by Mary Volmer
“Violet, wait.”
I still wanted to know what she and William had been saying about me, but damned if I’d ask her that. “Reckon Mrs. French got a premonition? Reckon she thinks we’re going to win?”
“Do I reckon?” said Violet. “Dear Madelyn, why do you persist in speaking like a heathen?”
“Fine. Do you think—”
“I don’t know,” said Violet.
“Well, what happened in New York, then? Mrs. French said she’s afraid Miss Rose might go too far again. What’s she mean, again?”
To my surprise, Violet’s blue eyes glistened. Her pretty nose flared. “You horrid heartless beast! Don’t ever ask me that again, Madelyn. Never again.”
That evening, in the rose garden, Alby lit her pipe and leaned back to blow smoke. “People in this house got more secrets than is good for ’em,” she said. “Bet it’s different out West. Out there you arrive and say, ‘This is who I am and to hell with anyone who don’t like it.’”
“I’m not sure that’s how it is anywhere.”
“Some kind of an expert in everything now, that it?”
I reached for the pipe and she gave it.
“I told you I’d teach you to read,” I said.
“Bah,” said Alby. “Lots of good Latin do me, anyway. Lots of good it do you. Fancy words, fancy dresses, fancy dinners. Just makes you expect more of the same. You think I’m jealous, but I say you’d of been better off learning a kitchen with me, instead of playing poet lady. Might’ve had options, Maddy, and now you’ll be thinking you got to live fancy to have any life at all.”
“Options like your dog woman?”
“Nettle won’t say it, Maddy. But I’m gonna. You listening? Now I don’t mean to hurt you, but here it is: All those big words and big ideas they’re stuff ing in your head don’t change the ways of the world. And you just better get your head around the fact people always gonna look at you like they look at old Cyrus. At me, too. They gonna look at you and see a color f irst. Fancy walk and talk and clothes or no, they gonna see a color. What’s more?” She took the pipe back. “You’re a damned fool if you think Miss Rose will give you anything more’n a boot out the door when she’s through with you. As big a fool as Violet. Bigger, since she never had nobody to tell her straight.”
“That’s not true!”
“She’s playing with you, Maddy. Don’t get how you can’t see that. She’s rich. It’s what rich people do. You think you mean anything to her? Well then, all that learning’s making you blind. She ain’t nothing but a self ish, vain woman who does good things so that people will think good of her. Impressive on the outside.”
“That’s not true. It’s what some people think.”
“It’s what everybody thinks, everybody she ain’t witched blind to it. But hey, maybe Lizzette’s right? You mighty easy to witch, ain’t you? Give you a fancy dress, or a charm, and you loyal as a—”
“You take that back!” I demanded, standing now, my f ists clenched, but Alby, reaching up, pulled me down again.
“Just be careful, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”
32
The next morning everyone in the household was quiet and tense. Everyone except Miss Rose, who was not quiet.
Up before dawn, Miss Rose now paced the dining room assigning places for the dinner party, her voice gaining volume with every chime of the manor’s many clocks. “Reverend Reynolds will sit there.” She reconsidered. “No, there. Across from Judge Bennett and Senator Biggs . . . Hmm, what do you think, Mrs. Hardrow?”
Mrs. Hardrow waited until she told her what to think. All morning, Miss Rose had been running the servants ragged with indecision, f irst ordered the white and gold Copeland China and Francis I Sterling, and after it had been polished, changed her mind in favor of the Wedgwood Service and Strasbourg Sterling. I was almost glad to retreat with Violet into the library but found Mrs. French no more calming. By midmorning, I hardly cared what the election news might be, if only William would come and put us out of our misery.
Now I know I should not have been so eager, because when f inally William arrived, just before noon, he was not alone.
By his side was a rumpled, bleary-eyed Mr. Dryfus and Reverend Reynolds, holding himself so stiffly I thought he must be having trouble with his bowels. Mr. Dryfus looked without seeing me, and when I caught William’s eye, he shook his head, so I knew. I knew before I’d followed them to the door of Miss Rose’s off ice and heard Miss Rose say:
“Stockwell then? Well, shit.”
