by Jane Steen
I avoided overly unpleasant details, of course. She was only a child. But there were things I could say, needed to say, and Sarah wanted to know so much. She seemed fascinated by the entire process of being with child, of giving birth; she dredged every moment of her own birth out of my memory, although I had at least remembered to be vague about where she’d been born.
And she wanted absolutely every detail about Ruth. I should have felt badgered and upset, but there was so much relief in describing all the tiny things I remembered only too well that I gave in with little resistance to the small, expert interrogator with the jade-green, piercing gaze. How big were her hands? Her toes? Could we see her heart through her skin or just the movement? Did she open her mouth? Did I think she could open her eyes but didn’t? What did her knees look like? Her shoulders?
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Now Sarah’s eyes met mine with a depth of understanding—and pity—that gave me a sudden glimpse of the woman she would one day become. She was grieving too, I remembered. I hugged her hard, the mingled scents of dirt, sweat, and horse in my nostrils, her tangled and matted hair scratching my face. Never since the day I had decided to keep Sarah had I felt such a need to cling to her, close as we had always been. And precisely at this age, she was learning to look outside our family circle for friendship. It was as if she was deliberately allowing me time with her too because she sensed my need. My loneliness.
“Don’t pay me too much heed, darling.” I finished with a quick kiss on a somewhat grimy forehead. “The heat’s making me cross. I’ll tell you what I’ll do—after you’ve bathed yourself clean, I’m going to work every single knot out of your hair and braid it nice and tight. I’ll be gentle, I promise. I know you’re a big girl now and you can brush your own hair, but I think there are some spots you’ve forgotten.”
“You can do it.” Sarah put a hand into mine. “I don’t mind.”
In ordinary times, I would have made some remark about this concession since normally Sarah preferred anyone but me to brush and comb her thick, springy hair. I was deft enough with needle and pen, but I’d never learned the trick of hair—my own was so strong it had put up with considerable abuse before Alice tamed it. But these were not ordinary times. I tightened my grip on my daughter’s hand, took a deep breath, and began to tell her about Martin’s land purchase in Lake Forest.
38
Trouble
Returning to our house in Chicago proved harder than I’d expected.
“It seems so strange. And so large,” I remarked to Tess.
And so unlike a home. I looked around the spacious bedroom, trying to work out if anything had changed. Surely Martin would have made some mark on our shared space after nine weeks on his own? But there was an unlived-in look to the entire house somehow. Not dusty, nothing like that—in fact, it was immaculate, faultless, fragranced with beeswax polish and potpourri. I supposed Mrs. Hartfield had taken the opportunity to organize a thorough clean. I hadn’t seen a grain of dirt anywhere.
“It’s nice to have the extra room again.” Tess’s round face was rosy and shining with happiness, lightly freckled from the days spent out of doors in Lake Forest. “I like my sitting room more than ever, although I’m very grateful for the pretty bedroom I slept in at the Parnells’. But home’s best, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.” I looked out of the window at the distant lake, blue under the September sunshine. Freshness tinged the air now as summer lost its grip. Something about the sharp, almost autumnal tang filled me with energy as we traveled back toward the city, but that enthusiasm had died when we entered the house. Still—
“I intend to go to the store,” I announced. “I really must talk to Madame and find out what’s happening.”
“Now? I thought you didn’t want to go back till tomorrow.” Tess’s scanty eyebrows rose above her spectacles. “What’s the hurry?”
“Hurry? I’ve been absent for three months.” And I’ve barely seen Martin in all that time. The thought made me irritable and restless.
I pulled open the dresser drawers, trying to remember what I kept in them—and then shut them again. Alice would take care of all that. I didn’t need to know where things were stored any more. I suppressed a sigh and turned back to Tess.
“I don’t want anybody making a fuss about my return. I’d far rather surprise them, and I’ll get more of an impression of what’s happening in the store if I just walk in like any other customer. People will be busy and won’t feel obliged to treat me like the returning prodigal.”
“You didn’t mind last year when we came home from France.”
