Dungeness

by Polinsky, Karen;

  About a year before, at an Irish estate where she scrubbed, and mended, and cooked, and baked, and ironed the sheets, she had become well-acquainted with an American, a youth of artistic sensibility, from the upper-crust of New York. Sharing many personality traits—wit, vivacity, and joy—the two entered into reckless liaison; after a month of uninhibited passion, he disappeared. Mallory, optimistic and self-contained, chalked up the affair to a lapse in judgment that she didn’t intend to repeat. However, she soon realized that sometimes women are forced to account for their adventures in ways that men are spared. She wrote a letter to the young man, disclosing all. She sent it to his New York address. She received no reply. Unfazed by this, and every other obstacle, she used the wages that she’d saved to board a clipper ship to the New World.

  Her son was born at sea.

  In her epic journey Mallory O’Quinn contracted a fever and collapsed. My mother hoped that she could nurse the girl, and her child, back to health. Thanks to a strong constitution, she recovered. Her baby son did not. Adele, of course, ordered a proper marker for her child, who knew no joy and only suffering in his tiny, short life. In Mallory’s mind, this final act of kindness intensified her debt. As soon as she recovered, the Irish girl, who was just twenty-years-old, fled, pledging never to return until she had found a means to recompense my family. Soon after that, my mother succumbed.

  Edith concluded her tale. “Taking care of mother, I contracted the same illness. Even now, as I retell it, I find it hard to catch my breath. I never go out. I’m sorry for you. You’re sure to find me dull.”

  Inside I shouted, Never! I was already enamored. “What about Mallory O’Quinn’s lover? As my father, Carl likes to say, The rogue ate the oyster but left the pearl.”

  Edith studied me. “What does that mean?”

  I replied, “Hmm, I’m not sure. The saying seems to suit the circumstance.”

  She went on. “Last winter, a youth in a good suit, slightly worn, hair dyed black, called, looking for Mallory O’Quinn. At the time no one was at home except our cook Harriet, who has since up and married. Poor Harriet delivered the sad news to him: Mallory’s baby was dead, and Mallory had disappeared. Before she left, Mallory let fly that she might ‘strike out for the silver mines of the Caribou.’ If so, I hope her bad luck has turned to sterling.”

  With aplomb I replied, “I hope she died.”

  Edith looked even more shocked than before. “Millie. Why?”

  “Because she’s too ungrateful to live. To abandon Adele, after all she did for her. How could she?”

  “How quickly you condemn. Adele succumbed to the fever about a week after Mallory departed. Had she known, I am certain she would have remained at her side until the end. Be charitable. Every night I ask the Virgin to help Mallory find a way to use her womanly insight and skill to benefit others and herself.”

  Did the Virgin respond to Edith’s prayer and guide Mallory? Later, I wondered. At the moment, I remained perplexed. Was the Irish girl in the story bad or good? What fate did she deserve?

  Edith, distracted by her own thoughts, added, “I am in no position to judge her. My mother was devoted to sacrifice. But until Adele fell ill, I never gave a thought for anyone but myself. When I look back, I realize I should have died in her place.”

  Now it was my turn. “Don’t say that.”

  Edith looked up to the little crucifix nailed on the wall above her head, next to the portrait of her mother. She pressed my palm to her heart. “From now on I will try to do better. I’m happy that I’m ill. God sent me the fever to test me. And you. He has sent you.”

  How good she was. And lovely, too, like a painting. But odd. After all: she said she was happy to be sick. Edith’s striving after virtue without a doubt outran my own search for self-improvement by half a mile. Nevertheless, she did appear to go to an extreme. Where did she get the idea? Her father’s preaching? From the charitable Adele? Or was it her natural purity, which made her so unfit for the world, and caused her to look so like an angel?

  Edith continued to gaze patiently at the crucifix.

  From the very first, I was dazzled by her light, as if I had tumbled inside a magic lantern. Just being near her filled me with the desire to be good. Later, I learned: The wish to become angelic may be deadly. Like Icarus, Victorian girls who leap off the wrought-iron rail fly too near to the sun, or clip their wings on the palisades of the waterfront hotels. Either way, they drop into the sea and drown.