To be sure, I didn’t expect to join them, would have rather nursed my considerable disappointment in the garden, but with a gesture from Mrs. French, Mrs. Hardrow beckoned me inside with her. “Not a word,” Hardrow said. We stood in the back, by the wall of mirrors, the windows to our left brimming with light.
No one was sitting. Miss Rose and Mrs. French stood in the middle of the room, their backs to the windows, across from Mr. Dryfus, William, and the reverend. At f irst I thought Miss Rose’s curse had turned the pale scar on the reverend’s cheek red. He cleared his throat, but Miss Rose spoke over him.
“And I suppose it takes all three of you to tell me this?” She was looking at Reynolds as she said this. “By how much? Well, what was the margin?”
“Not Stockwell, either, Miss Rose,” said William.
“Not—”
“Donovan,” said William. Mrs. French’s eyes widened. Miss Rose, about to laugh, stopped.
“Not Donovan,” said Miss Rose. “Donovan? Donovan won?”
“Not by much,” said Mr. Dryfus, pipe in one hand, cane in the other, though neither seemed to steady him. “Because the ballots under dispute were printed on my press, and because your name—or your father’s name, as the case may be—appears on the ballots, we are both now at the center of this scandal. I thought it expedient to consult you as to a plan of action.”
The word “scandal” deepened Mrs. French’s frown. But Miss Rose—Miss Rose merely folded gloved hands before her. “No plan,” she said lightly.
The reverend balked. “Excuse me?”
“No plan. I have done nothing wrong. You, Mr. Dryfus,” she said, “have done nothing wrong. We have all acted within our rights, as the law now stands.” She ran a hand down her bodice, an attitude of victory upon her. “The people have spoken. The people have spoken, and they do not want Stockwell.”
“They do not want a Democrat either, Miss Rose,” said the reverend forcefully. “Your actions split the party vote and all but handed the election to Donovan. And the fact of the matter? The fact is that if those who voted your ticket knew this would be the result, they would have voted Stockwell. Even if he is overbearing.”
“My father was overbearing. Stockwell is a tyrant who would use the position to further his own limited agenda.”
“And what have you done?”
“What have I done?”
“Rose,” said Mrs. French.
“What have I done, indeed, but f ight for years for the freedoms and rights of half of this country’s population? For your wife, Mr. Reynolds. For your daughter.”
But the reverend only shook his head, a sad, patient, patronizing movement that echoed in his voice and rankled Miss Rose. “No, you betray us. After the gains the Negro has made. Are you not grateful? Did we not work for this progress side by side?”
“Oh, I remember. The grand statements. The promises of progress.”
“Yes!” said Reynolds, though he must have heard the sarcasm in her voice.
“And yet that promise has been broken, has it not? Tell me, how many men from your congregation voted yesterday, Reverend. Five? Six? Under the protection of how many white men with guns? How many hundreds and thousands of Negroes were turned from the polls by force? By fear? Women might remain politically enslaved, Reverend Reynolds, but the Negro rem
ains practically so. And why? I’ll tell you why. Because seven years ago you—and Douglas and Garrison, all of you—allowed yourselves to be duped by that ridiculous argument. How absurd! How absurd to believe your rights could be won only so long as the chains remained around the necks of your strongest allies.”
“Rose,” said Mrs. French.
“Reverend Reynolds, sir.” She did not use the word with deference. “We agreed to postpone, not to cede indef initely, the battle for women’s suffrage. We combined our energies in one direction, not to f ight one particular injustice, but to f ight injustice in its ugliest and most obvious form. But let me assure you, Reverend, that had we thought the rights of the Negro would be won at the cost of our own, we would have thought better of our effort, and you, sir, would remain a fugitive.”
“Rose!” said Mrs. French, but it was no use; all vestiges of restraint left her. Her forehead was mottled. Tears in her voice. For a horrifying moment, she appeared as fragile as the old woman I’d encountered the night after the soiree; and though I did not understand half of what had been said, I felt tears and a surge of helpless loyalty.
