Love and Other Consolation Prizes

by Jamie Ford

  Ernest shook his head. He knew that like most everyone else, the Professor had been slow to accept that Maisie in all likelihood wasn’t coming back. A year had passed, yet he kept asking, kept hoping for some postcard, or bicycle messenger to show up with a telegram from Germany, or Seattle, or…somewhere.

  Ernest remembered how a few weeks after she’d moved out, Maisie had called Mrs. Blackwell to announce her travel arrangements, but she didn’t ask for him or Fahn. The Gibson girls had gone down to the King Street Station, where they gave the Mayflower a balsam wreath with ribbon candy and waved goodbye. Even after all these months, they still talked about how Maisie had been dolled up in a long mink coat, toting an angora-trimmed handbag as she stepped out of a long white sedan. Servants from Speedwell had arrived as well, portering a small mountain of luggage onto the train as they accompanied Maisie and Turnbull on their journey.

  Ernest and Fahn decided not to go—they were too afraid a farewell would be goodbye forever. In that strange way, they held out hope. They imagined Maisie taking on the world, though the upstairs girls never once mentioned if she smiled or not.

  From the Gibson girls’ superficial reactions, Ernest realized that to them, Maisie had unwittingly hit the bull’s-eye that Madam Flora had encouraged all her charges to aim for. It was not quite true freedom, he supposed, but a form of social dependence so elevated and grandiose that it looked like freedom to them.

  Was this any different than party girls trading favors for silk stockings, bottles of brandy, and dinners in fancy restaurants—or society girls carefully doling out pleasure for the promise of a colorful courtship and a proper wedding?

  Ernest had lain awake many nights and wondered. Girls were complicated, women confounding, their challenges almost insurmountable. The world was a rigged game, stacked against them. But maybe Maisie had played to her advantage.

  “No one’s heard from her. Not a word.” Ernest stretched the truth, just a tad. He had received a note from Maisie a week after she left; she was in New York City at the time, about to board a steamer to London. She’d said she felt as if she were living in a fairy tale, a world that couldn’t reflect her previous life. She regretted not giving him or Fahn a proper goodbye. And she left a mailing address care of Louis Turnbull. But when Ernest had replied with a picture postcard of himself and Fahn holding hands at the Milwaukee Pier, Maisie never wrote back.

  Ernest thought Fahn might have received a note in reply, but if she did, she never mentioned such a thing. And a few days later she moved upstairs into Maisie’s room.

  Ernest suspected that whether Maisie found her mother or not, the Mayflower had set sail for good and was never coming back. She’d sealed her deal with her silence.

  That revelation was finally confirmed when Mrs. Blackwell discovered Maisie’s wedding announcement a few months later in the society pages of the Seattle Times.

  “It says here that Louis J. Turnbull and his young ward, the lovely Margaret N. Turnbull, have returned, after a European courtship and a marriage at sea, with plans for a honeymoon cruise around the world.” Mrs. Blackwell had sat down for once, as though the truth wearied her. Though the maids and the upstairs girls almost swooned.

  The article didn’t mention Madam Flora. Not that Ernest was surprised.

  “What is it with robber barons and their young puppy wives?” Mrs. Blackwell asked rhetorically. “First it was the copper king, William Clark, and his young ward, Anna Eugenia, now our Mayflower. God bless ’em all.”

  Since hearing of Maisie’s nuptials, Ernest would occasionally notice her in the newspaper, where writers would describe her elegant dresses, her curled hair, dyed a light pink at the tips, an indulgence in the latest fashion craze, and the glittering diamond necklaces and bracelets she wore to yacht races or tennis matches at Viretta Park. But the articles on Seattle’s newest continental debutante never once mentioned her humble beginnings. It was as though Margaret Turnbull had been conjured out of thin air.

  “She’s someone else these days,” Ernest said.

  Professor True said, “There are people in our lives whom we love, and lose, and forever long for. They orbit our hearts like Halley’s Comet, crossing into our universe only once, or if we’re lucky, twice in a lifetime. And when they do, they affect our gravity.” He said, “You know what I mean? These people are special.”

