by Mary Volmer
Mama, pausing, shook her head. I marked this but thought nothing of the offer until, shepherded into the foyer, I saw, stepping down the staircase, another woman, trailed with graceless urgency by what could have been her younger twin, still a girl, but barely. Mama grabbed my arm, held tight. Both of them, the woman and the girl, wore embroidered gray satin, fancy, drab, and buttoned up tight to the chin.
“But Mother,” the girl exclaimed, “I am not overexcited!”
“Later, Georgiana,” warned the woman. She turned to welcome us, her manner apologetic—until her eyes fell to Mama’s bare chest. Her breath caught. She looked quickly away.
“Mr. Dryfus,” said the woman, then, tightly, “Mrs. Dryfus.”
The girl, tense, seemed to notice us for the f irst time, when the oak door to her right groaned open to a cloud of smoke and male voices. Mr. Stockwell and two other men emerged laughing; the girl’s posture softened and with it all outward def iance. “Little bird!” said Mr. Stockwell and pecked her on the cheek.
On his visits to the print shop, I hadn’t paid Melborn Stockwell much notice. Later I learned he’d come by his money the old-fashioned way, by marrying into it, and was engaged in some manner of gentlemanly business that required little of his effort or attention. He was also a deacon of Reliance First Presbyterian, but was best known in the town for what Hanley and most everybody else called the Sin Society. Its full name was something like The Reliance Society for the Suppression of Vice or The Committee for the Suppression of Vice. He also paid for the privilege of contributing to the Register a weekly column on “the general and widespread deterioration of society.” He called it Oracular Axioms.
Mr. Stockwell was not a handsome man; he wore f ine clothes poorly but was not, as a woman would be, conscious of this fact. Hanley could mimic exactly his habit of rocking heel to toe, back and forth, when he spoke. Now the motion emphasized his odd shape: more back than leg to him, big chest, no discernible neck. Yet he walked on the balls of his feet, with an almost feminine grace. Twin islands of facial hair curtained a surprisingly petite mouth but left his chin, like the top of his head, bare as an empty stage.
“Mr. Dryfus,” he said, rocking forward. “Have you ever seen such virtue in a face?”
He meant, I realized, the girl, Georgiana. Virtue, maybe, for neither Georgiana nor her mother was pretty. Still, there was a f ierceness about the girl. A despair. I could not take my eyes off her. Her eyes, a little too wide, were gray like her mother’s, but lively; her nose hooked toward a strong, cleft chin, and after Stockwell corralled Mr. Dryfus into the parlor with the men, she turned that chin away from us and back to her purpose.
“You must. You simply must speak with him, Mama!”
Mrs. Stockwell, leaving Mama and me standing there, gave an order to the maid, who bobbed away.
“Aunty will care for me, Mama,” Georgiana persisted. “You know she will care for me. And Paris! And to study painting! You did. Aunty said you were exquisitely talented, and you know she does not give compliments.” She adopted the tone and affectation of the phantom aunt. “‘May Ann was divine, exquisite!’”
In spite of herself, Mrs. Stockwell smiled and Georgiana kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, Mama. Thank you, Mama!” and disappeared up the staircase as the maid returned with a ghastly gray shawl.
Mrs. Stockwell turned back to Mama. “Would you like a wrap?” she asked, though this time it was not a question.
She led us up the stairs to the f irst door on the right, and as she opened the door, voices inside softened. Directly, Mama and I faced four women conspiring around a vanity mirror, each of them, like Mrs. Stockwell and her daughter, trussed to the neck in cloth. Gas lamps threw yellow light on their expectant faces and dark shadows on the brown Brussels carpet. There were two other vanity mirrors, three armchairs, and a green horsehair couch monopolized by gray, tasseled pillows and f ive lady’s hats exclusively and evenly placed.
Mama had no hat. The wrap hung loose around her shoulders. A door slammed below; skirts jostled.