“No,” she said quietly now. “No, I am not grateful. I am quite justly ungrateful, and so should you be.”
Then she turned to stare through the curtains. Reverend Reynolds opened his mouth, closed it. He straightened his lapel, walked to the door. “This conversation is not over,” he said.
“Yes, it is, Reverend.”
Mrs. French followed him into the hall. I didn’t hear what she said, or his reply, but she returned alone. William and Mr. Dryfus worried their hats. Miss Rose, staring out the window, quivering with rage, ignored them. “Thank you for coming,” offered Mrs. French. “Both of you.” And then they, too, were gone, down the staircase, out the double doors, which closed def initively behind them.
Miss Rose stood with her back to the room, framed in window light and reflection, but trailing, also, a singular shadow, long and dark across the carpet. I could hear servants below, still preparing for the dinner party; birdsong surged, softened again. Mrs. French approached; they stood side by side in a brittle silence Mrs. French f inally broke.
“You should not have said that to him. You are right, but you should not have said it.” Miss Rose said nothing. “About Donovan, Rose, I didn’t think. I never thought . . .”
“Did you read Mrs. Livermore’s comments in the Post yesterday?” But gave Mrs. French no time to respond. “‘All of these ladies,’” she recited. “‘All of these ladies traipsing into voting booths, flaunting themselves in halls of congress, they are nothing but plumed peacocks as damaging to our cause as a parade of wastrels down Main Street, with no other hope, or purpose, than to bolster their own fragile legends.’”
“Oh, Rose. Rose, she did not mean you.”
“Of course she did. And Mrs. Woodhull, maybe even Mrs. Anthony. Of course she did.”
“She only means . . . We must be patient, Rose. Take the long view.”
“Huh.”
“The world does not change quickly. The people are too many, the needs too many.”
Miss Rose wasn’t listening. Her head had tipped as though a thought had landed; she turned abruptly and her eyes locked with mine.
“Did you know, Lorena,” she said, still looking at me. “Did you know that poor girl they found dead in the river last year worked for the Stockwells before the Lily White? Did you know she was pregnant?”
She turned to catch Mrs. French’s reaction, which was just as well, for that last word was a door slamming in my chest; the breath went out of me. Just like that, all their high language crumbled to the floor.
“What are you suggesting?” Mrs. French, gathering herself, started again. “Are you suggesting the baby was . . . ?”
“Stockwell’s,” said Miss Rose.
“How do you know? It’s important, Rose. How do you know?”
“Georgiana.”
“How does she know?”
“Servants talk, Lorena. You know that as well as—”
“And she told you? She said Stockwell was the father?”
“As much as said.”
“As much as?”
“Oh please, Lorena!”
“What did she say?” Mrs. French insisted, following Miss Rose to the door. “It’s important, Rose. What exactly did she say?”
“He did it, Mrs. French. I know the type. He got that girl pregnant. And then . . .” The half-smile on her face sent a chill through me. “And then isn’t it curious? That girl wound up murdered.”
She left us then. Mrs. Hardrow followed. Mrs. French, shaken, for once unsure, looked across the room at me.
“Madelyn?”
Murder, Madelyn.
“I won’t say anything,” I said.
“There’s nothing to say.”
I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t so sure I shouldn’t say something to William. Pregnant. Had William known? Did he suspect Stockwell? If he had, why hadn’t he said so?
“Madelyn,” said Mrs. French. “Look at me. We don’t know he did anything. We don’t know anything for sure. Madelyn, do you hear me?”
What I heard, what we both heard would relegate even this horrid intrigue to the periphery for a time: A thump. A short piercing cry. A drum of feet above our heads. Old Man, who had languished one foot in the grave for as long as I’d known him, had chosen that day, of all days, to jump in with two.
33
Only shreds of light slipped beneath black crepe curtains, but I could see, as I lay on my side, the outline of Nurse Lipman’s packed suitcase by the wardrobe. Lipman rolled over, nudged me in the back with a knee.
