by Maya Rodale
“But that’s not who our clientele is—” Mr. Stevens interrupted. “The Goodwin’s woman is a respectable matron—a wife, a mother—who prizes legacy instead of a flash in the pan.”
Beatrice bit the inside of her cheek and tried not to take personally comments about respectable wives and mothers when she was neither respectable, nor a wife, nor a mother, when she had failed at all those things. Nor was she likely to become any of these things.
“Be that as it may,” she continued, “I think we should endeavor to attract new clientele. Future wives and mothers, if you will. But to do that we shall have to change our offerings. I suggest that we begin by drastically reducing the price of our merchandise for a limited time—”
“But then we’ll lose money. It needs to sell for the price we set otherwise—”
“But it’s not earning anything at these prices,” she countered. Her voice was rising up into a question again. “We must restock with merchandise that will appeal to a younger clientele that is looking for something new.”
Beatrice looked at a sea of bored old white male faces, which were becoming redder old male faces as they started grumbling amongst themselves. Because she was, in effect, some scandalous divorcée with no retail experience other than shopping, telling them that they were bad at their jobs.
But she did have experience. She was born and raised in this business, trailing her papa and learning at his knee and listening as he explained a new store policy or one of his guiding principles. She wasn’t a complete novice. Until recently, she had also been precisely their ideal customer: a respectable, wealthy woman with nothing to do all day but visit shops and spend her husband’s money out of spite.
Besides, it’s not like it was surgery.
This was just shopping.
Which was a silly and frivolous thing ladies did to amuse themselves that generated serious and respectable fortunes for men. Yet somehow women were still unqualified for the business of retail.
Beatrice felt herself losing their attention. She would have to hurry now. She did her best impression of the dowager duchess who, despite being a tiny, ancient woman, managed to inspire terror in all whom she met.
“Going forward, I should like to approve all orders,” Beatrice declared.
The grumble of male voices intensified.
“What do you know about buying?” some man with slicked-back hair asked hotly.
“I don’t see evidence that you know much about it, either,” Beatrice replied hotly, without thinking, as she was wont to do.
The man’s face reddened with humiliation. He went quiet. His eyes flashed and she felt something like fear quaking through her veins. Yet she had to continue; what option did she have but to continue now?
“I should also like to see a display of bicycles. For women.”
This was greeted with laughter.
“But our clientele is old.”
“But our clientele are women.”
“Frances Willard was fifty-three when she learned to ride a bike,” Beatrice pointed out, mentioning the famous suffragist who wrote a bestselling book of her experiences learning to ride. “Bicycling is now all the rage among the younger set. We can sell the bicycles, accessories, the new styles of cycling attire for men and women, Ms. Willard’s book. We can offer lessons in the park . . .”
There was some laughter. And some kindly men took to explaining why all of that would never work, why she was misguided, why she ought to leave the running of the business to them. There were some facts and figures that she could not counter. She hadn’t proof and experience to support her arguments, just a feeling that other women might be interested in the same things as she, like the feeling of freedom that came from riding one of those steeds of steel.
The employees did not listen to her.
It didn’t matter that she had her name above the door.
She was quite certain, fairly certain, that her assessments and plans were sound and that she knew how to appeal to lady shoppers. Perhaps she started too soon, perhaps she ought to have prepared more. Perhaps she never should have embarked on this at all.
Doubts rose up, sticking in her throat.
These men with their mutterings and grumblings and wandering off made her feel like she was back at the castle, inquiring if her husband would be home for a holiday and being told it was none of her business.
The meeting disbanded.
Beatrice promptly went to cry in the ladies’ room.
Chapter Ten
The next day
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Beatrice attended to matters at the store, poring over account books and correspondence, touring every department each day and inserting herself into conversations and decisions, and making a valiant effort to do her job. At every turn, she found it a challenge.
Thank God for Margaret. The salesgirl had been kept occupied with running errands and menial tasks for department heads, and as such she had learned everything about how the store was run. She had ideas how to do it better. Apparently Beatrice was the first and only person who wanted to listen.
As the days went by, Beatrice had the sneaking suspicion that it would be an impossible task to restore Goodwin’s to its former glory—and that former glory wouldn’t even cut it anymore.
Something drastic and modern and new had to be done to save it from bankruptcy and falling into Dalton’s clutches. But what?
But beyond that, Beatrice was at a loss. She spent sleepless nights tossing and turning and considering how to change the appearance of the store, the merchandise they sold, the way it was displayed. How to convey her vision and inspire the staff, so set in their ways, to make the necessary changes, when they would not even listen to her.
She held the reins—but felt like she didn’t know how to drive or where to go.
But the fact remained that she held the reins.
So make no mistake, she would have to do something—and soon. One didn’t pack off their brother to the sanitarium for no reason. There was a board of directors to answer to, and creditors, and customers, and hundreds of shopgirls and staff members.
