Gilded Needles

by Michael McDowell

  “Oh,” cried Annie, “we’ll get you up the longest veil you ever did see, we’ll get you a veil to sweep the streets with, and we’ll put Jemmie on one arm, and we’ll put ’Ralda here on the other arm, won’t nobody know you, won’t nobody touch you, and in that place, in Harry Hill’s place, you won’t be seeing nothing you haven’t seen worse of in a hundred other places in this neighborhood!”

  “Do go with me one evening,” pleaded Jemmie. “There’s nothing that’s so exciting as seeing Annie lay one of her friends on the boards and jump up and down on her face!”

  “Oh,” laughed Helen, “I’m sure there’s nothing like it! Not tonight, I couldn’t go tonight, but—”

  “Saturday next!” cried Annie Leech. “Saturday next! Then I’m taking on Michigan Sally again, and see if I don’t tear her heart out of her bosom and toss it to you for keepsake!”

  Helen laughed at the extravagance of Annie Leech’s speech, but in her heart she was very happy for the affection that prompted it.

  Chapter 35

  When Helen Stallworth returned home that Saturday afternoon at dusk, she was very much surprised to find her grandfather seated stiffly in the front parlor of the manse.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed softly, “is Father not here?”

  “Edward is in his study. I have asked him to remain there while I pursue a conversation with you, Helen.”

  The sternness of his voice alarmed Helen, and she seated herself near him with some trepidation.

  “Grandfather,” she whispered, “what is it you wish to discuss with me?”

  Judge Stallworth fixed a petrifying gaze upon his granddaughter and said, “As head of the Stallworth family, I am desirous to learn in detail of the work that you have performed over the past nine months—in the Black Triangle of all places. Your reputation, Helen, has at last passed beyond the boundaries of those invidious acres and reached the ears of your ignorant family. Please explain to me, Helen, how it is that you have gained so great a name for yourself in that interesting neighborhood.” His white, bony hands lay folded in his narrow lap.

  Helen turned away amazed. “If I’ve a . . . a . . . reputation,” she stammered, “it is only for charitable work performed always with love, I hope. A reputation—”

  “Behind our backs!” shouted Judge Stallworth, erupting into white anger. “For months you’ve done this! It’s no wonder you chafed so at Saratoga! You’ve become as familiar with the streets and alleys of the place as any common streetwalker, exposing yourself to danger and moral outrage with every step you take! Breathing pestilential atmospheres! Ministering with your own hands to contagion one hour, and the next you’re visiting Gramercy Park, fondling Edwin and Edith! It’s a wonder that my grandchildren aren’t writhing in their beds with boils and blisters brought up from that place on the tips of your fingers! It’s a wonder we’ve not all died of contagion! It’s—”

  “I have never knowingly exposed myself to contagion,” answered Helen. “I have always been careful. I—”

  “Careful!” cried Judge Stallworth. “Were you careful of our reputations? Were you careful of the Stallworth name? Helen Stallworth, representing the family, wandering the streets of the Black Triangle, followed by a gimlet-eyed coachman and a grotesque old woman who could make her fortune in a Bowery show—is that what you call being careful?”

  “How did you . . .” began Helen, but could not complete her question for hot tears.

  “How did we discover your perfidy?” said Judge Stallworth with scorn. “How did we learn of your months-long devilments? From Simeon Lightner, who once saw you in an open carriage, made inquiries, and now with some glee, has reported to Duncan. It has been only with the greatest difficulty that we have persuaded him not to publish your exploits. Duncan is amazed, Marian is prostrate, your father’s head is bowed with horror. I am angry and I am disgusted. There is no defense for your reprehensible conduct, but please tell me what there is to be told, tell me all—we do not wish for further surprises in this matter.”

