Indigo Christmas
Page 22
“The poorer boys of South Bend have had very little attention for many years, madam. It’s high time someone thought of doing something for them. I intend to be there, myself.”
“Oh!” Hilda had just had a brilliant idea. “Could you, maybe, dress up like Santa Claus and give out the presents?”
Clearly pleased at the idea, Riggs coughed. “Would it not be better for Mr. Malloy to take that role? Or Mr. Cavanaugh, perhaps?”
“No, Riggs,” said Hilda firmly. “You have a rosy face, and when you smile, you look very yolly. Jolly. You do not have a beard, like most pictures of Santa Claus, but we can give you a false one. You will be very good, I think.”
He bowed. “Thank you madam. It will be an honor. And may I say, you look a bit like a jolly elf this morning, yourself, with your cheeks rosy from the cold. Very becoming, madam, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Hilda could have kissed him. How could she ever have been afraid of this charming man? “Thank you, Riggs. That is very nice of you.”
He bowed again, his face once more set in his butler expression. “Mrs. Malloy is in the parlor, madam.”
Hilda turned away, but before she did she was sure she saw a tear on the butler’s face. So that was why he stayed frozen most of the time. When he let himself thaw, his emotions got the better of him.
If, she mused as Riggs showed her to the parlor, she now knew that butlers were as human as anyone else, she had learned an important lesson.
The crusade to keep women from earning their
living as stenographers does not appeal to us
with much force, even though it
has its origin in the great
state of Ohio. [Washington Post]
—South Bend Tribune
December 1904
29
COME IN CHILD,” said Aunt Molly, who was seated by the fire. “I won’t get up. My bones ache this morning. They don’t care for this run of cold weather. Would you like some coffee or tea, or anything?”
“Yes, thank you, some coffee would be very nice.”
“Thanks to you. I could never abide the stuff before you taught Cook how to make it. I’ll have some, too, Riggs. Thank you.”
“Do you know, Aunt Molly, he is nice,” said Hilda when Riggs had left the room. “I never thought I would say that about a butler. I have asked him to be Santa Claus at the party.”
Molly clapped her lace-mitted hands together. “What a good idea! I wish I’d thought of it. He’s never really stopped grieving for his son, you know. It will do him a world of good to mix with a lot of boys.”
“I did not know about his son until Patrick told me. I think I have not bothered to learn very much about some people. I do not even know anything about Williams, not really, and I worked for him for six years.”
“You’ll learn, my dear. Very few people can open their eyes to the world around them, but you are one of those few. Your new freedom will help. You’re feeling more comfortable now, aren’t you?”
Hilda hadn’t realized it herself until that moment. “Yes, I am. I have learned—I am learning—to see that I am the same person I always was, and that other people are the same, too. They are not—they do not just—oh, I cannot say what I mean!”
“They’re not just actors, perhaps you’re trying to say. Not just puppets playing roles in a play, but real people with real problems and emotions. All of them, no matter what their job or their position in society.”
“Yes!” said Hilda with the relief of having her ideas expressed clearly. “And I am a real person, too, not just ‘a servant’ or ‘a Swede’ or even ‘a wealthy wife.’ It makes it easier to know what to do. And harder, sometimes.”
“Yes, sometimes harder, because society doesn’t like us to step outside our roles and come to life. You, my dear, are not a person to put up with that kind of restraint.”
“No. And I am not a person to be—to be just a wife. I do not mean that I do not love Patrick. You know I do, and I am happy and proud to be his wife. But that is not all I am. I do not like it that women are so often thought of as just somebody’s wife. Mrs. Brick, I was thinking at the meeting last week, is the wife of a politician. Mrs. Elbel is the wife of a musician, Mrs. Darby the wife of a businessman. Oh, and that Mrs. Townsend, the one I do not like. I forgot to ask Mrs. Clem about her. Is she just somebody’s wife, too?”
