The Shadow Palace

by Jane Steen

  “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Elizabeth.” Mrs. Parnell nodded at the waiter who had come to clear away the tea things. “Considering your views on marriage.”

  “I’m not against marriage per se,” said Miss Parnell. “Just against the imbalance of power between the man and the woman.” She raised her eyebrows at her mother. “Having to wait for widowhood to take control of their own finances—oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Lillington. Of course, you were most unfortunate to lose your husband so early. But in purely practical terms, having the former Miss Gambarelli as a wife must be a tremendous advantage for an ambitious man. Not,” she dropped her voice to a near-whisper, “that I’d like to be related to any of the Gambarelli men, even by marriage. They have a reputation for ruthlessness and—well, you never see their wives. You’d think they’re in purdah, like the Hindu women. How Miss Gambarelli—Mrs. Rutherford now, of course—got out into society at all is a mystery to me.”

  “She twists all those dreadful men around her little finger, which is a woman’s true power.” Mrs. Parnell gathered up her reticule, a signal that our conversation was coming to an end. “Now, Mrs. Lillington, is there any other way in which I can be of service to you? I must say, knowing that you’re a friend of Mr. Rutherford’s is a tremendous help as far as introductions are concerned.”

  “Well,” I said and hesitated. There was one matter that had been on my mind as I’d dressed. The minor embarrassment of consulting Mrs. Parnell was preferable to talking to a concierge. “You see,” I began again, “I don’t know how to go about arranging for withdrawals of money from the bank. I need to pay the hotel, and I’ll need spending money and all sorts of things. I have traveling money with me, but I’ll need some more fairly soon.”

  Mrs. Parnell’s blue eyes became sharp indeed. “Which bank?”

  I named it, and Mrs. Parnell seemed to relax a little. “It’s quite straightforward. I’ll show you how to have a representative of the bank come to you here. That will spare you the unpleasantness of having to enter a men’s domain, and of traveling alone through the streets of Chicago. Don’t, by the way. There are mashers and pickpockets everywhere. If you need to go somewhere, have a concierge summon a hired carriage and avoid carrying too much money with you.” She paused. “I have many more things I could tell you, but one lesson at a time. Shall we go find a concierge together?”

  “And I’ll retire to my room and read a novel,” Miss Parnell said. “Mrs. Lillington, I’m looking forward to our outing tomorrow. I too have many things I can tell you.” The last was said sotto voce behind her mother’s back with an impish smile.

  I followed Mrs. Parnell out of the Grand Parlor, feeling both apprehensive and excited. I was going to be in control of my wealth for the first time. Martin had made it clear to me in his letters that he’d given the bankers firm instructions in that respect, and that even if I sought his advice, I would have to make the decisions. This, then, was freedom—of action, at least, if not of the heart.

  4

  Elizabeth

  Miss Parnell had been right—Lake Park was not particularly pretty. Especially in March when the sparse lawns were still yellow from the winter’s rigors, with just a few green blades poking up here and there. But the morning was bright and sunny, even though the icy wind from the lake reddened our noses and kept our hands inside the fur muffs we both wore. Paths crisscrossed the park in a formal pattern, so we were able to walk around while Sarah bowled her hoop.

  We spoke for a few minutes on conventional subjects—the weather, our journey, and the inexhaustible topic of railroad travel. The last was suggested by the black line of the railroad that marred our view of the lake, which would otherwise have been beautiful. Shifting like a wild animal at rest under its glittering blue-green surface, the vast stretch of water was populated with small dots that were no doubt boats leaving or arriving from nearby lakeside ports—it was too early in the year for large ships. To the north of us, the glass panes of the Exposition Building winked in the sunlight, its flags fluttering showily in the stiff breeze.

  But our conversation didn’t remain banal for long. I was beginning to learn that Miss Parnell’s nature was frank and impulsive.

