Inventing Victoria

by Tonya Bolden

  “We know that you have felt terribly lonely,” Miss Hardwick practically cooed.

  “But we did it for your own good,” Dorcas Vashon finished up. “To cultivate that habit of being reserved. To instill fortitude. To help you perfect your ability to persevere.”

  “Victoria,” added Miss Hardwick, “if you can survive my training you can survive anything.” She laughed. “Some girls have fled after just a few weeks.”

  “Remember the one—oh, her name escapes,” said Dorcas Vashon. “The one who bolted after only three days.”

  “Annabelle,” replied Miss Hardwick. “And did she not steal some silverware?”

  “No, that was Maryanne,” replied Dorcas Vashon. She turned to Victoria. “Not all of my picks have been perfect. On more than one occasion I have misjudged, saw more potential, more grit than was actually there.”

  “Victoria, how many times did you consider running away?” asked Miss Hardwick with a glance at Dorcas Vashon.

  Victoria’s eyes went from one woman to the other. Do they know about that day?

  “Once,” she finally said.

  Victoria added a bit more mint jelly to her lamb. “Are they all—the ones who made it through—in Washington society?” she asked.

  Dorcas Vashon shook her head, finished chewing a forkful of succotash. “They are spread abroad. Some in big cities. Others in small towns. And not all were positioned for society. Some I steered to be teachers. Quite a few I set up in business. Milliners … confectioners … dressmakers … You, my dear, are the first to be placed into Washington society. And the only one to bear my surname.”

  Victoria choked up. After composing herself, she asked, “And pray tell, Miss—Aunt Dorcas, how shall I do my part? How am I to help our people?”

  “All in good time, dear. First we must get to the national capital.” With that Dorcas Vashon helped herself to another forkful of succotash.

  All the lessons, the reading, the times of contemplation, the moderate walking, the exercise, the practicing, practicing, practicing, all the days, weeks, months, it all came flooding back to Victoria. She could not recall the last time that she slurped her soup, spilled tea when pouring, fumbled with the sugar tongs, slouched, hunched, spoke as if she had marbles in her mouth.

  “Perfect,” Miss Hardwick had said earlier in the week of her omelet.

  “Perfect,” she had said two days ago of her recitation of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

  Things that once made Victoria’s stomach ache, her temples throb had become reflex, instinct, easy like breathing.

  A WIDER WORLD INDEED!

  The national capital was light.

  Lovely boulevards.

  The January air crisp, clean.

  “We will take a leisurely route to the house so that you may enjoy more sights.” Dorcas Vashon had advised Victoria of this shortly before their train entered the Baltimore and Potomac Depot.

  The railway station was a festival. Rich red brick, white stone trim. Victoria imagined its clock tower like a lighthouse from a distance. So taken with the structure she momentarily forgot that it was here that the nomadic Charles Guiteau, prone to rants and raves, put two bullets into President Garfield at close range.

  “Gothic,” she said under her breath.

  “Yes, my dear, you are correct.”

  Gothic just like a huge building nearby.

  “Center Market,” said Dorcas Vashon. “I believe it is one of the largest markets in the nation.”

  “Miss Vashon?”

  Old woman, young woman, both turned. Victoria lit up at the sight of such a distinguished-looking black man in livery, a belled top hat on his head. He bowed.

  “Good day, Mr. Cordell Rodgers,” responded Dorcas Vashon with a smile.

  “At your service,” replied Mr. Rodgers. He reached for the luggage a porter had neatly stacked beside them.

  With the luggage taken care of, Mr. Rodgers escorted them over to a shiny black two-horse brougham. Victoria felt a little breathless as Mr. Rodgers helped her into the carriage, immaculate inside. Now this was more like her daydreams.

  “When I last telegraphed Mr. Rodgers I told him to surprise us on the route,” said Dorcas Vashon as the carriage began to move.

  Past Sixth Street Park, past Third Street Park, past the stunning—

  “Botanic gardens,” said Dorcas Vashon.

  Victoria had read of a particular climbing plant making fifty-foot-long shoots and producing two-foot-long racemes of flowers. Bold blue petals. Calyxes scarlet.