  A Sunbeam in the House

  c. 1887

  Most Victorian literature portrays females as holy or wholly corrupted. Why are there no in-between categories, such as somewhat-slutty-but-with-potential-to-improve, the partial slattern, or a-bit-of-a-trollop-but-with-a-heart-of-gold? When comparing Port Townsend’s “fallen women” to “the virtuous ladies,” it’s hard to say who was more free.

  The Cult of Domesticity

  A handbook for Victorian housewives exhorts: “a virtuous woman proves her worth in the role of a wife and mother.” For middle to upper-class women, there really was no alternative to marriage. Even women engaged in the handful of respectable professions—teacher, nurse, and governess—were expected to find a husband before the age of thirty.

  That notwithstanding, in a pioneer town like Port Townsend, even for ladies living on the bluff, “marital bliss” was no vacation. The manor is paid for, not with a dew of perspiration, but with actual sweat. Truly, as Louisa May Alcott declares in the eleventh chapter of Little Women, “Housekeeping ain’t no joke!”

  In the City of Dreams, as elsewhere, keeping house was the opposite of child’s play. The majority of the households on the bluff couldn’t afford servants. Therefore, the lady of the house rose before daybreak to stoke the hearth, fetch the water and the wood, and bake the bread. All of this, before breakfast. She could study the latest fashions in Paris, but when it came down to it, she was her own dressmaker and often sewed her husband’s shirts. On washday, she scrubbed his clothes and her own, as well as the array of household linen; then, passed it through the wringer and pinned it up to dry. In the evening, if she reposed by the fire, she kept the mending in her lap. In addition to the daily chores, there were the seasonal ones: tending the vegetable garden in spring and summer, putting up jars for winter, and salting down the meat in fall, to name a few.

  To get all of this done, a housewife ought to be as beefy as a butcher in a meat locker. Yet, to appeal to the “the stronger sex,” she must always appear frail. According to the ad for Joy’s Vegetable Sarsaparilla in the Port Townsend Morning Leader, “the common afflictions of women are sick-head, aches and nervous disorders.” Her pallor, shortness of breath, and tendency to faint might be the result of a corset drawn too tight, or a side effect of laudanum, the opium compound her doctor prescribed to numb the aches and pains so that she could sleep at night. Or maybe her wan complexion was merely a sign of her very real exhaustion.

  Weary, or seriously ill, a proper wife was expected to maintain her cheerful attitude. As the Reverend EJ Hardy suggested in his guide to good manners, which would see seven editions: “Sweetness is to woman what sugar is to fruit. It is her first business to be happy—a sunbeam in the house, making others happy—” A woman who showed signs of illness might be suffering from a nervous disorder known as hysteria. In this case, her husband could send her for a rest cure, or have her locked up indefinitely.

  Many husbands believed that in order to keep a wife smiling, she must be protected from worldly matters. But this could never be. Economic realities were as much a part of a woman’s life as any man’s. For example, a mother would exhaust every avenue to keep her child from the pangs of poverty.

  Helga Estby Accepts the Challenge

  Take the case of Helga Estby, a Norwegian who finally settled in Spokane. After her husband’s construction business failed, when the mortgage and back taxes threatened the family farm, Helga learned of a challenge from a mysterious benefactor. As a promotion, a bicy
cle brand offered $10,000 to any woman who could walk from coast to coast.

  With her daughter Clara, who carried in her purse a curling iron and pepper spray, Helga Estby covered fourteen states, passing through gold rush towns and Indian reservations—and rain, dust, and snow—evading hobos and robbers till at long last she made it to New York City. Mrs. Estby proved: Victorian women may have looked delicate, but appearance isn’t everything. Helga Estby defied society’s expectation for one reason: to feed the kids.

  Fallen Women

  Shortly after I arrived in the Key City, this headline appeared: “A Queer Freak; Depravity Worthy of the Pen of a True Zola.” The Port Townsend Leader described a scandalous divorce, with a follow-up story the next day.

