.”
“I can try.” I shot back the retort with considerable force—and then wondered why Martin’s remark had stung so much. Yet he remained silent, so I continued. “On the way to Lake Forest, I worked out a lovely little scheme whereby I was going to buy Tess a small carriage of her own, a landaulet or something like it, and have Donny drive her. We can’t go on arranging our days around Tess needing to visit the Back of the Yards. Besides, our stables are simply enormous. Like this house.” I gestured toward the hallway behind the door, which was so big we could have held a dance in it.
“The stables are no bigger than those of any other house in this district,” Martin said a little sulkily.
The size of our house was another tiny bone of contention between us. It was decidedly more modest than the palatial edifice Martin had built for Lucetta; it was a family home rather than a building meant for show or lavish entertaining. But it was undeniably large—larger than we had agreed upon before our wedding. Among other things, it made me wonder how many children Martin intended me to bear, and that implication also didn’t improve my temper.
“Don’t worry.” I rolled my eyes but kept my head turned toward the street, where a double line of twelve-foot trees hinted at a future avenue. “I’ve resolved to say no more on the subject. We can hardly shrink it all back down again.”
“Hmph.” Martin seemed about to say more but thought better of it and changed the topic. “Perhaps we should give Tess a landaulet as a Christmas present? I could go see the carriage maker.”
“Yes, but the point is I thought I’d found a specific role for Donny to perform when he’s not acting as my bodyguard. Now I fear I�
��d be throwing them together for hours at a time, giving Tess a chance to—to press her advances on him.”
I narrowed my eyes at Martin, over whose face a grin was once more attempting to spread. He took a deep breath.
“As I said, you can’t solve everyone’s problems for them. Sometimes you just have to let the circumstances play out and be ready to offer a shoulder to cry on if things go wrong.”
“It’s all right for you to say that. Yours won’t be the cried-on shoulder.” I sniffed. “And there’s another thing: Sarah’s worried about the social consequences to our family if Tess marries our coachman or bodyguard or handyman, or whatever Donny is.”
“Social consequences?” Martin frowned. “The fellows in our set would laugh and congratulate Donny on making an excellent match.”
“Perhaps, but their wives wouldn’t. You know we’re considered . . . eccentric enough already.”
Martin’s eyes darkened. “Tainted by scandal, you mean. On both sides.”
“And justified on mine. Sarah won’t be six years old forever. I can’t shelter her behind Miss Baker all her life. Eventually, she’ll need lessons in art, music, drawing, dancing, deportment, all the rest—and she’ll need to pursue those activities alongside other children. She needs to get to know the people who’ll be in her own social set as she grows up.”
“Didn’t you hate the kind of childhood you’re proposing to inflict on our daughter?” Martin went to lean on the window frame but then remembered the sawdust and straightened up, crossing his arms.
“I’m inflicting it on her? Since we live in the smartest district in Chicago, we must at least try to behave like our neighbors. I’ll admit that hadn’t occurred to me before I married you.”
“And it’s too late now.” Martin’s face was grave.
“I told you, I’m resolved to do what is best for all of us. Naturally, I won’t force Sarah to do anything she doesn’t want to do. But she’s already far more interested in acquiring the social graces than I ever was. She likes to be correct in her behavior.” I swallowed hard. “As she grows, we’ll face a dilemma. We could continue to isolate her—or we could take the risk of plowing forward. The risk that the circumstances of her birth might be raised. The risk I’ve taken all her life.”
“You’re being inconsistent, my darling.” Martin uncrossed his arms, touching my cheek gently. “If we’re prepared to take risks for Sarah’s sake, we have to be prepared for the risk of Tess incurring the disapproval of a few hidebound society matrons. I say we take the risk.”
“I believe that’s more or less what I told Sarah,” I admitted.
“That’s my Nell.”
Martin leaned forward with the clear intention of kissing me, but then he stopped, and I saw his expression change.
“What on earth are you doing here?”
I turned away from the window to see Joe Salazar hovering in the open doorway, a letter in his hand.
“This arrived for you at the store.” He crossed the room and handed the envelope to Martin.
“As urgent as that?”
“I was certain you’d want it straightaway. It wasn’t marked personal, so I opened it.”
Martin pulled out the sheet of paper, turning it so he could see the signature—and froze.
“What?” I asked.
Martin gave the note to me. “The news you’ve been waiting for.”
“Oh!” I didn’t look up till I had read the whole thing and stared for a few moments at Teddy’s signature as if I needed to be quite sure it was real.
“They’re at a boardinghouse on Washington Street, a few blocks west of Union Park.” My worries had evaporated, replaced by a sudden rush of joy. “Both of them. Teddy says they arrived two days ago. The denominational office helped find them a place to stay.”
“Indeed?” Martin raised his eyebrows. “And there I was slandering those people as useless.”
I ignored him, my eyes on Teddy’s letter again.
“He says they’ll be out all day looking for work but will be back every evening at six for dinner and all afternoon on Sundays, and would we care to call? Would we?”
I looked at Martin, feeling my face flush with the pure relief and excitement of the news. “Of course we’ll go there tonight.”
