Then she said, “What about you? No mother? No father?”
“No.”
“Me neither. My aunt says, ‘You need to get married.’ I say, ‘You need to get married.’ She says, ‘We been married.’” She paused. “You want to get married?”
No one had asked me that question before. I thought, Married, but nothing came to mind. “I can’t see him,” I said.
Anna grinned. “Me neither.”
There were weeks she did not come by. The factory kept her for as long as fifteen hours a day. One day, she arrived when I was mending one of my uncle’s shirts in the kitchen. She picked up a spool of thread with a needle stuck in it, and asked, “How much you want for this? Just the needle. I don’t need the thread.”
“Take it,” I said.
“No, I pay you. I lost mine this afternoon, and they sent me home. Said get another by tomorrow or…” She shrugged.
“Don’t they have needles?”
“Sure. But why use theirs when they can make us bring our own? We bring our own thread, scissors … even sewing machines.”
But it wasn’t what the women had to bring that made Anna the most angry, it was what the factory made them pay for. “Five minutes late because your kid threw up on you, you get a fine. Foreman bumps into you while you’re cutting, garment rips, you get a fine. Don’t pee fast enough, you get a fine. During the slow season, they take two dollars out of your pay. We pay for lockers, we pay for the chairs we sit on. The other day, I say, ‘Who owns this factory? Me. You make me buy that locker, this chair, my needle—it’s all mine now.’”
I laughed. “What did the foreman say?”
“He smacked me.”
I stopped laughing.
That spring, the foreman refused to let a pregnant woman go to the bathroom. Anna hiked up her skirts, pulled down her pants, and peed on the floor. Then, standing on her chair, she encouraged the other women to do the same. No one else did, but they banged their chairs on the floor until the woman was allowed to pee. At the end of the day, Anna was told to leave and not come back.
The things I didn’t know made her angry. That we sometimes saw things differently made her angry. Once, a woman presented herself at the refuge, saying she had killed a man who insisted on giving her protection in exchange for two-thirds of her earnings. When he tried to raise it to three-quarters, she cut his throat. She hoped my uncle would shield her from the police. My uncle said she could stay, but if the police came, he could not lie to them.
The police came. The woman was arrested. Anna was furious.
“I thought your uncle was a good man. How could he hand her over like that?”
“What was he supposed to do, break the law?”
“Of course!”
Another difference. I cried when President McKinley was assassinated—partly out of a sudden affection for the sickly Mrs. McKinley, but mainly out of fear that one shabby man could kill the president of the United States. And feel no remorse; Czolgosz had said, “I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn’t believe one man should have so much service, and another man should have none.”
“I can’t understand it,” I said to Anna. “Feeling you’ve done something wonderful by killing someone.”
There was a long, uneasy quiet. Then Anna said, “Well, you can’t understand it. Good for you. I understand it fine.”
I started to feel that she disliked me; she came by less and less. When Mrs. Armslow offered me a job, I told myself that Anna was simply part of everything I was meant to leave behind.
But the day before I left, she arrived with a package for me. It was heavy, wrapped in cloth. “Bread,” she said. “From my aunts.”
“Please thank them for me.”
She nodded, then said abruptly, “A servant?”
“Should I be a bank president?”
“Sure.” I laughed. “Or a teacher. Not a maid. Not … you. Not Jane Prescott.”
Suddenly, she reached out and hugged me very hard.
“I didn’t know you thought so well of me,” I said, half joking.
“Not really,” she said, letting go. “Look, no good-byes. I’ll see you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“We’ll stay friends?” Now she sounded uncertain.
“Yes,” I said.
And we did stay friends. We stayed friends as Anna was fired from the factory for passing out leaflets. We stayed friends as Anna went to work with the International Ladies Garment Workers. We even managed to see each other during what would become known as the Uprising of the Twenty Thousand, when the city’s garment workers went on strike. These days, she teased me less about my work. But her temper still flared if we disagreed, so I tried as a rule to avoid certain subjects.
Working for the Benchleys, I had one day off a week. The day Mr. Benchley demanded to see Norrie Newsome happened to be that day, and I was having dinner with Anna. In the early evening, as I rode the elevated train downtown, the man sitting next to me was reading the newspaper. The L.A. Times bombing was on the front page. There was a large photograph of the fire brigade standing beside the empty shell of a brick building. A screaming headline: L.A. TIMES BUILDING BOMBED! PUBLISHER OTIS CALLS THE BOMBERS “COWARDLY MURDERERS” AND “ANARCHIC SCUM.”
I suspected Anna had anarchist friends, but I had never asked whether she was an anarchist herself. Part of me thought it was better not to know.
We met, as we usually did, at Morelli’s, an Italian restaurant owned by her uncle Salvatore. It was a small room with a black and white tiled floor; the tiles were chipped, and the chair legs caught as you got up or sat down. Her uncle sat silently at a back table. As I came in, he raised his fingers to say hello.
Anna greeted me by saying I looked tired.
“One day,” she said as we sat down, “we’ll organize the domestic workers. Now that would really scare them. Just think—they’d have to live like the rest of us.” She grinned, tore off a piece of bread. “So, how are your Benchleys?”
“Agitated,” I said. “Charlotte has made a great match—or we think she has. The young man has yet to speak to her father. Or his father.”