“Her husband is a banker, and I really know very little about either of them. They’re from Terre Haute, I think. The others, though, are all quite interesting women.”
“That is what I mean. I should not think of them the way I do! They are not just wives. They are people.”
“That is beginning to be true, Hilda. It wasn’t always. I do think it may not be too many years before women are allowed to vote, and good for them, I say. I was always a rebel—like you. All my life I’ve said and done what I pleased, and shocked everyone. Now that I’m an old lady, everyone says I’m wonderful. So you see what you have to look forward to.”
Hilda made a face. “There is much of life before that. And you are not old, Aunt Molly!”
“Oh, yes, I am. But I seldom think about it, except when my bones tell me. Now, what have you come to see me about? Or was it Riggs you came to call on?”
Hilda giggled. “I think maybe it was. How shocked he would be—”
Molly put up her hand as Riggs came into the room with a silver coffee tray and two delicate bone china cups, along with some thin, crisp cookies.
Hilda smiled at him, the light of mischief in her eyes. She waited until he had set the tray down—for fear of accidents— and then said, “I was saying, Riggs, how shocked you would be if I said I came here to call on you, really.”
“Ah, but ladies say many things, do they not, madam? Will that be all, then?”
And he was gone, the lacquered façade perfectly in place. “He’ll not let you in easily, child,” said Molly, sipping her coffee. “He used to be much less stiff, before the Maine. He was very proud of his son’s career, used to read us bits out of his letters. So I knew the boy—now, what was his name? Jonathan, that’s it—I knew Jonathan was on a ship near Cuba. When the news came about the Maine and a telegram came for Riggs, I called him in and said I hoped it wasn’t bad news. I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘Thank you, madam. I fear the news is very bad. Will there be anything else, madam?’ And of course I let him go, because I could see he was controlling himself by sheer force. Ever since, he’s been the way you know him. He has never once mentioned Jonathan’s name.”
“He wept today,” said Hilda softly, “when I asked him to be Santa Claus. One tear.”
“That’s good. You’re good for him, I think. But take it slowly. He’s worked hard at building up that shell, and it’s very thick now. If it cracked suddenly, I don’t know what would happen.”
Hilda nodded soberly.
“But you did not, after all, come just to talk to Riggs. Or about him. How can I help you? Is it Norah again?”
“No, Norah is getting well very nicely, if only her mother will stop creating scenes. No, it is the fire, and Mr. Miller, and all. I have learned much, but everything seems to make less sense than before. Aunt Molly, we must find out what really happened!”
Molly frowned. “I would have thought Norah would be in a real state, with Sean under arrest.”
“Oh, dear. Now I will have to tell you, too!” And quickly she related the story of manufactured evidence and the mayor’s intervention.
“Ah! I see. And of course that word must not get out.”
“But I think I should not have told Norah. For now others will wonder why she is not upset, and they may guess, or make Norah tell them. It will not be very long, I fear, before everyone knows, and then the police will have to let him go. We do not have very much time, Aunt Molly, to learn the truth.”
“Do you know what the police are doing?”
“No. If I can think of nothing to do, no one to ask, how can they?”
“I know I am smart,” said Hilda calmly. “And the police are sometimes very stupid. But this time I am as stupid as they. I cannot make a pattern out of the things that have happened. Norah said something this morning that made me think, but it complicated things even more. She said perhaps the fire did not work out as it was intended to, that someone might have meant to start only a small fire, and something went wrong. So we cannot make sense of things as they are, because they are not what the bad person intended.”
“That was very astute of Norah,” said Molly with a little sigh. “But not, as you say, very helpful. It solves the question of why everything is such a muddle, but unless you can work out what was intended, you’re no further ahead.”
“That is why I wanted to talk to you. Aunt Molly, why would anyone start a small fire in a barn?”
“No one with any sense would!” said Molly fiercely. “A wooden barn full of hay and straw—why, it would flare up in a minute, even without kerosene, which I understand was used.”