  An electrician named Charles Duncan married “a pronounced brunette with snapping black eyes and uncertain features—” as if her moral confusion had somehow blurred her face? According to the piece, when Duncan offered to marry her, he “had thought her pure,” though later he learned, “she had not been what she should.”

  This is what happened. Shortly after the wedding, Duncan came home a day or two early from business in Anacortes. His wife was not at home. When he went out to look for her, he discovered her in a “house of ill fame” on Adams Street. As it happened, she was “the favorite in Viola Garnett’s establishment.” Though less than pleased with his wife’s accomplishment, Duncan, a forgiving sort, agreed to overlook the lapse, but only if she agreed to quit her job.

  His wife said no.

  The electrician testified, “She flatly refused, saying that she had tired of married life and wanted to be permitted to enjoy herself in her own way.”

  Needless to say, Duncan’s divorce was granted.

  27

  Home Schooling

  c. 1889

  A tweedy stout figure poked at the musty fireplace. He wore a somber long coat with woolen trousers awkwardly humped up inside his patent leather boots. He turned to greet me, his unkempt bristle, big forehead and hawkish nose revealed a blunt likeness to his son. Unlike Christopher, whose cheeks were parchment, the Reverend wore muttonchops on either side of his ruddy face.

  In his fist, a doughy ham hock, a large brass key.

  Of all the wonders in Port Townsend, there was not one more astonishing than the Reverend’s Waterbury clock, by Benedict and Burnham. The frontispiece, made of solid brass, featured numerals in ivory. Inside the polished mahogany cabinet, a tall glass door revealed the inner workings of a pendulum and chains, a system of weights that caused the clock to chime on the half hour. This clock, modeled on a Swiss timepiece, one that would have cost ten times more, had been shipped inside a crate from Waterbury, Connecticut. That morning, and every morning before breakfast, the Reverend would wind up the lovely clock with his special key.

  The good Reverend claimed he was “ecstatic, elated, and overjoyed” to meet me, not just because I was the daughter of that “old parsnip” Carl. Even more so because he had “to beat the devil around the stump” to find a housemaid for Edith. To start the fire he bent low, blew hot and cold until his eyes watered, then regained his feet in order to rub his bruised knees. I lit the fire with a single match.

  Delighted, eager to discover other skills, the Reverend pointed at the arched doorway to the kitchen. “Fetch me a cup of tea. Put sugar in it. Not too hot, mind you. I don’t want to be scalded. I like it weak, milky and tepid.”

  Those three words more or less summed him up. He was good at heart but not reliable. When fate took his wife Adele, his character folded; yet he hoped never to lose his belief in tomorrow. Peace, until the day he died, was what he prayed for.

  However, this was not to be.

  Edith, inside the kitchen, was already pouring. Her brother, in a severe black long coat, leaned on the pastry table, adding up figures in a book. His manner the night before had put me off; I was nearly too nervous to look at him. However, by light of day, to my astonishment and his chagrin, he seemed as bashful as I.

  In daytime, the Mathieson’s house seemed less luxurious but more livable. The downstairs, with its high ceilings and ornate decor, less stuffy. Upstairs, the little bedrooms, careworn yet charming.

  After handing off the china cup and saucer, I hurried upstairs to launder my raggedy underthings. I tried to tidy Edith’s room but her bedclothes befuddled my best intentions. The satiny sheets dallied and danced and refused to lie flat. As a housemaid, I had a lot to learn.

  Nervous, I stepped out onto the balcony.

  To my right, the capacious front porch of our nearest neighbors, the McCurdy’s. Just beyond that, on the edge of the bluff, the fire tower with its brassy bell, matched in height only by the wooden cross on top of the Methodist Church. Beneath my feet, a sheer drop to the waterfront. Assorted tea-tray rooftops spread out before me. On Front Street, I saw the upper story of the clam cannery, with its symmetrical windows and fire porches, black against the red brick. Best of all, the wedding-cake ornament on top of the Hastings hotel. While in the harbor, a fast cutter was waving farewell. To my untraveled eye there was more delight here, than to the jaded tourist looking down from his hotel balcony in Florence, Italy.

  I readied myself, and went down.

