Olive put her head into Sarah’s open doorway. “Sarah? Someone is here to see you.”
Close to three weeks had passed since Sarah last saw Lola, since she had broken off their friendship. The Lord had done a cleansing work in Sarah’s heart in those weeks—but now she had an unexpected visitor.
Sarah heard the reticence in Olive’s voice and knew at once that the visitor was Lola.
Rose had warned her this might happen. Be careful, Sarah: Lola may fight to convince you to return to her. Be forewarned, Sarah.
Sarah had known that Rose was right: Lola would not give up without a fight. Sarah had prayed and prepared for this moment.
Please help me to be kind but firm, Lord God. I know it is not Lola I am fighting, but my own sinful desires and the snare the enemy so cunningly crafted from my earliest youth. Help me to fight him and win, my Lord.
If only the ache of this loss would leave. Please, Lord, heal my heart!
“Thank you, Olive.” She began to pass by Olive in the hallway, when Olive put her hand on Sarah’s arm.
“Sarah?”
She found it hard to meet Olive’s earnest gaze. “Yes?”
“We are praying for you, Sarah; all of us are. You shall not fail, Sarah. Jesus has you, and he is holding you—like this.” Olive wrapped her arms around Sarah’s unresponsive frame, and strained Sarah to her. “He shall never let you go, nor shall we. Never!”
Sarah leaned into Olive’s embrace and wept. “Oh, Olive, my heart hurts so! I have never felt such pain. I-I cannot bear it.”
“You can bear it, because the Lord will bear it with you, sweet Sarah.”
Sweet Sarah. That is what Lola used to call me. O God!
Olive handed her a handkerchief, and Sarah mopped her eyes.
“Thank you, Olive. You cannot know how much you mean to me.”
Sarah composed herself and went down the staircase. She found Rose watching for her. “Lola is waiting for you in the parlor. I have sent most of the girls to the park, and they understand why. They will be praying for you, Sarah, as shall we all. If . . . if you should need to run away, go to the kitchen. Marit, Billy, and Mr. Wheatley will be there.”
“Thank you, Miss Rose.”
Sarah opened the parlor door and walked inside, closing the door behind her. “Hello, Lola.”
Lola was standing, pacing; her face was ashen with grief. “Sarah. Please. Can we talk?”
“Yes—this one time.” Sarah indicated a chair. “Please sit down.”
“No. You have been swayed—indoctrinated—into some wretched cult. I want you to come with me, Sarah. This instant. We shall talk when we are far removed and you are safe. Come away with me from this horrid place and your precious Miss Rose!”
“There is nothing horrid about Palmer House or about Miss Rose, Lola. She rescued me.”
“Rescued you? From what? From doing as you wish with your life? From making your own choices?”
“No.” Sarah hesitated before she added, “She rescued me from a brothel.”
Lola’s countenance shriveled in dazed disbelief.
“Please sit down, Lola.”
Lola did as Sarah asked, but slow tears trailed down her cheeks.
Sarah sat opposite Lola. “Do you recall our conversation at Justin Stafford’s party? Do you remember when you asked me, ‘Tell me, Sarah, are you as innocent as you seem?’”
Lola nodded. “Y-you said, ‘No.’ I did not believe you.”
“You should have.”
“But why did you never tell me?”
“Tell you that I was a whore?”
Lola’s chin trembled as she shook her head. “Do not call yourself that. Please. Do not.”
“I was a whore, Lola—and a high-dollar one at that—although I did not choose such a life. My stepfather was what I believe is now being called a pedophile. He liked little girls and, when I was nine years old, as soon as my mother died, he molested me. For four long years, he preyed upon me. But when I turned thirteen and began to mature, his feelings toward me changed. He no longer desired me. In fact, he hated me because I was becoming a woman. So, he sold me.”
“Stop! I cannot listen to this—”
“I am sorry, but you need to hear what I have to say. All of it. When I was thirteen, Richard sent me to live with a man named Willard. Willard told everyone that he was my guardian, but he, too, was a pedophile; he just preferred girls my age—still quite young, but not little children.”
