Finally, I said, “Think of the arrogance of the Titanic, the hubris of the men who built it. They think, What we have made is so colossal, so magnificent, it defies nature. We have no need of lifeboats, the ocean cannot best us.” I thought of Alexander Cassatt blasting his way through the riverbed. “It is splendid, this arrogance, it takes us forward. But it’s also ignorant. It won’t tolerate weakness. And when nature—human or otherwise—does not comply, it can be savage.”
“But this isn’t the story of a ship,” said Behan gently.
“No, it’s the story of a woman. And children. And birth. Those soft, foolish things—of no concern to anyone of consequence.”
He frowned. “What are you telling me, Miss Prescott?”
“That maybe it’s a story no one needs to hear. At least, not from The New York Herald.”
He was silent a long time. “All right. But tell me at least.”
So I told him what I knew. When I explained why the window had been opened, he interrupted, “Wait a minute. Are you saying—?”
“You have to imagine how guilty she felt, Mr. Behan. For the death of her son, her failure to mother her daughter, her frantic desire not to be a mother again. She was exhausted, not in her right mind. And on that night, at that moment, she thought death was better for Frederick than to live with her as a mother. In killing herself, she would atone for John’s death and free Charles Tyler from the unhappy woman she had become. Free herself from his expectation that one day, she would again be the brave, bold young woman he had married. That girl who could go anywhere with him, dare anything. Imagine a husband who wants you to climb Kilimanjaro when you don’t have the strength to get out of bed. You’re Alva Tyler, the woman who can do anything. But you couldn’t save your own son from drowning.”
Michael Behan’s breath was harsh, his eyes hard as he stared into traffic. “No,” he said. “You can’t excuse…”
“I don’t excuse. But remember that she didn’t kill anyone.”
“Sofia might say different.” Then recovering his professional demeanor, he said, “So, Tyler killed Sofia to stop her talking?”
“Yes. I also think he killed her because she told him what he didn’t want to hear: that his wife’s illness was real. His brother suffered from melancholy and he committed suicide, I think that left Mr. Tyler with a horror of unsound people. A lesser man might have been able to accept his wife’s struggles. Not Charles Tyler. That’s why he destroyed himself when his life fell apart. Better death than failure.
“So, there’s the truth. The only people you can punish now are his widow and children. And some might say they’ve suffered enough.”
Behan said, “From what I’ve seen of Mabel Tyler, she’d want the truth.”
“Maybe. But it’s not my job to give it to her, and not yours either. Not when she’s only six years old.”
He exhaled, shook his head. “Nice family your Miss Benchley’s married into.”
There was no answer to that, and so for a long time we sat, supervising the pigeons in their battles and wanderings. I found myself preoccupied by the memory of that night, sitting numbed through shock and liquor, while the Tylers wrestled with the question of what to do. I had been offended by their obsession with their own safety, their lack of outrage on Sofia’s behalf. I had understood it as the vanity of the wealthy. When it was simply that the murderers were present in the room and did not care to focus on justice for the dead woman.
Rather, it was the open window they were obsessed with, the break in the defenses, the unreliable watchman. Someone had let the wrong person in—and violence and misery had followed. How easily we had all believed it was someone from outside. Of course, it had to be. Nothing like this ever happened before they came. I found myself wondering if I had ever made it clear to Mr. Grimaldi just how sorry I was.
Then I heard Michael Behan say, “So you’re a woman of leisure these days, Miss Prescott.”
“No woman who works for the Benchleys is that, Mr. Behan.” I looked at him. “And you? Now that you’re not listening to Officer Sullivan, what will you write about next?”
He stretched his legs, scattering a few complacent pigeons. “Oh, I’ll find something, Miss Prescott.”
“I’m sure.”
It was then I decided to say something that had been on my mind since Behan first turned up at Pleasant Meadows.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer your last letter.”
“Didn’t you?” He looked at me. “No, I suppose you didn’t. I didn’t honestly remember … anyway. Nothing to be sorry for.”
