Hannah’s eyebrows came down, making her long forehead even longer. Clara knew the look. She was angry too.
“I know what you mean, Clara. I’m soured on it myself,” Abbie said. “Why aren’t all the sporting men dying? It’s only the girls that die. That author Thompson’s a rat bastard. That’s what I say. I think he likes killing them off for his own satisfaction. But you can’t just stop reading before the story is over.”
“Abbie, this novel is about us. The women are supposedly like us—seductresses and she-devils trying to get every little thing we can out of the men, then falling into despair. Then we die because we’re fallen and fallen women have to die, or at least be entirely miserable. I’m sick of it. No more reading.”
Clara dropped the book on the nightstand where some bank notes and a single glass with a few drops of whiskey remained from her last customer, Colonel Woodruff of the United States Army. He wasn’t a Colonel, though. She didn’t know what he was. First he said he was from Philadelphia, then later he was from Richmond, then a bit after that, he was from Providence. He knew Cornelius Vanderbilt. He knew Queen Victoria. He knew Henry Beecher. But when she started asking him questions about all these people and places, he’d clear his throat, thick with the whiskey, glance up at her ceiling, and suddenly he was from Boston and not in the army any longer at all. Upon his command, she had to snap his leather riding crop across his back until his skin was red and just about to bleed. Only then did he get aroused and ask her to hold off. It was good that he stopped her because she had begun to get lost in the sound of the cracking, his flesh stinging, his whimpering.
“Well, it’s not fair, Clara, you can read and I can’t. I want to hear the ending.” Huffing and crossing her arms over her ribs, Abbie, who had just turned sixteen, was acting more like eleven.
Hannah dug her elbow into Abbie’s upper arm. “We’ll make up our own ending. Abbie, you start. What do you want to happen to Hannah Sherwood the Brave?”
Abbie’s freckled face brightened. “All right.”
A bolt of lightning cracked. Clara cringed. Cannonball thunder boomed and rolled out over the river.
“Well then?” Hannah smiled at both of them.
Abbie lifted a finger to her mouth and thought for a short moment. “She marries the nice one.”
Hannah croaked like a frog. “No. No. She gets rich like the great madams Julia Brown or Empress Kate and doesn’t marry at all.”
“What about love?” Abbie asked.
“I like Hannah’s ending. She becomes a great madam, generous and independent.”
“But what about love?” Abbie asked again.
“All right then, she can keep a man as she likes, but no marriage. And she can have whoever she wants.” Hannah smiled at Abbie with a look that dared her to think of something better.
Abbie slumped. “It doesn’t happen that way.”
“It doesn’t happen the story’s way either,” Clara said.
Hannah looked down at her hands in her lap. “Once you’re fallen, can you get back up?”
“Up where?” Clara asked.
“You know, respectable.”
“Some do,” Abbie said. “You’ve got to lie about your past and start over somewhere new. Some gals go home to their families. Last year, one of Mary Johnson’s girls married and moved off.”
Clara felt Hannah’s mood suddenly plummeting. “Come on. Let’s get dressed up and go to a matinee. Let’s go to Laura Keene’s Theater again.”
“In this rain? Besides we’ve seen The Colleen Bawn,” Hannah said.
“I don’t mind. I’ve seen it twice.” Abbie jumped up off the bed. “I like it when Myles na-Coppalen saves Eily from being murdered on the lake.”
“Well then, let’s take umbrellas or get a hack.” Hannah sat up.
Hannah and Abbie scrambled away to dress. With the door to Clara’s room left open, the smells of sausage and coffee drifted in and made her mouth water. She picked up The Gay Girls of New York, went to the window, then shoved it open. The storm was torrential, almost deafening. A gust of wind blew rain right at her, spraying her face with cold water. She grasped the book flat in one hand, and then threw it as though she was skipping a stone, so that it sailed flat, pages closed, into the rain. It flew out, then descended out of sight, pummeled by the downpour. She leaned out over the windowsill and looked below. The yellow book had landed in a long, deep puddle in the alley.
<><><>
A LITTLE LATER IN THE KITCHEN, Clara and Hannah found Lettie, hands coated with flour, kneading dough on the worktable. She and Hannah greeted Lettie, then Hannah filled the kettle with water and set it on top of the stove.
“Lizette.” Abbie burst into the kitchen and rushed toward Clara. “There’s a man at the front door. He says he’s your father.”
The words slammed at Clara like the morning’s thunder. She looked over at Hannah, locking eyes a moment. Then she glanced over at the back door. She could go. She could run. They could tell him she didn’t live here.
“Did you tell him I live here?”
“No, but he said he’s seen you come in here before,” Abbie said.
“Damn. I’m jiggered. How did he find me?” Clara considered the back door again, but changed her mind. “I’m going to talk to him.” She tilted her head back, looked straight up at the ceiling and took a deep, long breath, then she looked at Hannah. “I’m going to tell him to go away.”
“Do you want us to come with you?” Hannah said.