“Oh, Sarah!”
Sarah ignored Lola’s remonstrations. “While I was with Willard, we lived something of a make-believe existence. He treated me like a princess. He clothed me in exquisite gowns, taught me to pour tea and converse like a debutante, and showed me off to his wealthy friends. It was rather like playing dress-up in my mother’s clothes—that is, until night fell. Then he would come to my bed, and it was no longer make-believe.
“I had been with him a while, when the servants warned me. They told me he only kept a girl until she was sixteen; then, he would pass her on to a friend. I was with Willard for two years when I caught the eye of a certain Judge Brown. He was visiting Albany from Denver, and he told Willard I was just what he was looking for. He convinced Willard to sell me to him, and he promised me I would be the toast of his townhouse in the ‘Mile-High City.’
“I believed I was being passed to him as Richard had passed me to Willard, that Judge Brown would keep me for his personal use much as Willard had. I did not know the judge owned two brothels in a mountain village above Denver—two special brothels. ‘Special’ in that they ‘specialized’ in every sort of perversion imaginable.
“Judge Brown and I took the train from Albany to Denver. When we arrived in Denver, instead of leaving the station, we transferred to another train, and the judge took me on to Corinth. It is not far from here, actually, only a short train ride up the mountain from the city. Once we reached Corinth, he installed me in his ‘Corinth Gentleman’s Club’—one of two exclusive whorehouses he operated for the pleasure of the wealthy men of Denver, men who wished to practice their vices and perversions in a cultured environment and at a distance from polite society and their ‘prudish’ spouses.”
Lola’s hands covered her face, and she wept in incredulity and revulsion. Her sobs ended on a spate of coughing brought on by her distress.
Sarah pushed down the urge to help or comfort Lola. Instead, when Lola’s coughing subsided, Sarah pressed ahead.
“Many of the girls I met in the club had been lured to Denver by false employment advertisements. Some were unsuspecting innocents—and virgins were in particular demand by men who wished the experience of deflowering them. Once a girl was deflowered and healed, she was put into ‘circulation,’ but the adjustment was horrifying for her.
“As a means of overcoming a girl’s natural reticence, ‘discipline’ in the houses was swift and severe. Any girl who refused to cooperate, to be charming and accommodating to the clients, was brutalized. She was starved, beaten, and raped—repeatedly—until she submitted.
“I did not suffer as much as those girls who defied the house’s madam. My spirit had been broken years before. Moreover, I saw what they did to the girls who refused to work.”
Sarah shrugged. “I chose not to resist.”
“Oh, my sweet Sarah!”
Lola tried to reach for her, but Sarah held her off. “No. Please do not touch me. Just . . . just allow me to finish.
“I learned that girls in the clubs stayed a year, perhaps a year and a half, before they were replaced by ‘fresh stock.’ The ‘old’ girls were shipped down the mountain to less discriminating brothels. Then, six months after I arrived, something odd occurred: Judge Brown disappeared. Rumors flew among us girls, but no one saw him ever again.
“A new owner took over, and conditions for us worsened. The men working for the owner used their fists and their guns to intimidate and cow not only us, but the entire village. No one—not even the sheriff—would st
and up to them. Those who did were beaten, or they simply disappeared.”
Sarah looked back to that moment when the last of her hope flickered and went out. “I had been in Corinth just over a year when I lost all confidence in any future but more of—and worse than—what I had. My fate would be like every girl whose “freshness” diminished with time. I think I had just turned seventeen.”
Lola cursed then, using words Sarah had not heard since she left Corinth.
Sarah’s mouth twisted. “I do not wish to belabor or glorify my suffering in that place. It is behind me. What is important happened not many months after. A new girl arrived at the club, a very brave little Chinese girl—only fourteen years old!—but made of tougher stuff than I was. Mei-Xing was determined to escape or die trying. She was caught trying to run twice and paid dearly for her rebellion.”
Sarah shuddered. “I can still hear her screams as they took turns using their fists on her.”
Lola seemed caught up in Sarah’s tale.
