Secret Sisters

by Joy Callaway

  “Half a bottle . . . maybe a little more,” she admitted, barely meeting my eyes before turning her focus to Mr. Sanderson, who stood with his hat flattened over the breast of his soggy brown jacket. “His coach got stuck in the mud, see? So I volunteered to go retrieve him. We had to wait on another, so to pass the time—”

  “M’lady,” Mr. Sanderson drawled, extending his hand to help Mary up the stairs. She giggled as he swept her up the last step and pulled her under his arm.

  I watched the interaction with interest, never having had occasion to see Mary flirt with a man.

  “No,” Mary edged in front of Mr. Sanderson, who had started to turn the knob, and pushed his arm away sloppily. “You must knock first.”

  “All right then, ma’am. Go on,” he said, scuffing his boot on the bowing wood. “I didn’t mean offense, but seeing as nobody’s told me why I’m sneaking around dead people’s homes, I didn’t know better.”

  Mary ignored him and knocked.

  “Your sister didn’t tell you?” I asked. His gaze met mine and he shook his head, closed lips quirking up at the edges. As I registered that expression, I remembered. He was the boy I’d run into in the dining hall the night I’d found out about Lily’s entanglements with Professor Helms. I’d thought he’d looked familiar then, and now I knew why. He and Katherine may as well have been twins.

  “She did not,” he said steadily. “Just told me to be ready at seven and that the coach would know where to take me.”

  “Who knocks on the door of Beta Xi Beta?” Lily’s voice sounded faint.

  “I’m indebted to my sister,” he continued to me, as though he hadn’t heard Lily’s reply. “Quite severely, in fact, so when she told me that I’d find out when I arrived, I didn’t ask.”

  “It’s Mary, Queen of . . . the Universe,” she said, and turned to me. “Since Beth is no longer President, I shan’t accept the throne of debauchery.”

  “Neither of you can be president,” Mr. Sanderson said, swaying in place. “Chester Arthur is Commander-in-Chief.” I laughed, highly confused, but also amused. He was so intoxicated.

  The door opened and Lily looked past Mary and Mr. Sanderson to me. She fingered the brim of the blue hood and her eyes pooled with tears.

  “Thank goodness. I knew you’d change your mind,” she whispered.

  As though her words reignited a flame, I glared at her.

  “I’m not returning to the fraternity,” I said. “There wasn’t a coach and it’s pouring or I would have walked back. If all of you would like to risk your diplomas, so be it. But I will not.”

  Lily blinked at me.

  “Very well,” she said. The old wood floor screeched beneath our feet as she led us down the dark hallway, echoing the dusty, fallow smell of the place. Voices hummed somewhere, but I couldn’t tell where they were coming from or where we were going. I reached out to run my hands along the wall for balance. Instead of plaster, my fingers grazed splintered wood and I winced.

  “The plaster’s all but come off of the walls,” Lily said. “There are leaks all over this place and the termites seem to have made their home in the beams.”

  A hinge creaked ahead of me and a bit of light spilled into the hallway, brightening an expansive foyer. A chandelier of cobwebs swung from the pitched ceiling.

  “Come on.” Lily grabbed my wrist and dragged me away from my appraisal of the once-grand home.

  “We’re going to have to swim back to campus,” Mr. Sanderson said as we entered the sitting room. He walked over to one of two windows flanking the wide plaster arch of a colonial fireplace.

  Katherine laughed. She was tucked into Lily’s homemade cloak, sitting on a threadbare oriental rug next to Mary who was propped in a wooden chair, watching her rain-soaked sleeves lighten the finish. Katherine nodded at me, and handed Mary a cloak.

  “You should pray you don’t have to,” Katherine said. Her brother swayed and reached to steady himself on the windowsill. “You’d drown. You’re a terrible swimmer when you’re sober, let alone positively bashed.”

  Lily disappeared from my side, skirting a lighted candelabrum on a mahogany table in the middle of the room to settle on a green leather settee. She was stony-faced as she appraised Mr. Sanderson and Mary. I knew she was thinking of her father, of the way he’d been wasted by drink at the end. She’d told me that she tried to erase the memory of his miserable later years, of his slurred words and stumbling gait, but that at times, the vision materialized anyway.