He half smiled, and I realized he was embarrassed for me. I had built up the importance of those letters in my mind, not understanding that they were nothing at all to him. Possibly something he scribbled for fun while waiting for an interview. A way to pass the time. If a reply came, lovely, another time filler. If not, well, there was always tobacco.
And, I thought, I worked for a wealthy family that had made its way into the news once already. Behan probably wrote to lots of people like me, hotel staff, waiters, hansom cab drivers. Anyone who could give him a bit of information, a new story.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said, aware that I was putting words in a row without being sure of their meaning. “Now that this is over, your wife will have you back at dinnertime.”
“That might not be good news to her. For Mrs. Behan, preparing the evening meal is an undertaking similar in scope to the Erie Canal. Leaves her quite exhausted. Some might say ill-tempered.”
It was a funny remark, and I smiled. But then I thought of the empty thermos cup, and the wax paper that had been wrapped around the sandwiches I’d just eaten. I thought of Mrs. Briggs, her arm stiff with exertion, Mrs. Mueller pounding the dough, Bernadette trudging the cleaner she so hated up and down stairs, Elsie struggling with a basket of heavy wet sheets. I thought of Maria and Theresa, preserving their family’s traditions, painstakingly, one plate at a time. And of Alva Tyler, soothing her daughter’s tantrum, even as, at the back of her mind, she felt the ominous absence of her other, more vulnerable child …
“Well, perhaps if Mrs. Behan is tired, you should hire a day girl to help her. It needn’t be every day, it wouldn’t cost much. It’s no small amount of labor to keep people fed, provided of clean clothes and linens, and living in a well-ordered house. You might find her more welcoming of your company.”
“‘A man may work from sun to sun. But a woman’s work is never done.’”
“Well, mine is. But I’m not married, so I get paid. Hire a day girl, Mr. Behan.” I stood and held out my hand. “Goodbye.”
He shook it. “Goodbye, Miss Prescott.”
As I walked away, I heard him call, “When Signor Caruso is next in town, I’ll ask the music critic if he can get you a ticket. He’s in Russia right now, though. Publisher told him to cut his hair and he refused, so off to Moscow he went. Or it might have been Siberia.”
I smiled. And kept walking. As I did, I made a list in my head. I would read the newspaper every day, not rely on what was talked about at the breakfast table. I would ask Elsie if she wished to attend a lecture or go to the pictures or one of those municipal dances. On my days off, I would take secretarial classes at the refuge. Perhaps I might even learn French.
And I would tell William and Louise that I wanted a raise in salary.
* * *
It being a pleasant day, I walked from Herald Square to the Benchley house—although it was currently devoid of Benchleys. Louise was on her honeymoon and Charlotte was dining at the Waldorf with the duchess. Mr. Benchley being out on business, Mrs. Benchley was attending a meeting of the Ladies’ Auxiliary for the Titanic Memorial. The staff ate in the kitchen as usual, but there was a giddy, almost truant mood. The Benchley house was quiet—and to me, who would be leaving soon—almost abandoned. There was a sense of change in the air, and we found ourselves ignoring our traditional roles in the house, all cooking, serving, and clearing the table.
/> “When do you move to the new house?” Elsie asked as we washed the dishes.
“I suppose when they get back in a few weeks. Although they’ll be staying at Mr. William’s mother’s home in the city while it’s finished.” Louise’s dowry had included a townhouse in the East Twenties—and a job for William with the Benchley firm. Mrs. Benchley had been distressed to learn her daughter would be more than a mile away, but Louise had hurried to her father’s side and kissed his cheek once, then twice. And then again.
Bernadette, having sharp ears, heard it first. But the instant she looked up, I heard it, too, the rising cry of an excited crowd. And in the distance, the officious clop of horse hooves and the thud of drums. Seated in the kitchen at the back of the house, we had been unaware there was anything happening outside. The suffrage march. I had forgotten all about it.
Without speaking, we all went out the back door to be confronted by a mass of people gathered on the street. The traffic police were having difficulty holding the crowds; people kept breaking through the cordons and spilling onto the streets to get a better view of the approaching parade.