  “You do realize, don’t you,” she said when our small talk flagged, “that Mother’s motives for helping you with your banking aren’t entirely altruistic? I thought I should give you fair warning.”

  “What do you mean?” The odd thought flitted through my mind that Mrs. Parnell would try to entice me into some unreliable investment scheme involving one of her committees. I repressed a smile.

  “It’s rather delicate.” Miss Parnell’s rounded cheeks, already pink from the wind, deepened in hue. “I do hope you won’t be offended. There are so many people who arrive in Chicago claiming to have made a fortune on the frontier, you see.”

  Realization dawned. “You don’t mean she thinks I could be some kind of confidence trickster? With Sarah and Tess part of the act?” I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused.

  “Well, no, she rather likes you—as do I—and thinks you couldn’t possibly be up to something with a child and a—well, a feeble-minded person in tow, although Miss O’Dugan’s mind seems to be in good working order as far as I can see. But not to the point where she could be anything other than honest. But you do see, Mrs. Lillington, that my mother, if she intends to introduce you a little to Chicago society, is duty bound to make sure—oh dear, I’m making a terrible mess of this.” She gave a little stamp of her neatly booted foot. “You must think we’re entirely lacking in Christian charity.”

  By now I was definitely amused. “I don’t think it’s at all wrong to not take strangers at face value. I’ve been too trusting myself in the past, and it’s always ended badly for me. Your mother is a shrewd woman.”

  “Well, yes, she is. If only she weren’t a woman, she would have been a formidable man of business. That’s why she’s in such demand with her committees and causes. And Father’s a dear—he doesn’t mind one bit what she does, and gives her free rein with his money. She, at least, doesn’t have to wait for widowhood to be able to spend what she likes when she likes.”

  “Hmmm.” I watched as Sarah rolled her hoop toward another little girl who belonged, I presumed, to the two women who sat huddled together on a bench. “I’m beginning to learn, Miss Parnell, that you’re something of an advanced thinker. But I can give you my personal assurance that I’m no confidence trickster and that my money is all my own—and Miss O’Dugan’s, of course, although for the time being our funds are in the same account.”

  “If the bank employee comes readily to your summons, Mother will have proof positive that you’re in funds, so I shouldn’t worry if I were you. And please don’t say anything to Mother. She’ll send me back to Lake Forest—she does that every time I show signs of independence.” Miss Parnell sighed. “And I know we barely know each other, but would you call me Elizabeth? I disapprove on principle of all this Miss-ing and Mrs.-ing. I’m convinced it’s designed to keep us in our place, to designate us as women rather than as people. Mother says I’m just being vulgar, but she has no notion of radical thought.”

  “I’ll happily call you Elizabeth, and you may call me Nell,” I replied, “but I don’t think I’m nearly as radical as you are.”

  “You’ve not come here looking for a husband, have you?” Miss Parnell—Elizabeth—looked crestfallen.

  Now it was my turn to blush, and I fervently hoped that my cheeks were also reddened by the wind. How could I answer that question?

  “I’ve come here to decide what to do with my life,” was my eventual reply. “It’s not an easy decision, and I can’t discuss all the ramifications of it on a day’s acquaintance, if you’ll forgive me for saying so. But marriage is not something I’m contemplating right now. What I really want to be is a dressmaker. What I really don’t want to be is a society woman who spends her time paying and receiving calls and sitting on committees.”

 
“Oh, hoorah!” Elizabeth’s bright eyes flashed, and she clapped her hands, quite like a child. “Good for you, Nell. I find society to be an absolute shackle. I’m condemned to spend far too much time sitting and chatting with silly women or enduring endless introductions to suitable young men. And changing my dress four times a day at least when we’re in the city and being permanently at Mother’s beck and call. My only way out is marriage, and I—” She stopped short and stared at me. “I’m about to shock you inexpressibly, Nell.”

  “You are?”

