Louise yanked Helen’s hand. “Stop it. Now.” The words she wanted to shout had to be spelled methodically in Helen’s hand, and the necessity for restraint added resentment to her anger. But it was irrational to blame Helen. “I’m sorry. It’s not about stubborn pride. My reputation back home is already ruined. I couldn’t care less what the rest of the world thinks. Yes, I had gonorrhea. What you don’t understand is I contracted it from illicit relations . . . with Dr. Foster.”
Helen gasped. A long silence followed before she spoke. “I would never have suspected that Frank wasn’t Marie’s father. He doted on her so.”
Little could be inferred from the singsong voice, but the words were not condemning.
“Now you understand why I cannot make a public confession. To tell the whole truth would defeat our purpose. Resepectable wives would not see themselves in my story. And to admit to having gonorrhea without exonerating Frank would be unfair to him. He was such a good man. I can’t ruin his good name. I couldn’t tell you before because I feared it would ruin our friendship.”
“Never. Louise, my dear friend, you’re only human. I can’t begin to fathom what you’ve suffered all these years.”
Helen’s hand brushed the floor in search of the yarn doll that had fallen from her lap. Finding it, she sat up and sighed.
Louise offered more details about the affair—her expectation that she and Doc would have a life together, Doc’s rejection and insistence that she abort.
“Did he ever tell you the medical reason for wanting you to abort?”
“No, and because he didn’t I was convinced there was no medical reason, that it was merely a ruse. It wasn’t until years later when I met Dr. Vandegrift that I realized his warning might have had merit and that I should have listened to him.”
“You wish you had aborted Marie because she was blind?”
Louise’s breath caught in her throat. If only she could take back her words. How would she justify her position to a woman who was both blind and deaf?
“The truth is, many times I thought I should have aborted. When I first saw the baby with Doc’s black hair, I knew she would be an ever-present reminder of my sin. To look on her would always arouse fear of being found out. And had she not been born, she would not have come to such a tragic end.”
“You haven’t answered my question. Did you wish you had aborted because she was blind?”
“It’s very hard to talk to you on this subject. But I won’t sugarcoat it. I couldn’t imagine life without Marie. But, yes, when I saw her struggle to do the simplest tasks and saw how lonely she was, and especially when I considered what would become of her after Frank and I were gone, it seemed abortion might have been the wiser choice. That was before I knew you and witnessed your meaningful life.”
A knock at the door relieved Louise of further discussion. Another bouquet. Louise had already received flowers from Doc; from Dr. Weil and Daisy, now happily married; and from Bernard. No doubt this delivery was for Helen, whose other bouquets had come from John D. Rockefeller, Mark Twain, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as from lesser-known admirers.
Louise set down the vase of red carnations accented with evergreen. When she pulled out the card from the cluster of blooms, she was shocked to read: “Louise, Congratulations. You have enriched the lives of so many people. I count myself as one. Your friend, Yonder.”
Louise held the card and wondered what was coming over her. It was that moment in Pachelbel’s “Canon” when the music rises to a point that holds the soaring spirit breathless in anticipation. Yonder. Where is he? How did he know?
42
November 1909
Waiters pushing dessert carts glided among the tables where some one hundred people were seated at the Founders Day banquet of the National Society to Save Babies’ Sight.
Louise made mental notes of the women’s fashions, floral arrangements, food, and topics of conversation, because back home in Riverbend, Alice would demand a detailed account. But mostly she did it to quiet her thoughts. Her mind wanted to dart about, from Helen’s challenge to reveal the truth to memories of her infidelity. It didn’t help that she was wearing her aqua dress from The Twister Tenth Anniversary Observance. The diaphanous fabric was out of season, but it was a beautiful gown, and leaving it in the closet was silly. She made it do by adding a ready-made brocade jacket.