Really, I had no idea what Mama would do—she was stronger than she looked, and ferocious. She’d once cut a backroom man deep with a knife she kept under the bed; never did say why. I wanted her to do something now. Say something. From the shadows of the doorway, I could see faces amused, some pitying, all pinning her with that vicious civility against which girls and women are so vulnerable. After all, there was no clear grievance to redress, nothing so obvious as a gauntlet thrown, nothing against which to retaliate. Still, I felt like ripping the curtains off the wall and jumping on the chintz armchairs; but both of us stood, accepting each introduction with the grateful humiliation of beggars accepting alms. Mrs. Harvey Morrison, Mrs. Joshua Bennett, Mrs. Nicolas Walsh, Mrs. Ashf ield Bender.
“And Mrs. Smith, of course,” said Mrs. Stockwell of another woman who stood apart from the rest, next to a long sash window. “My cousin.”
Mrs. Smith’s nose perked at its tip, and her eyes, beneath feather-thin brows, were vaguely Oriental. She grasped Mama’s large hands between her own tiny f ingers, and the intimacy of the gesture sent a ripple through the room.
“My dear Mrs. Dryfus. I am ashamed to admit that we have not yet met. Susana Mobile Smith. We are neighbors, nearly. I own the dress shop on Seventh Street—Elegant Attire.” With her little hands, she framed the words in midair. “I’ve customers all the way from Saint Louis and am prof icient in all the latest French styles. Sadly,” she said with more judgment than sadness, “one f inds little use for these skills outside the cities. But my, your lacework is exquisite. Really, May Ann, have you ever seen the like?”
Mrs. Stockwell had not.
Mrs. Smith gave Mama a moment to become grateful or impressed, then leaned in close, winked. “I embarrass my cousin. I believe we have been invited to keep each other company.”
•
“Mind, she is not to be overexcited, and you must guide her to happy thoughts,” said Mrs. Stockwell as she led me to her invalid. “Since her nurse left us, I’m afraid she has been especially susceptible to morbid fascinations.”
“Where’d the nurse go?” I asked to be polite, though I can’t say I much cared and I did not, then, think of the dead woman in the river. I was thinking of Mama alone with those women. Mrs. Stockwell ignored or maybe didn’t hear me. Some great sadness or frustration, like the oily tail of heat spouting from the gas lamps, quivered across the pale center of her eyes.
“And you mustn’t let her speak of Saint Catherine,” she said. “You will not allow it.”
She opened a door next to a claw-foot table below a calotype of a thin, staring Quaker woman. Below, voices rose and fell. Inside, a stale, sweet talc-and-sour-milk scent peculiar to infants draped itself over me. It was dark. Only a thin line of light seeped between a crack in the window curtains. When Mrs. Stockwell retreated, closing me into the darkness, I could see nothing beyond the hulking shape of a canopy bed. Then I heard a high, breathless voice.
“I have been waiting.”
I might have believed the bedclothes had spoken, but as my eyes adjusted I saw a slight presence tugging herself upright. Huge eyes blinked from a narrow, ghostly face.
“No, please don’t go.” I had not moved. “Close the door.” The door was closed. The voice, barely a whisper, carried a barbed authority that made me bristle.
“I have been waiting. Are you an angel? Were you sent for me? Thank you, Saint Catherine, for sending me an angel to strengthen and beautify my will.”
I said nothing. Her Mama did not wish her to speak of this Saint Catherine person, but had said nothing about speaking to her. Plus, Hanley had told me that Mr. Stockwell could hear the voice of God, so such things might be normal in this house. The sash window seemed large enough to conceal a whole choir of veiled saints, and already the room felt crowded from the presence of two girlish bodies.
�
�Come closer. Closer.” I approached and the girl’s cold hand gripped my wrist with far more strength than I imagined possible. I sprang away, and she draped herself moaning over the side of the bed.
“Why would you do that? You are not my angel. And, oh! I have been waiting. Waiting . . .”
“Your Mama brought me.” I remained out of reach of all but those wide, woeful eyes, staring with the hardness her grip had revealed before.
“Never mind.” She patted the bedclothes smooth. “Then we shall be special bosom friends, shall we? And you shall mourn me at my death.”
She appeared inordinately pleased at the prospect.