  Next the carriage pulled up to—

  “The Capitol,” said Victoria in a hushed tone. Pictures in books and magazines did not do it justice. “A palace,” she added.

  “And up top is …?”

  “The Statue of Freedom designed by a white man, but it was one of our own, Philip Reid, who supervised its casting.”

  “Indeed.”

  On Rodgers drove, up Indiana, pausing before Judiciary Square, then he turned the carriage around, traveled north, and soon came to another halt.

  “It looks like a castle or a cathedral,” said Victoria, delighting in the National Museum with its arched windows, warm rich brick and tile facade. She counted its spires, wondered what the floor was like beneath its rotunda.

  Even more castle-like was the next building they passed.

  “The Smithsonian Institution,” Victoria whispered. “What a mighty fortress.”

  Next, the President’s Park, the President’s House. Victoria thought there was something lonely about that big white house. It looked rather different than it did in engravings Dorcas Vashon and Miss Hardwick had shown her.

  “See to your left in the distance, the building under construction? It will house the departments of War, Navy, and State.”

  Next came Lafayette Square and nearby—

  “This, my dear, is Wormley’s Hotel.”12

  Victoria hoped that on another day she would be treated to at least a peek inside this stately building with over fifty bedrooms, a large parlor, large dining room, large kitchen too. She had also read that the rooms were outfitted with the finest of fine furniture. There were Brussels carpets and Smyrna rugs.

  “James Wormley started out as a hackney coachman like his father, yes?”

  “That is right, my dear.”

  Victoria summoned up more information. “His wife had a confectionary, and he had a catering business next door to her shop. He later opened up a restaurant and he owned several boardinghouses. He studied cookery in Paris.”

  “Correct again, my dear.”

  “And it was here back in 1877, when the presidential election was in dispute, that a group of Republican and Democratic politicians made a deal. Rutherford B. Hayes would get the presidency if he agreed to remove the remaining federal troops from the South.”

  “Yes, the Corrupt Bargain. The Great Betrayal.”

  “Did Wormley know what those men were doing?”

  “I would like to think not.”

  “I can only imagine how marvelous it is to dine there,” said Victoria as the carriage moved on.

  “I am sure that you will find out for yourself one day.”

  Victoria puzzled. “You mean … I thought—”

  “Wormley’s is for anyone who can pay his prices. The color line is not as pronounced here as elsewhere in the South. We can, for example, sit anywhere we wish on the streetcars, stay in any hotel we can afford, attend any theater.”

  Soaking in the sights of the national capital, Victoria engaged in no gasping, no oohing and aahing, made no quick turns of the head. She sat primly in her heliotrope dress beneath a lightweight coat and with her hands nestled in off-white beaded gloves. Victoria sat erectly, as if aware that she was being observed.

  Neither did Victoria lose her composure when the carriage pulled up to a stunning house.

  A wider world indeed!

  SECOND FLOOR FRONT

  “Splendid!” said Dorcas Vashon.r />
  Mr. Rodgers had just helped her from the carriage.

  “Mr. Rodgers, you have done very well indeed. This is even more exquisite than I imagined.”

  This time the basement windows registered right away with Victoria. Larger, higher than the ones in that house in Baltimore. Above the basement windows was a white stone projecting bay window. To its right and up five slate-gray steps, double doors with decorative molding.

  Triple windows on the second floor. Tall windows with ornamental hooding, two of them over the balcony that was the top of the bay window.

  Triple windows on the third floor too. Dormer windows framed by scalloped slate.

  Victoria knew that the third floor was no small attic space. The house’s mansard roof told her that the third floor was a spacious place. Though only three stories the house was soaring.

  Victoria and Dorcas Vashon were midway up the walkway when the front door opened.

  “Welcome, Miss Dorcas, Miss Victoria,” said a middle-aged woman with friendly eyes. She wore a crisp black dress beneath a snow-white pinafore. Her cap was snow white too.

  “Victoria, this is Millicent Rodgers.”