Tess ran her hand over the small case that held my jewelry. It had been in Alice’s possession all the way from Lake Forest, but she had left it on the bed while she supervised the unloading and disposition of our trunks and valises. The E.C.L.R. monogram gleamed bright gold against the dark blue leather, the R dominating the other letters cleverly woven into its sheltering strokes. Tess’s stubby forefinger traced the swirls and lines in a way I suddenly found irritating, but I pushed down my feelings with determination. It wasn’t Tess’s fault that I was tetchy, and she’d reminded me of our happy return from France in all innocence.
“The trip to France was a much longer journey. It’s of no moment to come back after a stay in Lake Forest.” I resisted the temptation to pull the case away from Tess’s hands and kept my tone carefully neutral. “You won’t be too dull on your own, will you, after being used to so much company? I don’t suppose we’ll see Sarah and Miss Baker for the rest of the day. Sarah was in a lather of impatience to visit the zoo again.”
“Of course I won’t be dull.” Tess grinned and left off touching my case, smoothing down the bedspread instead. It didn’t need neatening. “And I’m not on my own. I’m going to do my own unpacking, go through all the household books with Mrs. Hartfield, and find out what they’re planning for our meals for the rest of the month. But it’ll be such a nice surprise for Martin if you turn up at the store, Nell. I think you should go. Or perhaps he’s thinking of coming home to give us all a big surprise.”
A brief spark of hope flared inside me at this notion, but I stamped on it. “I doubt he’ll have the time.” I looked down at my traveling dress. “I suppose I ought to change. Goodness, I can hardly remember what’s in my closets. I’m sick of the gowns I wore in Lake Forest. I need something new.”
I needed clothes that didn’t remind me of the early summer. My figure had resumed its accustomed slenderness, was perhaps a little leaner than before. My appetite had not been good owing to the heat, and I’d done so much more walking than usual in Lake Forest. The dresses I had taken with me hung just a little loose, especially below the waist. That would not do at all; the clothes I wore constituted an advertisement for Rutherford & Co. and needed to fit perfectly. I would need to have a fitting done this afternoon and commission a dress or two. Ample excuse to turn up at Rutherford’s half a day early.
Tess bustled off to see to her own room. I crossed to the bed, picking up the jewelry case. I spared a glance at the smooth coverlet and immaculately laundered linen, my treacherous memory taking me back to that night in June before turning resolutely away and putting the case down on a table. I owned a dark green day dress, I remembered, that I hadn’t worn much because it had become tight across the hips—that might serve. I could kill two birds with one stone and please Martin by wearing the pendant he’d given me for my twenty-sixth birthday.
We had done our best that day, Martin and I. I had been genuinely pleased with the necklace, which was to my taste—unusual and exquisite without being in the least bit ostentatious. It was Indian, a delicate pattern of garnet flowers and peridot leaves and stems set in a minutely carved ivory base with four oval diamonds in the corners of the lozenge-shaped frame. They were the first diamonds I’d ever seen that didn’t glitter; instead, they looked more like drops of water. Or teardrops. On the back of the pendant, the words “Semper Idem” were inscribed. Martin
told me they meant “always the same,” but he hadn’t elaborated on why he had chosen that inscription.
We’d found little time to be alone and almost no time to talk. Martin had stayed up late discussing politics with Mr. Parnell, and I had been asleep when he’d come to bed. When I’d awoken, he was already up since he had an early appointment with the agent for the land he’d soon after purchased. He hadn’t expected me to accompany him, returning only for a hasty meal before taking the train back to Chicago.
The last time I’d seen Martin was on the last day of August, and he hadn’t stayed overnight. He’d arrived on a new horse, a spirited bay called Lightning, who, according to Martin, liked to run and was therefore the perfect animal for the thirty-mile distance. He’d taken us to view the site of our new Lake Forest summer home, although there had been little to see as the only trails in and out of the property had been made by deer and were impassable to both the landaulet and the Parnells’ carriage. Walking to the bluff would have meant struggling through mosquito-ridden brush invested with poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, so we had admired what we could glimpse of the land and taken Martin’s word for the rest.
