Mistress Suffragette

by Diana Forbes

  I pried the fan out of her plump hand and began to wave the instrument back and forth so she need not exert herself. She was silent, eyes closed, while we both went through the charade of pretending that she was too weak to speak. Yet she was the strongest woman I knew.

  “Just so we’re clear,” she said, opening her eyes to slits as I continued to fan her face, “I’d rather you marry someone of a different faith than stay on the path you’re on, which will lead to a life that’s lonely and impoverished. As the late, great Horace once said, ‘Carpe diem.’”

  Then and there I vowed to hold on to the tiny shred of independence I’d managed to secure since moving to Boston. She could drag me back home. She could berate me about men (or the lack thereof). But she could not force me to chase after Stone Aldrich now that I knew that Art was his one true love.

  I had been in Boston for almost six weeks. When I looked at Father’s face, it seemed closer to six years. He appeared grayer and frailer. He spoke in clipped sentences of two or three words; and there was not an ounce of joy in anything he said. His eyes barely acknowledged me. “Hello, Daughter,” he said, looking away.

  I felt a chill in the foyer. Mother bustled up the long marble staircase, past the oval portraits of her ancestors. She knocked into my great uncle Klaus Vandertrap’s jaw with her shoulder. Turning back to face me, she motioned with her hands that I should stay with Father. He brought his index finger up to his lips. “Lydia’s asleep,” he said.

  Even his voice seemed deeper with more of a gravel pitch. I’d left home without a goodbye, had lied about my whereabouts, and had refused to send money home (although I’d earned only fifty cents in total). Father didn’t look like he was in a forgiving mood.

  Tentatively, I kissed him on the cheek. He drew away from me. I fingered the buttons on my glove, refastening one that had come undone. Our rift, it seemed, would not be so easily repaired.

  Behind him, sweeping down the staircase, came Bess, all smiles, glowing eyes, and small compliments. She clucked, as if eager to see me, but her cheeks looked drawn—as if the last few weeks had sucked the joy right out of her—and she now appeared considerably older than her fifty years. Her bad leg seemed to weigh heavier on her, forcing her to overcompensate with her good leg.

  “Oh, Miss Penelope,” said, her body heaving slightly as she picked up my bags. “Things haven’t been right since you left.”

  I left Father behind and followed her as she lugged the bags up the staircase. We reached the door of my bedchamber. Bess walked inside and started to unpack my clothes. I sat down on my old four-poster bed as she fussed with my garments. My room looked smaller than it used to.

  “How so?” I asked. “Tell me everything.”

  She hesitated.

  “Come on, Bessie-May,” I said, reverting to the name I used to call her when I was little.

  I motioned to the door, indicating she should close it, but she shook her head.

  “Your mother and father fought ’bout money all the time,” she whispered. “I didn’ mean to overhear, but was hard not to.”

  She plumped out my petticoats and hung them in my closet. She started to separate my clothing into piles: the dresses that had to be pressed from the ones that could be put away. In a different area of the bed, she laid out the skirts that needed to be cleaned.

  “And then, when your mother done stay with you, your father sank into the worst depression. He’d just sit in the White Room all day long staring at those walls, Miss Penelope.”

  “You mean, without any visitors?” We weren’t allowed to enter the White Room unless there were visitors.

  “The old man runs crazy as a loon. I did what I could, Miss Penelope. I even mixed a cure-all of Jimson weed, sulfur, and honey, but nothin’ helped.”

  I believed my father might need something stronger than a Louisiana spell to save him. Had his financial travails somehow unraveled the rest of him? And now that he seemed so distant, almost beyond recognition, was there any hope of re-tethering him? It seemed that women, who were by all accounts “the weaker sex,” were actually the stronger of the two. I thought about Lydia battling her illness two doors down.

  “Is there anything you can do for Lydia?” I pressed my palms together. “Is there a health spell?”

  “I’ll invest-e-gate.” She fidgeted with the black amulet charm hanging from her neck. “Pray too, though.”

