by Lynn Austin
“I think I deserve to know something about my mother.”
“She was ravishingly beautiful,” Aunt Birdie said, gazing into the air above our heads. “She was Juliet to Johnny’s Romeo.” I waited to hear more, but Aunt Birdie seemed to have lost her train of thought. My grandmother and Aunt Matt fell silent, eating their food without looking up.
“Is that true?” I finally asked. “Were my parents like Romeo and Juliet, living in feuding households?”
“I never met your mother’s parents,” Grandmother said quietly. “There was no feud… . Listen, Violet. I know you’re upset with all this secrecy, and I don’t blame you. But asking about your mother will only lead to more grief in the end. Sometimes it’s best to leave the past in the past—and this is one of those times. Besides, we’re all tired tonight. Supper was later than usual, thanks to the station mixup. And right now it’s time for our evening devotions.”
She rose to fetch her Bible from the buffet and rustled through the fading, onionskin pages until she found her place. I didn’t comprehend a single word that she read as I battled tears of anger and frustration. I would learn nothing more about my mother tonight.
Ten minutes later Grandmother ended with a lengthy prayer, thanking the Almighty “for safely delivering our Violet Rose” and finishing with “Amen.”
“Amen,” Aunt Birdie echoed. Grandmother rose quickly again.
“I believe we’ve lingered here long enough for one evening. Mattie, it’s our turn to do the dishes. Violet, why don’t you go upstairs and unpack?”
She didn’t wait for a reply but gathered up as many dishes as she could carry and headed to the kitchen, her steps brisk and purposeful as if unwilling to waste a single one of them. My grandmother believed that waste of any kind offended God, especially wasting time.
I lacked enthusiasm for the task of unpacking, but I dutifully went upstairs and removed my dresses from the trunk and hung them in the empty wardrobe, which smelled of mothballs. I arranged my comb and brush and other toiletries on the dresser top and tossed my stockings and undergarments into the empty drawers. I spent the longest amount of time searching for a place to hide my journal, finally deciding to stuff it underneath my mattress, as usual.
Grandmother and Aunt Matt were still in the kitchen when I went downstairs again. Aunt Birdie sat alone in the parlor, gazing into space with a contented smile, her hands folded loosely in her lap. She had soft, limp hands, like aging goose-down pillows with nearly all of the stuffing gone. I sat beside her on the horsehair sofa, hoping for a few minutes alone with her before the others joined us.
“Aunt Birdie, did you know my mother?”
“Of course. I knew her very well.”
My hopes soared. “Would you tell me something about her, please?”
“I’d be happy to. Let’s see now …” Her pause lasted a very long time. I waited, thinking that she was searching for a place to begin. But finally she looked up at me and asked, “Who are you again?”
“I’m Violet Rose Hayes. Your nephew, John Hayes, is my father.” When Birdie still seemed puzzled, I added, “I’m Florence’s granddaughter.”
“Why, what a coincidence! I’m Florence’s sister.”
“Yes, I know. Aunt Birdie, you said that my parents were like Romeo and Juliet. Do you remember when they got married?”
“Like it was yesterday. I even have a picture. Would you like to see it?”
“I would love to!”
She rose gracefully to her feet and removed a framed photograph from the curio cabinet in the corner, wiping a layer of dust from it with her sleeve, then blowing on it to remove the rest. I held my breath in anticipation as she handed the photo to me. My hopes plummeted quickly when I saw that the bride in the photograph was Aunt Birdie.
“I think this is you, Aunt Birdie. You and your husband.”
“Gilbert is off fighting in the war, you know. He’s with General McClellan in Virginia on the Peninsula Campaign. I miss him terribly.” Tears filled her gray eyes.
I fumbled for something to say. “He’s … he’s a fine-looking man.”
“Yes, isn’t he, though? Is there someone special in your life, dear?”
“Not really. Herman Beckett from back home asked my father for permission to court me, but he’s my only suitor so far.” Unless I wanted to count Silas McClure, the traveling salesman—which I didn’t.
