“Yes.” Hilly had begun to whimper, as Gus bounced his weight on top of the smaller boy’s ribs.
“Here! What you think you doing?” Butcher Gus Rabel, wearing a broad white apron over his work clothes, grabbed his son roughly by the arm and yanked him to his feet. “What kinda dummkopf are you?” He smacked the boy hard on his backside. “I am ashamed. You should learn from this little fellow how to be a man! A gentleman.” He shoved young Gus out of the way.
“I am sorry,” he said, helping Hilly to his feet. “You come. I give you oyster crackers. You like oyster crackers? We get you a little bag of oyster crackers.”
Hilly took the butcher’s hand and followed him through the back door of the meat market. Never before had he been in the big room where Gus butchered meat. How important he felt, being let into the mysterious place behind the meat counter.
It was dim and smelled of a number of things: blood and sawdust and pickling spices and smoke. It was a homey, familiar smell since these odors rose up through the big hot-air register into the Stillman living room.
When Gus had filled a little bag with oyster crackers, handing it to Hilly, he said, “You always be a good boy, won’t you? Everybody love a good boy.”
chapter fifteen
ELVIRA HANDED CORA A CUP of holiday punch and drew a chair close. “Every year you’re more elegant,” she said, admiring the simplicity of Cora’s pale-gray gown. Near them, dancers swept across Laurence and Juliet’s parlor floor to the insistent pulse of “Under the Bamboo Tree.”
“Thank you.” Cora set the cup aside and took one of Elvira’s hands. “And every year you’re kinder.”
“Baloney, sez I.”
“I’m going to ask a favor again,” Cora said.
Elvira laughed. “‘Dance with George?’”
“He needs to dance,” Cora said, her gaze so unwavering Elvira had to look away. “He’s growing old.” Eyeing her husband from across the room, immersed in store talk with Howard Schroeder, Cora continued, “It’s because of me—don’t say a word. Not a word.
“If I could . . . dance, everything would be different. If I could do so many things.” Her voice grew sardonic. “I’m becoming a matron, Elvira.”
Never had Cora spoken so plainly, never had she and Elvira been so close. For Elvira this closeness was both flattering and disturbing, involving as it did responsibilities only half understood.
There was no question that she loved Cora, and Cora’s need made Elvira love her all the more. And George? Well, of course, no dearer man lived. She had recognised that fact the night, long ago—it was long ago, wasn’t it?—when he’d taught the little crowd at the Harvester Arms the new dance steps. No airs about him; only goodwill and generosity and an unconscious charm, charm that got under your skin because it was without guile.
“You’re fond of him, I know you’re fond of him,” Cora went on. “And he’s still young. He needs the warmth of a young woman, Elvira, so please make him feel young. Make him feel warm.” She squeezed Elvira’s hand until the young woman winced. “For me.”
Elvira glanced around the room of dancers, a room that ought to feel familiar. But in this strange moment, the room and the world in which it existed were suddenly unknown, utterly new. A thrill—or was it a terror—ran through her.
“Elvira! Just the person I’ve been looking for,” George’s mother broke in. “Let’s find a quiet corner. I have a proposition.” She led the way to a sunroom at the back of the house, away from the music.
Dazed, disoriented, Elvira followed. Another proposition?
They took seats on a settee before a small hearth. “Now then, Elvira, Mr. Lundeen and I have been discussing you. And we’re agreed that you’re too bright for the store.”
Elvira tried to focus. “I . . . love the store.”
“But you don’t want to spend your whole life there.”
How difficult it was, finding her way back into known territory. “No?” Cora’s words did not want to give way to Juliet’s. “For me,” Cora had said.
Juliet went on, “Now, what I suggest is only a proposal. And you’re free to tell me to mind my own business. But Laurence and I think you should go to college. Maybe the Normal School in Mankato. From what we’ve seen, you’re a born teacher.”
