Tuesdays we ironed, starched, and mended. We would also start baking food to last the entire week, which meant we had to plan all meals in advance. We finished baking on Wednesdays. Then we’d beat the rugs and scrub the floors. Every time we scrubbed, I wondered, who scuffed all these floors? Doing the floors drained me of energy, but I enjoyed the freedom from the basement.
Thursdays, John would bathe at 5:30 a.m., before work, and I would bathe after he left. I had to lug buckets of water from the well down into the basement to heat on the range and then haul them back up to the tub. Of course, I would fill the tub with only an inch or so of warm water, and then we used a sponge to draw the warm liquid over our bodies. Whenever I bathed, I wondered what it would look like if the raven-footed tub could really take flight and if it could, whether or not it would do so with me still in it? My hair was so long that it took all day to dry by the fire, so I washed it very rarely, using perfumed soaps made from animal fat and lemons. Afterward, I cleaned the tub and brushed my teeth with a horsehair toothbrush and bicarbonate of soda. I would have liked to save our bathing day for when Mrs. Schwab could assist with the water, but I needed her too much for the other chores, and there just wasn’t enough time on those days for bathing.
I dreaded Thursdays when I had to face the house alone. I would spend at least an hour fiddling with self-cinching and skirt-clasping tools as I tried to dress myself, but usually I still couldn’t do it quite right. Worse, when I prepared breakfast and cleaned the dishes in the basement, there were constant noises above and around me, as if something lurked there. I told myself that what I heard in the basement had to be a scurrying mouse or another critter, but I couldn’t speculate what the thumping and clacking from above could be unless it was the furniture moving around of its own accord—scuffing the floors, no doubt.
Although I despised the basement, other areas of the house were just as disturbing. I constantly sensed a presence when I was alone, especially in the parlor. Whenever I would clean mirrors in there, I’d see a flash or a blur in the reflection. I’d spin around and search among the clusters of tables and chairs, the web of bric-a-brac that could easily conceal a tiny trickster. I’d eye the grouping in the left corner, the china cabinet on the wall with the curved sides and glass doors like eyes. Or I’d peer at the middle cluster with the game table and gangly treelike figurines, a lopsided vase practically dripping off the table. Or I’d study another cluster of seats surrounding the window-box garden. The cabinet for gardening supplies lingered nearby. Its appendages swirled, too. Could the inky sliver I’d see out of the corner of my eye have been one of those winding arms?
Thankfully, I didn’t lose all my sanity on Thursdays because, when I didn’t have wet hair, our driver and stable hand, Mr. Samuel Buck, would take me into town to make calls and weekly purchases. I ordered many things by catalog, even groceries, but I still had to visit the milkman, the egg man, the butcher, and a provisionary for apples, butter, potatoes, and the like. The first time I visited the little town, I expected to see long drooping trees and a jungle of foliage overwhelming chipped and worn buildings. To my surprise, Labellum actually appeared to be clean and kempt, with little white shops and bushy trees lined up in neat little rows. I could see grassy hills in the distance. The trees were mostly oak, the type with rounded tops. Little patches of forest were interspersed throughout the valley but cleared from the town center.
Labellum’s original inhabitants situated the town on a crisscrossed grid, with narrow alleys. The white buildings were square, with flat fronts and angled roofs. Almost every structure looked alike, with two windows on the upstairs floor and two more flanking a single door. I’d thought people avoided painting buildings white for fear that they’d show filth, but everything here looked cleaned and pressed. Perhaps this little town had discovered the secret to being rid of things like dirt.
Fridays were lonely, too, but I had to labor only on chores I hadn’t completed during the week. I had fewer chores than women in the past because factory production made it possible to buy ready-made clothing, and food preparation and storage was easier. My mother used to badger me to be grateful that I didn’t have to spin my own thread or grind coffee without a hand-cranked grinder—not that she’d ever ground coffee in her life. I usually had a lot of extra time on Fridays, so I set it aside to receive callers, but in such a small town, calls were infrequent. I’d spend much of Friday mending mindlessly, reading, or just dreaming of faraway places and occasionally jerking around to see if a noise behind me had in fact been made by a living creature skulking among the figurines.
Or I faced my correspondence:
Dear Emeline,
My darling child, your father would be so proud. Thanks to the Dorrs, your sisters and I are not living in the desperate conditions we feared. Now family, they have offered an extraordinary amount of kindness, resources, and connections that will allow us to prosper. Mrs. Dorr introduced several well-bred young ladies to your brother, and she is sure she knows a young man who will show an interest in Florence.
Emeline, your husband has given you and your family so much more than we could ever expect in our situation. He could have married a woman of much higher worth and standing, but he chose you. Do not risk disappointing him. We wouldn’t want to lose all that we have been blessed with again. Sometimes marriage can be difficult. You will not always be happy or comfortable, but you must always remember what your husband sacrificed for you.