  Victoria soon learned that Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers were live-in servants, occupying the top floor. The Mrs. served as cook, housekeeper, laundress. The Mr. as coachman, butler, and his wife’s all-around helping hand in this house of marble fireplaces, parquet floors, and light streaming into every room. The furniture was even finer than in that house in Baltimore. In addition to a parlor there was also a sitting room on the first floor.

  And this time Victoria’s bedroom was second floor front. As she looked around the room …

  White wood furniture, from bedstead to nightstand to dressing table and desk …

  Teal-blue wallpaper with pink and white roses …

  Shining oak floors …

  Off-white rug beneath her bed …

  Off-white lace curtains …

  Victoria felt even more like a Cinderella than she had in that fancy black mourning dress.

  Thou God seest me.

  “You did and I thank you,” Victoria whispered later that night, sitting at her dressing table, brushing her hair, envisioning magnificent tomorrows.

  CHARMED!

  Out. Victoria relished being able to be out and about. Walks in parks. Walks up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. Walks to Howard University. In a coat and muffler on chilly days. In a cape and gloves when warmer. There were carriage rides too. Like the walks, at the start never without Dorcas Vashon as chaperone.

  One early walk was to 1109 F Street, NW, home of Samuel Estren, wigmaker, his wife, Louisa, a hairdresser, their three young children, and Gertrude King, the family’s young servant, who cheerfully brought tea and sandwiches into the parlor within a few minutes of their arrival. But the purpose of the visit went beyond socializing.

  Within about thirty minutes a woman who inspired awe entered the parlor.

  “Dorcas Vashon, Victoria Vashon,” said Mrs. Estren, “I present Madame Elizabeth Keckley.”

  Victoria only learned of the woman when they were en route to the Estrens’. The day before Dorcas Vashon had only told her that on the morrow they would visit a dressmaker.

  “She is Virginia-born,” Dorcas Vashon began as they exited the house with the mansard roof. “She spent thirty years in slavery, until she finally had sufficient money to purchase her freedom. She went on to become one of the most sought-after dressmakers in the nation.” Dorcas Vashon paused. “She was modiste to none other than Mary Todd Lincoln. After Mrs. Lincoln became her customer, well, flocks of white society women just had to have dresses designed by Madame Keckley.”

  By then they were on N Street. Victoria stopped. “Do you mean to tell me, Miss Dorcas—I mean Aunt Dorcas—that a woman who made clothes for a president’s wife, for white society women will make clothes for me?”

  “Why, yes, my dear. You are just as worthy. Now come along.” After a few more steps Dorcas Vashon continued. “She had a busy shop on 12th Street; at one point she employed about twenty women. But then after the war, she wrote her memoirs, Behind the Scenes.”

  Me? That was all Victoria could think.

  “It was all feathers and furs after that,” said Dorcas Vashon, voice lowered. “Mrs. Lincoln and other white women believed that Madame Keckley had overstepped, revealed too much about Mrs. Lincoln and their private conversations. They punished her by taking their business elsewhere. And so I want to make a point of providing her with some work. She deserves it, doubly so given the great work she did here for our people during the war.”

  “Was she a nurse or a …?”

  Dorcas Vashon shook her head. “When the national capital bulged with thousands of our people who had escaped slavery—contrabands they were called, most from Maryland and Virginia. Anyway, Madame Keckley organized the Contraband Relief Association. She helped raise thousands of dollars for those destitute people, money for food, clothing, medicine. She worked hand in hand with James Wormley.”

  With her white hair swept up, her perfect posture, perfect poise, Madame Elizabeth Keckley was a queen.

  “Fine bones,” she said when she had Victoria up in her workshop. “Excellent proportions.” As Madame Keckley continued to size her up, Victoria felt no awkwardness, no fear as on the day of Miss Hardwick’s arrival. Victoria was thoroughly at ease with being observed.

  “I have a lovely emerald satin that is ideal for you. It will most definitely complement your eyes. Oh, what ideas you inspire—from day dresses to the fancy!”