A flash caught Louise’s eye and gave her a start. Suddenly it was like watching fireflies as waiters bathed servings of baked Alaska, the Corinthian Hotel’s signature dessert, in flaming liqueur. Louise found herself back at her Chautauqua eve supper and what she’d come to think of as her “peach melba revelation,” the realization that a dessert had eclipsed her reputation as a civic leader. That experience had re-kindled her desire to do good, but never would she have believed it would lead to this moment.
The past had dogged her all day, especially after spending the afternoon with Helen and Annie in the hotel’s beauty salon. The beauty operator had applied a pomade to manage her wayward locks, and its lavender fragrance took her briefly back to another life-changing day and the comfort station above Anderson’s Seed and Feed.
Louise sat at the head table between Helen and Dr. Vandegrift, who looked handsome in his tuxedo. But for his having the audacity to tell her the truth about Marie’s blindness, she would not be sitting here tonight. For all her efforts to earn respect and recognition, it had not been virtue that brought her to this moment.
Dr. Vandegrift gestured toward Louise’s dessert. “Eat, my dear.” His voice was pleading. “You need nourishment to sustain you through a night of long-winded speeches. You’ve scarcely touched your entrée.”
Suddenly Louise wanted to cry. Here she was, Louise Elizabeth Caldwell Morrissey, the ragamuffin from New Lexington, Nebraska, seated between Helen Keller and one of America’s pre-eminent ophthalmologists, and he had noticed her untouched plate and cared enough to say something. Such a little thing, but it touched off a wave of gratitude.
So much to be grateful for. She looked out at the table where Dr. Weil and Bernard engaged in animated conversation, and Edward Bok offered a cigarette to Daisy Weil who declined with a smile and a little wave. Next to Daisy was Doc. The man Louise had loved and despised had become a tireless champion of the cause.
Louise turned her attention to the first in a series of speakers and tried to ignore the large mother-of-pearl buttons digging into her back.
Finally Helen and Annie were introduced and approached the lectern. Dr. Vandegrift, on behalf of the National Society, honored Helen for her role as national spokesman for the babies’ sore eyes campaign. He presented her a framed certificate to which was attached a duplicate certificate embossed in Braille.
“Thank you, Dr. Vandegrift and everyone here tonight.” Helen spoke the words which Annie interpreted. “Although I can neither see nor hear you, I can tell you what I feel. I feel your courage, and I commend you. With a plethora of worthy causes in which you might invest your time, talent, and money, you exhibit courage in supporting one that will more often bring you derision than praise.
“The time for hinting at unpleasant truths is past. Let us insist that the states put into practice every known and approved method of prevention, and that physicians and teachers open wide the doors of knowledge for the people to enter in. The facts are not pleasant. Often they are revolting. But it is better that our sensibilities should be shocked than that we should be ignorant of facts on which rest sight, hearing, intelligence, morals, and the lives of children. Let us do our best to rend the thick curtain with which society is hiding its eyes from the unpleasant but needful truths.”
When Helen returned to her seat after a long, standing ovation, Louise squeezed her hand.
Dr. Vandegrift addressed the audience. “We all regret the occasional instances in which a healthy baby was accidentally blinded by insufficiently diluted silver nitrate. If we could not guarantee the safety of all babies, we could not justify our movement. But thanks
to the ingenuity and initiative of one extraordinary woman, packaging dilute silver nitrate in safe, individual doses is now standard practice. Allow me to present Mrs. Francis Morrissey.”
Dr. Vandegrift held up a plaque and gestured for Louise to join him at the lectern. “It is my privilege to present you with the first Visionary Award from the National Society to Save Babies’ Sight.”
Louise accepted the plaque and thanked Dr. Vandegrift, who sat down. As the audience applauded, she surveyed the crowd, silently thanked them for supporting the cause, and set her prepared notes on the lectern. Her eyes stopped on a man who had just entered the ballroom and was taking a seat at a table in back. It can’t be. Her breath caught in her throat. But, yes, it’s Yonder.