  I nodded, though first I’d have to pray for forgiveness. I’d not attended church in Boston at all.

  Bess folded my clean chemises and placed them in the Queen Anne chest along the wall. Then she gathered up the soiled garments in her heavy arms and started to trundle downstairs. I followed behind her, occasionally stooping to pick up a stray corset or stocking that would tumble out of her arms. As we walked, I poked my head into various rooms to judge if everything still looked the same.

  The Pink Room was still pink. The Navy Blue Den still featured father’s model ships prominently displayed on the shelves. The dining room still boasted the framed portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the mantel. I let out a huge breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. To a room, nothing looked changed, and I wondered what the solicitor George Setton had been doing these many weeks on behalf of my father’s estate.

  We reached the kitchen. Jesse sat on one of the comfortable easy chairs in front of the brick fireplace, perusing an open cookbook and humming a tune. Bess dropped all of my garments in a giant heap onto a bed sheet laid out on the floor in front of him. Then she ambled into the food preparation area around the cast iron stove while her helpmate donned a pair of spectacles and read aloud.

  “Twelve pounds of grease and twelve pounds of crude potash will make a barrel of soap. Melt the grease. Dissolve the potash. Pour the grease hot into the barrel, and when the potash is cool…”

  If Jesse and Bess had to create the soap they needed to do the laundry, then my family had, in fact, taken a big step down in the world. Clothes had always been sent to an outside laundress in the past. What other austerity measures had been taken? Was Father eating gruel instead of Cornish game hen? Would my parents have to lease out my room?

  Still, watching the couple so hard at work on my behalf made me feel, however briefly, that everything would turn out just fine, after all. Maybe if we all applied ourselves, we could rise above the Panic, stay sane, get better, and collectively heal.

  Chapter 23

  The World’s Ugliest Man

  Sunday, July 16, 1893, Newport, Rhode Island

  I would have recognized him anywhere—the man who was so homely it caused one to take stock of all other men and give them the benefit of the doubt. After seeing him, men who might ordinarily rate as adequate were kicked up a notch to pleasant-looking. Those with comely features were now considered dashing. And those who were dapper rated downright irresistible. George Setton had that effect on me. All men looked better by comparison.

  That Sunday morning, I greeted him in the White Room, although Mother forbade any visitors during weekends.

  His eyes, small and dark, were reminiscent of a rat’s. He blinked so rapidly as to almost twitch. His long, curved nose had not improved with the passage of time. Hands on smallish hips, he stood while I also remained standing. What could my sister possibly see in him besides a golden opportunity? He’d been churlish at the Chateau-sur-Mer ball and downright rude the day I’d learned of my father’s troubles—which, all too coincidentally, was the very day that Setton showed up in our home.

  In the Pink Room stood a man, probably Father’s age, who looked positively funereal in an all-black suit with a somber purple tie. Was he an undertaker? Hands clasped behind his back, he studied one of the paintings on the walls.

  “I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance,” I said. “And you are…?”

  “Mr. Setton. I’m here about your father’s estate.”

  “I’m afraid he won’t be back for hours,” I fibbed, extending my hand to usher the lawyer out of the h
ouse. Sighing, he handed me a small card in a harsh white envelope. I removed the card and turned down the right corner. Mr. Setton stared at me with ill-concealed hostility—almost as if I were maiming his precious calling card.

  “It’s to show you stopped by in person,” I said.

  “Can’t you see that I stopped by?” he asked peevishly. “I am, after all, standing right here.”

  “It’s the convention,” I said, shrugging to show no ill will.

  I had considered Setton incapable of exhibiting anything other than boorish behavior ever since. Looking at him now, I tried to swallow my repulsion. He smirked. The feelings of disdain on both sides were still very much alive.

  “Mr. Setton, how lovely to see you again.”

  “Let’s cut straight to it, Penelope. You must have questions.”

