by John Jakes
Some were frightened, some merely curious. Directly to the west, a bright red glare filled the sky.
“Bad one, looks like,” the coachman commented before he turned his rig around and started away. Gideon joined the crowds and walked all the way to the Adams Street bridge. In response to his questions, he was told that a planing mill on Canal Street had caught fire. The blaze had spread to a lumber yard. On the other side of the river, steam pumpers and hose carts went thundering along fire-reddened streets.
The wind had increased; it was blowing briskly out of the southwest. Finally the fire seemed to be contained. He returned to his room at the Dorset.
He found he couldn’t go to sleep. The fire might have been contained but it was still burning. The glare illuminated the ceiling and one wall. That kept him awake, and so did memories of Julia.
Her eyes.
Her provocative emerald-colored robe.
Her struggle to educate herself—a struggle much like his.
Her interest in affairs of the world—an interest much like Margaret’s before she had begun to change.
He felt guilty about the images of Julia in his mind. But somehow that guilt didn’t banish them.
He tried to shut out the firelight by closing the curtains. As he’d feared, that turned the room into an oven. He opened the curtains again, rolled onto his side with his back to the windows and the scarlet sky, and finally drifted off.
The fire burned well into Sunday. It razed a sixteen-acre, four-block area. Hotel guests in the Dorset’s dining room at noon spoke of nothing else. The waiters said Chicago absolutely could not tolerate one more such fire. As one put it, overheard by Gideon on his way out, “If Lucifer wanted to bring this town to grief an’ make it burn like a cauldron of kerosene, all he’d have to do is toss in one match. No, strike just one spark. That’s all. One spark in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
It was another hot day, but Gideon shivered as he left.
Chapter VI
Invasion at Ericsson’s
i
AGAIN GIDEON WALKED all the way to State and Twentieth. The meeting was scheduled for eight in the evening, but Julia had invited him for supper at five.
As he strode south, he began to perspire. The temperature had to be well over eighty, even though the sun was already setting in a scarlet haze on the prairie west of the city. A stiff wind blew from the southwest, raising whitecaps on the lake. The sun put red highlights on the water.
Dinner was elegant, with a game bird bisque, then a choice of Dover sole or a roast of Texas beef. Carter complained that he liked neither until Julia shushed him. She took the beef with a Bordeaux, Gideon the fish with a cool and delicious liebfraumilch. She had to spell the name for him twice. He wasn’t embarrassed; he wrote it down on a slip of paper so he’d remember it.
The hostess was as elegant as her table. She wore an expensive-looking summer frock of lavender foulard with long sleeves that flared at her wrists. Her overskirt bunched up in back over a French tournure, a device which the British termed a bustle. In another of the dizzying changes upsetting the modern world, a woman’s appearance from the rear had become more important than the way she looked from the front.
Again he was astonished by Julia’s grasp of political and social matters though the cause to which she was closest came up most often.
“I know it’s bad form to speak ill of the dead, but, Gideon, there’s just no denying Louis was an absolute rogue. Why, when I think of the calumnies about the movement he ordered published in the Union—” She was too exercised to continue.
“Ordered, that’s the key word,” he replied. “The editor, Theo Payne, had to print that sort of bilge or lose his job. Now that he’s running the paper without so much pressure, I hope you’ve noticed the attacks have stopped.”
“I haven’t. I quit reading the rag years ago. Along with James Gordon Bennett’s Herald—my God, there’s a male supremacist for you! Gordon Bennett, I mean. He once wrote about a member of the movement who—as he put it—formerly ran about to suffrage gatherings but now stays home because she finally got her rights in the shape of a baby. Pregnancy, that’s what he considers the proper cure for our mania!”
“Mother really does hate that man,” Carter said from his side of the table. He was eating the beef with buttermilk instead of Bordeaux. It was uncanny, the way he resembled his father yet lacked the petulance that had marred Louis’ good looks.
Influential publishers who opposed women’s rights weren’t the only ones who roused Julia’s ire. She could quote verbatim—and with scorn—from the British philosopher Herbert Spencer, whose Social Darwinism had become the exculpatory doctrine of the nation’s business moguls.