10
Man and woman
I returned to the store elated. Martin appeared a little more subdued. But that evening as we headed westward, our carriage bouncing over a variety of road surfaces, I too was beset by apprehension.
“She wasn’t an easy child, was she?” Martin’s words broke into my thoughts as I stared out of the window at the straggling rows of houses interspersed with cheaply built shops and saloons.
“I should say not.” I watched a passing horsecar; we were still on Madison Street. “I often felt that only her mother’s and father’s authority held her in check.”
“As far as authority’s concerned, that point’s clear.” Martin’s tone was dry, decisive. “Teddy is the man of the family now, and Thea has to obey him.”
I rose to the bait immediately. I was tired—we both were—and now that we were on our way, our eagerness to reunite with the Lombardi children seemed to be transforming itself into a state of irritation with the situation and each other.
“Really?” I looked down my nose at my husband. “And supposing Thea doesn’t agree with Teddy’s decisions?”
Martin blinked. “Then she has to obey him anyway. A woman should obey the head of her family.”
“I don’t always obey you.”
“You almost never obey me.” A sarcastic edge crept into Martin’s voice. “The best I can hope for is that you take my advice.”
“Because I’m a reasonable person.”
“I’ll grant you that. Most of the time.” Martin folded his arms. “Young ladies of fifteen are generally not so reasonable, especially the ones who were difficult children. As I have cause to remember in your case.”
Sometimes it was extremely provoking to have as one’s spouse a man who remembered one as a child. I became immediately determined to argue Thea’s side.
“She’s lost her mother and father. Such a tragedy may have caused a more tender woman to emerge.” I felt I was making a noble concession to Martin’s erroneous views on the female gender. “Even the toughest bud may reveal a beautiful blossom.” I thought that sounded rather fine.
Martin snorted rudely. “Stuff and nonsense. Beautiful blossom indeed. She’ll be a gawky, obstreperous hayseed after all those years in that out-of-the-way corner of Kansas. Teddy’s going to have his hands full until she’s old enough to be married.”
There are few things more offensive to a wife’s ears than to be told by her husband that she’s talking stuff and nonsense. This further proof of Martin’s error gave free rein to my tongue, where perhaps I should have curbed it.
“Well, that’s a fine thing to say. It sounds to me like you and Teddy between you are going to create a cage for the poor child, with the only door leading to the marital state. Any woman of spirit would do anything in her power to subvert such an imprisonment, as you should know.”
Some part of me regretted that remark as soon as it passed my lips, but I was too indignant to care. We both knew I referred to Lucetta’s romantic entanglements. Dark flashes of color appeared on Martin’s cheekbones.
“We had better not talk if we cannot be civil to one another,” he said in his iciest manner.
“You would certainly be better off silent if you’re going to behave like an absolute and utter . . . man.”
I pursed my lips and stared resolutely out of the window, determined to say no more. Beside me, my putative lord and master froze into a reproachful immobility that cooled the late summer air by several degrees.
We kept up these attitudes until we reached our destination. The boardinghouse to which Teddy had directed us stood in a row of clapboard houses, fairly recently built but of cheap construction. The street opposite had unbuilt
gaps like missing teeth. From the smell and the activity, we had arrived at that part of the city where the horsecar company and various other transportation concerns stabled their horses. The waning sun made the buildings glow pleasantly, but I didn’t imagine the area would be fit for young people to return to after dark.
A strong fragrance of cabbage met us as the door opened. We had arranged our faces into more amenable expressions than either of us wished to show each other, and our first sight of the pleasant Polish woman who greeted us galvanized both of us into polite cordiality. The landlady, Mrs. Nowak, evidently expected us, and ushered us in with many smiles and remarks about the pleasure of making our acquaintance.
The house gave every sign of respectability despite its unprepossessing surroundings. Any space on the walls of the narrow hallway held a picture of a Catholic saint, surrounding a statue of Jesus exposing his heart above a dish of what I supposed must be holy water.
We had clearly arrived after the dinner hour. Through an open door, we saw a dining room where several men and two women lingered over the cleared tablecloth, reading journals or playing chess, conversing and laughing with each other as they did so. The convivial, homey scene relieved some of my anxiety.
I needed to pull my black skirts in to pass more easily up the stairs. As instructed by the landlady, I kept heading upward. Behind me, Martin remained silent, his tread steady and even.
As we neared the top of the building, a door opened. A skylight illuminated Teddy’s sandy hair. A genial smile split his long face, so like his father’s, but his round gray eyes were not those of the boy he’d been. A stillness hung about him, a new sense of sobriety and determination. He had grown as tall as Martin and had to duck his head to clear the low doorway as he backed up a little, making room for us.
“The first truly friendly faces I’ve seen since we arrived,” he said, shaking my hand vigorously. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Mrs.—confound it, I’ve been telling myself all day not to call you Mrs. Lillington, and there I was, just about to say it. Mrs. Rutherford, to be sure. And Mr. Rutherford, sir, it’s good to meet you again. I was real happy to get the news about your marriage.”