“Do you love this Mr. Beckett?”
“Certainly not!”
“Well, then. That says it all, doesn’t it? Make sure you marry for love, dear.”
“I really don’t know much about love, Aunt Birdie. My friend Ruth and I used to read True Romance Stories and they made falling in love sound like a bad case of influenza. Your stomach goes all aflutter and your palms sweat and your head starts spinning. I’m not sure I would like the sensation, to tell you the truth. Does love really feel that way?”
“My husband fell in love with me the moment he first laid eyes on me. He saw me across the room and he said to his brother, ‘Look! Isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?’ He couldn’t take his eyes off of me. ‘I’m going to marry her,’ he vowed, ‘if it’s the last thing I ever do.’ He begged my father for permission to court me, but it wasn’t enough for Gilbert to win Father’s permission or even my consent to marry him. He was determined to win my love. And so he did.” She sighed and wiped away the tear that had rolled down her soft cheek. “Then this terrible war started, and we’ve been apart ever since.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, gently squeezing her hand. “I hope I meet a gentleman who loves me that much.”
“Make certain you marry for love. My sister Agnes married for money, and Florence married so she could serve God, and poor Mattie never married at all. But I was the fortunate one. I married for love.”
“Do you know why my father and mother got married? Their names are John and Angeline Hayes.”
“Oh yes. That was true love. Deep and passionate. Like my husband’s and mine.”
“Won’t you please tell me their story?”
“Their passion was ignited the night of the Great Fire, and the fervor of their love was as all-consuming as the flames.”
Wow! Aunt Birdie could write True Romance stories! But was it the truth? I knew that the Great Fire had occurred in October of 1871. I was born in April of 1873. Allowing a few months for courtship and marriage, and nine months for pregnancy, the timing did seem to make sense.
“What happened then, Aunt Birdie?”
“It began to rain early on Tuesday morning and the fire finally stopped. If it hadn’t been for the rain, this house would have burned up with all the others.”
“I mean what happened with my parents? Do you have a photograph of their wedding?”
“Yes. Would you like to see it?” She lifted her wedding photo from her lap and showed it to me again. I was disappointed but not surprised.
“I think this is you, Aunt Birdie.”
“Darling Gilbert. He’s the love of my life. He’s fighting in Virginia to help free the slaves, you know. Make sure you marry for love, dear.”
I gave up. Trying to get information from Aunt Birdie was probably a lost cause. A few minutes later, Grandmother and Aunt Matt finished the dishes and joined us in the parlor.
“Unpacked already?” Grandmother asked. “That didn’t take long.”
“I’m letting my dresses hang in the wardrobe for a while before I press them.”
“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Aunt Matt said, “I have an article to write. Good night.” She crossed the front hall to her room and closed the door.
“That reminds me,” Aunt Birdie said. “I need to write a letter to Gilbert. It always cheers him to receive mail from home.” She stood and floated to the tall secretary across the room, unfolding the drop leaf so it formed a desk. She sat down gracefully and took out her stationery and a pen. Meanwhile, my grandmother had retrieved a bag of yarn and knitting needles and se
ttled into a rocking chair.
“What are you making?” I asked.
“Socks. They’re for the children down at the settlement house. Some of those poor little dears run around in the snow all winter with bare feet in their raggedy shoes. Do you know how to knit, Violet?”
“I learned how to once, but I’m not very good at it. I can’t say that I enjoy it.”
“Well, if you ever feel like helping me, I have extra knitting needles and plenty of yarn. I could use all the help I can get.”
I sat watching the women work. The only sounds were the steady ticking of the clock in the hallway, Grandmother’s knitting needles clacking rhythmically, and Aunt Birdie’s pen scratching across the page. I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake in coming to Chicago to live with a spinster and two widows. Was every evening going to be as boring as this one? I missed my friend Ruth from school, and I especially missed her exotic reading material.