  “All right, then,” I said, dispensing with the formalities, which I figured would be lost on him anyway. “Are you trying to sell this house, or advising my parents on how they can hold onto it?” My eyes traveled the room, pausing at the feline curve of the white mantel. It looked pristine despite the many fires that had raged in the belly of the fireplace below—an architectural model of grace under pressure.

  “Much depends on Lydia,” he said. “If she recovers, I thought I’d settle your father’s debts but take over the management of the household.” He raised an eyebrow. A thousand wrinkles arched above it, making him resemble a caricature of an evil landlord.

  “So, you and Lydia would live here together and raise a family?” A clot of heat exploded through my chest.

  If he was aware of my distress, he chose not to show it.

  “Yes. In due course.” His eyes held mine. “But the ownership of the house and property would pass over to me.” He coughed, putting the back of his hand up to his mouth. “Naturally, you and your parents could all continue to live here indefinitely, for as long as you liked.”

  “How generous,” I spat out, thinking how much I would hate it. Why had my father let Setton into our lives? Were Mother and Father truly so desperate that they’d hand over the ownership of their estate to a mercenary whose only interest in their daughter was the house she came with? I thought about my sister being mistress of the household and my answering to her. I didn’t like that either.

  “But, if Lydia is forced to move away from here,” said Setton, “or if, God forbid, she dies, then the offer is rescinded.”

  “Dies?” I said, aghast. “She’s not going to die.”

  He tapped his long, bony fingers against the white mantel. “And your parents will likely have to sell the house and all of its contents.”

  Removing a small notebook from his jacket, he flipped open a page with what looked to be a diagram of three paintings. He glanced up at three landscape paintings on our wall—none as good as Stone Aldrich’s cityscape. Setton crossed out a valuation on his sketch and wrote in a higher number, nodding.

  “As her future intended, naturally I hope and pray that Lydia recovers. But statistics on tuberculosis are grim. There’s no known cure, and—”

  “Tuberculosis? My sister has tuberculosis?”

  “Yes. The doctors reached the conclusion last night. Why? Didn’t your dear mother tell you?”

  I glanced at the mantel clock. The big hand reached the number ten, then jumped back a fraction.

  I tore out of the White Room and ran upstairs to her room.

  Clutching my stomach, I entered her bedchamber. I grabbed onto her bedpost and tried to steady my knees. In the fireplace, a healthy fire cackled although it had to be at least ninety degrees outside.

  Lydia lay on her bed, looking paler than ever and coughing like mad. The light had gone out of her eyes. So much sweat pooled across her cheeks that her face almost looked as if it were under water. A nurse clothed in a long, undistinguished dress, white apron, and sturdy oxford shoes bent over her, administering opium pills. She placed her index finger to her lips, scowled, and motioned for me to be quiet.

  My mother, seated in a corner of the room, wore a scarf wrapped around her mouth to prevent contagion. She pointed for me to do the same. I ducked out of the room, ran down the hall to my parents’ bedchamber, and riffled through my mother’s chest of drawers for a length of fabric.

  Muzzled, I reentered the room. Mother directed me to take her chair. Long tears hung from her eyes like icicles, and she wrung her hands. “I’m going to church to pray for her,” she said, rising.

  My sister stopped coughing. She looked paler than the white pillows propped behind her head; and her hair, once blonde and coiled, appeared lifeless. It had turned to rope, and it seemed she hung on to her life by a strand no thicker than a hair.

  An acrid, bitter odor hung in the air. The room smelled like Death. This was all my fault. I had been jealous of my sister for my whole life; and now, to prove what a horrible person I was, she was going to die.

  “Lydia, you have everything to live for,” I said through my scarf mask.

  “California,” she whispered through colorless lips that barely parted.

  I stared at her, not knowing if this was a delusion caused by the opium drug or some sort of last wish. I glanced at the nurse.

  “She needs a warm, dry climate,” the nurse translated, patting my back. “Your mother and sister talked yesterday about California.”

  “It’s far,” I said, thinking that if she survived, I’d probably never scrape together enough money to visit her.

  “Your mother is quite opposed,” the nurse whispered.