  Ernest nodded. Halley’s Comet had come and gone and the world hadn’t ended. But it wasn’t ever the same again. And if he ever missed Maisie, he only had to console himself by walking past the less glamorous places where she might have ended up, the cribs that Madam Flora had tried to shut down.

  As Ernest thought about the police, he realized he hadn’t seen an officer on foot in weeks. Not even to stop by the Tenderloin to “ticket everyone for vagrancy,” which was merely a way of taxing the business. In the past Mrs. Blackwell would have cheerfully taken the papers from the officer, paid him the fines out of petty cash, offered him a slice of fresh-baked apple pie and a cup of coffee, and then tossed the tickets into the fireplace.

  No more.

  As Ernest looked up and down the street, searching for an officer in uniform, he heard bells ringing, cheering, and the roar of a crowd several blocks away. Then he heard singing—voices that sounded more like an army on the move.

  “They never give up,” the Professor said as he pointed to a parade of women in black who were marching down the middle of Third Avenue.

  From three blocks away, Ernest recognized Mrs. Irvine—the mother of the Mothers of Virtue. They were back, louder than ever, and in greater numbers than he’d ever seen, even though business had been quiet in the Garment District.

  Rose and Violet came outside to watch the rally as they always did. As the women marched closer, Ernest could plainly read their banners and signs, the same ones that called for an end to the crib joints, casinos, saloons, taverns, bars, dance halls, and even the social drinking clubs. The normal rhetoric.

  But this time he also saw that Mrs. Irvine was shouldering an ax.

  “Hoo-boy, we’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Rose asked no one in particular.

  “I read the latest in the paper this morning,” Violet said. “Since us women got the vote back, the suffragists have been reorganizing. They’ve formed a giant group. They’re on a new crusade—twenty thousand strong.”

  “Looks like they’re all here.” Professor True pointed.

  Ernest hadn’t seen that many people in one place since the closing of the world’s fair. He stood and backed up as the sea of women kept pouring down the street.

  Many of the marchers carried brooms and yelled that they were here to “clean up” the Garment District. But just as many carried axes, sickles, and crowbars. Others stormed into saloons, past shocked, drunken patrons. Then they rolled out kegs of beer and smashed them open in the street with picks and hammers, like angry birds pecking a larger animal to death. Others flocked to the alleys, where they’d never gone before, knocking on doors and breaking up dice games.

  Ernest noticed that the bawdy ladies who normally heckled the marchers peeked out from their second- and third-story windows and then retreated inside, closing their shutters or drawing their curtains and blinds to block out the horde.

  As the marchers paraded past the Tenderloin’s front entrance, Mrs. Irvine sauntered over, ax in hand. “Where’s the lady of the house?” she demanded. “I have a little present I’d like to give to her personally—it’s been long overdue.” She reached into her deep dress pocket and withdrew a rolled-up paper.

  “Who are you, Carry Nation?” Rose said, before Violet shushed her.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Professor True said, removing his hat and speaking gently. “But Madam Flora and Miss Amber are still gone, taking care of things overseas. She’ll be back soon. In the meantime, I’ll be happy to let her know that you paid us a visit.”

  Mrs. Irvine smiled. “Well, in that case.” She handed the paper to Ernest. “Why don’t you
take this, young man? And pass it along to everyone here with my regards. Oh, and Ernest, you do know that I’m a forgiving sort, so you’re always welcome to come back. As for the rest of this sorry lot…”

  She turned on her heel and marched off singing a hymn.

  “What’s it say?” Rose asked.

  Ernest unrolled the paper. It was a legal notice, along with a page torn from The Seattle Star. The headline read: MAYOR GILL LOSES IN RECALL ELECTION. A NEW DAY FOR SEATTLE AS WOMEN UNITE TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD.

  The Professor took the paper, skimmed the headlines, and then translated the bad news. “Well, boy and girls, looks like the mayor and the police chief got caught with their pants down, financing that crib joint of theirs on lower Beacon Hill. So the city is busting up the neighborhood—all of the parlors and cribs. Thirty days’ notice hereby given.”

  Rose asked, “What’s that mean?”