With a hand on her neck she caught herself in time to stop a gasp. In the awkward silence, she struggled to think of her opening words but finally had to resort to looking at her notes. “I am grateful to the National Society for recognizing my accomplishments, which would not have been possible without the support of Dr. Vandegrift, as well as nurses, social workers, doctors, public health workers, civic leaders, philanthropists, and others back in Nebraska.”
She paused and looked about the room and let her eyes rest briefly on Yonder. “Any good that I do is to honor my late daughter, Marie Alouette Morrissey. It occurred to me that tonight it might be snowing back in Riverbend, my home, as it is here. Had Marie not been blind, had a tragic accident not taken the lives of her and my husband, tonight I might be home in Nebraska, sitting with my husband and fourteen-year-old sighted daughter in our darkened back parlor watching the magical first snowfall of the season out the window. As important as tonight’s event is in the movement to prevent babies’ sore eyes, I must tell you honestly that parlor is where I would rather be.”
A hush came over the room.
“As Miss Keller pointed out, advocating this cause is more likely to bring you derision than praise. If you ever find yourself wavering, I want you to remember what I experienced as the mother of a blind child. Imagine trying to comfort your daughter when sighted children exclude her from play. Imagine trying to explain to your daughter that she cannot attend school like other children. Imagine trying to answer your daughter’s question, ‘I shall never marry, will I?’“
Louise looked toward the table where Yonder sat. When he raised a handkerchief to his eyes, she had to look away.
“Marie was, of course, the inspiration for me to champion the cause to end babies’ sore eyes. More than that, she met life with more courage than I shall ever have, and I draw on her courage daily to face the biggest obstacles.”
She looked down at her notes and hesitated. Gripping the lectern to still her trembling hands, she tried to censor herself, but a force within drove her to say, “But I shrank from one obstacle, one that existed within myself.” She picked up the pages, tore them in half, and set them aside. “I could not bring myself to tell the truth. I always maintained that Marie was blinded by pneumococcus.”
She felt partitioned. One side of herself watched helplessly as the other side gathered speed. She recalled Marie wondering what kept the elevator from rising through the roof. At this moment, nothing. With no thought as to what happens beyond the roof, the practiced speech forgotten, any fear of exposure dismissed, she yielded to the momentum. “I had planned to go to my grave with this secret. But now I find myself compelled to speak. I had gonorrhea, and I caused my daughter’s blindness.”
The room seemed frozen in time, figures as still as those caught in Pompeii. People held poses as if for a photograph. Even smoke from cigars and cigarettes seemed to hang suspended in mid-air. Except for Edward Bok, taking notes, and Annie, spelling words into Helen’s hand, everything stopped.
“In fairness to my late husband,” her voice cracked and grew faint, “I must acknowledge that he did not have gonorrhea. He was not Marie’s father.”
She noticed Edward Bok, and her face burned. “Mr. Bok, I see you are writing. Tell readers of The Ladies’ Home Journal I speak out to expose the false pride that would suppress this movement. In her speech earlier tonight Miss Keller told you of ‘the shame that shelters evil.’ Shame follows anyone who has gonorrhea, whether the disease was contracted in the bordello or in the marriage bed. Pity the poor woman who must watch the germ ravage the eyes of her precious baby. I ask you, which is the greater shame for a woman—having gonorrhea or letting false pride lest she be suspected of having the disease prevent her from demanding eyedrops for her newborn baby? When women have the courage to tell their doctors, ‘Put drops in my newborn baby’s eyes,’ and when women and men band together to tell their legislators, ‘Put drops in the eyes of every newborn baby,’ this dreaded disease will no longer be the leading cause of blindness in children. It will be eradicated forever.”
In the audience women wept openly and men looked down at the floor.
“If my speech wanders, just know I speak from my heart. I cannot leave here without pointing out that we stand on the shoulders of those who are already blind. We owe them a debt of gratitude, for too often they and their parents are condemned by ignorant people. I used to ask myself, ‘How will I know when our campaign is making progress, that we’re reaching the public with our message?’ Sadly I saw the answer on a small town Main Street. I was accompanying children from Smithville Asylum for the Blind on a holiday shopping excursion when some young rowdies spotted one of our youngsters and . . . they began clapping.”
