by Lynn Austin
Thursday
James hasn’t come down to the kitchen all week. I only glimpsed him twice—once when I was dusting the parlor and once when bringing tea to his mother. He acted as if I was invisible. My heart has begun to ache with loss.
Friday
A letter arrived for me in this afternoon’s mail. The plain white envelope had no return address. In it were two streetcar tokens and a piece of paper with the words: Garfield Park. Washington Boulevard and Central Park Avenue.
I don’t know how I will ever wait until Sunday!
Dear Diary,
I just returned home after spending a wonderful afternoon with James. If Vera were to snuff out the light in our attic room, I’m certain I would still glow with happiness. I had to lie to her when she asked how I spent my afternoon off. I wanted so badly to tell her the truth and share my joy with her, but James warned me not to trust anyone.
We spent the afternoon walking through the park and sitting close beside each other on a bench. We talked and laughed and held hands. “I want to take you everywhere with me,” he told me. “I want the world to see what a beautiful, wonderful woman you are. But we can’t be seen together—not yet, anyway. Not by the servants or my family or by any of my rich acquaintances. For now, we’ll have to meet in public places like this where working-class people go, so I won’t be recognized.”
“I don’t care where we meet,” I told him, “as long as I’m with you.”
When it was time to say good-bye, we snuck behind a little pavilion, and James kissed me for the first time. It was the most wonderful kiss I’ve ever known—tender and passionate at the same time. I savored the taste of his lips, the gentle way he cupped my face in his hand. Yet the kiss ended much too soon.
I know James wants to see me again because before we went our separate ways, he gave me enough money for six months’ worth of streetcar fares. I could have floated home without the streetcar. I know there is a very real possibility that this is all an act on his part. That James will try to woo me into his bed, then discard me when he is bored with me. My mind warns me that it might be true. My heart doesn’t care.
Dear Diary,
I had the afternoon off again today. Vera wanted to spend it together, and I think she became a little suspicious when I told her I had other plans. “What are you up to, Christina? Have you met someone new and you haven’t told me?” We were in our attic room, changing out of our gray maids’ uniforms and white aprons. I didn’t have much choice of what to wear to meet James, but I put on my nicest skirt and shirtwaist.
“How could I meet anyone new?” I asked, avoiding Vera’s gaze. “You and I work together all day. When would I have a chance to meet anyone?”
“You could meet a lot of great fellows if you came back to the dance hall with me again. There were several men who wanted to meet you the last time, but you wasted the evening with Mr. James.”
“He was trying to teach me to dance. I wasn’t very good at it, though.”
“It looked to me like he was trying to do more than dance with you. I’m glad you listened to me and decided not to trust him.”
“It’s hard to trust any man after what happened with Jack. I’m not interested in getting married again.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Christina. You don’t want to spend your life all alone like Mrs. Philips, do you? Don’t you want to have a husband and children?” I shook my head, but in my heart, I was saying, “Only if my husband is James and my children are his.”
I told Vera I was meeting an old friend from my days at the boardinghouse, then I traveled by streetcar to Humboldt Park on North Avenue and California to meet James.
We ran into each other’s arms, not caring if the people passing by looked shocked. “I hate that I barely get to see you all week,” I told him.
“I know. But I can’t come downstairs to the kitchen anymore. Mrs. Philips is too nosy. She’ll get suspicious when she sees that I can’t take my eyes off of you. You’re so beautiful, Christina. Not only on the outside, but your heart is so pure and genuine. You have no idea how phony and shallow the society women are in comparison—especially the ones my mother arranges for me to meet. I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone but you.”
“We both know how impossible that is. We live entirely different lives—yours is upstairs and mine is downstairs.”
I feel torn in two. I want to believe that James loves me, but I also need to guard my heart. I’m afraid the time will come when he’ll get tired of meeting this way. Tired of me. Yet until that time comes, I want to cherish every moment of our Sunday afternoons together. I know that doesn’t make sense, but love seldom does.
“It isn’t impossible, Christina,” James said. “I’ve been working on a plan. If I can save enough money and make a big enough name for myself as a lawyer, I won’t be dependent on my parents anymore. Then when they threaten to disinherit me, it won’t matter. Once I do that and I find a place for us to live, will you marry me?”
My heart tripped and leaped. “Do you really mean it?”
“Christina, I would marry you today—right now—if I could.” I longed to believe him. Oh, how I longed to! But James is a hopeless romantic, and I don’t think he understands what would happen if he married me.
“You know all about my first husband, Jack,” I reminded him. “But I never told you that I ran away from my family and my home in Michigan to marry him. My parents didn’t approve of him, just as your parents would never approve of me. At the time I didn’t care. But I cut myself off from them when I left home, and now … now I miss them very much. You say you don’t care what your parents think, but someday you might regret being estranged from them. And you might grow to resent me for causing it.”
“Never. I love you too much, Christina.”
“And I love you. But what if that isn’t enough someday?”