At f irst the stagnant air and darkness made the room close as a cave. Now objects began to f ix themselves in place. A curio cabinet f illed with wooden f igurines and bric-a-brac took shape. From three descending shelves, an audience of porcelain dolls looked on. A coal f ire smoldered in the hearth. From the rocking horse and the infant’s cradle, this must have been the nursery, though I suspected, in spite of the diminished voice and frame, she was only a year my junior, if that. Above the bed was a framed photograph of an infant in a coff in, dressed in white with white flowers in his hair.
“My brother, Melborn Abernathy Stockwell III. This is my new friend, Mel,” she said to the photograph. “My name is Abigail. Abigail Jane. A plain, plain name. Don’t you think?”
My name, apparently, was of no consequence to her.
“Yes.” I said. “Terribly boring.”
“Oh! You don’t really think so? Well!” Healthy color seized her cheeks. “Then I think you’re ugly. I wasn’t going to say anything, but you’ve been so rude about my name, I feel you have given me no choice. And your dress is rags, and that atrocious bonnet. It only makes you”—she paused—“conspicuous. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to apologize?”
I would as soon have pounded her as apologized, but held back for the baffled injury welling in her eyes. She was the f irst to look away. I was the f irst to speak.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “You want to eat?”
“I’m fasting for purity,” she replied, “but I’ll watch you.”
“I always feel I’m watching a play, or maybe a puppet show,” said Abigail. We returned from the kitchen by way of the servants’ staircase and sat spying on the dining room through the balusters, reconciled as well as we would ever be and full to the point of delirium. For someone who was fasting, Abigail had eaten an impressive amount of lamb.
“If I squint my eyes like this,” she said, “I can see the strings. Try it.”
I could see them. Strings of light trailing from the gas chandelier tugged the cuffs and sleeves of diners, governing their movements. Mama’s puppeteer was clumsy, untrained. She kept shrugging the wrap back into place; her hands hovered unsure over the baffling assortment of utensils. Mr. Dryfus’s puppeteer was not much better; he could not, without building potato levies, prevent his meat from bleeding into his greens—an effort that annoyed Mrs. Stockwell but clearly entertained Mrs. Smith, the only lady at the table, besides Georgiana, without a spouse. A woman in pearls complained of poor attendance at the Auxiliary luncheon. They went on about taxes and flooding and Ulysses S. Grant. Talk which mostly bored me, but I had no wish to return to the nursery. Abigail slipped her head between the baluster slats and propped her chin on the step. I did the same. Mr. Stockwell, leaning in the direction of Mr. Dryfus, said, “Sorry?”
I hadn’t heard his question or Mr. Dryfus’s reply, but Stockwell blinked as if poked, and a hush fell over the table.
“Of course I forgot, Mr. Dryfus,” said Stockwell, “that you do have a certain stake in maintaining Miss Rose’s approval, am I right? Which in my mind is no excuse, no moral excuse for allowing her to continue these sordid extravaganzas, these . . .”
“Soirees.” The word slipped from Georgiana’s lips. Her mother gave her a look. All other conversations were cleared to the side with the dinner plates.
“Last month,” said Mr. Stockwell, “She hosted a troop of singing gypsies from New Orleans.”
Mr. Dryfus made no comment.
“They danced upon the table!”
“Had the meal f irst been cleared?” asked Mr. Dryfus.
Mrs. Smith laughed out loud, but neither Dryfus’s tone nor posture had changed, and the rest seemed unsure if the statement was a joke. I wouldn’t have thought him capable.
“Am I to understand, then . . .” said Mr. Stockwell, co-opting the whole party in his next sweeping gesture. “Are we to understand that you condone even her most recent charade at the voting booth? Philanthropy does not give one license to mock the—”
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Smith interjected. Forks clinked on small dishes of cream cake. “Perhaps she was making a point. A political statement.”
“I would like some coffee,” said Mrs. Stockwell. “Susana,” she said pointedly. “Will you take coffee?”
“Political statement?” Stockwell’s chuckle carried no trace of amusement. He raised his chin and voice. “She wishes to . . . to agitate. The prodigal daughter returned, throwing money around to win favors—and whose money, I’d like to know—influencing weaker minds in the name of some foreign,” he said, wiping each word from the air, “radical, free-loving, European . . .”