  “I am not,” Mr. Sanderson said. He whirled toward his sister, nearly dislodging a portrait of a woman’s naked backside over the mantle. “A terrible swimmer, I mean.”

  Mary snickered.

  “Don’t fear, darling,” she said. “My mother insisted that I don a bathing costume every week when it was warm enough and plunge into the Long Island Sound. I could save you . . . though, swimming in the company of these skirts might make it difficult.” She pinched the cloak covering the black satin fabric across her knees.

  “Are y’all going to tell me why I’m here?” Mr. Sanderson paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I don’t much like this place. I can feel ghosts.” I could tell that he was trying to enunciate his words, but the rye overrode his effort, sliding one syllable into the next.

  “I do too,” Mary said. “Every time I’m here, I can feel his spirit, as though he’s saying, ‘I’m with you, Mary.’ It’s quite comforting.”

  Lily coughed.

  “Every time you’re here?” I asked. How often did she break into Patrick Everett’s home?

  “I have to let the Illinois chapter of Women for Women in from time to time,” she said, referencing her mother’s organization. “We’re almost exactly halfway between Springfield and Chicago, so they meet here instead of having to travel back and forth to each city.”

  “You’ve decided to make a habit of breaking in to the home of one of our founders? Aren’t you worried you’ll be expelled?” I asked.

  Mary shook her head, running her fingers along the ruined black crow feather attached to the side of her hat.

  “A few weeks ago, Mother ran into Mr. Everett’s daughter riding her wheel back home on the Midway Plaisance. She stopped her and asked for permission. Of course she didn’t mind, seeing as they’ve no use for the place and are staunch suffragists themselves.”

  “This is fascinating, truly, but if y’all have ripped me from my studies for the sole purpose of my company and my handsome face, I’m afraid I’m going to have to retire,” Mr. Sanderson said, leaning against the mantle and staring at Mary until she looked up at him.

  “Considering no one else is speaking up, I will,” Lily said. “As you may know, Mr. Sanderson, Miss Carrington recently spoke to the board about starting a women’s fraternity.”

  He laughed.

  “Oh yes. And was almost dismissed from Whitsitt. Well, for that and possession of four bottles of rye.”

  “Yes,” I said, cutting him off. “And that’s why I’ve resigned my membership in this fraternity.”

  “I should have known you’d tangle yourself in something of this nature, Katherine,” Mr. Sanderson said. “But what does it have to do with me?”

  “You’re going to accept Mr. Stephens’s bid to join Iota Gamma,” Katherine said. “And then, you’re going to tell us their secrets, their procedures, all of it.”

  “Why?” he said, his forehead crinkling. “You know how I feel about societies, Kat. I can guarantee they’ve simply copied the Masonic rituals. They take you in, make you swear your life and soul to their cause, and force you to attend meetings discussing forbidden topics and conspiracy—”

  “I highly doubt they have any similarities to the Masons given their scrutiny by the board,” Katherine said, cutting him off. “But if we can figure their secrets, if we can organize exactly as they are, then we can petition the board based on Mr. Everett’s stipulation that women be allowed equal rights.”

  “That, or blackmai
l Mr. Richardson to force the board’s hand if we find something unfavorable,” Mary said.

  Her words took me by surprise. They couldn’t blackmail Grant. Not after what he’d done for me, for us.

  “You can’t do that,” I said. “He’s kept our secret. He saved me from expulsion.”

  “Don’t mind her,” Mary said. “Mr. Richardson fancies her and she him.”

  “I’ll not allow you to do that,” I said again. “And I wouldn’t say that I—” I started to argue that I didn’t have any feelings for him, but Mary cut me off, saving me from my lie.

  “He’s done some honorable things as of late, but I can’t help but think that it’s all tied to his feelings for you.” She stared at me, eyes flushed from the rye. “And you won’t be involved anyway. You’re not a part of this sisterhood, remember?”

