by Lynn Austin
The older woman ignored Bebe’s question and reached for Lucy’s hand. “Come, Lucy dear. Let’s go find a place for her in your playroom.”
“But it’s time for her nap, and—”
“Lucy wants to play with her new doll, don’t you, darling?” They walked upstairs together, followed by the nanny.
“Lucy?” Bebe called up the stairs after her. “Did you thank Grandmother Garner for the present?” She didn’t reply.
Bebe looked down at the torn paper and straw that Lucy had strewn all over the floor for the servants to clear away. She sighed in frustration and bent to pick up the mess herself. Her daughter was growing into a spoiled, demanding child, who didn’t know how to do anything for herself, but whenever Bebe complained to Horatio, he took his mother’s side.
“She’ll only be a child for a few more years, Beatrice. You want her to grow up happy, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Bebe wanted everyone to be happy—most importantly, Horatio.
His drinking binge following Lucy’s birth had lasted nearly a month. Bebe had begged him to stop, appealing to his love for his new daughter and for her. When he finally agreed, she took him up to the fishing cabin for a week. Once again, Horatio sobered up, apologizing and promising that it would never happen again. He had kept his promise for four years now. In return, Bebe had done her best to settle into the Garners’ social world at his request, planning dinner parties and open houses and teas, attending social gatherings and balls and fetes. In fact, she was supposed to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony at Roseton’s new women’s club this afternoon. She wished she didn’t have to go.
“I own the tannery now,” Horatio had told her. “I have certain duties to perform in this community, and so do you and Mother.” Like it or not, those duties included pointless ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Bebe trudged up the stairs to get ready, ignoring the commotion in Lucy’s playroom as the nanny tried in vain to coax her into taking a nap.
“Let her stay up and play with her new doll,” Bebe heard Mrs.
Garner say. “I insist.”
Bebe’s maid was waiting in her room to help her dress. “Mrs. Garner chose this gown for you to wear today,” she said. Bebe nodded, tight-lipped. It seemed as though Horatio’s mother made every decision in her life. While the maid tightened her corset laces and slipped the chosen gown over her head, Bebe struggled to stay afloat in a sea of resentment. She hated the control that Mrs. Garner had over her—and now over Lucy. She felt as though she were navigating through rocky waters without a map: praying Horatio would remain sober, trying to please Mother Garner, hoping to maintain a façade of normalcy for her daughter’s sake.
As she sat at the dressing table, watching in the mirror as the maid arranged her hair, Bebe thought her life resembled a lavishly written novel without a plot. What good was all of the pageantry and posturing without a purpose? And what good did it do her to look beautiful on the outside when she seethed with frustration and resentment on the inside? She wished she would get pregnant again so she would have something useful to do—and so Lucy wouldn’t become so spoiled—but that hadn’t happened, either.
Bebe and Mrs. Garner arrived side by side at the ceremony, smiling and greeting the other women as if they were as close as mother and daughter. On lonely afternoons like this one, Bebe longed for a true friend. Her relationships with the other society women were superficial, and none of the women had become what she would call a friend, much less a confidante. She missed Mary MacLeod, even though their friendship had lasted barely a month. After Lucy’s birth, she had begged Horatio again and again to allow her to visit Mary, but he always refused.
“Why do you need her?” he had asked. “She’s not like us, Beatrice. Please stay away from her.”
Three hours after the ribbon-cutting ceremony began, Bebe returned home, her face stiff from holding a phony smile in place all afternoon. She trudged upstairs feeling exhausted, even though she’d done nothing more strenuous than eat petit fours and listen to boring speeches. After changing out of her dress, she sat down in her dressing room to read the newspaper. Mr. Garner’s subscription had never lapsed, and Bebe had developed the habit of reading the news every day. Occasionally, she would find an article about the Woman Suffrage movement—the paper always described their activities in negative terms, of course—and sometimes an article would mention Lucretia Mott.