  Elizabeth widened her eyes into a comical expression of pure mischief. “We told you about my older sister, Frances, didn’t we? The married one.” She said the last phrase with a roll of her eyes. “Frances, since her marriage, has become a Feminist and is quite subverting Mother’s plans for me. Frances has three children already and one on the way, and she’s only been married six and a half years. She loves them dearly, of course, but she wishes they would not come quite so frequently. She smuggles copies of Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly to me. Victoria Woodhull, you know, writes that the notion of ownership of one person by another is quite wrong and the cause of many a tragedy. Don’t you agree?”

  I was beginning to feel as if I’d run into a patch of quicksand. Elizabeth’s remarks were so pertinent to my own situation that I barely knew what to say. If my forthcoming separation from Martin were indeed a tragedy, his marriage was certainly the cause of it. But—

  “I agree in principle,” I said slowly, trying to feel my way through the question without running afoul of my emotions. “But in practice, when you love a man—and love will happen, you know, whether you want it or not—you’re faced with the choice of marrying him and bearing his children, with all that entails, or letting someone else have him and feeling miserable about it. The third way is all very well, but the world sees it as immoral, and if there are children involved, the taint of immorality is laid on them. Do we have a right to make others suffer for our principles?”

  Elizabeth leaned in a little closer. “Frances says there are ways of preventing children. Her Adolphus won’t hear of it, but she says she’s going to show me some books next time I visit New York. I’m absolutely agog.”

  I shook my head. “It still all sounds like a lot more fun for the men than for the women,” I said. “I wouldn’t like to spend my life worrying if my—precautions—had worked or not.”

  “This is why our society needs to evolve to embrace the principles of Free Love,” was Elizabeth’s rejoinder. “A true marriage is based on absolute freedom, not legal coercion, and is thus pure and generous. Where there is no possession by one of the other, there is no jealousy, no hatred, no deception, no unfaithfulness.”

  “Good heavens,” I said. “It all sounds terribly theoretical and idealistic. It’s my experience that matters are never clear-cut when it comes to the heart. Are you proposing that all married people dissolve their legal bonds and live with whom they please? There may not be deception and unfaithfulness in such an arrangement, but I’m doubtful whether there would be no jealousy or hatred.”

  “The common women manage it well enough,” replied Elizabeth. “You read all sorts of things in the newspapers—well, the ones Mother doesn’t want me to read, anyhow—about women married to one man and living with another, that kind of business. Mind you, they all seem to settle matters with knives and frying pans, and I can’t imagine myself rolling up my sleeves and clouting my rivals with kitchen equipment.”

  “Could you recognize kitchen equipment?” I couldn’t help asking. We both dissolved into laughter.

  “Nell, you’re the brightest spot in my whole week. I’m grateful for the prairie wind that blew you in, even if I never succeed in making a Feminist of you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, amused. “I’m perfectly in favor of women having a profession and making financial decisions alongside their men. I’m just not sure your Free Love schemes will work in practice, especially when there are children involved. And you can’t tell me that men and women are going to avoid having children altogether.”

  I spoke lightly, but my mind was continually on Martin and Lucetta and the image of the gilded cage I had formed when Lucetta made it clear to me that she would hold on to Martin by any means at her disposal. And above it all, I could hear Mama’s voice the day she and Hiram had discovered that I was to have a baby: “It is wrong in the eyes of the law and the Lord not to marry.”

  Sarah waved good-bye to her little friend, who skipped off hand in hand with one of the two ladies. She ran toward us, hitting her hoop as hard as she could with the stick.

  “It’s cold, Momma. Look, my hands are all red.” She pulled off her mittens and wiggled her fingers in the air. “May we go indoors and have some hot chocolate?” Her cheeks were as red as her hands under her knitted hat, contrasting sharply with her naturally pale skin and brilliant copper hair. Her skirts seemed shorter than yesterday, as if she’d grown an inch or two overnight.

