Lily

by Greenwood, Leigh

  "You can't defend these women or the men that hire them."

  "I have more right to defend them than you have to call yourselves good, caring Christians."

  A roar of angry protests greeted that remark.

  Hezekiah raised his hands for silence. Gradually the noise subsided. Lily decided to speak first.

  "I challenge you to come to the saloon and meet the girls where they work." She included the congregation in her dare. "I challenge all of you to get to know them, where they came from, what they were looking for in San Francisco. I think you're afraid to find they're not very different from you or me."

  The congregation buzzed like a hive of angry wasps. Protests came from every corner of the church, but Lily kept her eyes on Hezekiah. She knew he prided himself on being fair as well as right. She hoped he couldn't resist the opportunity to prove her wrong. She watched him struggle with himself. Lily knew what his answer would be by the grimness with which he faced at her.

  "I will come," he announced.

  The congregation emitted a sharp murmur of protest. Mrs. Thoragood looked stunned.

  "I think today would be the best time," Lily said.

  "But it's Sunday!" Mr. Thoragood protested.

  Once again Lily watched Hezekiah struggle with himself, but she knew he wouldn't back down.

  "What better day," Hezekiah said. "Now let us bow our heads and pray for our souls as well as those of the unfortunate women."

  Lily would have preferred he not refer to the girls as unfortunate women, but she wasn't about to quibble. He had agreed to do far more than Mr. Thoragood would.

  * * * * *

  "I still don't like his being here," Zac said. "If he gets the girls stirred up, I'm throwing him out."

  Zac hadn't liked the idea when Lily explained it to him while he dressed. He liked it even less when he came downstairs to find Hezekiah talking with several of the girls. He looked ill at ease, even a little unfriendly, but Lily noticed a slight relaxation from when he'd arrived. Maybe he was finally loosening up enough to really listen.

  "I don't trust people who act like a lion one day and a coyote the next," Zac said. "If he does what he wants, I'll be looking for girls to take their places. These girls are good at what they do. I don't want them leaving to become cooks, parlor maids, or companions to little old ladies."

  "He only wants to help them meet nice men. Besides, there's always more girls. Why just yesterday--"

  "I know. I saw her, too. She came in last night. I told her to sleep as long as she liked. She's to see you when she wakes up."

  Lily stood on her tiptoes, pulled Zac's face down, and gave him a big kiss.

  "Hey, watch that," he said in mock consternation. "You'll give the place a bad name."

  "It already has a bad name."

  "In that case . . . " Zac took her in his arms and kissed her quite thoroughly. "I always hate it when places don't live up their reputations," he said when he finally came up for air.

  Hezekiah detached himself from a group of young women and came over to them. Lily wished he could have waited at least a few minutes longer.

  "Well," Zac said, a slightly hostile ring to his voice.

  Hezekiah looked stiff as a ramrod. Lily knew it was very difficult for him to admit to her and Zac that he'd been wrong.

  "I would like to come back," he said to Zac. "It appears I may have misjudged you. The young women have been most insistent that without your help, several of them would have been forced into a life of shame just to survive. Miss Peterson was most vocal in her praise of you and Lily . . . uh, Miss Sterling . . . I mean, your wife."

  Hezekiah obviously found it difficult to accept Lily's marriage, but he was willing to admit when he was wrong. She'd always like that about him, though it hadn't been enough to make her love him.

  "Now you're satisfied I'm not running a brothel, what do you intend to do?" Zac asked. "This is still a gambling saloon."

  Zac wasn't taking this well. Lily guessed he wouldn't be happy until Hezekiah headed back to Virginia.

  "Miss Peterson and I think it would be a good idea for everybody to get together at a social of some kind."

  Zac frowned.

  "It would be best if we had it here," Hezekiah said.

  "Are you crazy?" Zac exclaimed. "Those people would die before they'd set foot in this place. They'd be sure something would rub off of them."