  Helen then, weeping the while, told her grandfather of her demoralizing dissatisfactions with Marian’s committee, of her talks with Mrs. General Taunton, of her first frightened visit to the Black Triangle, of subsequent easier visits, of her becoming acquainted with the streets, the people, the ways of the place, of her little schemes and devices for the alleviation of want and suffering; and with a little pride, of the growing acceptance of her presence by the people of the Black Triangle. “Oh Grandfather,” she cried, with some scant hope that he would be moved by her words, “sometimes now, when we drive through, on our way to and from delivering a basket or visiting the sick, the people call out to us! They call us the widow and her daughter, and have made up fantastic stories of Mrs. General Taunton’s husband, supposedly my father, and of the great wealth we’re supposed to be possessed of! These trips have come to mean so much to me. They’ve filled my whole life. I never realized before how much one or two persons acting simply and alone, could accomplish. Not that I’m proud—I have no right to be—but I’m made glad to the core of my being when I see a child playing on the walks who might have died a month before if we had not brought a doctor to his bedside. It was Father’s sermons that inspired me! He painted such misery there, such want and such privation, that I felt my heart would break if I didn’t do something to help those poor unfortunate people.”

  “Those poor unfortunate people are full of criminal wickedness,” said Judge Stallworth, “and their very breath is tainting.”

  “No!” protested Helen. “They are made evil only by circumstance. By inclination, they would lead honest, industrious, gentle lives. I have spoken with them, and predilections to goodness fall from the mouths of all. Oh, Grandfather, and I’ve seen as bad as ever appeared before your bench!”

  “Helen, no respectable woman will consent to set foot in the Black Triangle. When you first contemplated these foolish actions, this ludicrous course, did you stop for one moment to think what the repercussions might be—to yourself and, more importantly, to your family?”

  “Grandfather, I—”

  “Obviously, you did not. Obviously, you had no thought in the world but the gratification of your own vanity, the setting up of your own spirit on an altar of your own building. Helen, you are such a gull, such a gull! Tricked by that insane woman in widow’s weeds, that fat silhouette of mourning, whose house no one will go into because it is no better than a lazaretto, with all her servants maimed and deformed! Duped by those you profess to minister unto, the criminal and the vicious, who want only your gifts, your small-change beneficence, whose real pleasure is to sully a lady with their loathsome contact. You’re an object of ridicule to them all, Helen! Have you been so purblind as never to have seen that? Certainly when this becomes known—and how you thought you could keep it secret for long I can’t imagine!—you will be trussed and spitted above the fires of gossip and opprobrium. And what will be my position, when it is known that I permitted such a thing for my own granddaughter?”

  “You didn’t permit—”

  “Worse and worse!” cried Judge Stallworth. “We didn’t permit, we didn’t even know of it. It was done behind our backs. My granddaughter absent from the house four or five hours every day parading around the Black Triangle in an open carriage, in the company of a lady of doubtful mental faculties, and we knew nothing of it! Worse and worse!”

  “I have never done anything in connection with the Black Triangle of which I need be ashamed.”

  James Stallworth eyed his granddaughter closely and was silent for a few moments. When he spoke again, it was with a quietness that contrasted strongly with his former vehemence. “No? Then what of your intimacy with Mademoiselle Leech? What of her ‘friend?’ What of them? Half-women! Would-be men! What of them? Such loathsome creatures would be outcast even from the society of condemned murderers on Blackwell’s Island! And yet you have established yourself as their intimate. . . .”

  Helen, mortally embarr
assed, looked away. “I have never refused those who were in need of assistance—”

  Judge Stallworth smiled coldly. “Mademoiselle Leech is not in want. Mademoiselle Leech is amply rewarded for her appearances in the ring. The friend of Mademoiselle Leech does not suffer from the ravages of any physical disease. And if they are possessed of souls completely corrupted, they are at least blessed with sound bodies and pocketbooks, are they not?”

  Helen nodded slowly, and dared say no more in her defense.

  Judge Stallworth stood, and came near her chair. “You are to go there no more,” he said quietly. “Do you understand? No more journeys on what you mistakenly assume to be a charitable mission. No more commerce with Mrs. General Taunton. I need not tell you that you are to make no more pilgrimages to the Sapphic shrine on Morton Street. So do you understand me, Helen? It is a sorry life I lead, my granddaughter exposing her breast to every stray arrow of vicious calumny that could be fired from a thousand drawing room windows throughout the city. If you must be lashed to the bedposts, Helen, you will not be allowed to endanger our reputations again.”