The card from the Ladies of Liberty had been resting on her vanity table, next to a silver mirror and brush set from Tiffany and a pretty jar of Dr. Swan’s Midnight Miracle cream which she had purchased from an advertisement in the newspaper and which she hoped would do something about the faint lines beginning to appear around her eyes.
We take callers on Tuesdays, the dressmaker had said. The dressmaker, Miss Adeline Black, who had wisely advised her on consulting lawyers and other such businesslike things and it had proved to be invaluable. She had also crafted dresses for Beatrice that made her feel like it was a good idea to storm into a board of directors meeting and make demands.
Today was Tuesday.
Beatrice went downtown to the address on the card and found a plain brick town house. She was shown into the drawing room immediately. The room was sparsely but comfortably furnished, with many upholstered chairs and settees to accommodate a dozen or so women of varying ages, sizes, colors, everything, presenting a full spectrum of the humanity of womankind. They were all very clearly at home with each other, as they sipped tea and ate sandwiches and chatted amongst themselves.
“Duchess, I’m so glad to see you!” Miss Black, the dressmaker, stood to greet her and gave a warm smile. “I think I speak for everyone present when I say that we’ve been expecting you.”
“I’m afraid you all have me at a disadvantage,” Beatrice replied nervously. “And please, call me Beatrice.”
Another woman stood and stepped forward, hand outstretched, and introduced herself and the group.
“I’m Miss Harriet Burnett and we are the Ladies of Liberty. We are a secret and subversive group dedicated to the professional advancement of women. Ever since we learned of your new position as president of Goodwin’s, we have been expecting you. Hoping, rather.”
A blonde woman seated nearby said, �
�For goodness’ sake’s, Harriet, let the woman sit down and have some tea.”
“My apologies. I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s just that the possibilities of your position mean that—”
“Please—do sit. Have some tea.” The woman gave her a welcoming smile. “I’m Miss Ava Lumley.”
She introduced the rest of the women and their various endeavors—writers mingled with physicians and nurses, activists sipped tea with architects, businesswomen spoke in hushed tones with society matrons. All of them women.
Beatrice had never seen a collection of talented, entrepreneurial women assembled all at once, and together they made a simple but stunning show that women could—and did—do more than simper among the draperies. No matter what the newspapers or history books would have one believe.
Beatrice had had some idle awareness of it, deep down, but this made it all clear to her.
Harriet, who could scarcely conceal her delight for Beatrice’s presence, launched right in. “Please accept our sincere congratulations on your new role at the store, Beatrice.”
She smiled and said “thank you” and was embarrassed because she might have had such an impressive job but she felt woefully inept at it.
“I think I speak for all women present when I say what an accomplishment it is for you to attain such a high-profile position, serving as a beacon to all the other women out there.”
Beatrice sipped her tea as the pressure in her chest mounted, because good God she had not thought of that on top of everything else. She still hadn’t figured out how to handle the staff and now she had to be mindful of all the other women out there, watching her, pinning their hopes and dreams upon her success. It was a different sort of pressure than one felt just being judged by society and coming up wanting—she was accustomed to that. But to fail and dash the hearts and hopes of young girls? Well, now she had something else to keep her up at night. Splendid.
“Thank you for your felicitations. I am so glad to know that people are hopeful for my success. But I don’t know that I can be a beacon to other women, as you say. I am quite over my head, you see. As you must know, Goodwin’s is not what it once was. I have a monumental task ahead of me to make it glorious again.” She sipped her tea. What had she been thinking? This is what she got for storming into meetings, running her mouth off. This is why she’d always been told to sit still and bite her tongue. To keep herself out of trouble. “To say nothing of the competition.”
“Do you doubt yourself?” Harriet asked, as if she could not quite believe it.
“Do not all women doubt themselves?”
“But you were a duchess. You had castles at your command.”
“And you grew up in the business of department stores. It is in your blood, surely.”
“If nothing else, you are a New Yorker,” one woman said with a glimmer in her eye.
“I have spent the past sixteen years in a crumbling old castle, being regularly chastised by the duke and the dowager duchess for breathing too loudly, speaking too much, existing too vibrantly. I am not quite the foolishly ambitious young girl of eighteen I once was,” Beatrice said.
She believed in herself but had been told not to a few too many times.
She wanted to succeed wildly, but had been made to feel like a failure more often than she liked.
Of course she burned with ambition and desire to conquer all.
Still, she felt like an imposter.
Nevertheless, she did not want to let them all down. It was important that she manage expectations, especially if these women wished to make an example of her, and wished her to be a role model for countless other women. Beatrice did not need this added pressure to succeed.
“If you are daring, cunning, and ruthless enough to obtain the position, I daresay you have the spirit and stomach to do the job well,” Harriet said. “You’ll figure it out. You’ll learn. You must. Women are looking to you. Counting on you.”
“But I don’t even know where to begin,” Beatrice sighed.
“I should think the first step is obvious,” Adeline said with an enviable confidence. “You must go shopping. You must visit every last shop on the Ladies’ Mile.”
“Yes! You should survey the scene. Take stock of the competition. See what innovations have been done.”