I would have to come up with a plan to find my mother soon— before I died of boredom.
Chapter
5
Tuesday, June 6, 1893
I slept late the next day. By the time I came downstairs for breakfast, the others already had eaten. “Where’s my grandmother?” I asked Aunt Matt. She was trying to fasten a hat to her head with a long hatpin, stabbing it into the straw so fiercely I feared she would draw blood.
“Florence left the house hours ago to do her charity work,” she said. “She told me to let you sleep, so I did. She also told me to fix you some breakfast when you finally woke up, so what do you want?”
Judging by Aunt Matt’s expression and tone of voice, it was going to be a terrible imposition for her to wait on me. She obviously had more important things to do.
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry. I never eat much for breakfast.”
“All right, then. I’m off to do the shopping.” She strode through the back door as if heading off to war, marching to the grocery store to conquer the cabbages. Once again, I was alone with Aunt Birdie.
I found her in the parlor, daintily scattering dust as she skimmed a feather duster over the room’s bric-a-brac. Neither she nor the feathers did much good, as far as I could see. Dust motes danced in the slanted sunbeams for a few seconds, then settled back into place on the cluttered furnishings. When Birdie saw me she hurried over to embrace me, as if I had just arrived home from a very long journey.
“Good morning, dear. Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, very well.”
It wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t slept well at all. But Madame Beauchamps had insisted that most people really didn’t want to know the answer to polite questions such as “How are you?” or “Did you sleep well?” The inquirers were simply making small talk, and so the proper reply should always be something like, “Fine, thank you. And yourself?”
In truth, my grandmother’s refusal to discuss my mother had upset me a great deal. I had spent a portion of the night tossing and turning on the lumpy guest-room bed, trying to devise a way to escape from the house so I could search for my mother. I then wasted a few more hours trying to figure out how I could get Aunt Matt to deliver her lecture on remaining free from domineering husbands to Maude O’Neill. When I finally did fall asleep, I dreamed that Chicago was on fire again and my father and I were racing through the flames to find my mother.
“I’m so glad you slept well, dear,” Aunt Birdie said. “We have a big day ahead of us, you know. It’s a good thing you got your rest.”
“Pardon me … ? Um, what is it, exactly, that we’re supposed to be doing today?”
Aunt Birdie leaned close to me and whispered, “It’s a secret!” She winked.
I had no idea if she was making sense or not. My grandmother hadn’t mentioned a “big day” or a secret. A moment later, Birdie returned to her dusting, and I spotted the wedding picture she had shown me last night still lying on the parlor sofa. I picked it up and studied this younger and surprisingly pretty Aunt Birdie.
“Do you have any more pictures, Aunt Birdie? Maybe a scrapbook of photographs that we could look at together?” I would recognize my parents, even if Aunt Birdie didn’t.
“Oh, yes. I have quite a collection of photographs. They’re not in a scrapbook, though.”
“That’s okay. I would still like to see them.”
“You would?” She smiled her dreamy smile. “Oh, how nice.”
Birdie went to the secretary and removed an entire drawer brimming with photos and other mementos. She carried it over to the sofa and sat down beside me with a sigh. I wanted to root through the pictures quickly, searching for my parents, but Aunt Birdie seemed to have all the time in the world for this task. Shielding the drawer from my grasping fingers, she patiently pulled out each picture, one by one, and described it to me in excruciating detail.
“This first one is my sister Agnes and her husband, Henry. She married Henry in 1847 … or was it 1848? His last name is Paine— Henry Paine. His people are very well-to-do, you know. Those are their two boys, Henry Junior and Michael. They’re grown now, of course, with children of their own. But aren’t they darling in this picture? I think little Michael must have been about twelve … or was he older? Let me think …”
At the rate she was going, I would be grown and have children myself by the time we reached the bottom of the drawer. I decided to hurry things along.
“It doesn’t matter how old he was, Aunt Birdie. Who is that in the next picture? Is that my grandmother?”