“Hey. Maddy,” she said. “Ah, now, you’ll be okay. Though you’ll miss me, won’t you? No need worrying about me, Miss Maddy. I got a head on my shoulders, good references. Modern woman of the world, I am.” More sadness than pride in her voice. She sat up, stretched. I watched her, ashamed to admit I was neither grieving over Old Man, nor properly mourning the loss of Nurse Lipmann, who, after all, had shown me as much care and kindness as anyone in that house. Other, self ish concerns were souring my gut.
“What if Miss Rose doesn’t keep me now?”
“That what’s bothering you?” One of the things. “Well, she hasn’t said anything about it, right? Hardrow not said anything? And you made yourself useful in other ways. What’s the word?”
“Indispensable,” I mumbled.
“That’s it. Indispensable in other ways. Okay then.”
She planted a rough kiss on the side of my head, lit the lamp, pulled her nightgown off and her chemise over her droopy breasts, giving each a good rub before attacking the buttons of her traveling dress.
It was not what Miss Rose said that worried me. In the three days since Old Man died, she’d stepped from her bedroom only to haggle over funeral arrangements with her nephews and the lawyer, Mr. Schneider, who’d arrived (though not together) two days before. She allowed no one inside except Hardrow to dress her and Violet to sing and hadn’t said boo to me. Without Old Man to tend, I was feeling awfully dispensable. Not to mention vulnerable to bad dreams and thoughts I had been trying to avoid—about Stockwell and the dead woman, Aileen. About William.
Had he known about Stockwell? Had he known she was pregnant? Haunted by these questions though I was, I had discovered a reluctance to ask him, not that the last few days had afforded an opportunity. Lipman dropped to her knees for a hatpin, and I forced my thoughts back to the matter at hand.
“If Miss Rose doesn’t keep me?”
“If she don’t?” Lipman swiped a scrap of paper from the dresser and scrawled, as best she could, Illinois Central Hospital for the Insane. “Got a cousin works there gonna try to get me on. You need to, you come f ind me. Right? Now, don’t see me off or you’ll make me cry, too, and I ain’t cried leaving a house since
I left my mama.”
So I curled small in that suddenly big bed until I heard her trap pull away, then put on the mourning dress Mrs. Smith loaned me and did the best I could with my hair without lifting the black crepe covering the mirror. Nettle warned me doing so before the funeral was as good as inviting Old Man’s spirit to take up residence in the reflection, and while I wasn’t sure I believed this, decided it best to err on the side of caution. Miss Rose must have decided the same.
She’d ordered all the clocks stopped at twelve twenty-seven, the time Lipman found Old Man, and over Hardrow’s quiet objections, had postponed the funeral three days in order to f ind enough crepe to shroud every mirror, portrait, blind-eyed bust, and statue. Every window, too. Even the glassed cupola. Living with Old Man’s shade might have been preferable; now any time a door opened and a breeze jostled the shrouds, it seemed a whole houseful of haunts had taken residence.
The effect was worse, though not much, on my nerves than the stink of Old Man’s corpse, fast overgrowing the wagonload of flowers and herb sachets Hardrow had ordered to mask it. I guess it was lucky there’d been so little of him left to rot.
I slipped down the spiral stair to the dining room and found Miss Rose’s nephews, strident, beardless fellows with boxy nutcracker mouths, stuff ing their faces and casting appraising glances over the buffet silver, the cut-glass chandelier, the cutlery, even at Tom, who stood at attention by the dumbwaiter. I felt like walking up and kicking them in the shins, but they looked at me as if half-expecting this. So I grabbed a pastry and, abandoning them to their speculations, retreated to the kitchen. Nettle, face red, hair as damp as her blouse, hustled a tray of tarts out of the oven and another in. Two Negro hired girls were paring apples at the table. Alby, slop bucket in hand, bumped past me through the door.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Nettle. “Stay out of the way.”
Outside I watched the stableboy brush down the gelding and Cyrus stuff topiary trimmings into scrap bags. Bees hummed in the cherry blooms and flowering plums; for a while I meandered the rose garden, bursting into bud, and when none of this eased me, slipped back inside and slumped into an armchair in the library. To f ind Mrs. French hunched over a book was a comfort even though she didn’t seem to notice me.