“No. I have to do it myself, but could you tell Mary Johnson he’s here?”
“Mary Johnson ain’t in now, miss,” Lettie said.
Struggling to swallow, Clara looked at her friends. “Don’t let him take me out of here. Let me talk to him, but stay close.”
“We didn’t let him inside. He’s out on the stoop,” Abbie said. “We told him it was the madam’s rules.”
As she walked to the front door with Hannah, Abbie and Lettie trailing some distance behind, Clara felt like vomiting. If Papa had seen her entering Mary Johnson’s, he had to know she was a courtesan. She breathed hard to keep from puking.
When she opened the door, there he was. Drenched by the rain, he was a pitiful, wet dog sight. She covered her mouth with a hand. He was pale and sunken looking, his gray eyes dull. His long soaking wet beard hung all the way past his neck. It had turned mostly gray since winter. His spectacles were cracked straight across on one side. Rain streamed off his dingy stovepipe hat, but when he saw her, he took it off and let the rain stream down on his head.
“Little Plum, it’s you. I’ve looked all over for ya all these months.” He half-smiled.
“Hello, Papa.”
“The girl said only the madam can allow men in, but seein’ that I’m your Papa and it’s rainin’ so fierce, you can let me in, can’t ya?”
“No, Papa.”
Eyes widening, he swayed back a little. “Now, Little Plum. I need to talk to ya. I been searchin’ high and low.” He stood up straight. “I got some things I want to say to you, daughter.”
“You can say them here.” A wave of nausea swept through her. She placed a hand on her belly.
“Please. I have some apologizing to do. Is there some place inside here?”
She didn’t expect apologizing. In his waterlogged coat, fidgeting with his hat, he waited for her answer. He didn’t seem at all like he was liquored and the girls would be nearby. He could have his say and she could have hers. She knew she was never going back to him and she was never going to tell him where Euphora was. Nothing he could do or say would change her mind.
“Please. I’ve looked for ya every day since you left last winter. Let me speak my mind, then I’ll go if that’s how you want it.”
Clara drew back the door and stepped aside, letting him enter the foyer. Hannah, Lettie, Abbie, and now Carlotta too, were standing just inside.
“These are my friends, Papa.” She gestured toward Mary Johnson’s office. “I’m going t
o take Papa in there so we can talk in private.”
“We’re going to wait for you in the parlor here, Lizette,” Hannah said.
It was odd that she called her Lizette just then, since Hannah was the only one in the house who always called her Clara. It seemed like Hannah was reminding her that she wasn’t Clara Benton any more.
“Lizette? That’s what they call ya? That’s nice.”
He didn’t seem surprised at all that she had another name. Did he know that courtesans took special names? She took him into the office and slid the doors together leaving them open a foot or so to let the girls and Lettie hear if Papa got riled. She thought of letting him sit down, but didn’t want him comfortable enough to stay long so she stood with him in the middle of the room. He looked around at the furnishings, then put his dripping hat down on the oak desk.
“Yessir. I had one time findin’ you.”
“How did you find me?”
“Oh...John Reilly said he saw you at a fancy affair and I asked a lot of questions until I came here.”
“How did you happen to see John Reilly?”
“I still have a little business with him. I see him here in New York. I live here now, over at the Five Points.” He leaned back against the edge of Mary Johnson’s desk.
Even though the rims of his eyes were burning red, he was sober. Definitely sober.
“Where’s Euphora? She here with you?”
“That’s what you think? You think I would have Euphora working with me in a parlor house?”
He raised a palm toward her. “Don’t get shirty, now. I figured ya would be with her no matter what.”
“She’s not here.” Her hands were trembling, but she didn’t want him to see so she clasped them tightly in front of her.
“Where is she then? With Isabelle? She’s all right?”
His brow pinched down and his gray eyes had worry in them. He waited. Clara didn’t answer.
“Tell me,” he said.
“She’s fine. Someplace safe.”
Papa took a moment thinking, his face twitching a bit. Then, he just nodded.
“I heard Isabelle was here looking for ya too,” he said. “Left her husband and came here to find ya.”
Another swell of nausea flooded through her. Izzie was in New York City looking for her? Izzie was right here?
“Did she find ya?” he asked. “I didn’t go lookin’ for her. Thought she might send me to the sheriff. You know how she is.”
“Is she still here?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know about Billy’s whereabouts either. You?”
“Nothing.”
He scratched at an ear. “You look the purtiest I ever seen ya. Can’t believe something comin’ from me can be as handsome as you. Always said it was your grandma Elsie ya took after.” He pushed himself away from the desk and walked toward her.
When she jumped backward, he stopped. Hearing about being pretty didn’t make her shine the way it did once. In fact, it didn’t do a thing inside her. She’d heard about her beauty so many times, it didn’t mean anything anymore, from anyone, not even Papa.