“Yes, this is Florence and her husband, Isaac. Too bad he isn’t smiling—he looked much nicer when he smiled. But, then, Isaac never did smile very much. He was a minister, you see. One of those fire-and-brimstone preachers you hear so much about, and he never seemed to think there was much in this life worth smiling about. Now in heaven, on the other hand … He would preach about heaven too, once in a while… .”
I gritted my teeth, struggling to be patient. We had reached only the third photo—one of Aunt Birdie’s father, taken shortly before he died—when I heard a horse and carriage drawing to a halt out front. I was afraid that it was my grandmother and that she would take away the photos or hide all the ones of my mother before Aunt Birdie could show them to me. I jumped up and parted the front curtain to peer out.
An enclosed carriage, complete with a driver and a matched team of horses, had parked by our front walk. I couldn’t see the occupants, but the elegant vehicle was a far cry from the run-down hansom cab and old nag that my grandmother had hired to fetch me from the train station yesterday.
“Does my grandmother—Florence—ever hire a carriage and driver?” I asked, ready to yank the drawer full of photos from Aunt Birdie and stuff it back into the secretary.
“Florence rides the streetcar, dear.”
“Well, someone is here to pay us a visit in a very expensivelooking rig.”
“Oh, how nice.”
The driver dismounted from his seat and hurried to open the carriage door. My suspense ended as I watched my great-aunt Agnes climb down. She was a stout woman, the most full-figured of the four sisters—and also the wealthiest. Prosperity, respectability, and the aura of riches hung from her like diamonds. She swept regally up the walkway, as if balancing a crown on her head. I could easily picture an invisible entourage of velvet-clothed pages rolling a red carpet before her and lifting a long, elegant train in her wake.
“Bonjour, my dears,” she sang as she flowed through the front doorway. An engraved calling card dangled from Aunt Agnes’ gloved fingertips. Madame Beauchamps would have praised the way she held her pinkie finger daintily outstretched. Aunt Birdie hurried out to the foyer to give Agnes one of her bone-crushing embraces.
“Where is the tray, Bertha?” Agnes said, smoothing the wrinkles from her gown again. “I know you own a perfectly fine silver tray for receiving calling cards. I’m the one who bought it for you.”
Madame Beauchamps had drilled into us at some length the importance of the calling-card r
itual. I felt compelled to search for the lost tray immediately and correct this horrendous oversight. Since I had no idea what it looked like or where to find it, I turned in useless circles, peering beneath the hall table and into the coat closet while Aunt Agnes waited and Aunt Birdie stared dreamily into space.
“Never mind,” Agnes finally decided. The card fluttered from her fingertips and landed on the hall table. “Come here and let me look at you, Violet.”
She held me at arm’s length, studying me with a keen, critical eye. I feared she would find fault with my dark eyebrows and dusky complexion, but my great-aunt’s round, regal face broke into a genial smile.
“Why, you’re quite lovely. You should do very well—very well indeed. I’ll introduce you straightaway.”
“Oh, how nice,” Aunt Birdie said.
“Introduce me to whom, Aunt Agnes?”
“Why, to Chicago society, of course. You do have calling cards, don’t you? Properly engraved?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Madame B. had made certain of that.
“And suitable apparel, I presume? A proper hat? Gloves? Well, I can remedy that easily enough, if you don’t. I hope you speak French. I understand that you attended that boarding school in Rockford? What was it called?”
“Madame Beauchamps’ School for Young Ladies.”
“That’s the one. You may not be aware, but I was the one who recommended it to your father. I assume they taught you French there?”
“Oui, Tante Agnes. Je parle treés bien francçais. Madame wouldn’t have allowed me to graduate unless I’d mastered French along with the rules of etiquette and other social necessities.”
“Wonderful.”
“Madame also insisted that we learn a smattering of Italian in case the need ever arose to converse with a Venetian count; that we played the piano and sang; that we knew how to find her French homeland and other important countries on a map; and that we had a passing knowledge of poetry and literature.”