The Shadow Palace

by Jane Steen

  I should listen to those words next time I worry about Tess, I thought. With the advent of the cooler weather, the reports of disease in Chicago had dwindled. Elizabeth had written that she would soon return to the Palmer House with her mother, bringing Tess and Sarah back to resume their lives with me. And Tess was still talking of her family as if they, not I, would provide her eventual home.

  I realized that Martin had also not spoken for about five minutes. He suddenly said, as if the words were forced out of him, “The child—and then the fact that I denied I was his father—were heartbreak for them.”

  I nodded and then realized what Martin had really said to me. His. I stopped walking, tightening my grip on Martin’s arm to force him to turn and face me. “How—?”

  Martin closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ve been trying to spare you this. But I find I—I can’t. Who else can I confide in? And if I don’t, I fear this will be another horror that prevents me from returning to you whole and healthy.”

  My heart warmed for a moment at the thought that I, and nobody else, could be the person he confided in. I wrapped my hands around his, longing to do more but knowing I had to be patient. “Tell me.”

  “The child—the boy—was expelled from Lucetta’s womb after she died.” Martin’s voice was steady, but he shifted the position of his hands so that they were gripping mine. “Domenico told me it was a tiny thing, smaller than the palm of his hand, but that the family midwife who inspected it—him—was certain he was a boy. It cost them a great deal of money to hide his existence.” He blinked. “How they must have hated me.”

  “Oh, Martin.” I didn’t know what else to say. We stayed as we were for some minutes, our eyes on each other as Martin’s breathing slowly calmed and the pain in his eyes lessened.

  It was Martin who broke the contact, drawing a deep breath and tucking my arm back under his. When he spoke, his tone was light, a deliberate turning away from somber topics.

  “I’ve been so busy I’d quite forgotten to congratulate you on your promotion.”

  I grinned. “I’m glad Madame Belvoix decided to make me a full couturière before you told her who I really was. Poor Madame, her face was a study.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Martin said. “Arlette Belvoix won’t give you a jot more power over her workshop than you merit, even if you have been revealed to be a shareholder. And I don’t think she believed for a moment in our story that you assumed a false name to avoid accusations of favoritism.”

  “Yes, that ‘hmmm’ of hers holds a wealth of skepticism, doesn’t it?”

  “She told me privately that she’s extremely pleased with your drawing, your cutting, and your ability to direct less experienced dressmakers. Of course, she still thinks you have much to learn.”

  “Of course. I have. She, on the other hand, is a true mistress of the trade. It’s a privilege to learn from her. It was nice of her to tell me I could arrive and leave when I wished, but I’ve no intention of shirking.”

  “She knows that, you goose.” Martin nudged me in the side as if I were a child again. “And she’s taken advantage of it. Under the financial agreement she insisted on, the more you do, the more the store gains and the less you effectively earn per hour.”

  “But I gain when I receive my dividends,” I countered. “It’s no good, Martin, you can’t put me off looking forward to coming to work. Although I will have to make more time for Sarah and Tess.”

  “You’d better. And my absence will allow you to make your own way in the store without any undue influence on my part. After all, you’ve climbed to the dizzy heights of couturière without my assistance. Who knows? By the time I return, you may own the store.”

  “I’ll do my best to ensure you have no job to return to.” I laughed, but I could feel a heaviness inside me. So few days remained before Martin would leave for New York, to await the sailing of the SS Germanic.

  “Make sure you do come back though, won’t you?” I couldn’t help asking. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Despite your previous objections to the married state?” Martin moved around to the other side of me to shelter me from the wind, which was tugging playfully at my hair. “Because, Nellie, that’s the only way forward for us—once I’m properly out of mourning. I’m not going to allow you to choose any middle way. Either we part as friends and you spend your life as an independent woman, or you’ll have to put up with me as your husband for the rest of your life, and have my children into the bargain.”

  I bit my lip. “What about the store?” I asked. “Supposing I still wish to work?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind you working. Plenty of women do, although no doubt the ladies of Prairie Avenue will think you completely eccentric and whisper behind your back. Wealthy ladies in general, and wealthy married ladies in particular, do charity work—but they do not work for gain.”

  “I thought we just determined that my wages would be pitiful?”

  “And don’t think you have to remain at Rutherford’s either. You could take your skills and experience and work for Field or any of the others. Don’t imagine I’m keeping you on because I’m in love with you.”

  A rush of warmth spread over me, as if I’d stepped into a hot bath. Martin and I were engaged in a strange dance of emotions, and he deliberately seemed to be giving us very few chances to express our passions in anything but the most remote and polite of ways. I lived for passing remarks like that one.

  Martin cleared his throat. “We can employ as many nursemaids as you wish to feed our growing brood of sons and daughters. As long as you take care of your own health.”

  I squeezed his arm. “Madame Belvoix makes sure of that. She will not ’ave ’er couturières fainting from ze ’unger,” I said in a fair imitation of the little woman’s accent. “And shame on you, Martin Rutherford, for imagining I would want to work anywhere else than in your store.”