  Judge James Stallworth stalked out of the room and the manse, and left Helen weeping in the parlor that was now wholly dark.

  When Edward Stallworth came downstairs the next day, he was relieved not to find Helen about. The judge had not exaggerated the effect of the news of Helen’s charitable endeavors had had upon her father. He was distressed, embarrassed, and angry—but he still had no desire to confront his daughter. He supposed that she remained in her room, awaiting his summons, the reiteration of the family’s displeasure, and the announcement of her punishment.

  On his desk, he found an unsealed envelope, directed to him in his daughter’s hand. He assumed, as a matter of course, it was the abject apology that she was too diffident to present in person. He stood at the window and held the letter stiffly before him so that the sunlight fell directly onto the page. He perused it with a cold condescension that gradually gave way to a mixture of wonder, shame, and rage. It read:

  Dearest Father,

  I am sorry for the trouble that I may have caused you and the rest of the family. I certainly regret the necessity for silence over the past several months in regard to my beloved work, a reticence that you perhaps rightly interpret—as certainly Grandfather does—as deception. Yet that silence was I think necessary if I now consider your response to my endeavors in the Blighted Triangle, under the loving direction of Mrs. General Taunton. I cannot find fault with your views in this matter, for then I would surely be wanting in filial obedience, but I cannot subscribe to them either. It was of course your own sermons, even more than the articles of Duncan and Mr. Lightner, which prompted me to carry succor to those unfortunately circumstanced inhabitants of our city. It is labor that has been blessed to me, exertion that has doubly turned to joy, dear Father, and I would as soon give up my life as relinquish these gladsome toils.

  Therefore, and knowing that I am of age and mistress of my own fortune, I have determined to leave the manse. I could not live every day beneath your reproach. My heart would surely break. In this world a woman’s lot is small and circumscribed, and I had long resigned myself, and never protested—but what I had never fully understood was that a woman’s power to do good was as limited as the opportunity for great evil. I, who have so rarely ventured out of the manse in the entirety of my life, was still not made for domesticity; I have no influence over servants, hospitality is a foreign tongue, the social round is a forest through which I wander with bandaged eyes. My sphere is there, in the Blighted Triangle, and all other places where want and misery are predominant. It is in the service of such poor creatures as burden this city with their groans and wailings that I will spend the portion of my days.

  Oh dear Father, if you would accept this resolution in me, I would happily return to you, so happily resume my place in the manse. In this matter alone, however, I must now and forever remain your

  Faithless but loving daughter

  Helen Stallworth

  Postscriptum. I may be reached at the home of Mrs. General Taunton, where I am assured of a warm and indefinite welcome.

  Chapter 36

  On Saturday night, at ten o’clock, Benjamin Stallworth stood on the corner of King and MacDougal Streets, and had actually to hang on to a lamppost to protect himself from being carried away into the boisterous passing throng. Newsboys sniggered at him, prostitutes detained and solicited him, toughs facetiously threatened his life, and he had nearly made up his mind to leave, when Pet Margery pulled gently on the tail of his coat.

  “I’m mightily glad you came,” she said with a smile that promised much.

  “Oh yes,” he replied nervously, “word of a straight table would draw me to the ends of the earth.”

  “My feet swolled up just thinking about you, Ben.”

  “What!”

  “My ma always said that love was in the feet, and every time she fell in love her feet started to swell up and she had to put on mustard plasters to draw out the infection of love. After I saw you last night, I went out this morning and laid in a supply of plasters, that’s just what I did!”

  Benjamin blushed beneath the harsh glow of the lamp.

  “And you dressed up for me, I can see it!” cried Pet Margery, and playfully jabbed Benjamin in the ribs. “Dressed to kill, and barberized to resuscitate, that’s what you are! You and Pet Margery will have one night tonight, I can tell you!”