  “It means we’re all out of a job,” the Professor said. “And a home too, for that matter. The mayor’s been kicked out of office, effective this week. And Wappenstein got reinstated as chief of police just in time to get himself arrested. The City Council is giving us a month to move out, or they’ll come down here with paddy wagons and take us away. Either way, says here there’s an unpaid lien on our building, plus a hefty fine against Miss Amber for operating all these years without a liquor license.” Professor True shook his head. “Now it’s illegal for you ladies to work anywhere that serves a touch of alcohol.”

  Ernest thought of endless bottles of whiskey, brandy, port, and the cases of wine—and the men, the city officials who drank it.

  “They can’t do this!” Rose looked as though she were about to storm into the parade and start swinging, but Violet held her back. “Miss Amber won’t allow it!”

  That’s when Ernest heard Mrs. Blackwell from behind them. “It’s done, dear.” The cook removed her apron and bonnet and let them fall to the ground. “All of us, done for—it’s over.” In her other hand she held a wrinkled slip of yellow paper. Her face was ashen. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone. A messenger boy came to the servants’ entrance with a telegram three months ago with news from Miss Amber. I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad tidings. But in light of things…”

  The sounds of protest seemed to fade to a dull ringing as Mrs. Blackwell read the telegram aloud.

  “Madam Flora succumbed to syphilis, God rest her soul. Too heartbroken to ever come back. Yours, Miss Amber.”

  PRIZE AND CONSOLATIONS

  (1911)

  One month later the finest parlor joint in Seattle and the most orderly disorderly house in the Northwest had emptied. The Tenderloin’s fine brickwork, gabled ceilings, and ornate crown molding were now nothing more than a skeleton that had been picked clean by vultures. With the lien, the King County auditor’s office had called for a commissioned estate auction, which did away with most of the hanging artwork, the Turkish and Oriental rugs, the stained-glass lamps, and the French furnishings, all with the sound of a gavel. And then a foreclosure on the building by Hayes & Hayes Bank turned the remaining bones into soup as liquidators removed everything that wasn’t nailed down, including the carpets, light fixtures, and the nouveau chandeliers.

  Ernest stood by, waiting for Fahn to return from a job interview, as the last of the statuary, a smooth, bare-breasted marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Calypso, was wrapped, crated, and then lugged out the front door. The upstairs girls had called that statue Madam Damnable, in honor of Seattle’s first madam, who ran the Felker House, a lifetime ago. Legend had it that when the rain forced the city to relocate the bodies from the old Seattle Cemetery up the hill to Lake View, the dainty old madam had turned to stone and her casket weighed two thousand pounds.

  A very tall tale, Ernest thought. A heavy one too. But he understood the burden that was one’s personal reputation. Everyone associated with the Tenderloin now felt that weight, that pressure, that collective shame—which wasn’t really shame at all, just the consternation and condemnation from others.

  The only item that had somehow been spared the liquidation was the Marmon Roadster. The shiny black automobile had never officially been placed in Madam Flora’s name, so to the authorities it didn’t exist. Mrs. Blackwell and Professor True had agreed that Ernest should have it. The Professor told him to keep the coachman’s uniform and use his experience to make a living. Ernest gratefully accepted.

  As he went inside, he was sad to be leaving the people he’d come to care about, but he was more hopeful for whatever life he and Fahn could create outside of a world where people were bought and sold. He’d been charmed, for a while, but the illusion had faded. And deep down, Ernest knew that his angular life could never fit back into a traditional box. He recognized that as he watched Violet, Iris, and Rose emerge from the kitchen holding on to one another, a real-life frieze of the Three Graces that Madam Flora had taught the upstairs girls about. Though the faces of the maids were masks of sadness, melancholy, and apprehension, rather than splendor, mirth, and good cheer.

  The servants would have the biggest challenge. They were leaving a house of ill repute, without a reference, turned out into a city that was undergoing a moral cleansing. The righteous, upstanding women who had forced Mayor Gill from office would hold no desire to hire domestics who bore the stain of the red-light district. And Ernest was sure the men who’d gladly partaken of the Tenderloin’s services would not be of help to the servants in finding placements. Ernest had known unkindness, he’d known outright hatred, but he’d never fully understood hypocrisy until now.