“A lantern, yes. It turned over and spilled the kerosene. But could that have maybe been an accident?” She had just thought of the possibility. “Suppose someone went to the barn looking for something. And it was dark in there and the person lit a lantern. And then the person dropped the lantern, and the kerosene spilled and caught fire and started the straw burning. And the person was frightened and ran away, and the whole barn burned.”
“Hmm. Why would anyone have been there at the time?”
“I do not know. Maybe—maybe it was one of the hired man’s friends, coming to check on him. He would have been there, asleep, by the middle of the afternoon.”
“No friend would go off and let him burn up.”
“Oh. No, I suppose not. Well, it was a robber, maybe. Someone who knew Mr. Miller was away.”
“Hilda, my dear, you’re not using that excellent brain of yours. A robber would go to the house where there might be money or valuables. not to the barn, where the only real valuables would be the horses, which were away at the time, and the buggy, which one cannot steal without horses.”
“You are right. Aunt Molly, what are we to do? We cannot let Sean stay in jail, and if he gets out he could be in danger, and Norah needs him, and—”
“Yes, my dear girl. Yes, the problem must be solved. But we’re not going to solve it by getting our minds so twisted we can hardly think at all. Besides, you have a headache. I can always tell. You need fresh air and exercise, not more study and deliberation. Go spend the rest of the day in the sunshine. Go skating with that handsome big brother of yours; the ponds are all frozen hard. Think about the Christmas party, or future plans for the Boys’ Club, or anything but the fire. You’ll see. An idea will come.”
Unwillingly, Hilda took her leave.
Once outside, she remembered that she had wanted to talk to both of her brothers. Erik, at the central firehouse, was closer, and the sun had warmed the air a bit. She walked briskly and arrived with cheeks rosier than ever.
Erik was currying one of the horses, his favorite, Donner. “It means thunder, in German,” he had explained importantly to Hilda. “Mr. Gruner, he named him. And it’s almost the same name as one of Santa’s reindeer in that poem. Isn’t that funny?”
He was delighted to see Hilda. “Are you all ready for the party? What kind of presents are you getting? Sven’s making lots of toys; you should see. And Mama’s knitted hundreds of caps and mittens, I bet. What are we having to eat? Will there be candy? What are you getting for me? Sven’s making me something, but I don’t know what. And he’s making something for you, too, and I know what it is, but I can’t tell. And I found out something for you, about the fire maybe.”
“Oj då!” said Hilda. “What do you want to talk about first?”
“My news,” said Erik importantly. “I heard it yesterday from one of my friends at school. He has a friend who knows a boy who delivers groceries to some people named Townsend. He’s a banker, I guess. Mr. Townsend, I mean. Anyway the boy who works there, Freddy his name is, he likes horses and so he’s friends with Mr. Townsend’s coachman.”
“Yes, Erik,” said Hilda with scarcely controlled impatience. “And what did you learn?”
“But it’s important, that it’s the coachman who told him, because it means it must be true, see.”
“No,” said Hilda, “I do not see. You have not told me.”
“You won’t give me a chance! So I was talking to this boy who knows the boy who—”
“Yes, we have had all that. Erik if you do not tell me, I will leave. It is cold standing here.”
“You can sit,” said Erik with a cheeky grin. He tugged over a bale of hay.
“Erik…” she said dangerously.
“He said the horse came home lathered that day.”
“Who said? What horse? What day? Erik, make sense!”
“Well, you said you wanted me to hurry up and tell you.”
Hilda stood and brushed hay off her skirt, and Erik capitulated.
“Okay, I’ll tell it all. The day of the fire, the Townsends’ coachman said Mrs. Townsend took out the Izzer, drove it herself, he said.”
Hilda sat down again and frowned. “Why did she do that?”
“Dunno, but I guess she does it a lot. The coachman doesn’t like her. Says she’s a stubborn woman and high-hat.”
Hilda made a face. “She can be. I know her a little. Go on.”