  "That's why we think they ought to come here," Julie said.

  "It would have to be sometime in the afternoon. The girls don't get up until late."

  "It can't be before seven. The men have to get off work and have time to eat their supper."

  "The place is full of gamblers by then."

  "You'd have to close for the night," Hezekiah said.

  Zac exploded. "You're crazy if you think I'm losing a night's income so a bunch of close-minded old bats can come poking their noses into everything I do!"

  "It won't work if we go anywhere else," Hezekiah said. "The congregation has got to see where the girls work and live. They've got to know they're helping nice girls."

  "Oh, so you believe they're nice as well, do you?"

  "Miss Peterson has convinced me I might have let my predisposition to believe the worst blind me to the best in these women," Hezekiah said.

  Something in Hezekiah's voice made Lily look at him more closely. What was it -- confusion, uncertainty? He was looking at Julie in a peculiar way. Julie was looking just as odd. Lily almost burst out laughing when she realized Hezekiah and Julie were attracted to each other. That must have come as quite a shock to him. Poor man, it was a shame nothing could come of it, but at least it had helped Hezekiah change his mind about the girls. Lily had every confidence he would convince the Thoragoods to fall into line with his plans.

  Now if she could just convince Zac.

  * * * * *

  They lay in the bed, sated with lovemaking, Zac too aroused to sleep, Lily too languid to want to get up. It was one of the too brief times during the day when their lives intersected. Lily found them much too short. She feared Zac found them exactly to his liking.

  She was beginning to wonder if he would ever turn into a conventional husband, someone who was home for dinner at six o'clock, not just getting up. The more she learned about him, the more she admired him. It must have taken a lot of courage to set up an honest saloon when everybody swore you had to cheat to make a living. It must have been even more difficult to assume the responsibility for so many women. The Little Corner of Heaven was the only place in town where men were not allowed to go upstairs.

  But all of this had nothing to do with being a husband, at least the kind of husband Lily wanted. Zac seemed to want a bed mate and a partner, someone with whom he could satisfy his body and share his pleasure in the saloon. He seemed perfectly content with that. He still talked about making a baby, but Lily knew he rarely thought of a real, live, breathing child. That didn't fit into his plans.

  There was so much she wanted that didn't fit into his plans. Children, a house of her own, regular hours so she could have time to be with him, a feeling they shared the same world, a commitment to their life together. And real love, deep and abiding.

  But she couldn't expect that, at least not yet. She'd dragged him kicking and screaming into this marriage. She didn't know how much more he could absorb. Papa always said tigers didn't change their stripes. Maybe people weren't any different from tigers.

  "You really think I ought to close the saloon for a night?" Zac asked.

  It took Lily a moment to figure out what he was talking about. "Yes. Hezekiah is right. It won't be the same if they don't come here."

  Zac was silent for a minute. "Okay, but only for two hours. They'll have to go out the back. It'll drive my regulars away to see that bunch leaving when they're trying to come in. They might confuse it with a prayer meeting."

  "I doubt that," Lily said. "I don't think they'll mind going out the back door. You might have to lock it to
keep some of them from sneaking out early."

  Lily was proud of Zac. Closing the saloon was a difficult thing for him to do, especially with any degree of willingness, but he had managed it. Her coming into his life had made a great many demands on him, but he'd managed to rise to the challenge each time. Then why did she feel so unhappy?

  Because she'd realized while she was standing there watching Hezekiah and Julie try to pretend they weren't attracted to each other that Zac had no trouble keeping his attention on the girls, or the saloon, or anything other problem that happened to be occupying his mind at the moment. True, he was showing a definite fondness for her. And he was certainly enthusiastic about their lovemaking, but he'd never once said he loved her.

  Lily realized with a kind of sickening shock she'd been so upset about their living apart, so excited about working for him in the saloon, so utterly amazed by their lovemaking, that she'd forgotten the most important part of all.