But what interested Bebe even more were the descriptions of a temperance crusade that had swept across upstate New York, Ohio, and Michigan this year, quickly gaining momentum. Like the abolition crusades, it had begun when groups of Christian women joined together in prayer meetings, seeking the abolition of all alcoholic beverages. As the movement spread, the women began holding their prayer vigils on the streets outside of saloons until the embarrassed customers went home and the saloon owners caved in to the pressure and closed their doors. So far, the women had driven dozens of saloons out of business.
Bebe cut out all the articles she could find with news of either movement and kept them in a cigar box in her dresser drawer. If Horatio wouldn’t allow her to become involved, she could at least enjoy reading about what other women were doing.
Bebe was disappointed to find nothing about either the Temperance or Suffrage movement in today’s paper. Instead, every headline and article described the shocking news that yesterday, September 18, 1873, the nation’s best-known banking house, Jay Cooke and Company, had collapsed. Business affairs usually were of little interest to Bebe, but she could tell that this news was momentous. She read every word. Experts predicted that more bank failures would quickly follow; that businesses and industries would be forced to close their doors once they could no longer borrow money; that workers would be laid off, leading to labor unrest, riots, and starvation. The newspaper painted such a grim picture that Bebe whispered a prayer that the experts would prove to be wrong.
Late that night, Horatio startled her awake, moaning and thrashing in bed.
“Horatio! Horatio, wake up!” she said, shaking him. His eyes finally flew open and he sat up, looking frantically around the room as if he didn’t know where he was. “You were having a nightmare, Horatio. Everything is fine, it was only a bad dream.”
She could feel his body trembling, shaking the bed. Sweat drenched his silk pajamas. He groaned and ran his hands through his hair and then climbed out of bed. Bebe got out of bed, too, and started to light a lamp, but he stopped her.
“Don’t! I don’t want a light on.” She tried to draw Horatio into her arms to soothe him, but he refused her consolation, pushing her away. He began to pace as if trapped in a cage with no way out.
“Tell me about your dream, Horatio. Was it the war again?” He shook his head. She could see that he longed for a drink, and she was glad that she had thrown out every drop of alcohol after his father died. She sat on the edge of the bed, still feeling shaky after being startled awake.
“Please tell me what’s wrong.” He didn’t reply. “Talk to me, Horatio. Are you worried about something? I read in the newspaper about the huge bank that went broke—are you afraid it will affect the tannery?”
He finally turned to her, and she could hear the controlled anger in his voice, even though she couldn’t see him clearly in the dark. “This house is my refuge, Beatrice. I don’t want to talk about work when I’m at home. Besides, you don’t need to concern yourself with financial matters. You shouldn’t even be reading the newspaper in the first place. Why can’t you read Godey’s Lady’s Book, like other women do?”
His words stung and she knew he had meant them to. She lashed back without thinking. “I don’t care about the latest fashions. I care about real life! You think I’m too stupid to understand the news, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say that. But why concern yourself with the world outside our home? I work hard so that you can be free from worry, like Mother is.”
Comparing her to his mother infuriated Bebe. She sprang to her feet. “W
ell, I’m not stupid! I know that Cooke’s was one of our country’s largest banks and that business loans are going to be hard to come by in the next few months. I know that if factories like yours can’t borrow money to purchase supplies, and if stores can’t borrow money to buy stock, then the store shelves are going to be empty by Christmastime and workers are going to be laid off and—”
“Stop it! I never said you were stupid. I said I didn’t want to talk about it at home!”
Bebe realized her mistake and softened her tone. “But why can’t you share your life with me? We could help each other.” She tried to take him into her arms again, but he fended her off.
“You’re not the man of the family—I am!” He snatched up his dressing gown and opened the bedroom door. “Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I awakened you.” He slammed the bedroom door on his way out.
Bebe sank onto a chair and lowered her face to her lap. She didn’t know what to do. She could hear Horatio wandering around downstairs, unable to sleep, but at least he wouldn’t find any alcohol. She sat in the chair for the rest of the night, waiting for him to return to bed, but he never did. In the morning, she saw dark circles beneath his eyes as he dressed for work.