“‘Society is constantly excreting its unhealthy, imbecile, slow, vacillating, faithless members’—that is Spencer exactly, Gideon.”
“I haven’t read his stuff,” Gideon admitted. “I know I should. I tried Principles of Biology last year and found it just too damn turgid. Isn’t he the chap who’s always talking about survival of the fittest?”
She threw him an admiring glance. “Good for you. Somehow people always fancy Mr. Darwin coined the phrase, but he didn’t. Survival of the fittest is Spencer’s claptrap. Well, I say it’s claptrap—” A shrug. “I can’t confirm or deny its scientific accuracy. Darwin may be correct about the strong surviving and prospering at the expense of the weak in the animal kingdom. But if Spencer’s right and that’s the way it’s to be among human beings in America, I’ll move out!”
“But you haven’t yet.”
“No, because, thank God, despite the climate of corruption in this country, there are still some people who believe the laws apply equally to everyone, and everything guaranteed in the Constitution is guaranteed to everyone, no matter how strong or weak, fit or unfit, popular or unpopular that individual may be.”
Gideon nodded to agree. How much alike in their convictions they were!
“I don’t doubt all of the President’s Wall Street cronies fairly worship Mr. Spencer,” she went on. “Whether Grant has ever heard of Spencer is debatable. I’m afraid the only philosophic principle he understands is ‘forward—march!’”
“I think he’s an honest and well-intentioned man,” Gideon replied.
Carter gaped. “How can you say that, Mr. Kent? He whipped the devil out of your side!”
“Carter, no swearing.”
“Ma, I said devil, not hell.”
Affection lit her eyes as she teased him, “Yes, but I know what you were thinking.” He blushed. She turned back to Gideon. “That is quite an admission for an ex-Confederate.”
“The war’s over, Julia.”
“And Butcher Grant hasn’t changed. He’s still well intentioned and thoroughly naïve. I wish we could get him out of there before the whole country’s plundered.”
“You’re being unfair,” he argued. “I imagine Grant’s doing the best he can. He never pretended he wanted the position or that he was qualified for it. The Republicans wanted him. The hero. He’s consistently said he’s no politician—”
“An honest admission for a change! He certainly isn’t a politician. He’s also no president. Any woman could do better.”
The disagreement had grown just a little heated, but her last remark took the acrimony out of it; the twinkle in her eye said she was teasing again.
“You?” he retorted.
“Mother would make a fine one,” Carter put in.
“Well, I’d certainly like to try it,” she admitted. “And I would if I could only figure out how to live to age one hundred and fifty. By then the electorate may be ready for a female in the White House.”
Some impulse made him say, “You’d be the prettiest president ever in office, I’ll bet.”
Carter whooped and applauded. Gideon turned pink. Julia smiled and gazed at him steadily. Then, turning pink herself, she murmured, “Why, thank you, sir.” He quickly returned his attention to his silver sherb
et dish. He felt as if he’d walked into an oven.
After dinner, Julia kissed her son good night and then led Gideon through the kitchen and out to the carriage house. He was just a bit fuzzy-headed from all the wine, and hot in his frock coat and waistcoat, both of which he would have liked to remove. But the frock coat concealed the LeMat shoved down into his belt near his left hip. He didn’t want Julia to know he was going to the meeting armed.
A groom drove a landau out of the carriage house. It was the same handsome vehicle which had returned him to his hotel the preceding evening. He peered around, hunting for the driver when the groom hopped down. Julia tugged on mauve gloves. She saw Gideon’s puzzled expression and explained, “Eustace has the night off. I’ll handle the horses.”
The landau was drawn by a matched team of splendid, glossy bays. Julia hoisted her skirts, not the least embarrassed to reveal sheer lavender hose above her shoe tops. She climbed the front wheel like a teamster. In a moment she was settled on the seat.
He reached for the reins. “See here—you must let me drive.”
“But these are high-spirited animals, Gideon.”
“All the more reason.”
“I assure you I know how to control them.”