  In the kitchen, the conversation had turned crusty. I lingered at the threshold. When I stepped over it, all conversation ceased. After an awkward pause, the good Reverend resumed, “But, I made a pledge to her father.”

  He went on. “In two years Millie will earn a diploma from the new secondary school. Along with six other women, she will distinguish herself as a member of the very first graduating class. She will set an example for future scholars. This is how I convinced my old friend to relinquish his daughter. I can never go back on my word.”

  Chris rejoined, “Father, we all know you are the best of men. But how will we afford it? Since you refuse to consider the dollars and cents, I must. To go to school, Millie will need a quality coat, shoes, and other supplies. We could deduct her expenses from her wages. However, what if she doesn’t suit us? Surely we can’t fire her, and then ask her to pay us the wages she has not yet received.”

  Edith handed me a mug of tea and white bread with butter. No jam. Apparently I had not earned it yet. The hot brew, dark and smooth, revived me, though I missed the tangy sweetness of Annie’s cedar-bark tea.

  Christopher ran his fingertip down a column of figures. “Now that I’ve been hired on as a clerk at Rothschild’s, who will look after Edith? At the moment she seems well enough, but who can say? What if without warning the fever returns? What happens if Millie is off at school—”

  Edith interjected, “Millie may be uneducated but she’s not deaf. It’s unchristian to talk about her as if she’s not here. Look. Now I’m doing it, too.”

  She turned to me with a melty smile. With or without marmalade, my knees turned to jelly. “Millie, what do you want? To go to school in town, with rude children half your age? Or to stay here with me?”

  Edith was ill, and so good. Unlike the father and brother, she cared about my feelings. Selflessly, she left the decision to me. Still, I knew what she wanted me to say. For one full minute, I nibbled a crust and pondered. “Why not both? I can help Edith with the housework and receive an education. She can teach me here.”

  They studied me with astonishment.

  After a long moment Edith replied, “Though I consider myself quite useless, I do have one or two skills: China painting, beaded bags, miniature landscapes, and floral designs made from braided hair. I could teach her Romantic poetry, and a phrase or two in French. Christopher could handle the more advanced subjects. I think we’ve hit upon a plan of improvement for Millie, in accord with my own needs and wants.”

  Christopher added, “If Edith and I were to tutor her, Millie would receive a better education at a lesser cost. Without exposing her to the waterfront riff-raff, which, given her background, might tempt her to delinquency and other crimes.” Sensing the advantage, he pressed on. “How would you l
ike to write a letter to her father explaining how she caught typhus playing rochambeau”—their name for the children’s game of rocks, scissors, and paper, I later learned—“with the daughter or the son of a Chinese grocer? A Russian sailor? A Canadian cowboy? What’s more, she’s no longer a child; her womanish traits are emerging. Look to the future. How would you like to introduce Carl to the fiancé: an Irish journalist, a German grocer, or worse yet, a British pirate turned government official? Is it not better to keep her up on the shelf on our bluff?”

  The Reverend dropped his cup; it sounded in the saucer. “You’re right. I promised Carl that I would, keep Millie safe. Also, that I would provide her with the best education available. Therefore, that’s what I shall do. Millie will study at home. You two will tutor her.”

  Edith clapped. She leaped up to kiss her brother, as if the idea had really been his, not mine.

  The amiable Reverend waved his cup. My alacrity merited a pat on the head, though I calculated that three short steps by the minister to the soapstone sink would have saved me nine. Welcome to the servant class.

  Chris did not smile, or seem glad. Constitutionally nervous, anxiety seemed to be his prolonged response to any situation. He warned Edith, “Let’s not forget that Millie must earn her keep. Therefore, her first lesson will be splitting the firewood. Second, making a neat stack. Third, keeping the fire lit. And so forth.” For the first time he seemed eager, almost cheerful. “I know. I will help you, Edith, by writing out a to-do list for Millie.”

  He reached for the ledger. Edith stopped him. “No, no.” She laughed. “You will be late for your new job at Rothschild’s Emporium. Papa, you promised to review next Sunday’s service with the Ladies Auxiliary. Hurry, both of you, to your manly occupations. Leave the household tedium to the women.”