I looked down at the jeweled pendant in my hand. It was like Martin; the more you studied it, the more it revealed of itself that was intricate and fine and interesting. And complicated. A small spark lit and smoldered inside my frame, and with it came a tiny surge of enthusiasm—at last—for my neglected profession.
My visit to the store wouldn’t be just a matter of effort, I decided. Nor duty, nor avoidance of any kind of planned welcome. It wouldn’t be about Martin, at least not about Martin in his role as my husband. I would go to the store because I wanted to be there, in the place where I had spent so many productive hours. I wanted to talk with Madame as a dressmaker and see the gleam of brisk, businesslike interest in her sharp eyes. I wanted to have a fitting done and then wander through the dress goods departments to pick out the most interesting new fabrics, obtain samples to consult as I came up with my first sketches since June.
I wanted to meet with Martin and Joe as a partner in the store and find out what had been happening over the summer. I wanted above all to see Martin in the environment where we had so much in common that was not directly personal, a place where change would only mean progress. Perhaps in that way I would begin to understand what had happened to us.
I opened doors until I found the dark green ensemble and pulled it out. Yes, it would serve. It followed the latest fashion by having no train at all, a style I always preferred for work; with its jacket-like overbodice it looked most businesslike. I could take the pendant off its heavy chain and pin it to where a modish fall of lace softened the high neckline.
“Time to look your best, Nellie Rutherford,” I admonished myself. “Let everyone know you’ve fully recovered your health and are prepared to begin work again.”
I turned and smiled as a soft cough and a bumping sound announced the arrival of Alice and the men carrying my trunks. Donny was one of them; he met my eyes with his shy smile as he lowered the large portmanteau he was balancing on a broad shoulder to the spot indicated by Alice. Suddenly, the room, so large and empty a few minutes before, took on some life and color. We would heap the bed with clothes waiting to be sorted, and by the time it was clean and clear again I would view it as just an ordinary piece of furniture.
“Yes, I was talking to myself.” I grinned at Alice. “I’m going to the store, and I want to create a good impression. Let’s get these things unpacked as quickly as possible, and then you can polish me up. I need to put the summer behind me and make a fresh start for fall.”
I felt confident as Capell handed me down from the landau outside the main Rutherford’s entrance. Its huge, ornate canopy spread above me, a riot of peacocks, fruit-laden branches, and exotic vines woven around the motto: Dress Well. The trunks and stems of the trees and vines were carved into the pillars that separated the three double doors; on the glass pane in every door was etched the legend “Rutherford & Co.” and the peacock feather motif. The tingle of excitement in my belly at the thought that I belonged to this palatial enterprise was no less strong than on the day I first walked into the new store as a full partner.
A throng of customers, mostly women, passed in and out of the doors. The doormen were busy trying to acknowledge as many of them as possible, occasionally barking orders to the younger men whose job was to call for carriages or hired cabs. All of them tipped their hats to me with a swift murmur of “Mrs. Rutherford” that caused several patrons to crane their necks round with curiosity, seeking to catch a glimpse of me. I was glad the green dress became me well and especially pleased about the clever detailing on the cuffs that caught the eye as I folded my green-trimmed parasol. My hat was little more than a flexible oval on which were arrayed feathers and flowers in a sort of gladiator’s crest, but it increased my height by three or four inches and showed off my thick hair in a way that had brought a beam to Alice’s face as she inserted the pins needed to hold it on.
The doormen should smile more, I thought; they looked unusually grave. I stepped into the bustling entrance hall, which displayed the items women could not resist buying on impulse: hats, gloves, purses, parasols, lacy handkerchiefs, fans, hair combs, perfume bottles, and jewelry of the more modestly priced and ephemeral kind. Here, the atmosphere was one of febrile excitement, every counter an incitement to spend money on something frivolous before getting down to the serious business of the dress goods rooms. The customers were enticed into the latter by the tremendous displays of fabric over and around the doors, among which hung the large artists’ representations of sample designs for which we were now so well-known. Not my designs, I realized. I had not, after all, come up with anything for the fall season. The thought lowered my mood for a second, but I remained determined not to give in to ennui anymore.