The older woman settled back and stared into the fire. “We’re very fond of you. You know that. When we were younger, we hoped to have a daughter. And, well, we do have a wonderful daughter in Cora—but we think of you that way, too.”
Elvira was silent, still dazed by the earlier conversation.
“Have I upset you?”
Catching hold of Juliet’s question, at last, Elvira shook her head, slowly, from side to side. “You couldn’t upset me. You and Mr. Lundeen have been so good to me, ever since the night at the church bazaar when he bought my apple pie.”
“Well, then, hear me out. We want to pay your expenses to college.”
“I don’t think . . .”
“Laurence says you’re not interested in marriage. That’s as may be. But a young woman without a husband needs a career.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. You could start in the fall, if that was convenient.” Juliet rose and shook out her skirts. “I have to get back to my guests. You think about it.”
Elvira felt as if she were in a game of blindman’s buff and, blindfolded, had been spun round and round. She sat, dizzy and unstirring, her brain groping.
If she’d understood correctly, the Lundeens were offering her college. Teacher’s college. Such a thought had never crossed her mind. She was a country girl who’d been happy to find a place in town. And what of Cora and George? Stupefied, drugged with confusion, she massaged her brow.
“Cora says you’ve promised me some waltzes.” George Lundeen appeared in the doorway, light from the chandelier in the next room silhouetting him, projecting a figure of mystery. He held out a hand and Elvira rose, a pulse beating hard in her throat, her bones melting. She did not think she could stand upright if he did not hold her—and she him.
chapter sixteen
“COLLEGE!” NELL CRIED. “My stars, Elvira, what did you tell her?”
“Nothing. She said I should think about it.”
“But of course you’ll go. Such an opportunity.” Nell poured tea and they sat at the kitchen table. “Did George bring you home?”
“Yes.” Grains of sugar scattered across the oilcloth.
“Is anything wrong?”
“No.”
“You seem . . . shaky.”
“The brandy punch, probably.”
Nell studied Elvira. “You do want to go, don’t you? To college?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I want to learn. I want to be somebody. But I don’t want to leave the store.”
“Really?”
“What’s so strange about that?”
“Well, the store is only a small world, that’s all. College is a big world. Are you frightened of college?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Mankato’s bigger than Harvester. You’d meet so many new people.”
“I just don’t know, Nell. Please.” The teacup clattered in the saucer as she rose.
The querulousness in Elvira’s voice was unfamiliar. “I’m sorry,” Nell said. “I won’t keep at you.”
Lifting her skirts in her fists, Elvira fled to the bedroom.
Here again was the girl warm and intelligent enough to win love and respect yet secretive and untrusting enough to close a door behind her, shutting Nell out.
For months, Nell purposely refrained from mentioning college again. Juliet Lundeen, respecting Elvira’s indecision, said only that there was no hurry, the Normal School wasn’t going anywhere.
And Juliet remained patient, if puzzled, by Elvira’s silence during the coming year. But, after all, the girl was young and there was plenty of time.
However, in the fall of 1904, while Hilly started firs
t grade, Elvira began working full-time at the store. This, Juliet had not anticipated, and she did wonder if Elvira intended to turn her back on college altogether. And, if so, why? Nor could she ever have anticipated what the year would bring Elvira.
Once or twice over the year 1904, Nell broached the subject of college, but each time, Elvira drew an icy curtain around herself and walked away, saying that she was still thinking about it.
Apart from these occasions, Elvira was much her own self, and from her increased salary, she was paying Nell a small room and board consideration. So, really, from September of 1904 to March of 1905, life above Rabel’s Meat Market was genial.
Nell was occupied with teaching and with overseeing Hilly’s first-grade projects and lessons. Additionally, she had acquired a small social life. One night a week, three or four elementary teachers, among them Hilly’s teacher, Diana Hapgood, joined her in the apartment for an evening of darning and mending followed by tea and cake. Diana referred to them as the “Darn It, We’re Good Club.”