“I see it!” cried Elsie, who was the tallest among us. “I see it!”
I stood on my toes and gazed where she was pointing. Bernadette was looking, too, although she was trying to appear uninterested. Mrs. Mueller was wiping her hands on her apron, her mind clearly on the dishes in the sink and whether she had turned off the stove. But she, too, was craning her neck for a better view. Up and down the street, people leaned out of windows, waving handkerchiefs.
The happy chatter of the spectators around us turned into a roar as the first marchers appeared. A phalanx of women on horseback carrying American flags and wearing black straw hats with the cockade of the Women’s Political Union led the march. They ranged in age from Mrs. Charles Knoblauch, whose husband had ridden with the Rough Riders, to fourteen-year-old Miss Phyllis Mueller. Also among the leaders was Miss Mabel Lee, or “little Miss Mabel Lee,” as The New York Tribune had called her in a profile titled “Chinese Girl Wants Vote.”
The horsewomen were followed by a blare of brass as the Old Guard Band announced itself. After them, for blocks and blocks, a seemingly unending flood of women in white. At the sound of trumpets, several young women pushed their way through the front of the crowd to join the parade.
“It ends at Carnegie Hall,” said Bernadette cynically. “I don’t know how much marching they’ll be doing.”
And yet she stayed. And I stayed. We all did, transfixed by the sight before us. For myself, I could only think, There are so many of us.
I had lived my life among women. First at my uncle’s refuge, then in the Armslow and Benchley homes. I had spent my time in countless rooms with only other women in them. And yet staring at the river of humanity passing before me, I began to have my first comprehension of how many women there were. Not just here on this street and stretching as far as the eye could see up and down the avenue. But in the city. In the nation. In the world. It was like seeing the ocean for the first time, to be confronted with a glimpse of what the word “vast” truly means.
Wave upon wave, they came. There were society women in all white, factory workers who could afford only a white shirtwaist. Mrs. Belmont, once Mrs. Vanderbilt, marched in a white silk suit with a black ribbon with members of her Political Equality Association, while the eighty-seven-year-old Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell rode on a chariot covered in lilac and dogwood. Other elderly women made their way with canes, while the youngest marchers were pushed by their mothers in carriages. They had divided the women according to profession, and I stood amazed to see all that we did and were. We were doctors, lawyers, clerks, milliners, stenographers, bookkeepers, actresses, unionists, investigators, and students. Nurses, all dressed in uniform, came bearing a banner with the names of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton. They were followed by doctors whose banner honored Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. Then came the writers, marching behind a standard that bore the names of Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The Theatrical Brigade was led by Mrs. Maria Stewart, dressed as Joan of Arc in full armor and riding astride a white horse. Miss Fola La Follette held a banner with the names Modjeska, Siddons, and Kemble. Dressmakers carried a banner emblazoned with a sewing machine. The cooks marched behind a kettle. The enormity of the march was matched by the crowds on sidewalks; women and men—eyes fixed on the marchers as if they were the most important people doing the only thing that mattered in the city that day. Which, I realized, they were. As the socialists marched past singing “La Marseillaise,” I found myself grinning without quite knowing why.
There was some hissing and some boos, but they sounded churlish and pathetic. At some points, rowdies rushed onto the parade route, trying to spook the horses or scatter the marchers—and the police did not stop them. But the marchers refused to be scattered. There were many children, carrying hand-lettered signs that read WE WISH OUR MA COULD VOTE! Other signs read MORE BALLOT, LESS BULLETS! And THE FEEDERS OF THE WORLD WANT VOTES TO LOWER THE COST OF FOOD! There were delegations of men as well, representatives from the League of Men for Women’s Suffrage. Younger men came representing their universities. I thought this was touching and rather brave. They were greeted on some blocks with jeers but with clapping on others.