  “Even if you replicated Iota Gamma perfectly, it wouldn’t matter. You’d all be expelled for organizing a secret society,” Mr. Sanderson said, preventing further discussion of Grant, to my relief. “I don’t see how that would work.”

  “We’ll be starting recruitment soon,” Lily said. “We’re hoping to initiate at least one woman from each traditionally male field of study. We discovered at the board meeting that Whitsitt has to maintain at least one female in each.”

  “And you’re counting on the hope that they’ll not simply expel all of you and find replacements?” Mr. Sanderson asked. He smoothed the corners of his blond moustache.

  “It worked in Beth’s case,” Katherine said.

  Mr. Sanderson took a step and stumbled unsteadily into the mantle.

  “You realize that it’s a gamble at best. I hate to bring him up again, but part of Miss Carrington’s luck was Mr. Richardson,” he said.

  “You owe me anything I ask,” Katherine said.

  “You’re asking me to ruin my potential legal career for this scheme,” he snapped. “You understand that, don’t you? It’s already difficult to get enough studying in without the distraction of a fraternity.”

  “And the only reason you’re here in the first place is because I agreed to pick up the slack for you,” Katherine said, betraying no acknowledgment that taking over his responsibility was exactly what she’d wanted. “This fraternity is important to me. You know . . . you know I’ve already lost our sister, James. I miss her. And as wonderful as you are, it’s not the same. I need these girls and this group.”

  “You won’t regret it, Mr. Sanderson,” Lily said. “I promise. Anything you tell us will stay in this circle.”

  Mr. Sanderson grunted.

  “I suppose I don’t have much of a choice.” He glared at Katherine. “I’d already declined, but I’ll write back to Sam telling him that I’ll accept the bid after all.”

  Mary clapped and jumped up, barely stopping herself from throwing her arms around Mr. Sanderson’s neck.

  “We’ll swear to it . . . on our sisterhood,” she said to him. “Gather around, ladies.”

  Lily stood to join Mary and Katherine, but I remained seated. I was only a spectator to this disaster. I clasped my hands in front of me and stared at my mother’s plain silver wedding ring to avoid the others.

  “This pledge is our promise to Mr. Sanderson, to each other, that we’ll keep all of this in confidence,” Lily said. She reached for Mary’s hand, then Katherine’s. She squeezed their hands and their voices joined.

  “I solemnly pledge my loyalty to the sisterhood of Beta Xi Beta until the end of my days.” Goosebumps prickled my arms. I’d never heard our pledge recited without my own voice in the chorus. I looked at the circle of women, my best friends willing to sacrifice their futures for the sake of women to come, and suddenly felt selfish. Redeeming my mother’s meaningless life was about something greater than me, about something greater than my success. I couldn’t alter the way women were treated on my own—neither could Susan B. Anthony or Doctor Blackwell or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They needed each other and the thousands of women fighting for change, for understanding.

  “I promise above all else, my purpose will be to foster equality and intellect among women.” I found myself mouthing the words, and broke into the circle between Mary and Lily. “For a chain of linked hands is mightier than the most menacing army,” I said, and as my voice joined with theirs, as my sisters’ fingers clutched mine, I knew I’d found my way back home.

  15

  As we walked to the Iota Gamma house together, valentines clutched in our fists, masses of feathers fluttering from our dresses, the sun was sinking over Old Main, washing the campus in coral. In front of me, Mary laughed at something Katherine said, startling me from my dwelling on an apprenticeship rejection I’d received from a hospital run out of a private home in Elgin. I watched as Mary straightened the orange paper machete beak against her forehead—the only part of her that wasn’t covered in black feathers. She and Mr. Sanderson had been assigned to dress as blackbirds, a convenient species for a woman who believed in a monochrome color scheme regardless.

  “Have y’all ever heard that a canary is meant to represent a gossip?” Katherine asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve always heard that they’re a symbol of freedom, or perhaps intellect.”