  “I just wanted to be sure you understood your position. And you do realize, don’t you, that under the laws of the state of Illinois your money is yours, whether we marry or not?”

  “I do know, as it happens. I asked Elizabeth. Although she wrote back to me that many men still manage to take control of their wife’s money. That the law may be the law, but a man can get away with owning a woman, body and soul.”

  Martin hesitated for a moment. “After Lucetta, how could you ever think I’d be that sort of husband?” His voice was serious, but then he looked into my face and gave my arm a little shake. “Don’t look so tragic, Nell. I think you said it yourself—we’re not going to be able to avoid Lucetta. And I don’t blame you for asking the question. But believe me, I have no intention of asserting control over you or your money, whether that brings me good fortune or bad.” He paused. “And talking of which—”

  “Lucetta’s money,” I said.

  “I inherited it, of course, as soon as it was established that I didn’t cause her death. But I’ve already signed the papers to hand the lot over to Domenico, along with any of Lucetta’s possessions he may wish to keep. My clothes and a few personal things are to be removed from the house—the portraits too since you think we should keep them—and then it’s to be sold along with its contents. No doubt at a considerable loss, given the slump in house prices, but I suppose a man can allow himself a loss once in a decade.”

  “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” I asked. “You’re ready to leave.”

  Martin shook his head and took my hand in his. One of a pair of elderly ladies who were passing smiled at us, and I was sure I saw her dig an elbow into her friend’s side.

  “I’m not ready to leave you, Nellie. This is a temporary absence. I want to return to you healed. And I want to give you the chance to think through all the ramifications of marriage and decide if it’s what you really want. I’m willing to take the risk of an answer in the negative.”

  “I’ve already made up my mind.”

  He shook his head. “You’re an impulsiv
e woman, my dear. And after all that’s happened, you need some peace and quiet as much as I do. You just don’t know it yet.”

  “It sounds rather tedious.” The months before the spring sailings were already stretching out before me like an endless field of snow. Couldn’t Martin see that?

  But he smiled and kissed my hand gently. “It won’t be. And just think, you’ve managed to survive this episode of our lives without jumping into a river or walking through a freezing snowstorm. You must be growing up.”

  37

  Society

  Sarah and Tess returned in time for us all to spend a few hours together with Martin just before he left for New York. Our reunion took place at the Palmer House hotel. Martin had assiduously avoided coming to Aldine Square, had in fact never set foot in the house. I had told myself several times that he was acting out of concern for the proprieties and because he meant for me to accept him, upon his return, in the guise of a genuinely independent woman. And yet I felt uneasy. Did he anticipate that he could return from Europe so changed that it was better to stay on neutral ground?

  “I wish I were sailing on a big ship too, Mama.” Sarah, curled into my lap, lifted her eyes from the First Steps in Geography book I had just bought her. Since her return from Lake Forest, she had insisted on addressing me by the very English “Ma-MAH” I had been taught by my own mother and grandmother. Tess, I’d noticed, didn’t like the change at all.

  “There’s nothing to stop you from sailing to Europe too, you know,” said Elizabeth airily to me before turning her attention back to what she was doing. “Now look, see? You hold the dolly in one hand and the hook in the other.” She was trying to teach Tess French knitting. “Now hook the bottom loop—that’s it!—and pull it over the top one.”

  “That bit’s fun,” said Tess after she’d done two or three rounds. “But it’s hard to remember how to loop the yarn round the pins. You have to tell me every time.”

  “That’s why they call it practice.” Sometimes Elizabeth sounded remarkably like her mother. “See? Watch. Then loop—that’s it, you do that well—and then wind. And soon you’ll have a nice long knitted—thing.”

  “But what’s it for?” Tess asked.

  Elizabeth screwed up her brow. “Does it have to be for something? It’s a skill, I suppose. It’s what ladies do.”

  “I’m not a lady.” Tess stuck out her chin. “Nell’s a lady. My family is from the Back of the Yards.”

  A look passed between Elizabeth and me. Elizabeth had already warned me about this new theme of Tess’s, which seemed to have been provoked by Miss Baker’s lectures on the dignity of the working classes.

  “You’re ladylike, and that’s what matters,” said Elizabeth gamely. “After all, this is Chicago, and we don’t insist on a long family pedigree here. In fact, we don’t even insist on good manners most of the time. All you need is money—which you have—to buy a nice dress and a soupçon of confidence, and you’ll get by just fine.”

  Tess stuck her lip out. “I don’t know what you just said, not really. Sary, how about we walk around the garden and collect some leaves to press in the big dictionary? We’ll leave the ladies to their chatter.”

  Sarah, who was fond of the outdoors, jumped off my lap, leaving her book behind. Tess swept out with her small nose high in the air, leaving Elizabeth and me staring at each other.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “I feel as if I’ve just been put firmly in my place. And she was rather rude to you.”

  “I’m sorry.” Elizabeth came to sit opposite me. “She seems to have gotten much worse while she was at our house.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I closed Sarah’s book and laid it on the occasional table by my elbow. “It’s mine, I suppose, for hiring such a political governess. The problem is, I like the woman—and I agree with many of her views, progressive as they are. But Tess seems almost to be looking for reasons to be dissatisfied with me. I swear she blames me for Martin’s going away.”