  Pet Margery slipped her arm through his, and led him down King Street. She carried herself beside him as if proud to be in the company of such a man as he. Benjamin was overcome with a mixture of pride that he had attracted the notice of so pretty a woman, who even if a prostitute, as surely she must be, had made no mention of money; of embarrassment, for she was after all a prostitute; and of excitement, thinking of the promised straight table and other pleasures too that might come to him this same night.

  Pet Margery pulled him down King Street, led him across Varick, and then shoved him down a short flight of slippery steps and through a low wooden doorway, kept open despite the chill night air. Benjamin found himself in the heated yellow atmosphere of a groggery of some little pretension—at least in comparison with the rest of the places on that street. It had a mahogany bar with a brass footrail, and mirrors behind; little marble-topped tables and cane chairs for the customers—most of them women; and in the back a red velvet portiere that Pet Margery dramatically lifted to Benjamin.

  The room behind—actually the cellar of the adjoining house—was entirely given over to gambling, half a dozen different tables and games, with single gas lights beneath red and green shades hanging over each. The croupiers and bankers were distinguished by their emaciation as much as by their green eyeshades.

  “Oh!” cried Benjamin, “I know this area, but had no idea such a place existed. Very very pleasant,” he exclaimed, “especially if the tables are straight!”

  He made immediately for the schuss table, but Pet Margery guided him instead to the far corner. “That’s my pa, running vanty-yune. It’s the only table that’s straight, and only reason it’s straight is that I told Pa I was bringing a friend tonight. You stick with Pa, Ben, and your fortune’s made.”

  Pet Margery’s father was a gaunter man than those he hired, with a frame that was scarcely wide enough to hang a suit of clothes on and skin that was hard pressed to stretch bone over bone. His eyes were sunken and his cheek dabbed with a wispy yellow beard.

  “Seat yourself, sir,” he whispered through a throat gnawed with a cancer, “and my daughter’ll change your cash.”

  Benjamin drew forty dollars in gold from his pocket and handed it to Pet Margery, who skipped blithely away. After a moment, which Benjamin passed watching Pet Margery’s father deal out a game to the three men on the bench beside him, the young woman returned with a stack of white and red chips.

  “Red’s eight bits, white’s a dollar, suppose you know that?” said Pet Margery’s fathe
r in a hoarse whisper.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Benjamin, whisper for whisper.

  The cards were dealt, Benjamin rested at eighteen, betting two dollars, and won from the bank.

  The second and third hands he lost, but in the next three he was a large winner. Pet Margery had brought him a sloe gin sling, and insisted that he drink it quickly in celebration of his increasing pile of chips. The men beside Benjamin, as he continued to play, were of that sort whose livelihood depended upon their anonymity of appearance, and they alternated without his being able to distinguish them one from the other. They were alike too in that they all lost, and different from Benjamin also in that he was a consistent winner at the table.

  Finally Benjamin, sipping his third gin sling, found himself embarrassed by the height of the stacks of his red, white—and now blue chips. “Perhaps I ought to try my fortune at one of the other tables. . . .” he suggested.

  “No!” cried Pet Margery.

  “Oh,” Pet Margery’s father warned him, “your fortune might not favor you so there.”

  Benjamin shrugged, though he mightily suspected that even now the table was not straight, but that Pet Margery’s father allowed him to win time after time and sent all the others away depleted. He grew nervous as he heard the other players grumble, but Pet Margery’s father silenced them with a look.

  Benjamin, through his alcoholic haze, tried to reason this out. The only conclusion he could draw however was that Pet Margery had taken a great fancy to him, and had persuaded her father to allow him to win at vingt-et-un. There was a pleasant and startling contrariness to this situation—that he was being given money by a prostitute. He must suppose that when her father had decided that he ought win no more, Pet Margery would drag him up to her room. Even if she demanded money of him afterward, for her own good name perhaps, he would be out nothing at all for the experience.