“I made mistakes with all my children, Clara. Most of all with you. Even more than Billy. Billy could stick up for himself.” He took off his spectacles and searched his pockets for a handkerchief. That was Papa. Looking in every pocket for some dirty old handkerchief, then wiping his smudgy spectacles while he gathered his thoughts. “That was the sin of it. I always loved ya best.”
He found his handkerchief and rubbed at his spectacles. His face seemed churned up, like he was about to cry. He put his glasses back on and looked into her eyes. Her shivering and shaking and nausea started to settle. He was actually sorry for what he’d done, she thought. He really was. It was in his voice, his eyes.
“And I had to find ya and tell ya. I’m sorry, Little Plum. I shouldn’t have set you up with Reilly and Weston. That wasn’t right.” He reached out and tried to take her hand, but Clara kept her hands clasped tight. “Can you ever forgive me, daughter?”
She wanted to say no. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to say yes. She wanted him to be her Papa, the Papa from so long ago. She didn’t answer him, except with the tears that began to roll down her face.
“What happened with Mrs. Purcell?” she asked. “Did you kill her?”
“Oh, no, no, Clara. That was an accident. Terrible. The front stairs were covered with ice. She fell. I got scared, so I ran. I knew the sheriff was after me anyway. Remember how he came to the house? He wasn’t goin’ ta listen to me. I had ta run.”
She watched him talk, trying to see if he was lying, but she couldn’t tell.
“Were you there? Were you drunk?”
“Nah. I was out lookin’ for you and Euphora half the night in the bitter cold. I was worried sick about you.”
Had he? Had he really been worried and looking for her and Euphora since that night?
“You’ve got to believe me, Little Plum. Please…I want to make it all up to ya.”
She kept her eyes on the windows and the rain outside. She didn’t want to look at him just then. He was making her sorrowful and confused.
“Please, Little Plum. I got an idea for us, you and me and Euphora.”
There was something about his voice then, something as familiar as the hard rain and as normal as waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night. He was about to cast his spell, to entice with an adventure.
She spun toward him. “No! No ideas.”
“I’m goin’ ta take you and your sister to Pike’s Peak. In Colorado.” He broke into a grin. “There’s gold all over the mountain. I’ve got friends that’ll help me get started. We’ll get a stake. We’ll find you a handsome, rich husband. Everything’ll be new. Look here.” He pulled some paper stubs from an inside coat pocket. “I already got the train tickets. We just need a little more dough for a stake. You probably already got that in a tin box upstairs.”
“Damn it, Papa! Damn it! No!”
He grabbed her wrist and yanked her arm up between them. “Don’t ya dare talk to me like that. I’m your Papa. I came here to make things right.”
“I won’t go with you, Papa.” Trembling flooded through again, but she stared right into his sad stone-gray eyes.
His grip tightened. It burned. She felt her wrist might break in two.
“Tell me where Euphora is.”
The doors crashed open. Mary Johnson, pointing a small derringer pistol right at Papa, and with a crowd behind her, marched in. Hannah, Abbie, Lettie, Carlotta, and Mr. Singer, Hannah’s bigamist, were all there, staring right at Papa.
“Mr. Benton, these are my witnesses in case something happens with this gun I’m holding.” Her voice and hand were steady.
Papa dropped Clara’s wrist and stepped back. Hell-fire, was Mary Johnson really going to shoot him?
“Wait,” Clara said.
“Mary Johnson kept her eyes on Papa. “You have two choices, Mr. Benton.”
“You must be the madam.” Papa smirked, looking at her right down the barrel of the little four-barrel gun and ignoring the others. “This is my daughter. I got rights to my daughter, not you.” Papa took one half-step toward her.
“I said you have two choices. You can leave now and never come to my house again. Because if you do, I’ll shoot you down as an intruder. Or you can stay a few more minutes and leave with the police who will take you back to the sheriff in Geneva. I understand he’s looking for you.”
Papa looked away from the gun at Clara. “I meant what I said. Come with me. Please, Little Plum. You’re my sweet luck.”
“No, Papa.”
“Come on. We’ll get Euphora, find the gold, and have an easy life, not like here. This life will ruin you, your good looks, your sugar plum spirit.”
Clara shook her head. Papa quickly glanced around at everyone watching him, then grabbed his soaked hat off of Mary Johnson’s desk and shoved his way through the group. As he left through the front door,
the sound of the rain pouring down burst in.
Mary Johnson let the gun down. “All right everyone. That’s over now. Get back to what you were doing.”
Clara ran to the office windows. Head bent against the rain, Papa crossed the street and walked briskly to the north. Two policemen, with Lettie’s husband James, were on their way toward the parlor house from the south. Papa was getting away. He snaked his path through passers-by on the sidewalk until he was out of sight. She sighed. Good. Now go find your gold, Papa. She hadn’t told him where Euphora was and if he came back, she still wouldn’t tell him. Mary Johnson’s voice drifted in. She was at the front door telling the policemen that the man had left and no one was hurt.
The Spirit Room Page 50