  Zac didn't love her. Well, maybe a little. He might like her, need her, want her, but he didn't love her passionately, fervently, madly.

  And she loved him so desperately.

  She didn't know what she was going to do. Never in her life had she expected to be married to a man who didn't love her as much as she loved him. That's why she'd run away from Salem. For one brief, horrible moment, she wondered if Hezekiah had felt as she did now. Then she realized he hadn't. His pride might have been hurt, but his heart had never been touched.

  Hers had, and it ached miserably now.

  What could she do? She couldn't make Zac love her. She'd learned that much. She couldn't honestly say he was any closer to loving her the way she needed to be loved than he had been the day they got married. She had conveniently fitted into his life. She added something without costing him anything. Naturally he would like her for that.

  But that wasn't enough for Lily. She wondered if he would ever love her. She was sure if he did, she could do without everything else. But as long as love was missing, nothing else counted.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  They finally decided to have the social in the church.

  "The wives have asked me to speak for them," Mrs. Thoragood said to Hezekiah. "They won't enter a saloon."

  "But it would show a wonderfully forgiving and understanding spirit if they would meet the girls on their own ground," Hezekiah said. "The girls are more likely to believe in the genuineness of our effort."

  "They won't enter a saloon," Sarah Thoragood repeated. "And don't call it our effort," she added. "You let Lily Randolph talk you into this. Nobody asked us what we thought."

  "You must see it would be a good show of faith."

  "It would be a good show of stupidity to expose our husbands to the kind of woman we'd rather they know nothing about," Mrs. Thoragood said with asperity. "Everybody knows men have little resistance to the lure of evil. It's a foolish woman who knowingly puts her husband in the way of temptation."

  "I think you're taking too harsh a view of the character of these young women," Hezekiah said. "I was most favorably impressed by several, especially Miss Julie Peterson."

  "I'm sure you were. Men usually are impressed by that kind of woman, even good men. But the fact remains, the women will not enter a saloon. And I support them in this decision."

  "Then we shall have it at the church," Hezekiah said, conceding defeat. "I fear we won't have such good attendance."

  * * * * *

  Sarah Thoragood had seen to it the parish hall was decorated for the social, but it wasn't working.

  When Zac found they planned to use the church, he refused to close the Little Corner of Heaven. "I don't see why I should lose revenue for no reason at all," he'd told Lily.

  "It would show you support Hezekiah."

  "But I don't support him. I'll be there to back you, but as far as I'm concerned, trying to be respectable has ruined Bella. I won't keep any of my girls from going, but I won't force them either."

  Lily had been ready to argue for hours, but Zac had made his decision, and he refused to discuss it. Lily didn't like it, but she had no choice but to accept it.

  Some girls weren't the least bit interested in the social. Others said they'd prefer to wait and see what came of it. Still others wanted to go but didn't want to miss work. In the end, only seven girls went.

  The congregation wasn't any better represented. Few of the ladies turned out, but those who had left their husbands at home. And their sons. And nephews. And grandsons.

  "The whole purpose was for them to meet a different kind of young man," Lily said, despairing.

  "They obviously don't intend for it to be one of their men," Zac said. He was watching Hezekiah talk to Julie Peterson, a faint smile on his lips. "You and Hezekiah will have to work that out if you plan to do this again."

  "If we don't do something soon, there won't be a next time," Lily said. "They won't come back again to be stared at and kept at a distance."

  "What do you suggest?" Zac asked.

  "We've got to find something they have in common."

  "They have nothing in common."

  "Yes, they do. They're all women. They all have family, homes, clothes, this town, dozens of things. We just have to find one we can use to get them talking to each other."

  Just then Kitty Lofton came hurrying in with her baby.

  "That's it!" Lily said, excited. "Babies. All women love babies."

  "But you've only got one."

  "It only takes one," Lily replied as she started toward Kitty. "Especially when it's absolutely adorable."

  "One baby won't fix this mess," Zac said to Dodie.