  “I’ve never heard that. At bird parties back home, the canary was always designated to the nosy parker, someone always in another’s business,” she said, lifting her chin. Regardless of the significance, the costume was perfect for Katherine, the yellow feathers at the crown of her head nearly blending into her blonde hair. “So, I’ve been wondering all this time if the Iotas intended to humiliate me or if they were thinking of my date . . . what’s his name again?”

  She’d been set up with a pledge brother of Mr. Sanderson’s, a man she’d only met once in passing.

  Mary shrugged.

  “Oh, I remember, Peter. Mr. Peter Morgan,” Katherine said with a smile. “He doesn’t seem as though he speaks much at all, let alone takes to gossiping.”

  “Sometimes the subdued are the most trouble,” I said. The worst behaved boy in my grammar school had been a mousy twig who sat in the corner pretending to read. Every time the teacher turned her back, he’d shoot spitballs at her.

  “I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” she said. “The only important thing is that I’m coming. I wouldn’t miss the chance to see my brother in a bird costume for the world.”

  We passed the dining hall, meriting strange looks from a group of freshman men congregating on the steps. Our costumes didn’t faze the other students, who knew quite well where we were headed. The Iota Gammas held the same party every year.

  The tiny bells attached to the edges of my lace-trimmed paper heart jingled and I grinned at the thought of Grant gluing the lace in precise strips down the edges. When I’d received it, I’d doubted that he’d actually made it. I still did, but the nearly illegible scrawling along the front was definitely his doing—a short but beautiful poem. “You caught my interest from the start, as though from the crows there descended a dove. Since, you have captured my heart, and in turn, I give you all my love.” His earnestness had at first caught me off guard, though it shouldn’t have. In the month and a half since I’d met him, he’d always been quite frank with me about everything, but I hadn’t expected that he’d fallen in love with me. I suppose I thought loving someone required knowing them for longer than we’d known each other, but perhaps I was wrong.

  I sighed and tucked the valentine under my arm. My fingers grazed the décolleté lace across my chest, embroidered with red and brown thread and glass rubies. Grant and I were cardinals. A sign of nobility, passion, and beauty, it was a fitting symbol for him, but I would have preferred something more daring myself, like a wild duck. I clutched a handful of scarlet feathers at my skirt as I followed Mary and Katherine across a puddle of mud pooling along the walk. A bright blue feather floated on the puddle, and I wondered if Luetta Grace and the divinity girls had already arrived. We hadn’t seen anyone else with appropriate bird party attire
in Everett Hall, and though I knew not all of the Iota Gammas invited Whitsitt girls, I had a feeling the same girls from our dormitory who’d attended the winter ball would be here.

  Mary leaned in to Katherine’s ear and whispered something. They started giggling like little girls and I wondered if perhaps Mary was reminding her of the manner in which Mr. Sanderson and Mr. Morgan had come calling. It had been their first task as a pledges before their official naming tonight. The brothers had given them Shakespearean costumes of puffed short pants atop long stockings, and had forced them to recite the soiree invitation to Mary and Katherine in Old English. The four of us had gone down to the foyer to watch the spectacle. Mr. Sanderson had embraced the role, dramatically clasping his hand to his heart while kneeling in front of Mary, while the other man trembled and mumbled the words. I’d laughed until I couldn’t breathe myself and had noticed that Miss Zephaniah had almost laughed as well.

  “I shouldn’t have accepted.” Lily’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. She held Will’s valentine out in front of her. It was a mess, in typical Will fashion. The heart was misshapen, one side of it larger than the other, and he’d decorated it with a menagerie of mismatching tassels and lace.

  “Why would you say that?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t feel for me,” she whispered. “He’s only ever called to ask me to accompany him to events, never to take a walk or escort me to class or on a whim. And yet, I’m gallivanting around Iota Gamma parties on the arm of a man who has clearly humored me thus far only because he remembers what happened with Professor Helms and feels sorry for me.”

  “That’s not—”

  “You’re my best friend,” she said, cutting me off, “and I know you’re going to try to make me feel better, but he told me so himself several weeks ago when he brought the invitation by. I asked him why he asked me and he said that he thought we’d had a grand time at the ball and that we’d make good friends.” She rolled her eyes.