  Victoria was surprised at how quickly word of their arrival spread. Mrs. Fitzhugh, a slender woman with a high forehead and upturned nose, was the first one to call on them.

  “Washington is a very small town,” Dorcas explained after the woman left.

  Mrs. Miller came next.

  Then Mrs. Tyler, Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Tilghman. Mrs.…

  Soon, in chiffons, taffetas, failles, moirés, and silk- and cotton-backed satins Victoria attended teas, luncheons, recitals. She met Syphaxes, Greens, Cooks.

  Early on she said little other than “Pleased to meet you” and such. She was not so much sheepish as in absolute awe. To have read about these people was one thing; to see them in the flesh …

  Former US Senator Blanche K. Bruce was more handsome in real life than in photographs. “He was born in slavery,” she said to herself, “and now he lives in a courtly home on M Street.”

  Orindatus Simon Bolívar Wall looked as intense and powerful as his hefty name. Victoria had been a bit nervous when meeting him. He had lived in Charleston for a time. What if he asked questions?

  “Charmed!” he had said when introductions were made at a dinner at the Andersons’. Then with a click of his heels he went on his way.

  “Another one,” Victoria said to herself, bursting with pride. “Slave … first colored man made a captain in the Union army … lawyer.”

  Victoria wondered how she might be a credit to the race as she and Dorcas Vashon left a recital at the Tilghmans’. I must contribute! I must say thank you for this blessing of a wider world!

  OF MEETING MOLLIE CHURCH

  “And how do you find Washington?” asked Fanny Miller during the first tea Dorcas Vashon had Victoria host. Fanny was a petite girl with long raven hair. Her father was a pharmacist and owned a fair amount of real estate.

  Victoria poured. “I find Washington quite grand, quite wonderful. Were you all born here?” Victoria had decided at the outset that during her early days in society she would steer conversations away from herself as much as possible.

  “Yes, we were all born and bred here,” replied Penelope Fitzhugh, a dour freckle-faced girl with auburn hair. Her parents owned a thriving catering business.

  “And the Mrs. came to the marriage with some family money,” Dorcas Vashon had told Victoria.

  “Yes, indeed, all born and bred right here” added short, pudgy Clementine Tyler, daughter of a dentist who had inherited tw
o barber shops that catered to only prominent and prosperous white men.

  “I have never been to Charleston,” said Penelope. “Tell me, what is it like?”

  This was on a different day. The girls were at Penelope’s townhouse, in the sitting room playing hearts.

  “Well, the word that most people use to describe Charleston is ‘charming’ and that it is,” replied Victoria.

  Clubs lead. Having none Victoria seized the opportunity to shed the king of spades.

  “What made your aunt want to relocate?” asked Fanny.

  “She simply wanted a change,” replied Victoria.

  “So Washington will be your new home?”

  “That has yet to be decided. This is why Aunt Dorcas has only rented the house.”

  After Fanny won that hand Victoria asked, “What shall we play next?”

  “I vote for whist,” chirped Clementine.

  As Clementine shuffled, Fanny dished out gossip: who was seen awfully cozy in a cafe with a woman not his wife; how Mrs. Richardson really got that black eye; who had a little too much to drink at the Men of Mark banquet.

  “I hear that Mollie Church may pay our city another visit soon,” said Penelope after cards were dealt.

  “Oh. Not her!” shrieked Fanny. “Our young men will be beside themselves.”

  Victoria looked up from her hand. “Who is this Mollie …?”

  “Church. Mollie Church,” replied Fanny.

  “She is the daughter of the richest colored man in the South, Robert Church,” Clementine explained. “I believe most of his wealth derives from real estate.”

  Fanny leaned in. “I have heard that not all of his holdings are, well, respectable. If you know what I mean?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Penelope.

  “They say he owns saloons along with—” Fanny leaned in again. “Houses of ill-repute.”

  Victoria flinched. “So his daughter, Mollie Church, she is very beautiful I take it.”

  “Yes, very,” said Clementine. “She was the talk of the town last March. The Bruces invited her up to attend President Garfield’s inauguration. She was escorted in by Frederick Douglass.”