“Well, damn it, so do I!” he exclaimed, red in the face.
Her smile was sweet but her eyes were mocking.
“Is that because you’re a male, and thus instinctively a horseman—while I, being a mere woman, couldn’t possibly take charge of such a team?” A sigh. “You do have some fusty, old-fashioned ideas—especially for a trade unionist. We’ll have to work on changing those.” She patted the seat. “Meantime, climb up.”
Redder than ever, he shook his head. “It’s a matter of principle. It looks—it looks ridiculous for a man—”
“To ride in a carriage driven by a woman? What utter foolishness!”
Once more she patted the seat. He saw the determination in her blue eyes, and all at once realized how stuffy and traditional his protest made him seem. He burst out laughing. So did she.
“Do come up, Gideon,” she urged. “You’ll soon get used to it.”
Amused, he climbed up beside her.
“And for heaven’s sake, stop looking so stricken. Wounded pride isn’t a fatal disease, even among men. Giddap!”
She flicked the reins over the backs of the bays and smartly turned the landau east to the next street.
ii
Julia had told him she owned the entire block between State and Wabash; the back part of her lot was mostly shrubs and fruit trees, he saw. She turned north on Wabash at Twenty-first, the south side of her property, and the trees and shrubbery prevented them from seeing another carriage swinging into Wabash from Twentieth—prevented them, that is, until they were virtually into the intersection.
Frantically, Julia reined the bays. The second vehicle, a brougham, would have collided with them if she hadn’t. Both carriages stopped and the blue-chinned driver of the brougham brandished his whip.
“Watch yer damn team, woman. Better still, leave the drivin’ to those who do it right. Menfolk!”
Seething, Julia whispered, “That’s Tom Courtleigh’s carriage.”
Gideon’s cheeks darkened. He reached across, snatched the reins and shook them so the bays bolted forward.
“What on earth?” Julia cried as Gideon halted the team again, directly in front of the brougham. The closed, boxy vehicle could not move forward. In the side nearest the landau, a pale face could be glimpsed at an oval window. Gideon tossed the reins aside and jumped down.
“Move!” the other driver shouted at him.
“Not until I speak with Mr. Courtleigh.”
Julia folded her hands in her lap, a smile that was half astonishment and half admiration curling her lips. Courtleigh’s driver hesitated, not knowing whether to try the whip on such a formidable-looking fellow. By then Gideon had stalked to the side of the brougham and was reaching for the door handle.
He saw that the person by the oval window was a young woman, delicately pretty but with nervous eyes and an unhealthy pallor. He levered the handle. Latched. The woman grew panicky. Beyond her, a much less distinct blur showed where Courtleigh was seated. Gideon could make out no details of the railroad president’s face.
“Open up, Courtleigh!” He hammered the brougham’s side. The driver warned him off but he paid no attention. “I have something to say to you about your tame dog Florian, so open up.” He pounded again.
Even Julia was startled by Gideon’s ferocity. A youngster rolling a hoop along Wabash paused and stared at the man beating on the brougham. Suddenly the young woman was pushed aside. Another face loomed in the window: thin, long-nosed, aristocratic. Thomas Courtleigh had wavy auburn hair, small, almost feminine ears lying flat against his head, a narrow and thin-lipped mouth. He was thirty-five, no more.
He leaned in front of his companion—a relative or his fiancée, Gideon assumed—and gazed at the young man with ugly contempt in his hazel eyes. Then he lifted his right hand in the window. He slashed the hand sideways, a sharp gesture of dismissal. Of banishment.
Gideon growled something and started to twist the handle back and forth. Courtleigh raised a cane in his left hand and rapped the ceiling of the brougham. “Well, ye’ve had fair warning,” the driver bellowed at Gideon.
Julia gave a cry of alarm. The whip hissed. Before Gideon could jump back, the lash laid a streak of red on his left cheek.
The insult was worse than the blow itself. He lunged for the driver’s arm and missed. The man was already whipping and maneuvering his team around the snorting bays. Within a few seconds, the brougham went clipping away up Wabash, leaving Gideon in a cloud of dust.