  The servants had waited, hoping to eke out a few more days until the water and electricity were shut off. Now he figured that most of them would find menial jobs at poor farms or in flophouses. Mrs. Blackwell had found employment running the kitchen at the halfway house on Beacon Hill known as the Lazy Husband Ranch. Ernest knew, because he’d driven the old cook to her new job at the Municipal Workhouse and Stockade. He’d hugged her and then waved farewell.

  As he embraced each of the maids and said goodbye, they promised to be in touch once they landed on their feet. But when they walked out the door, he didn’t hold out hope that he would ever see any of them again.

  That’s the one consistent pattern to my life, Ernest thought. When people say goodbye, they mean it.

  That’s how it had been with his mother and with Madam Flora and Miss Amber. He wished the same wouldn’t be true with Maisie. He hoped that their threads of happiness and sadness, joy and grief, would somehow intertwine again. But he also understood that his loss might have been her gain, and he struggled to accept his part of that equation.

  Ernest thought about the good times as he wandered past his packed suitcase in the foyer to the empty salon and then the smoking room, vacant of everything but the scent of tobacco. He lingered in the library, now absent of books. And he inhaled the stale air of the formal dining room, which—stripped of the tin ceiling and the wainscoting—seemed more bare than any of the girls had ever been. The only things that remained were the piano and a smattering of cases, hatboxes, and steamer trunks that belonged to the upstairs girls.

  Most of the older ladies were moving on to sporting houses in Tacoma, while the younger ones had found work on the Levee in Chicago. And Nellie Curtis, who dared to set herself up as Seattle’s next great madam, despite the chilly moral climate, had taken in a handful of the girls. She was already establishing a name for herself at the Camp Hotel on First Avenue, flouting the county’s new policies and Seattle’s new mayor, George Dilling. Word on the street, though, was that Naughty Nellie was all business and had no interest in helping the girls elevate their status in society.

  “She’s not interested in the parlor life,” Professor True had grumbled, shaking his head. “She’s just running an ordinary crib.”

  Ernest had bid each of the remaining Gibson girls farewell as they descended the grand staircase one last time. Their mournfulness, like their expensive perfu
me, lingered long after they’d departed. As Ernest hugged Jewel, last to leave, he knew that of all the upstairs girls, he’d miss her the most.

  “And where are you off to?” he asked.

  “Ladies’ choice.” She held up a stack of cards and letters, bound with a red ribbon. “I’m going to check into a fine hotel, order a bottle of wine, draw a nice long bubble bath, put my feet up, and slowly read all the marriage proposals I’ve received in the last year. One of them is bound to be a keeper. Though to be honest, Ernest, if you were a little bit older, darling—you’d be my first pick.”

  “And if my heart were my own…” He smiled.

  Jewel put a gloved finger to Ernest’s heart. “But it’s not, is it?” She planted a long, lingering kiss on his surprised lips. Then she kissed Professor True on both cheeks as he walked into the room. She smiled, grabbed her suitcase, and bounded down the steps.

  “That one will do just fine,” the Professor said, fanning himself with his hat. “Give her enough time and she might get herself elected mayor.”

  “She’s got my vote,” Ernest said.

  “Mine too.”

  The working girls will keep on working one way or another, Ernest thought. If not, there’s the White Shield Home in Tacoma, a refuge he’d suggested to Fahn. But she had other plans. Besides, she couldn’t bear to leave the neighborhood.

  As sunset approached, Ernest helped Professor True and a group of colored men load the piano up a steep ramp and onto a flatbed hay truck, where they covered it with a canvas tarp and long stretches of heavy rope.

  “Time for me to fly, young man—wish I could take you with.”

  “And where might that be?” Ernest asked.

  “Vancouver, British Columbia, for a month of gigs at the Patrician nightclub. Then we head east to Chicago. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard things—some good, some bad, but sounds like there’s plenty of work. I hooked up with a hot band traveling through town led by a man named Ferdinand LaMothe. He just lost one of his crew—married a local girl—so off I go in his place…” Professor True reached up and pulled part of the canvas away from the keyboard and played a one-handed stinger on the piano, which was already slipping out of tune.