As she herself was busy, Nell was pleased when Elvira once again began attending the Saturday dances at the Harvester Arms. And she paid no particular attention when, occasionally, the girl returned late from work. Elvira was, for heaven’s sake, grown-up now, old enough to be a wife and mother, certainly old enough to have an independent social life.
But then, sometime in May—Nell wasn’t sure just when—Elvira fell into a strange mood, jumpy and lethargic by turns, quick to flare. Had the girl fallen in love with a boy from the dances?
Around 2:00 a.m. one night, Nell woke to sounds from across the hall. Rising, she padded into Hilly and Elvira’s room. Arms flailing, Elvira was tossing on the bed, sobbing.
“Wake up!” Nell shook the girl.
Instantly, Elvira was awake and sitting, her eyes large with panic. “What did I say?”
“You were sobbing,” Nell told her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Elvira whipped the light blanket around herself and lay down, face to the wall. “Just a nightmare.”
Two days later, Hilly asked, “What’s wrong with Elvira? She got mad when I asked if we could go to the park with Mrs. Lundeen and Laurence.” He sat at a desk in Nell’s third-grade room while she corrected spelling tests. “And now they’ve got a push-go-round at the park. Laurence would love that.”
“Well, maybe Elvira doesn’t have time right now.”
“And she’s never home.”
“She’s a grown-up, Hilly, and she’s not responsible for you now that you’re in school.”
“Doesn’t she like me any more?”
“She loves you. But she’s got other things to think about.”
“What things?”
“She’s got to decide about college. Or maybe she’s thinking about getting married.”
“Married? But what about us?”
“I don’t think Elvira ever intended to live with us all her life. Someday you’ll get married and have your own house and probably a baby like little Laurence.”
“Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll never leave you.”
“Elvira, we need to talk,” Nell said one Sunday when they’d returned from Mass. “Hilly, would you go outside, please?”
Elvira looked balky. Seated on the daybed facing her, Nell clasped her hands tightly together, nervous, but beyond caring if the girl resented a call to account.
“I feel responsible for you while you’re living with me,” she said. “In the past two or three weeks you’ve lost weight. You’re edgy and secretive. Something’s wrong. You’re a different girl from the one who came to live here.”
“That’s right. I’m a grown woman now. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, we have to. Or I’ll have to go to your parents.”
“No!”
“Then tell me what’s wrong. Is it a young man? Did someone bother you at work? Do I need to talk to the Lundeens?”
“For God’s sake, no!” Eyes skittering, panicked, the girl looked about to break down.
Then, Elvira went calm. The terror disappeared and her body relaxed. She smiled. She’s found a lie, Nell realized.
“Oh, all right,” Elvira said, “I didn’t want to talk about it but you won’t be satisfied until I do.”
Nell wanted to cry. Elvira was feeling her way through the story.
“If you must know, I’m thinking about taking a little trip. I never had a vacation.” Nell waited. “I deserve a vacation.”
“Of course you deserve it, but why would you lose weight over that?”
“Well, it’s scary, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted to see Chicago, and that’s a big adventure.”
This is her story and she’ll stick to it, Nell thought.
At work, Elvira gave notice that she would be away for a week beginning June 17. She was going to Chicago.
Something wasn’t right, Nell knew. In desperation she called on Cora after school one day. “Elvira is miserable—moody and quarrelsome—and she won’t explain. Has she said anything to you?”
“I haven’t seen Elvira since the Christmas party.” Cora studied her pale, desiccated hands, locked together on her lap.
“She says she’s taking a vacation. Going to Chicago for a week.”
Cora looked up. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s come up all of a sudden.” Nell rose. “I’m sorry to bother you. I had hoped Elvira might have said something.” Nell left, unsettled and dissatisfied. Was Cora lying? And why would I think that?
chapter seventeen
AFTER SEEING NELL OUT, Cora wheeled herself from room to room, pausing several times to beat her fists on the arms of the chair.