“But, you see, Miss Rose’s daughter, Joy, had moved to the village in the early fall and opened a guest lodge. Joy became little Mei-Xing’s hope for refuge. Bloody and bruised from her most recent escape attempt, her face ruined, Mei-Xing climbed down a rope of sheets from the window of her third-story room. She dropped to the ground in the dead of winter, and walked, barefoot, through the snow and ice to Joy Thoresen’s guest lodge—and Joy took her in.”
Lola’s expression turned incredulous. “You are speaking of Joy O’Dell? Your employer? That Joy? But-but what of the all the men you spoke of? Their fists and guns? How they had the whole village cowed?”
“Lola, you believe Joy to be just another weak-willed woman, dependent upon a husband simply because she is married. You have no idea how courageous she is. She hid Mei-Xing at great personal risk, and those men could neither find Mei-Xing nor could they prove that Joy had taken her in.
“Some weeks later, emboldened by Mei-Xing’s flight, a few other girls also escaped. They, too, went to Joy. She hid them and got them safely off the mountain—but at a terrible cost to her. Once the owner of the club decided that Joy had to have helped those women? He ordered his men to burn her out.”
“And then?”
“The Pinkertons and the U.S. Marshals arrived in time to save Joy, her mother, and her friends, but it was too late to save her lodge. Happily, the marshals did arrest the club’s owner, his men, and the club’s madam. I shall never, as long as I live, forget Joy’s mother—yes, my precious Miss Rose—coming to the club in the early hours of that morning, waking us up, and telling us we were free.
“It was the first time I saw Miss Rose; it was my first experience with a true woman of God. And it was the first breath of freedom I had dared to draw since my mother died.”
When Sarah stopped, she and Lola sat, each silent and solemn in her own thoughts, until Sarah picked up her tale.
“Several weeks went by. Rose and Joy left Corinth to visit Denver, to look for a house for them and us. They met a woman named Martha Palmer. You may have heard me speak of her; she passed away recently. Well, Martha gave Rose and Joy this house—Palmer House.
“When Rose and Joy returned to Corinth, they shared their vision with us whores, for the family we could be part of if we came with them to Denver. I was alone in the world. I had nowhere else to go—nowhere. Rose and Joy took me in. They loved me and held me when I wept and shook with agony and shame. They told me about Jesus, how he would save my wretched, wounded soul—and he did.”
Sarah glanced at Lola. “So, you see, there is nothing horrid about Palmer House.”
“But all the rules? The restrictions? The lack of freedom?”
“Rules are necessary for peace and harmony when so many live together under one roof. However, no one forces us to stay. Each of us chooses to live here or not. If we choose to stay, we agree to live in unity of heart and purpose. You may believe me or not, but I am free. I am free from my past, from guilt, and from sin.”
“And us? What about us?”
Sarah sighed. “I think you might understand, if you will hear me out. My stepfather, then Willard, abused me. Willard sold me to Judge Brown, who forced me into prostitution, after which I endured an endless line of men who used me to satisfy their evil lusts. These were the only men I had ever known, and I hated them.”
“As well you should,” Lola murmured.
“Yes, I had reason to hate them—and I thus did. But my hate did not end with them. I grew to hate all men.”
Lola laughed without mirth. “Men are pigs.”
“I know your life has not been a bed of roses, Lola. Your father beat your mother and abandoned you.”
“So?”
“So, you hate men, too, but hatred is a poison that warps and disfigures the soul. In my hatred, I vowed I would never allow another man to abuse me. I judged all men alike: guilty. As a result of this judgment, I do not desire a man’s affection or regard. I cannot bear the thought of a man touching me; I cannot even consider intimacy with a man without great revulsion and abhorrence. My soul is broken in this area, Lola.”
Lola shifted uneasily. “Are you saying that you only love me because you are broken?”
“I suppose that is what I am saying.”
Sarah’s reply angered Lola. “What nonsense! Love is love—I know you love me as I love you.”
“Yes, I admit to having deep feelings for you, but those feelings are wrong. They are broken. Perverse.”