“Horatio, I’m sorry for making you angry.” She wanted to hold him, but she was afraid to approach him after he’d pushed her away twice last night.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “About everything.” He reached out to her, and the sorrow she saw in his eyes nearly stopped her short. His grief seemed much deeper than regret over a marital spat. And what had he meant by “everything”? She went into his arms and held him tightly, afraid to risk another argument by questioning him.
“I won’t be home for supper tonight,” he told her. “We are very busy at work right now, and I’m needed there to handle things.”
He still held her tightly in his arms, so she couldn’t look into his eyes to see if he was lying to her. “Shall I have the servants save dinner for you?” she asked.
“No. I’ll be very late.” And he was. But Bebe didn’t detect the smell of alcohol on his breath when he did return home, and he didn’t appear to be drunk.
The following afternoon, Bebe was sitting in the parlor reading in the newspaper about the growing financial crisis when someone arrived at the front door. Lucy, who was supposed to be napping, barreled down the stairs, shouting, “For me? Is it another present for me?”
Bebe laid down the paper and hurried to the door. When she saw that it was the foreman from the tannery asking for Horatio, her stomach clenched in a knot. “Go back upstairs, Lucy. Right now.”
“But I want another present!”
Bebe stood aside and waited while the nanny scooped up the struggling child and carried her upstairs. The dread Bebe felt overwhelmed any embarrassment over her daughter’s tantrum.
“Won’t you come in, Mr. MacLeod?”
He shook his head, choosing to remain on the front step. “I’m very sorry to bother you, Mrs. Garner, but your husband is needed at work. I’m afraid it can’t wait until tomorrow.”
The knot of pain in her stomach tightened. “Horatio’s not here. . . . Isn’t he at the tannery?”
MacLeod’s face reddened with embarrassment. “Um . . . well . . . no, ma’am. He isn’t.” He began backing away, preparing to leave. “I’m sorry I bothered you with this.”
“Wait . . .” The foreman halted, but he wouldn’t meet Bebe’s gaze. “How long ago did Horatio leave?” She was trying to convince herself that he had simply gone for a haircut or a shoeshine.
“About three hours ago. . . . I’m sorry. I never would have disturbed you, but he told me he had another headache, and I thought he said he was going home. I must have misunderstood him. I’m sorry.” Once again, he began backing away. Once again, she stopped him as dread and suspicion billowed inside her like smoke.
“Wait! Does he complain of headaches often? Has he left work this early before?” MacLeod hesitated as if he didn’t want to reply. “I need to know the truth, Mr. MacLeod. I want to do what’s best for the tannery, and I want to help my husband. But I can’t do either one if I don’t know the truth.”
“He has been complaining of headaches for some time now,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “Lately, it has become a habit for him to leave work early. Usually around noon. I’m sorry.”
“Does he return to work, or is he gone for the remainder of the day?” She dreaded hearing his reply.
“He doesn’t return, ma’am. Listen, I’m sorry for disturbing you. I wouldn’t have bothered you if I had known . . . I’m sorry . . .”
“Stop apologizing and tell me how long he has been doing this.”
He cleared his throat. “For about two weeks.”
Two weeks. What had Horatio been doing all that time? Where had he been going? The pain in Bebe’s stomach grew so fierce she wanted to double over. Instead, she held her head high.
“Horatio hasn’t been coming home with these headaches. And he didn’t come home last night until well after dinner. He told me he was working late.”
“I’m sor—” He caught himself and stopped. “I worked late last night and . . . and he wasn’t there. Listen, I guess this can wait one more day, Mrs. Garner. I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow morning. I’m sorry for bothering you.”
“No, wait!” He halted again, and this time Bebe paused until he finally looked up at her. “You need to know the truth, Mr. MacLeod. The reason that Horatio isn’t here and the reason he’s been lying to you about his headaches is probably because he is down in a men’s club or a saloon somewhere, getting drunk.”
MacLeod didn’t reply. Nor did he appear surprised. His emotions were easy to read on his plain, honest face, and Bebe guessed from his expression that many of Horatio’s other actions had begun to make sense to him.