  “We certainly may.” Elizabeth held out a hand for Sarah’s hoop and the other hand to my daughter, who took it willingly. “And I know just the right person to ask to get the biggest, creamiest cup of chocolate you’d ever want.” She grinned at me. “I’ve had plenty of practice with my sister’s offspring. Even if my advanced views end in my being an old maid, my principles won’t stop me from playing with other people’s children. Now, Sarah, let’s see who can run to that tree the fastest.”

  I watched as Elizabeth, somewhat impeded by skirts and bustle and whooping like a hoyden, made a pretense of racing Sarah from one small tree to the next. Her enthusiasm for Free Love seemed to me to be part of her impulsive, youthful freshness, with no basis at all in reality. It was reality that held me in its grip and presented me with a simple choice. I could give in to my desire for Martin and bring misery and scandal down on all our heads, or I could run away and have my misery all to myself.

  5

  Money

  I peered anxiously at Tess, who had made a nest of cushions in a large armchair. She lay with her eyes half-closed, her gaze fixed on the glowing embers in the fireplace.

  “Are you sure you’re all right? You were too tired to come with us to the park this morning, and now you’re telling me you’re still tired. Are you feverish? Are you getting a cold?”

  I put out a hand, intending to lay it on Tess’s forehead, but she forestalled me with a stern look over her spectacles.

  “You don’t have to mother me, Nell. I’m just tired. I don’t have your energy, and we traveled an awfully long way yesterday. And Sarah needs someone to stay with her, not be dragged downstairs again to listen to grown-ups talk about money.”

  “But it’s your money too. And I could get Alice to look in on Sarah. She fell so fast asleep that I don’t suppose she’ll wake till teatime.”

  “I’m Sarah’s family, not Alice. And not your Miss Parnell.”

  I frowned. “You’re not upset because we went out with Elizabeth, are you? I did ask you to come with us.”

  “Elizabeth.” The word came out in a soft breath. “Your friend Elizabeth.”

  I opened my mouth to protest that we weren’t exactly friends as yet, but Tess’s eyes were already closed. As gently as I could, I removed her spectacles from her nose and placed them next to her Bible on the small side table. Doubtless she really was just tired and would be her usual cheerful self after a couple of days’ rest.

  By ten minutes to two, I was downstairs in the Grand Parlor, having informed a concierge that a representative of my bank would call on me at two o’clock. I felt a little self-conscious sitting on my own amid so many people, but it couldn’t be helped. I didn’t suppose that anyone would draw the wrong conclusions from seeing me sitting with a bank clerk anyway. Such persons were invariably dried-up, elderly men with shiny patches on the arms of their jackets from leaning on a counter.

  It wasn’t five minutes before the concierge coughed gently, pulling me out of a reverie, the topic
of which was, naturally, Martin. I had sent a note to his store the previous day informing him of our arrival and had received no reply. He was traveling, no doubt. Yet I somehow expected, every moment, to see his tall, thin figure, easily distinguished from other men by his white-blond hair, proceeding toward me and saying—what? If he were absent, was there nobody he could send to the hotel with a message for me? He knew where we’d be staying. Drat the man.

  I stood automatically, smiling my thanks at the concierge, and looked at the bank clerk. Far from the wizened, dusty functionary of my imagination, this was a fine physical specimen of around six feet and broad-shouldered in proportion to his height. His face walked the line between plain and handsome with one foot on the side of handsome, mostly due to a certain intelligence and openness in his expression and the smile that reached his light brown eyes.

  “Mrs. Lillington? I’m happy to be at your service. My name is Fletcher.”

  We shook hands and sat down. Mr. Fletcher extracted a ledger from his attaché case, laid it on the table, and politely refused my offer of refreshment. These preliminaries over, he hesitated.

  “I suppose you’d like to see some proof that I am who I say I am.” I took a folded paper out of my reticule and laid it on the table beside the ledger. “This is the last accounting I had from Mr. Rutherford. And this is the notebook where I’ve kept track of all the figures he’s sent me since I moved away from Victory in ’72. Is that sufficient?”