Lola’s anger increased. “How dare you spit on what is most precious to me!”
Sarah shook her head. “I am sorry. It is not my intention to disrespect you, Lola. I had hoped you would understand.
“Understand? I understand this: I want you, Sarah! More than life, more than breath! Come away with me. I can make you happy.”
“No, I shall not, and this is the last time I shall consent to seeing you.” Sarah could not contain her tears. “Please, Lola. If you care for me as you say you do, then leave me alone.”
“How can I leave you alone? I love you, Sarah!”
“No, you want me, but you do not want what is best for me—such a vast difference! And if I were to choose you, I would be doing the same thing: choosing what I want, not what is best for you, not what is good or holy or eternal.”
“No man can offer you the love I can!”
Sarah exhaled and calmed; she gazed into Lola’s anguished face. “As much as I care for you, I already love a man more than I love you. I choose him.”
“You are choosing a man over me?”
Sarah nodded.
“Who? Who is he? What is this man’s name?”
“His name is Jesus, Lola. I choose him.”
The laughter that burst from Lola was loud and frightening, tinged with hysteria. “Jesus is not real! He is not a real person—he is only a myth, a story. These people have deceived you!”
“They have not deceived me. I know him: I know Jesus for myself.”
Sarah stood. “You must go now, Lola. Again, I am sorry to have wounded you. Please forgive me.”
Gasping in rage and frustration, Lola grabbed for Sarah’s hand, but Sarah pulled away. Lola released her anguish in a high wail. “Sarah, no! Please!”
Not waiting for Lola to leave as she had asked, Sarah fled the parlor. She ran down the long hallway to the kitchen—where she knew Marit, Billy, and Mr. Wheatley were waiting, where they would open their arms to her, and where they would step between her and temptation, if necessary, should Lola try to follow her or should Sarah’s resolve fail her.
ONCE LOLA HAD SHAKEN off her initial despair, she had, as Sarah feared she would, attempted to follow after Sarah. Lola flung wide the parlor door—and encountered Sarah’s “precious Miss Rose” standing outside the doorway, her hands folded before her. Rose did not move—and she blocked Lola’s egress.
Lola sized up the woman and considered how she might fare if she were to shove Rose aside. Rose was slender and small
er than Lola, and she was twice Lola’s age—but it was the calm stillness reposing within the depths of those wise, gray eyes that gave Lola pause, that made her hesitate.
However, this was no “dead” calm, for Lola glimpsed a well of vigor and resolution in Rose’s serene expression. No, nothing “dead” filled this woman’s soul.
Lola licked her lips. “I suppose you despise me for trying to take Sarah away from here. From you.”
“Despise you?” Rose shook her head. “No, quite the opposite, Lola. I wish only God’s best for you.”
“If you want what is best for me, then let Sarah go!”
“But we are not holding Sarah. She has chosen what is best for her of her own free will. God’s best for you lies elsewhere.”
“But I love her. I need her. I hunger for her.”
Rose nodded once. “I am sorry for your pain, but not every hunger comes from God. The Bible tells us that love does not seek its own way; rather, it seeks what is good and right. Love rejoices in the truth.”
“The truth? The truth is that I want Sarah. I long for her!”
“You are, perhaps, describing obsession.”
“Is that not what love is? A magnificent obsession? Complete and utter abandon? Surrendering oneself to a passion that demands all? Sarah compels my heart and mind; she inspires me to be nobler, kinder than I am.”
Rose’s slight smile was tinged with sadness. “What you describe sounds more like worship than love, and worship of something or someone other than the Lord is idolatry.”
“Idolatry! What nonsense.”
“Idolatry can take many forms, Lola. Anything or anyone we place beside or before the God who made the heavens and the earth—and who made us—is idolatry.”
“Then that is something we can agree on, for I do worship Sarah. What can be wrong with that? If I choose to make Sarah the center of my miserable life; if I choose to devote myself to her and her happiness, what is that to you?”
“But Sarah is not worthy of your worship. She is flawed, just as you and I are. She would be the first to tell you so.”
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