“Lizzie, I’m going to the park. Can you help me?” Once Cora had been positioned in the sunshine, she told the girl, “Take Laurence down to the hotel and buy yourselves tea and doughnuts. Don’t hurry.”
For an hour Cora sat, by turns agitated and mournful. God forgive me, she prayed. I meant no harm.
Walking home from Cora’s, Nell met Anna Braun leaving Lundeen’s, a store money bag in hand. “Running an errand to the bank,” Anna said.
“I’ll walk with you as far as the post office,” Nell told her. “You’ve heard that Elvira’s going to Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“You and she see each other outside the store, don’t you? Is anything troubling her?”
Anna shot her a speculative glance. “I don’t see much of her outside the store. Lately, she keeps to herself.”
“Lately?”
“Since Christmas, I’d say.”
“You don’t go to the dances at the Harvester Arms?”
Anna shook her head. “I haven’t been to a dance in two years.”
“I must be mistaken. I thought the two of you went together.”
“Must have been someone else.”
A week later, Cora Lundeen removed five hundred dollars from an evening bag in the bottom drawer of her dressing table, slipped the money into an envelope without an accompanying note, and mailed it.
Despite Elvira’s protestations that it was silly, and her reminders that she would be back in a week, Nell insisted on seeing her off to Chicago. Hilly too. They sat in the depot waiting room, warm Saturday-afternoon sunlight pouring through grimy windows. A horsefly, buzzing a frantic message to the world outside, hurled himself repeatedly against the glass of an upper sash, driving himself mad.
The sooty smell of trains permeated the dusty wood floor, the railroad-tan walls. In the center of the room, a gritty potbellied stove sat cold, extraneous out of season.
Nell struggled for conversation. “You still don’t know where you’ll stay?”
“No. Someone at the Chicago depot will know a place.”
“It worries me that you don’t know where you’ll be. If there’s an emergency, find a telephone. Mr. Rabel has one in the store now, you know. He’ll holler up to me.”
Elvira nodded, holding her straw hat with the peach
ribbons, twisting the brim round and round. She was wearing the same peach dress she’d worn to Cora’s wedding. It was a little out of date now, but she favored it, and it was cool for the train. Pinned to the bodice was the cameo Cora had given her.
Elvira crossed to the window. With her hat she tried to shoo the fly out the open lower sash, but he was crazed beyond recognizing escape. “Poor thing,” Elvira said, and returned to the bench. “They get addled and you can’t help them.”
A strange farewell it was, Nell thought, Elvira now and then pretending excitement, flashing quick false smiles. But she was opaque with concealment.
She’d never traveled before, not even to St. Bridget. She should be pacing and quivering, if only with the welcome fear that accompanies adventure. Instead, she looked as if the undertaking were already carved on stone tablets. Nell felt as though she were seeing someone off to war.
“I’d say ‘write,’ but you’ll be home in a week.”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure you have enough money?”
“More than enough.”
“Will you bring me something from Chicago?” Hilly asked.
Elvira hugged him. “You’ll have something from Chicago. I promise.”
In the distance they heard the train wailing. Elvira tensed, then seemed to shrink.
Without thinking, Nell said, “You don’t have to go, you know. You could turn in your ticket. The weather’s lovely. We could pack a picnic and walk out to Sioux Woman Lake. Maybe Cora would like to come. And little Laurence. Cora could take us in the buggy.”
Elvira clapped on her straw hat, grabbed the two valises, and spun toward the door, Nell and Hilly following. She stood at the edge of the platform, peering down the tracks, the muscles in her jaw working.
Nell stood next to the semaphore, watching. She despairs that the train will come and fears that it won’t.
Though the train was still a mile or more away, the depot agent came out and walked down the platform to fetch a mustard-yellow freight wagon with “Milwaukee” printed on the side in green letters.
Hilly stood by Nell, trusty and straight as a soldier but with tears beginning to gather. “Send us a postcard from Chicago,” he said. “I never got a postcard before.”
Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse Page 7