With all the love in the heavens,
Your Mother
Unfortunately, I had little options for distraction. I never settled on any accomplishments. I didn’t paint or etch wood or play the pianoforte. I’d never found meaning in such things. I tried making crafts from seashells, but they never came out right, and my floral arrangements were deplorable. Thankfully, society considered reading an acceptable way for a woman to improve herself. Even if society did not approve of the literary subjects I chose.
I developed a talent for locating and consuming writing deemed unsuitable for a young lady, such as Dickens, Wuthering Heights, sensations like The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, and various science and medical texts. Although I found the house distasteful, the library brimmed with books I had never heard of, and John brought even more, many of them professional volumes I inquisitively thumbed through in his absence. When we first arrived, John had said he wouldn’t work Saturdays and Sundays, but he did. I spent those days bored and anxious. It didn’t take me long to go through all his books, but they were mostly about law, which I found a terrible read. Nothing made sense in law books. Still, there were some masculine finds—Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and Civil Disobedience, Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution, A History, and Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
When John did stay home, he would spend the day working in the library. I wish I could say his presence was a comfort to me, but it often made things worse, specifically because when he was home he insisted we close all the doors. Light still filled the rooms we were in, but there was something about traveling through dark halls and the knowledge that darkness hid behind every door.
Sundays we attended services. John had once mentioned committing Sundays to a leisure activity like cycling or tennis. I internally leapt at the idea, but he never brought it up again, always having too much work and not a moment to spare, not even to play a game or tell me something about himself. So I focused on improving myself, hopefully to his liking. Or I read.
The redundancy was dreadful. No task accomplished was really an accomplishment. I cleaned things that would just get dirty again. I baked things that we consumed. Nothing had lasting value; I had to redo everything, over and over. Perhaps I might have felt a sense of purpose if the drudgery had ended with a smile on his face, but every day began and concluded the same way. John would emerge from the library unaware that my cheer was in spite of my efforts, the tedium, and how depressed it all made me.
“How was your day?” I would
ask.
“Hmm?” He would say, refusing to look away from his read.
“Did your day go well?”
He might stab a bit of food with his fork, hold it up to his mouth, and pause for a moment. “I like it.”
“John, I asked you how your day went?”
“What?” he would ask. “Oh—um—fine.”
Five
March 1901
John, Mr. Marcellus Rippring, and Dr. Walter Bradbridge reclined in the parlor, which was dimly lit by lamps and glowing remnants of a fire. Thick cigar smoke billowed above their heads, but John puffed a cigarette. They were celebrating some success story that had brought the three of them together. They toasted one another and occasionally roared with laughter.
This was the first time I’d met anyone John worked with. Dr. Walter Bradbridge was son of Dr. Benedict Bradbridge, one of the most important clients Mr. Coddington’s office represented. John had informed me that Mrs. Margaret Bradbridge, wife to the senior physician and mother to the younger, determined a lady’s place in Labellum, so it was of great importance that I make a good impression on any Bradbridge I might meet. Walter Bradbridge looked young for a physician. He had a gentle disposition and a round face with puffy red cheeks. I observed him as I entered the parlor to bring them refreshments. He reclined in a high-backed chair and chatted cheerfully.
I knew I shouldn’t listen to their conversation, but I had an overwhelming desire to know what all the excitement was about. How I longed to hear something interesting after spending so much time alone. How I longed to be spoken to. I took my time as I brought them coffee, filled their whiskies and brandies, and served desserts.
“You were impressive today.” John raised his glass to the young doctor.
“Thank you,” Walter said. “You as well. I’m glad you came and not Mr. Coddington.”
“You didn’t panic. Others have not had the strength.”
Walter chuckled. “I suppose it helped that my father had repeated over and over and over that the day I stumbled upon this to contact the authorities and my lawyer without question.”
I placed a tray on the side table. It was filled with liquors, coffee, peppermint cakes, and a crystal bowl of candied plums. I’d purchased the cakes for my own callers, but it seemed that John’s parents didn’t know as many people in Labellum as I had anticipated so I didn’t have a day of introduction. Further, Mr. Coddington and his wife didn’t seem to care to send letters of introduction. I felt quite ill toward John’s employer, who had yet to introduce himself and who worked John as if he were some sort of load-bearing animal.
John continued. “We knew it would happen sooner or later.”
Marcellus lurched forward, snatched a candied plum and popped it into his mouth. He slouched to the side, and his knobby shoulders looked lopsided. Marcellus worked as a detective for the Labellum Police Department. It seemed odd for such a small department to have its own detective when the rest of its staff consisted of only a sheriff, a deputy, and one or two patrolmen, all of whom worked out of the local jailhouse. As he chewed noisily, his open mouth exposed plum and saliva. He was tall and slender, and all the angles of his body seemed sharp. I half-expected his elbows to slice through the chair.
The most bizarre thing about Marcellus, however, was his wife, Mrs. Ida Rippring, who was as high-society as they come. John’s mother had told me she could have as much control over Labellum’s society as she wanted. So why had she chosen to marry Marcellus? We were invited to dine with the Ripprings that weekend. Perhaps I would discover their secrets.