We both felt sad when we said good-bye. James promised to let me know where we’ll meet the next time, but I wish … I almost wish he would end this right now before we make any more promises to each other that we can’t keep. Do I want my heart broken now or several months from now? I’m powerless to tell James good-bye and end it myself. It would be like cutting out my heart.
I wish I could talk to my mother. I miss her so much. She would know what I should do.
Dear Diary,
I just returned home from another afternoon with James. We have been meeting in secret for more than two months now, and our longing to be together for more than a few stingy hours feels like torture. We can’t keep it up much longer.
We’re also worried that people are starting to suspect we’re keeping secrets. “My mother was short-tempered with me when I said I wasn’t available for one of her events,” James told me today. “She wanted to know where I’ve been going every week, and I had to tell her it was none of her business.”
“She wouldn’t send someone to follow us, would she?” I glanced around at the people in the park as we walked together, worried I would see one of the other servants. James and I haven’t cared who sees us holding hands or kissing, but maybe we should.
“I don’t know,” he replied. We stopped walking, and he rested his hands on my shoulders, caressing them. His touch sent shivers through me. “Listen, I’m worried that if my family does find out about us, they’ll do something to break us apart. I’m their only heir, and they have the money and the means to control my life. I know I can’t afford a place of our own yet, and I don’t have enough money to support you once they disinherit me—”
“I don’t need much. Just you.” But even as I said the words, I remembered that James had been raised in a beautiful home with servants, elegant clothes and food, and all the finest things in life. Even if he was willing to give them all up for me, I couldn’t ask him to.
His hands tightened on my shoulders. “Marry me, Christina. Let’s not wait any longer. We would still have to keep it a secret for a few more months, but at least we could rea
lly be together every week, in a private hotel room somewhere instead of wandering around a park. And once we’re legally married, my parents won’t be able to stop us.”
“They’ll never accept me.”
“I know. You’ll need to be prepared for that. They’ll probably reject both of us at first. But in the end, I’m their only heir. Please say yes.”
“Yes, yes! Of course I’ll marry you!” James pulled me close, and we stood in the middle of the walkway with our arms around each other, not caring if people stared.
“I’ll see about a marriage license and find a justice of the peace in one of the little towns outside Chicago. The next time you have a full day off, we’ll elope.”
I thought I would burst with joy. But now that I’m back in my attic room, I feel as though I’m reliving a past mistake. Once again, I’m planning to sneak away to get married—only this time it’s his parents who are opposed to the two of us, not mine. Am I making another mistake? The last time I married in haste, I had nothing but regrets. But I love James. And he is nothing at all like Jack Newell. I have to trust that James knows his family better than I do, and that somehow, some way, we will be together in the end.
Dear Diary,
Vera has met someone at the dance hall and has fallen in love. He is all she talks about. I want so badly to tell her that I know how she feels so we can share our happiness together, but I don’t dare. James says to trust no one. My next full day off from work is in two days. I have been waiting with butterflies in my stomach for that day to arrive, wondering if James is having second thoughts about getting married. I haven’t heard from him since he dreamed up the crazy idea of eloping, more than a week ago. I want to believe that it will really happen, but I’m afraid to.
Dear Diary,
This afternoon another plain white envelope came for me in the mail. I slipped into the butler’s pantry, alone, to read it. The note inside said, “Take the train to Cicero. I’ll be waiting at the station. We’re going to do it.”
It’s really going to happen! James and I are going to be married!
All this time I’ve been afraid to believe that his love for me is real. I’ve worried about Vera’s warnings and wondered if he is using me as a secret diversion from the life that has been carefully structured and planned for him, the same way he used to entertain himself by chatting with the chauffeurs and other servants downstairs. I know he likes to escape from his parents’ overbearing control by doing things that irritate them. But if he is really waiting in the train station two days from now, if he really has found a justice of the peace to marry us, then I’ll know that James Blackwell loves me every bit as much as I love him. And that even the threat of losing his family’s fortune can’t alter his love. But how will I ever wait two more days to become his wife?
Dear Diary,
I have no words to describe my joy! James and I were married yesterday!
Anna
Chicago, Illinois
1897
There is more in Mama’s diary, but I have to stop reading as tears flood my eyes. I now have proof that my birth was not disgraceful. Mama was legally married to James Blackwell. He is my father. I cover my face and weep with relief. An enormous burden has been lifted.
Yet even as I wipe my tears, I realize that the truth isn’t going to end the nightmare of Clarice’s blackmail scheme. Her goal is to shame me and end my engagement to William, and she won’t think twice about dragging Judge Blackwell and his family into the mud along with me. I can clear my mother’s name, but William’s family will still be scandalized to learn that my father is a prominent Chicago judge who married his servant and then deserted her. I would be sinking to Clarice’s level if I ruined the Blackwells’ lives for my own selfish interests.