Louise paused to collect herself and to wait for the murmurs to die down. She remembered the conclusion she had prepared.
“I stand here tonight so that no mother or father will have to carry in their hearts the knowledge that they caused their child’s blindness. I stand here tonight so that no mother or father will suffer the anguish of their child asking, ‘Did you make me go blind?’ But most of all I stand here tonight for the children, so that no child will be needlessly condemned to a prison of darkness or bullied as the result of a parent’s transgressions.”
Louise’s heart swelled to the applause. Seeing Bernard stand and wave a handkerchief, she fought back tears. Soon she was looking at a field of handkerchiefs waving because somehow she had pushed aside the fear and revealed her truth. She wanted to hold onto this moment forever. For she faced the vanguard and saw the promise of the future.
Louise noticed Helen’s extended hand and gripped it tightly.
During the standing ovation, Louise looked to Yonder. She returned his intense gaze, and in a trick of vision he came so close it seemed she could reach out and touch him.
After the applause had died, Louise was surrounded by well-wishers. “Thank you,” she said, looking past them to seek Yonder’s face in the departing crowd. When she spotted him, he was leaving the ballroom. Struggling to hide her disappointment, she continued to acknowledge the people around her.
The bejeweled society matron from the National Committee meeting took Louise’s hand and gushed, “My dear, you have done wonders to advance our cause.”
“Thank you, but it takes all of us working together,” Louise said. Suddenly she realized Yonder was walking toward her, looking handsome in his Western-style tuxedo and holding a black Stetson in his hand. She was momentarily stunned by his smiling eyes that could soften the edge of her hardest mood. How should she greet him? But hesitation gave way to her longing to embrace him and hold on longer than might be proper.
She stepped back and brushed his collar. “I’m so sorry. I left face powder on your beautiful tuxedo.”
“I remember your gown. You still do it justice.” He caught himself. “Not that you wouldn’t. It’s been, what, five years since The Twister anniversary?”
“I shall take that as a compliment.”
“You were magnificent tonight,” he said. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.” He took her hand and led her to the nearest table. “Come, let’s sit down.”
He held a chair for her, then sat to her left, placing his Stets
on on the empty chair next to him.
Louise turned toward him so she could look in his eyes. “I hadn’t planned to speak so candidly. Seeing you in the audience gave me courage.”
His expression didn’t change. If he was pleased to know how important he was to her, it didn’t show on his face. Had she gotten too close? She had no way to fathom what the intervening years had done to their friendship. And now after confessing to having contracted gonorrhea in an illicit relationship, she had bared the worst of herself. “Of course, the consequences of my candor remain to be seen.” Her words were crisp. “It’s probably best that I leave Riverbend.”
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
“That’s lovely. An Indian blessing?”
His smiling eyes brightened with mischief. “Confucius.”
At the moment, the intervening years didn’t matter. The bond she and Yonder had shared endured.
From the corner of her eye, Louise glimpsed Daisy and Dr. Weil approaching. Louise glanced at Daisy, then shifted her gaze back to Yonder, and Daisy steered her husband away.
“I brought you something.” Yonder reached in his pocket and brought out a miniature cut-glass jar with a cloissonné lid.
Her treasured friend, whom she had assumed was out of her life forever, was presenting her with a gift. Louise fingered the lid, puzzled by its image of a red carnation, wishing she knew the language of flowers. Did he? Most likely the jar held a solid fragrance.
“Go ahead, open it.” His eyes gleamed with expectation.
Now catching his contagious anticipation, she was more than curious as she removed the lid and lifted the jar with its whitish contents to her nose. It looked and smelled familiar but not fragrant.
He laughed. “You don’t know what it is, do you?”
She inhaled the jar’s contents again and shook her head. “I give up.”
“I’ve been following your campaign. J.D.’s editorials have been positively brutal. I figured you might be bruised after . . .”
Compromise with Sin Page 31