  “I bet she is.” I bit my lip, recalling George Setton’s offer to pay off all my father’s debts if Lydia would stay in Newport. “But if California’s the right place for her, I’ll make sure it happens.” I turned to my sister, lying supine and taking up so little space in the bed.

  “You won’t die on my watch,” I said, hoping my voice sounded more authoritative than I felt.

  My sister reached out her tiny hand to me, and I clasped it in mine. It was like a child’s hand, and if Death took her away from me, in a way it would feel like losing a child. I had been unnecessarily unkind to her my whole life, and I truly felt like God had weighed in and forced me to see the error of my ways.

  Then again, maybe there would be a chance to reverse the tiny frictions and meanness that had informed our relationship. Maybe there would be a chance to make it right again—if she would only live.

  Calling hours were not permitted on the weekends. Any visitors brazen enough to cross our threshold on a Sunday afternoon received the wrath of Mother, who’d interrogate them on why they weren’t still in church (the fact that she was around to yell at them notwithstanding).

  But now she was too distracted by Lydia’s illness to remember to enforce the protocol. Without Mother to protect the family against the egregious offense of poor manners, Verdana and Sam were actually welcomed when they stopped by at one o’clock. (And they weren’t even subjected to a lecture about the finer points of visiting etiquette.)

  I was pleased to see that, while Verdana pushed the boundaries of decorum by clomping into our foyer modeling billowing bloomers and her outlandish boots, my mother barely blinked. Surely, this required massive restraint on her part. Between frozen lips and a countenance that was downright stoical, she asked Verdana and Sam if they could stay for lunch. They accepted.

  My father, his hair as wild and frenzied as a deranged scientist’s, muttered that he had some work to attend to and wandered away. So, Verdana, Sam, my mother, and I walked from the foyer to the formal dining room—an unharmonious quartet if ever there was one. I sat at the head of the table in my father’s chair, which felt remarkably strange. Sam and Verdana sat down on my right side while my mother perched on my left.

  Jesse and Bess treated all guests as if they were royalty—the two today were no exception. Never mind that one of them had called off our engagement. The finest linens graced the long dinner table, and clear green turtle soup was served along with saddle of mutton. My m
other, looking regal in spite of her round-the-clock nursing vigil, directed her attention to the visitors who had traveled to Newport only a day after us and had come to check on Mother and me immediately.

  Mother carefully moved the silver soupspoon away from her lips and circled it back again in the preferred method, to cool the liquid.

  Verdana dumped some cold water from her water goblet into her bowl of soup to cool it down.

  Staring at her as if deeply offended, Mother gently sipped her soup.

  Verdana slurped hers.

  “And when did you both meet?” Mother asked, now regarding Verdana’s soup bowl as if head lice might crawl out of it at any second and we’d all better run for cover.

  “At one of my speaking engagements,” said Verdana. Dispensing with her spoon, she lifted the soup bowl by its twin gold handles and guzzled the liquid inside. “What is this, anyway?” She smacked her lips. “Pea soup?”

  “Terrapin,” said Mother.

  Verdana scrunched up her face into a question mark.

  “Turtle,” Mother explained.

  Verdana’s large colorless eyes widened. “That’s funny. I used to have a pet turtle. His name was Dove.” She gestured, excited. “Do you know he was my favorite pet? He was so sweet.” She walked her index and middle fingers across the table. “He had a dark green shell…and this way of walking. He used to—”

  Mother made a small slicing gesture with her soupspoon while Verdana, oblivious, continued to cite the praises of her long-dead pet. Stone-faced, Mother looked like she might disown Sam, based on his choice of bride.

  His pale blue eyes canvassed the room, perhaps recalling how he might have lived here had he just stayed affianced to me instead of taking up with a suffrage leader ill versed in soup decorum.

  Mother rolled her eyes but refrained from expressing her feelings, demonstrating the good breeding she often found lacking in others but so frequently violated herself.

  I turned toward her. “I hear Lydia may need to go to California.”