Mrs. Stockwell called for the coffee.
“Mr. Stockwell,” said Mr. Dryfus. “You speak as though I condoned Miss Rose’s extravagances, about which, I must say, I have little opinion at all. I’ll grant you, her sense of moderation leaves something to be desired.”
Stockwell made to speak.
“But,” said Mr. Dryfus, “she pays for the flyers and the ads she takes in the Register, just as you pay for yours. Surely you do not believe I have the luxury of turning away paid advertisements.” He hesitated, staring at the bloody meat on his plate. “That is the hidden object of your hospitality, is it not?” The accusation stopped every mouth, and still Mr. Dryfus continued. “That I might pull her ads because they might offend a few readers who were never obligated to read what so offended them, or to attend any gathering they determine damaging to the moral character? As I have said before, I should hope a moral person would be able to discern what is and is not damaging to the character. With training, even the depraved can improve his natural propensities and overcome, to an extent, his shortcom—”
“It’s the extent which concerns me, Mr. Dryfus!”
“Who is to judge for them then?” And then Mr. Dryfus did another extraordinary thing. He stood. Eyes followed him, and by sheer elevation—he was quite a tall man—his voice gained an edge I’d never heard before. “You, Melborn? The courts?” He looked about. “The committee?”
“If the Church cannot!”
Maybe it was embarrassment or holy fear that moved her, but at her husband’s statement, Mrs. Stockwell raised her eyes from the table and found us watching from above. Her exclamation pulled all faces upward. Abigail plucked her head through the balusters and slipped away.
I was stuck.
My ears, having slipped so easily through the wooden slats, got stuck in the rungs, leaving my poor head exposed to the shocked and fascinated gazes below. The puppet strings had snapped! I had become the show. I struggled like a trapped animal. Mama stood. Mr. Dryfus, already standing, turned my direction. My cheeks blazed, my eyes blurred with tears. After what seemed like an hour, I felt a small hand soft between my shoulder blades.
“Oh dear, now, easy now. Shhh. I don’t know, Rebecca. We may have to cut her out.”
“Be still, Madelyn!” hissed Mama.
“Unless . . . Tilt your head, dear.” Mrs. Smith, easing a satin handkerchief around my forehead and over my ears, slipped me through the slats, explaining as she did that I should not be embarrassed, which, of course, made the embarrassment worse. Probably I was not lon
g on their minds. My shame merely shattered conflict into laughter, but as the party dispersed, ladies to the drawing room, men to the parlor, I imagined they were laughing at me and felt a rage so exhausting that by the time I was free, it had burnt itself into sour paste in my mouth.
Mrs. Stockwell ushered me back to her youngest daughter’s side before we departed. “My darling little invalid,” she said and kissed Abigail’s cheek. The transformation was remarkable. Abigail’s every muscle had relinquished vitality and strength. “Make her come back, Mummy,” she said, but I slipped out the door and down the stairs in time to hear Mr. Stockwell’s f inal words to Mr. Dryfus in the foyer.
“. . . you may be hard pressed, Mr. Dryfus, if the good members of the committee were forced to withdraw their patronage from your shop.”
Of course, at the time, my humiliation was still too raw to comprehend this threat, much less to pity Mama her failure with the ladies. But now I know. I know that wars are fought over the control of words and fashions and manners, and that Mr. Dryfus, and Mama too, whether she understood it or not, had chosen a side.
“Mrs. Dryfus?” said Mr. Dryfus, limping behind Mama up the walk. “Please. You mustn’t worry yourself. Stockwell depends upon the German vote. He would not take his business to the Democrat. Rebecca.”
Mama stopped. Mr. Dryfus lingered a step behind her, his breath bridging the space between them. Freezing fog had crept from the river; every small sound crackled through the cold. When they walked on, they walked together.
“Well,” came a voice behind me. I turned to f ind Mrs. Smith picking her way down the frozen pavement. She threw her arm and shawl around my shoulders. “That was very nearly an enjoyable evening.”