“Anyway, the coachman doesn’t like it when she takes out the buggy, because she isn’t very patient with horses. And that day it was almost night when she came back with the buggy, and he said that horse had been driven so hard it was lathered with sweat, even though it was a cold day.”
“Hmm. Where she did go with the buggy?”
“Dunno. Dunno any more.”
“But what does it have to do with the fire?”
“Dunno. You said you wanted to know about anything unusual that happened that day.”
“Oh. Yes. Thank you, Erik.”
“Well, you don’t have to sound so happy about it!” he grumbled, picking up the brush again and beginning to work through Donner’s mane.
Hilda sighed. “It is one more thing that does not make sense. I am tired of things that do not make sense. I want things to fit!”
Erik shrugged. “Can’t do anything about that. And I s’pose you’re forgettin’ all about the Christmas party, what with all the other things you’re tryin’ to do.”
“Of course I do not forget! We are working very hard, the other ladies and I, to make a good party. There will be many presents, but if you will not tell me about my present from Sven, I will not tell you about the ones for the party. And there will be much food. Mrs. Clem is looking after the food herself, and she knows how boys eat, so it will be good. Now, I go home, and then to see Sven and see if he can come skating with me. Do you have to work all afternoon?”
“No! Just till Mike comes to work. Where’re you going?”
“Leeper Park, I think, if it is not too crowded.”
“I’ll come as soon as I can! Will you stop at home and bring my skates, so I don’t have to waste all that time?”
“I will, lillebrorsan. Don’t brush all the hair off that horse.” She left before he could finish his protest about being called “little brother.”
Man may work from sun to sun
But woman’s work is never done.
—Anonymous
30
SUNDAY WAS AS, usual, a day to be endured. It was the Cavanaugh family’s turn to serve dinner, so Hilda wore her politest face and a gown that wasn’t overly extravagant and tried her best to participate in the table conversation. It wasn’t easy. The Cavanaughs either treated her with painful courtesy or ignored her altogether. on the whole, she could cope mor
e easily with being ignored. The food was strange, too. Mrs. Cavanaugh wasn’t a bad cook, but she relied a good deal on potatoes.
Hilda was just choking down a bite of rather flavorless boiled potato when Patrick’s brother Brian turned to her. “I haven’t heard when the police are goin’ to let poor Sean O’Neill out of jail. Do you know anything about that, by chance?”
Hilda was sure she didn’t imagine the sarcasm in his voice. A lump rose in her throat. She took a sip of water to wash down the last of the potato, which had turned to dust in her mouth. “I do not know what the police are doing,” she said, in perfect truth. “I hope they are working hard. Sean is innocent, and they must prove it soon, for the sake of Norah and the baby.”
“And I suppose you’d be above doin’ anything about it yourself, now that you’re a fine lady and all?” This time the sarcasm was unmistakable.
“Brian!” roared Patrick in fury.
Hilda ignored him. “I do what I can, Brian,” she said, trying to stay calm. “It is not easy to find out the truth.”
“Not even for the girl with the best brain in town?” taunted Brian.
Hilda reached for Patrick’s hand and grasped it hard, lest he explode. “Not even for her,” she said with a forced smile. “But if I knew who she was, I would ask her for help. Myself, I am nearly out of ideas. Mrs. Cavanaugh, is there another biscuit? They are very good.”
That changed the subject—that, and Patrick’s kick at his brother under the table. On the way home, Patrick fumed about his family as Hilda had done the week before, about hers.
“Downright rude, he was!” he grumbled. “ I don’t know why Ma lets him get by with it.”
Hilda was tired. “every Sunday it is the same. My family is rude to you, or yours is rude to me. They will stop one day, when we have been married a long time and they have resigned themselves. Anyway, Brian did not say anything I have not thought. I should have been able to find the truth by now.”
“Because you’re the smartest girl in town,” Patrick said, nodding in agreement. “Leave it for the day, darlin’. It’s Sunday.”