A great cheer went up as the scholars came into view, several of them wearing academic robes and mortar boards. Girls in the crowd became giddy when they spotted teachers they knew, calling out, “Mrs. Ackerly!,” “Miss Lourdes!” Behind them came their students, carrying banners from their schools. As the rose-and-gray banner of Vassar passed, I caught sight of Emily Tyler, who, seeing the house, and then me, called out, “Jane!” and beckoned me over.
I smiled my apologies, but then Elsie said, “Let’s do it. Let’s march.”
Mrs. Mueller held up a demurring hand, and Bernadette said, “Oh, no.”
Elsie turned to me. “Miss Prescott, will you? I don’t want to do it alone.”
I was about to say no out of habit, then realized I could not think of a single good reason not to.
“Why not? We all should. Come on, Bernadette. Mrs. Mueller?”
The older woman gestured anxiously. “The house…”
“The door locks when you close it and you turned off the oven, don’t worry. Come. It’ll be something to tell your grandchildren about.”
The very mention of the longed-for grandchildren was enough for Mrs. Mueller, who began hesitantly following Elsie as she made her way through the throng. Bernadette, being Bernadette, held out the longest, but finally even she shrugged her way forward.
I had the terrible fear that the moment we stepped foot in the street, someone would shout at us to get back on the pavement, what did we think we were doing? We were too late, we hadn’t signed up, we weren’t wearing white—and we had no thirty-nine-cent hats. And our place, where did we belong? Finally, we found a spot in a section that seemed to be women who worked with their hands, professions ranging from industrial to domestic. It was a lively group. One woman immediately linked arms with a startled Bernadette. Mrs. Mueller, kitchen forgotten, was smiling broadly and humming along with a band a little ahead of us, swishing her apron as she went. Elsie practically skipped down the street, pausing every so often to grab me by the arm and say, “Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it?”
I looked up at the sea of women before us and then behind at all who came after. I thought of Berthe Froehlich, her strong, scarred arms swinging that broom, of that woman on Mulberry, eggplant and good humor raised high. I thought of Louise, who was now learning to be Mrs. William Tyler. I thought of Anna, who was working as hard today as she always did, too busy to join something as frivolous as a march. I thought of Sofia, who would never see another day. Of Mabel, her sturdy little legs stepping into the car as she held fast to her piece of type. And her mother, that brave, marvelous, broken woman who would—I hoped, I prayed—laugh again one day.
“Yes,” I said. “It rea
lly is.”
Epilogue
The other day, I went with my daughter to the Metropolitan Museum, where we had not been since she was little, and I took her to see the Greek statues. She was a very practical child and did not care for art. She doesn’t care much for it as an adult, and after a few rooms, she said she was going to the café and would meet me in the Impressionists.
That left me free to wander among the Eakinses and Sargents. Today I paused by Sargent’s portrait of the Stokeses, whom I remembered as friends of the Armslows. Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes married Edith Minturn, and it is Edith who stands out in the portrait, the vision of the new woman, a straw hat held on cocked hip, a raised eyebrow, frank smile. She is a study in white and black, the crisp snowfall of the skirt contrasting with her vivid black jacket, handsomely accessorized by a black bow tie and white collar. Her husband, a last-moment replacement for a Great Dane who was supposed to partner Edith in the portrait, stands behind in relative shadow.
Gazing at Edith, I thought of Alva Tyler, who had not occupied my thoughts for many decades. She did move to France soon after the events I have related. Her children did not go with her, remaining in the care of their aunt and Mrs. Briggs. When war came, Alva was told to leave by the American embassy. But she stayed, working with the American Hostels for Refugees; after, she made her life at a hospital for men crippled physically and mentally by the war. Some found it astonishing that a woman who had lost her husband to suicide would take refuge among the ill and unbalanced, but a few of us understood it very well. Alva Tyler’s was a nature that was at its best in extremes; physical danger held far less terror for her than domesticity. And I think after the events of 1912, it gave her some solace to live with the mentally anguished. The hospital was a realm where the truth of mental illness was frankly acknowledged and understood; here she could ease her own mind in service to others. She was awarded the Cross of Honor before her death in 1936.
Death of a New American--A Novel Page 24