At the same time, I’m enraged with James Blackwell for abandoning my mother, leaving her all alone to give birth to me in a grim tenement house. How could he do such a thing to the woman he claimed to love? In the end, did he love his family’s fortune more than Mama? I need to know the rest of the story.
I pick up Mama’s diary and continue to read… .
Chapter 23
Christina
Dear Diary,
I have no words to describe my joy! James and I were married yesterday! We spent the first day of our new life together in a small hotel room in Cicero near the train station. Neither of us wanted the day to end. When it finally did, James rode the train home to Chicago with me and waited in the lane behind his mansion until he knew I was safely inside. “If anything ever happened to you,” he said, “I don’t think I could live without you.”
I was certain that Vera would see my happiness and guess my secret, but she was in her own little world, madly in love with her new boyfriend. She didn’t even ask where I had been all day. I can hardly believe that I am now Mrs. James Blackwell. Someday my husband will inherit this beautiful house where I’m working as his maid. But I don’t even care about his wealth or his high-society family. I would be happy to live with him in a little home of our own, cooking his meals and washing his clothes. Tonight I’m so happy, I could burst with joy!
Dear Diary,
I haven’t written in a while because so much has been happening. Vera has given Mrs. Philips her two-weeks’ notice and is leaving to get married. She’ll be moving into an apartment above a saloon where her husband works. How I envy her! If only James and I could live as a real married couple instead of keeping up this phony, secret life. It’s so hard to see him when I’m working around the house and to pretend that he’s a stranger. Whenever we are able to be together, the time always flies by much too quickly. But oh, the moments when I’m with him are among the happiest in my life! “Soon,” he says. “Soon my plan will be complete, and we can come out of hiding and announce our love to the world.”
We won’t have any time together on my next day off. It’s the first time that has happened since we got married. But I promised Vera I would stand up with her at her wedding. How surprised she would be if she knew that James and I were married! No one in the whole world knows the truth except the two of us.
Dear Diary,
Ever since Vera left, I’ve had this attic room all to myself. I mentioned it to James the other day, and he came up with a brilliant idea. Now, after everyone is asleep, he sneaks upstairs to be with me. I can’t describe how wonderful it is to have my husband beside me every night! To be able to laugh and whisper in the dark and talk about what the rest of our life together will be like. I feel like I’m really his wife now, not merely someone he sees for an afternoon here and there. I have never been happier in my life!
Dear Diary,
I haven’t written anything in more than two months, but now something terrifying and wonderful has happened. I’m expecting James’ child. I can’t wait to tell him tonight, because we share everything with each other—and yet I’m afraid to. We will have only three or four months at the most to decide what to do. After that, nosy Mrs. Philips is certain to notice my condition, and I’ll be let go. James will be under pressure to find a place for us to live. And his family, who still don’t know the truth about us, will certainly find out. I hate to turn his life upside-down this way, yet we’re both growing tired of living a shadow life.
The moment I realized that I was having a baby, I thought of my mama. How I long to share the news of this miracle with her, knowing she would understand the joy and fear and wonder that I’m feeling. But I can’t. She must hate me for leaving town with Jack the way I did. My parents must have been disgraced and humiliated when everyone in their church learned what I had done. If I returned now, it would only stir up a new round of gossip at their expense. I’m so sorry for what I did. I can’t expect my parents to ever forgive me.
Yet I marvel at this tiny new life growing inside me and wonder if Mama once felt the same way about me. If only I hadn’t squandered the right to have Mama by my side when her grandchild is born.
Dear Diary,
James just went back downstairs to his room, and I’m writing this by candlelight. I told him about our baby tonight. I had to. He knows me so well that he could see I was anxious about something. “Please tell me, darling,” he begged. “You look so worried. Let me help you if I can.”
I took his hand and rested it on my stomach. “Our baby is growing inside here.”
James pulled away from me and sat up. Even though the room was dark, I could see he was shaken. “A baby …” he said. “A baby … ?” He ran his hand along his jaw. “This changes everything.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. He didn’t reply. I wanted him to smile, to take me in his arms and tell me he shared my joy even if the news terrified us. But James kept shaking his head. He looked dazed.
“This changes everything,” he repeated. The narrow cot squeaked as he rose and went to stand by the window. He looked out at the moonlit sky, not at me. My heart squeezed as I waited.
“James, please say something,” I finally begged. I heard him exhale. He turned and came back to sit on the edge of the bed. His eyes looked blinded, as if he’d been staring at the sun instead of the moon.
“Christina …” His voice choked, and he had to clear his throat. “Christina, I—”
“No, stop! Don’t say anything, James. Not yet.” I was terrified to hear what he might be about to say. “I needed time to get used to the news, and I know you must need some time, too. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you so suddenly.” He nodded and offered me the ghost of a smile before taking me into his arms again. But his embrace felt different this time. This time he held me as if I were made of glass and might break. When I remember the hollow look in his eyes, it seems as though he is the one who was shattered tonight.