“You aren’t surprised, are you, Mr. MacLeod?”
“It does explain some things that have happened lately.”
“Like what?”
“I would rather not say.” He lowered his gaze again to stare at the ground.
Should she go looking for Horatio? Bebe felt so angry and betrayed that she wanted to storm into his club and confront him. She knew that she should wait until she could let go of her anger and could confront him in love, but she felt no love at all for him at the moment. She had given up everything for him, had agreed to all of his wishes—and he had deceived her.
“You mentioned that you came here on important business, Mr. MacLeod. I would like you to come with me now and help me find my husband. That way, Horatio will know that he can’t lie to us anymore.”
“I’m sor—” He stopped and cleared his throat again. “Listen, nearly five years have passed since your father-in-law died. Your husband has already made it very clear that I will be fired as soon as the time is up. He was forced to keep me on as foreman according to the terms of Mr. Garner’s will, and . . .” He looked very uneasy. “And when he fires me, I’ll need a recommendation from him if I hope to find another job. I don’t want to do anything to make him angry.”
“Horatio can’t run the business by himself,” Bebe said. “I think you already know that. Especially if he has begun drinking again. And I believe you know what might happen to the tannery during this economic crisis if you’re not at the helm.”
He didn’t reply. His unease grew as he continued to rub his jaw and shuffle his feet, his gaze directed at his shoes. Bebe admired his unwillingness to speak ill of Horatio, even if his motivation was fear of unemployment. But she could no longer disguise her fear from him.
“I know about the banking crisis in this country,” she told him. “If Horatio doesn’t sober up, we stand to lose everything, don’t we? The tannery, all of our income, our savings?”
“Please don’t ask me to confront your husband, ma’am. I’m very sorry for disturbing you, but I need to get back to work.”
This time he turned around and kept walking without looking back. Bebe closed the front door
. It required a great effort on her part to remain calm and not burst into tears of rage and fear and disappointment. Instead, she went out to the carriage house to find the driver. Bebe made up her mind that if Horatio was using the carriage, she would walk downtown alone, searching every men’s club in town until she found him and dragged him home. But the driver and all of the horses and vehicles were in the carriage house.
“I need to find my husband,” she told him. “He isn’t at the tannery. I need you to drive me around to some of the other places he frequents.”
The driver didn’t reply, but his pained expression told her what she needed to know. He didn’t want to be in the middle of this confrontation any more than Mr. MacLeod did.
“I know that you must feel a great deal more loyalty to Horatio than to me,” Bebe continued, “but I need your help. If Horatio is drinking during the daytime instead of working, and if we lose the tannery because of it, you could be out of a job.”
He lifted a set of reins from a hook on the wall and slowly opened one of the horse stalls to lead the animal out, his reluctance displayed in his every movement. He silently harnessed the horse to the vehicle, then helped Bebe into the carriage. He paused before climbing aboard himself. “I’ll take you to a place where he sometimes goes, ma’am.”
Bebe closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she said softly.
They drove to one of the poorer parts of town and halted in front of a two-story brick building with a striped awning in front. The sign read Logan’s Tavern. Horatio was frequenting a common saloon. In the middle of the afternoon.
The driver hopped down to help Bebe, but she couldn’t seem to move. Lively piano music drifted out of the open door, but the saloon’s interior looked very dark, as if the people inside were trying to hide. A deliveryman had propped the door open as he hurried in and out, carrying blocks of ice.
Bebe finally climbed down and went up to the door for a closer look, pausing before entering, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness so she could recognize her husband. Through a haze of cigar smoke, she saw a bartender standing behind a long, wooden counter, wiping glasses. Dozens of liquor bottles filled the shelves behind him, and Bebe fought the urge to pick up the brick that held the door open and hurl it at the shelves, smashing every bottle in the place. She drew a breath to calm herself, inhaling smoke and the yeasty aroma of beer. The row of men who leaned against the counter wore filthy work clothes, their faces smudged with soot and grease, as if they had just finished a day of work and had stopped off for a drink on their way home. Horatio wasn’t among them.