  "She'll make it work if anybody can," Dodie said. She had come because, in her words, she wouldn't have missed this for the world. Zac was pleased to see she'd stopped drinking. He wasn't pleased to learn she'd found another job.

  "If they're going to talk about babies, they don't need me," Zac said. "I'm going back to the saloon."

  But Lily came hurrying back. "Kitty says she knows where Jack is."

  "Who's Jack?" Dodie asked.

  "Her husband. He was shanghaied. She wants you to go after him."

  "You're crazy!" Zac said. "If I did, I'd end up sailing the China Sea at his side."

  "You've got to help him," Lily insisted. "He's the father of her baby. You always said a baby must have a father."

  "This isn't a simple matter of convincing a man to marry the mother of his child," Zac said. "Those people are criminals. They steal grown men and keep them imprisoned for years. What ship is he on?"

  "The Sea Witch."

  "That's the most notorious ship in San Francisco."

  "She's desperately in love with him. I don't know if she could stand to lose him again."

  "She can't know he's on the ship," Zac said. "She's only heard a rumor."

  "Can you find out?"

  "Maybe, but I can't do it here. I need to go back to the saloon. I know a few people I can talk to. Maybe we can figure something out, but I don't hold out much hope. It would take a small army to steal a man from one of those ships. You need Monty and Hen. They like fighting."

  "You can do it," Lily said. "I know you can."

  Zac decided there were times when Lily carried this believing he could do anything too far. She didn't realize she was talking about men who used muscle, drugs, guns, or anything else at their disposal to get what they wanted. She hadn't met their like in Salem, or anywhere else in Virginia for that matter.

  He was getting to be as bad as his brothers, doing one crazy thing after another all because Lily couldn't stop helping people. No matter what his objection, she always managed to draw him in. She was too soft-hearted, and he was getting too soft-headed.

  He had to talk with her, make her understand he couldn't take on the support and defense of San Francisco's unfortunate women. She was turning something he'd started as a benefit to himself into a full time job. Next thing he knew she'd insist he start taking in fatherless children.
He'd have to put his foot down. He didn't want any children. He certainly didn't intend to fill his saloon with them.

  But that would have to wait. Right now he had to figure out how to spring Kitty's husband. Living up to Lily's opinion of him was getting to be downright exhausting, not to mention dangerous.

  * * * * *

  Zac hadn't been gone twenty minutes when Kitty's mother came hurrying into the church. If she was surprised at all the women taking turns holding her grandson, she didn't show it. She headed straight for her daughter.

  "The Sea Witch is sailing tonight."

  Kitty nearly fainted. She turned to Lily. Lily turned to Dodie.

  "Zac can't do anything that fast," Dodie said. "I doubt he's been able to talk to anybody yet."

  "But we've got to do something," Kitty said, nearly frantic. "If he leaves, I'll never see him again. I just know it."

  It wasn't long before the entire gathering knew Kitty's husband, the father of her child, was residing in the hole of the Sea Witch. No one, however, had any idea what to do about it.

  "I'm going to the ship," Kitty declared. "Maybe I can talk the captain into letting Jack go."

  "You can't go alone," Lily said. "I'll go with you."

  "Are you crazy?" Dodie asked. "None of you will go. You won't come back alive."

  "I can't believe that's true," Hezekiah said. "This is America. People are free to go anywhere they please."

  "This is San Francisco," Dodie snapped. "They don't always come back when they please."

  "We could all go," Mrs. Thoragood said. "They would never dare harm women of the church."

  "You'd do better to wait for Zac," Dodie advised.

  "But we don't have time," Kitty said, "not if the Sea Witch is sailing tonight."

  "I'll go with you," Hezekiah offered.

  One after another the women volunteered to go until only Dodie was left.

  "How about you?" Mrs. Thoragood asked.

  "I'm going for Zac," Dodie said. "Somebody's got to be able to tell the police where to look for your bodies."