Marcellus swallowed the mushy remnants of the candied plum. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Walter.”
“What do you mean?” John tipped his glass toward the young doctor. “Walter, I think you showed some real backbone today.” John laughed and took another sip of brandy.
I placed the bowl of sugar cubes on the table and motioned to Marcellus to see if he wanted more whiskey.
He grunted and extended his glass, keeping his attention on the men. “When that girl started screaming and screeching, you turned white!”
I pulled back at the mention of screaming, and whiskey dripped down his knuckles and onto the rug. John’s laugh trailed off uncomfortably. Marcellus transferred the glass to his other hand and shook the right, sprinkling liquor about the room and onto me. A drop landed on my cheek, just under my eye. I scrambled to fetch a cloth from the tray. I peeked at John, fearing he would be upset, but he wasn’t looking at me. Walter’s body had stiffened, and he stared at Marcellus.
I dabbed Marcellus’ hands with the cloth. “My apologies.”
He didn’t respond.
Finally, Walter adjusted in his seat. “Empathy is a necessary skill in the field of medicine. I can’t shut it off.”
“Says who?” Marcellus asked as I moved from his hand to the floor. “Your father doesn’t practice that way.”
Another pause.
“I assure you it’s an important quality in my profession, no matter how my father practices.”
“Not in mine.” Marcellus snickered.
John cleared his throat and repositioned himself. “It must have been difficult, but you did the right thing.”
Walter glared at Marcellus for a moment longer and then faced my husband. “Honestly, John, I’m not sure if this is something to celebrate. I understand the legal issues and want to see these people removed from society, but I personally feel it’s unacceptable to hold physicians accountable for doing their jobs. Physicians shouldn’t be charged for aiding a patient as long as they report it. We take an oath to preserve life.”
“Your oath doesn’t cover criminals,” Marcellus said and coughed a wet cough.
“Actually, it does.”
John smothered his cigarette in a nearby ashtray. “Mr. Coddington knows that, but it is the law. When doctors are held accountable for reporting, arrests increase significantly.”
“I’m not all that sure if I would do it again,” Walter mumbled.
Marcellus gulped his liquor. “Ha!”
John shifted his eyes to Marcellus and then to Walter. “I’ll mention it to Mr. Coddington, but you know he doesn’t think highly of my opinion.”
I picked up the tray.
“How did you find yourself in such a situation in the first place, Walter?” Marcellus asked.
I meandered toward the door.
“She sent her driver.”
“Did he just blurt it out?”
I stopped to reposition a goblin-like statuette, stalling.
“What else would he have done?”
I started toward the door again.
“I can’t believe how sloppy these people are when things go wrong,” Marcellus scoffed.
“If your daughter was bleeding and screaming, I’m sure you’d be a bit sloppy yourself.”
I stopped with my back to the group of men. They paused, too, until John cleared his throat. I walked out and flattened myself against the wall outside, listening.
“I don’t have any children,” Marcellus said.
“Neither do I, but I assure you, you would do the same,” Walter said.
“Walter, you’re just going to have to grow a stronger backbone.”
“I think I should be going,” Walter said.
I left the hallway. Obviously, Walter had helped Marcellus apprehend someone and John had been called to be present as his lawyer, but screaming, bleeding, refusing treatment? They wouldn’t celebrate such a horror. Good people wouldn’t, but I didn’t know if these people were good people. I didn’t know if John was a good person.
Six
March 1901
My nerves twitched. John had made it clear in the past month or so, most recently during the ride over, that it was imperative that I dazzle the people we were to dine with that evening. The invitation suggested a casual dinner, but in the Rippring dining room, I eyed the intricately designed silver and chargers from Italy and wondered if I had underdre
ssed. I imagined the dinnerware’s owners would cringe at our bug bowls and salamander silverware. Ida’s dining room gleamed with gilded crown molding, a large mirror in an intricately etched frame, and a sparkling chandelier.
Meanwhile, the dining room waiting for me at the house sat like a dark cave, a narrow hole full of bugs and bats posing as spoons and tea cups. The hanging gas lamp was no chandelier, and there were no mirrors or large paintings of landscapes, only maroon wallpaper and dark wood wainscoting. I could see it in my head transforming into a real cave with teeth and a long rectangular table for a tongue, hungry.
“Ma’am?” The butler held out a bottle of Port.
“Do you have sherry?”
“Of course.”
I removed my gloves and placed them on my lap.
Margaret and Dr. Walter Bradbridge also made it to dinner, although the senior physician did not.
“Walter, have you entertained any fine ladies as of late?” Ida asked.
“Um—well—I—”
Margaret interrupted to answer for him. “Oh, no, there are very few ladies worth courting here.”
“Yes, very few. Perhaps a trip to the city could help?” Ida handled her crystal goblet with slender fingers.
“What a wonderful suggestion.” Margaret beamed.
Walter’s face tightened. “Thank you, Mother.” He sighed and turned to the hostess. “Ida, I appreciate your interest, but I want to focus on my work.”
A White Room Page 6