  “She does seem to have rather a simplistic view of you and Mr. Rutherford,” Elizabeth agreed. “Poor Nell, you don’t seem to do anything right in anyone else’s eyes, do you?”

  “If by ‘anyone’ you mean the dreaded ladies of Prairie Avenue, that theory has yet to be tested.” Feeling something sticking into my nether regions, I investigated and pulled out a pencil Sarah had dropped. “I’ll admit that between you, your mother, and Miss Baker, Sarah’s company manners have come on tremendously.”

  “Don’t be silly. She was already well behaved.” Elizabeth grinned as she watched me contort myself to look for marks on my skirt. “For a child who won’t be six until February, anyhow. We may have added a tiny layer of polish.”

  “Which Tess seems to think would be better removed.”

  “Do you think she’s afraid of something?” Elizabeth looked thoughtful.

  “Of what?”

  “Of your imminent launch into Chicago society, perhaps? It is about time you paid and received some calls. Mother and I have had several talks about ‘the dreaded ladies of Prairie Avenue,’ as you call them. Mother even thinks she can coax some very ancient ladies out of mothballs, ones who knew your grandmother. To give you some social weight, as it were. And she’d like to know if, in introducing you into society, we may hint at your future happiness with Mr. Rutherford.”

  “You may not. I’m not at all sure of that happiness myself. And since we’re being impertinent and I finally have you to myself, may I ask about your future happiness with Mr. Fletcher?”

  Elizabeth’s smile was mischievous. “We’re positively on the brink of being engaged,” she said. “It’s been six whole weeks since David received his promotion, and I’ve taken every opportunity I can to hint that he should ask Father for my hand.”

  “And what does he say to that?”

  “That I should stop hinting and let him choose the time. But he did kiss me.” Elizabeth closed her eyes, a smile on her lips. “It was a very nice kiss.”

  “It’s amusing to see you so keen on the idea of marriage,” I said. “Given your passion for the rights of women.”

  Elizabeth opened her eyes. “As it happens, it’s occurred to me that I can pursue that passion more effectively as a married woman than as a spinster. I’ll be free of Mother’s eternal committees, for one thing, and will be able to attend meetings of my own choice.”

  “If David allows you.”

  “My dear, haven’t you been listening to Mother? I’ve been consulting her on the best ways to ensure a man stays firmly under one’s thumb while reassuring him that he’s the most wonderful creature on earth. And David says he’s perfectly sympathetic to the women’s cause—stop laughing, he’s not just saying that for my sake—it’s just that speaking personally, he dislikes being manipulated. He says I’ll have far more success with him by being straightforward than by employing what he calls ‘women’s wiles.’”

  “You do realize you entirely contradicted yourself just now? Besides,” I sighed, “men aren’t always as predictable as we’d like them to be. Even the ones we’ve known all our lives.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Elizabeth, “I’m dying to become a proper suffragist, and David has no objection. I’ll have an uphill battle within the ranks, of course, since I’m anti-temperance. I won’t deprive Father of his post-dinner brandy. But the prize of the vote is worth the effort, even if it probably won’t be won in our lifetime.”

  “Win it for Sarah, then.” I smiled. “Personally, I’m happy not being political. I have quite enough work to do.”

  “Which reminds me.” Elizabeth sat up straighter. “Your launch into society. How about Wednesday afternoons for giving and receiving calls? You can spare that much time from the store, can’t you?”

  I pursed my lips. “I could make it up on Saturdays, I suppose. But Elizabeth—what about the unavoidable fact that I have a child and no real story about my husband? I just don’t seem to be able to invent one.”

  “You don�
��t try hard enough,” said Elizabeth severely. “Listen. Mother thinks she can get Bertha Palmer on your side, especially if she explains—privately, of course—the link between you and Mr. Rutherford. You have to realize that there’s been a lot more sympathy for him among the merchants than has ever been published in the papers. And if Bertha Palmer says you’re to be received, you will be received, with no questions asked.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “It’s the way things work. And of course Mother will make it understood that your personal wealth is considerable.”

  “Because, of course, being rich is the answer to everything.” I knew I sounded cynical, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Of course it is.” Elizabeth’s expression turned serious. “That and knowing the right people.”

  “So you’re telling me that the society of ladies in Chicago is every bit as political as the world of men?”

  Elizabeth spread her hands wide. “My dear, everything in Chicago is political. What’s wrong with politics? We want to see you on a sound social footing before Mr. Rutherford returns. The fact that you work will create a small obstacle, but once they see how talented a couturière you are—once one or two of them are even known to be your clients—you’ll just be seen as a little eccentric. That will work splendidly.”

  “And I only have to give up Wednesday afternoons?”

  “More or less. A few evening engagements, perhaps, but it’s really time you had some fun. And—Mother doesn’t know I know, but Frances told me, of course—there are several couples I can tell you about who are not married to each other. There’s that saying about it being inadvisable for people in glass houses to throw stones.”