“And seek an understanding of what a department store is really providing to its customers,” Harriet added sagely. Beatrice understood, in her heart, that it wasn’t just the selling of stuff but she didn’t know how to express what else it could be.
“Of course you must start at Dalton’s,” a red-haired woman suggested.
Beatrice smiled tightly. Politely. Under no circumstances could she go to Dalton’s.
“Of course she must go to Dalton’s. A store so well-known and self-assured that it doesn’t even have its name on the building.”
“A store that puts all others to shame. Everyone else simply copies what Dalton has done. She needn’t visit every shop on the Ladies’ Mile at all, just this one.”
“Unfortunately I cannot be seen setting foot there,” Beatrice said. She sipped her tea and hoped this group of smart women would have another suggestion which they could all discuss. “He is eager to buy Goodwin’s. In fact, he had already made an offer which I refused.”
“And apparently cajoled the board into refusing, too.”
“See, Beatrice, if you have managed that already, surely you can manage a department store.”
“My gratitude to Adeline for suggesting that I look into the matter so thoroughly and suggesting professional help.”
“We are here to help you in any way we can,” Adeline said.
“Can we go back to the part where she refused to sell to Wes Dalton?”
“Can you even imagine?”
More than one woman gave a dreamy sigh. Beatrice was confused; was this a professional women’s association or a gathering of women to talk about men?
“If you have refused Wes Dalton you can do anything,” one woman said, and Beatrice thought how she didn’t even know the half of it. How she’d known him before he was the Wes Dalton, the stuff of their daydreams. How she knew him to be a fortune hunter who aspired to nothing more than owning her store.
“It’s unheard of.”
“Unprecedented.”
“Who is Wes Dalton and what is so great about him?” asked a young woman who was clearly newly arrived in town.
“Wes Dalton is a legend,” Adeline explained. “In a city of unfathomable fortunes he is one of the richest. No one knows where he came from. One day, he’s a nobody. The next day he’s one of the richest men in New York.”
“All the other shops pale in comparison to his. Shop is too small a word for the magical space he has created for women.”
“You’re forgetting the most important part,” Harriet said.
“No, I’m getting to it,” Adeline said. “He is known to be tremendously supportive of women’s charitable endeavors. He gave funds to Miss Van Allen’s new Audubon society. And Miss Claflin’s settlement house. And a half a dozen other charities supporting women and the poor.”
Beatrice had expected them to wax poetical about how handsome he was: those sparkling blue eyes, the distinguished gray in his dark hair, his firm mouth. She hadn’t expected him to be so noble. Not when he was so ruthlessly seeking revenge. She felt confused. Worse, she felt intrigued.
“And when he looks at a woman, he looks like he’s really listening to her.”
“Yes, and not scanning the room for someone prettier, thinner, or richer.”
And so they went on about how he asked thoughtful questions and listened to the answer, and smelled really good and probably remembered birthdays, too. His store was always a beautiful, brightly lit refuge for women. Beatrice struggled to reconcile this man who’d tried to seduce her for her store and disappeared when her parents paid him off. The one who’d tried to buy her birthright for a song, just so he could shut it down. The one who was hell
-bent on revenge.
Drat, now she was intrigued.
“I cannot be seen going into his shop. However, I can certainly take a tour of all the other stores on the Ladies’ Mile.”
“You really can’t miss Dalton’s. Not if you want to know who your main competitor is. After all, his department store is right across the street from yours.”
A fact of which she was painfully aware. It was there, looming over her when she arrived in the morning and left exhausted each night. It was a six-story marble reminder that she could not fail.
“You said you cannot be seen going into his shop,” Harriet said shrewdly. “But is there a time he isn’t there?”
“Even if there is, he’ll certainly have people who will notice her and report back to him that she was there.”
“What I’m hearing is that she needs a disguise.”
“What, like a pirate?” Beatrice quipped.
“There is a deplorable lack of lady pirates running around the island of Manhattan,” Harriet said.
“We can all agree on that,” Ava said.
“We do have the power to change that,” one woman said, and there were conspiratorial smiles and laughter all around suggesting that when a fleet of lady pirates attacked the docks, Beatrice would know exactly who was behind it.
She imagined it and she laughed.
The other women did, too, all their voices blending together in a roar of mirth.
And something happened: the pressure in her chest eased.
Between the pressures of being a duchess, the strain of trying to obtain her divorce, the uncertainty of her future as a scandalous divorcée, and now the drama surrounding Edward, Dalton, and the store, Beatrice hadn’t had a moment to just breathe.
But here was a space that she could just be, where the conversation could flow from professional ambitions to handsome men to lady pirates.
The other women wanted her to succeed. For better or for worse. It was an enormous amount of weight to carry on her shoulders but they would also help her carry it.
This was what Beatrice had been missing in her marriage—support and friendship. The other peeresses had never really welcomed the lowborn, new-money American into their intimate circles. This is what she’d been missing as a debutante; all the other women were in competition with her for husbands.