This part of the store was always busy. The employees who recognized me looked startled to see me but were too occupied with customers to say anything. I supposed they imagined I would stay at home—perhaps they thought I had lost interest in the store. They would know I’d been ill, but possibly not the nature of my indisposition; perhaps they imagined I would never come back.
I would have to spend some time speaking to all the sales staff. I decided to head straight to the atelier, where there were no customers, to prevent me from talking to the employees and see if I could speak for a while with Madame Belvoix. Perhaps on the way up I should stop by Martin’s office. If he were there, I could arrange a time for a meeting between him, Joe, and me. I turned toward the doors leading to the staircase, threading my way through customers and around counters, automatically noting new items as I did so.
I had almost reached the stairwell entrance when I glanced toward the steam elevators and froze. Four men were approaching the elevators from the direction of the side entrance used only by employees; they were accompanied by a man whose dress suggested he was one of the Rutherford’s managers, although at this distance I couldn’t see which. The elevator’s operator flung the inner and outer gates of the car open; the manager ushered the men in. They all wore the dark blue uniform of the Chicago police.
My breath caught in my throat. Three and a half years had passed since I had arrived for my first glimpse of Rutherford’s and discovered the Chicago police had arrested Martin for the murder of his wife. Every second of that scene was preserved in my memory, indelible as if burnt in with a red-hot poker. The sight of the policemen brought it all back and set my heart thumping in an erratic, skipping rhythm that for a moment robbed me of all my sense.
Where had they gone? Should I make my way over to the elevator and ask the operator to which floor they had been carried? I looked at the customers crisscrossing the sales floor, all intent on their errand. No, I shouldn’t make a fuss. It was probably nothing. A petty theft, the discovery of a gang of pickpockets or purse-cutters—such things were not unknown on the streets of Chicago, even on State St
reet in the middle of the day. They were no doubt holding the miscreants upstairs on the third floor and had summoned the police to arrest them. It would not be Martin who had been arrested, not this time.
I yanked open the door to the stairway and started upward, moving rapidly, trying to calm my breath to make it easier to move. Even with its tiers of kick pleats my narrow skirt did not allow me to run upstairs, so I concentrated on taking small, fast steps. It would be all right, I kept telling myself. It would be nothing.
I heard a door above me open, and men’s voices echoed through the air. One of them was Joe’s, and they were coming downward, toward me. I stopped and waited.
“I certainly don’t need the exercise.” An Irish voice, accompanied by some laughter and humorous remarks from the other men.
“Mr. Storrar naturally assumed they’d be on the third floor,” I heard Joe say. “Well, at least we’re going downstairs—Nell!”
Joe had seen me, of course. He slowed his steps but did not halt his downward progress. To my relief, a half smile curved his lips.
“What’s wrong?” My voice sounded a little breathless. “Where’s Martin?”
“Down by the vault.” Joe twisted to look behind him at the four policemen. “Gentlemen, this is Mrs. Rutherford, one of the other partners. I would like her to accompany us.” He turned his attention back to me. “There was an attempt at robbery,” he said shortly as he reached the point where I stood. “Of the safe room. In broad daylight, if you please. They knew the time at which the vault would be opened.”
I began to head downstairs; it was much easier walking downward, and I was able to match the men’s rapid descent. “I thought that was some kind of arcane secret,” I protested.
“It is—normally. There’s been a most unfortunate lapse in our precautions. Mr. McCombs is usually informed of the correct time at seven thirty a.m. via the speaking tube that runs from the third floor to the sales floor. But yesterday afternoon he sent a note to the third floor insisting he should know in advance whether the vault would be opened early or late within the usual four-hour period. He had a customer who was seriously interested in a diamond parure. A particularly expensive one.”