Julia got down from the landau and hurried to his side. He pushed her kerchief away. “Don’t. You’ll ruin it.”
“Nonsense.” She stood on tiptoe and dabbed at the whip mark. He smelled her cologne as she added in a husky voice, “That was a very foolish thing to do, my dear.”
But she wasn’t chastising him. Her blue eyes shone with an admiring light as she bloodied the kerchief to clean his cheek, touching him and lingering over the small wound longer than was actually necessary.
iii
The working-class neighborhood immediately west of the Chicago River was inhabited chiefly by Scandinavians, Bohemians and Irish, Julia said as they took a leisurely drive through the Lake Street business district. About half of Chicago’s population lived west of the south branch, in fact.
It was dark by the time they doubled back and crossed the river on the Van Buren-Street bridge. They proceeded west, then south on Canal to Taylor Street, which ran east and west. The district was a hodgepodge of saloons, woodworking mills and narrow residences set on lots no more than thirty feet wide and four or five times as deep.
Julia brought the carriage to a stop in front of the correct address on Taylor. Gideon tied the reins around one of the three-inch posts supporting the wooden sidewalk. He noticed that Ericsson’s narrow lot had two equally narrow cottages on it, one behind the other and both facing Taylor Street. At the far end of the property he glimpsed a barn, the site of the meeting.
He took out his pocket watch. “Quarter till eight. We rambled around town a bit more than I thought.”
And he’d enjoyed it, especially after the unsettling encounter with the president of the W & P. The arrogance of the man in the brougham made him doubly glad he’d come to Chicago. No matter what the outcome of this meeting, he’d give Thomas Courtleigh a roasting in Labor’s Beacon.
Julia took his arm and they started toward the passage which ran between the Ericsson lot and the one adjoining. On the porch of the house fronting on Taylor, a man and a woman, shadow-figures, rocked in wooden rockers. Neither of them spoke. Gideon supposed Ericsson lived in the rear cottage and rented the curbside one. The guess proved right when a skinny ten year old in old clothing waved from the stoop of the second house.
“Mr. Kent?”
/>
“That’s right.”
The boy ran to them. “I’m Torvald Ericsson—” When he realized Gideon’s companion was a woman, he gave her a startled look. “They’re waiting in the barn. Not everyone’s here yet.”
“Thank you, son.”
Gideon and Julia moved on through the dark. He caught a whiff of wood shavings, then nearly stumbled into a huge white mound of them at the rear of the second cottage. The whole area had the clean tang of freshly cut wood.
Nils Ericsson was waiting in the doorway of the run-down barn, silhouetted by lamplight from behind. Gideon noted the surprise, then the concern on the railroader’s face as Julia became visible. Ericsson tried to conceal his dismay as he said, “I didn’t realize you’d brought your wife to Chicago.”
“This isn’t my wife—” Gideon began, realizing how suspicious that sounded.
Julia intervened. “I’m a good friend and onetime relative. I was formerly married to Gideon’s cousin. He’s dead now. I’m very interested in your cause, Mr. Ericsson. I live in the city, and when Gideon called on me, I grew positively rude until he gave in and agreed to bring me along. You mustn’t blame him for my presence,” she finished in a disarming way.
How clever she was, he thought. He blessed her for avoiding the subject of her morally questionable divorce, and for not mentioning her suffragist connections. She had wisely refrained from antagonizing the already suspicious men—a dozen or so—watching them from inside the barn. The men sat or stood, frowning at Julia and her finery. Kerosene lanterns cast a dim light over the men. Several pipes put a fragrant blue haze in the air.
Ericsson gave Julia another doubtful glance and accepted the inevitable. He ushered the new arrivals into the barn. There was an awkward period in which Gideon introduced himself and tried to elicit comments about the switchmen’s grievances. Most of the men knew Labor’s Beacon at least by name, but they were intimidated by Julia’s presence, and said little in response to Gideon’s questions. Julia sensed the deepening suspicion and withdrew to a gloomy corner. She found a crate, stood it on end and sat down, hoping they’d forget about her.