“Who cares about fathers? She’s not marrying them. So, who is this young man?”
“He is Robert Norris Newsome Jr. Norrie to his friends.”
Anna frowned. “His father is Robert Newsome?”
“Yes,” I said. “Robert Newsome the industrialist.”
“Robert Newsome the murderer,” said Anna, as if she were saying nothing more provocative than Robert Newsome the horticulturalist or Robert Newsome the wine collector.
Seeing my face, she explained, “The Newsome family owns many mines. One mine, the workers went on strike. Newsome sent in Pinkerton agents to break it up. Three men and one woman were killed. Then of course, there’s Shickshinny…”
A waiter brought our food. Anna broke off, saying, “This is not talk for meals.”
“We’re not eating yet. Tell me.”
Sighing, she said, “Several years ago there was an accident at the Shickshinny Mine in Pennsylvania. This mine, a lot of children worked there. Boys, nine, ten years old. They’re small, right? They can get in these little spaces. There’s a cave-in. The boys are trapped. Parents screaming, ‘Dig them out, dig them out.’ Mr. Newsome says, too risky. Could wreck the whole mine. Eight dead kids—who cares? The Shickshinny Mine disaster, you never heard of it?”
Embarrassed, I shook my head.
Pouring wine for both of us, Anna said, “You think they’ll really get married?”
“I don’t know. He’s an unpredictable young man.”
“Maybe tell her to reconsider. Although I’m sure a little thing like Shickshinny wouldn’t bother Charlotte Benchley.”
There was a commotion at the back of the restaurant. In a mix of Italian and English, Anna’s uncle directed the newcomer to the bar. A moment later, an enormous block of ice approached our table, and the man holding it said, “Anna!”
Anna leapt to her feet to greet him. There was laughter as they realized the block of ice stood between them. When the ice had been settled behind the bar, the man returned, wiping his hands and smiling broadly.
Anna introduced him. “Josef, this is my very good friend, Jane Prescott. Jane, this is the very kind Josef Pawlicec.”
The man who shook my hand was shorter than I was and seemed made up of leftover parts gathered from the shop-room floor. His brown hair rose in uneven clumps, giving his head the appearance of an old shaving brush. His potato nose had been broken, and his teeth looked like they had been pushed into his gums at odd angles with gaps in between. But his eyes were large and warm, and when he said, “Very pleased,” in a heavily accented voice, there was an awkward sweetness.
“Do you work together?” I guessed.
They both hesitated. Then Anna said, “Yes,” and he nodded in agreement.
He held out his hand to me. “Is nice to meet you.”
When he had gone, Anna sat down again. “He’s very…” She waved her hands in the air. “But a good man. In fact…”
But whatever that fact was, she decided not to share it with me, adding it to an ever-growing list of things we did not talk about. As we ate, I wondered what it was about me that made me so suspect. That I worked for wealthy families? That my uncle was a minister? Or was it simply my character? My stupidity, I couldn’t help feeling.
It was not until the end of the meal that I worked up the courage to ask Anna what she thought of the L.A. Times bombing.
Trying to keep my tone light, I said, “Mr. Benchley says labor was behind it.”
“Of course he does. The workers are trying to unionize. The newspaper does not wish to. A faulty gas pipe causes an explosion—well, it must be those terrible unionists.”
“It wasn’t a faulty gas pipe,” I said.
“Of course not,” said Anna, sarcastically. “It was bomb-throwing anarchists.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Ask the owner of the L.A. Times.”
“Why would he blow up his own building?”
Anna threw up her hands. “So people like you will say, ‘Oh, how horrible! Yes, things are bad for workers, but this is too much! We cannot listen to such people.’”
“I never said that.” But I wasn’t sure what I had said or meant to say. And so neither of us said anything until we had left the restaurant.
Anna said, “Do something for me.”
“What?”
“Come with me to a meeting someday. Hear for yourself what we believe.”
I hesitated. Anna had just admitted to me that there was a “we,” a larger group that she was part of. She was trusting me, and I didn’t want to discourage that.
“What if I hate it?” I asked.
“Would you hate me as well?”
“Of course not.”
“Then who cares?”
I wanted to believe Anna would not care. And yet … “Why?”
She sighed. “Maybe I don’t want you to waste your life serving the Robert Newsomes of this world. Maybe I’m a matchmaker and I want you to meet an intellectual.”
“So I can waste my life serving him?”
“We believe in equality of the sexes. Maybe he serves you.”
Now that we were joking, I said, “Well, maybe to meet such a man, I will come.”
Anna walked me to the elevated. As I turned to go up the stairs, she asked, “Do you know what Taft said about the Pullman Strike?”
I shook my head.
“When the soldiers shot six strikers, he said, ‘They’ve only killed six of them. Hardly enough to make an impression.’”
Kissing me good-bye, she whispered, “I wonder, how many do we have to kill? To make an impression.”
* * *
A few days later, Norrie presented himself at Mr. Benchley’s office. A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Newsome wrote that they would be returning home for the Newsomes’ annual Christmas Eve ball and the engagement would be announced that night.
Whatever Mr. Benchley had said to Norrie, it had clearly made an impression.
* * *
I would like to tell the reader that I was filled with high purpose after hearing of the Shickshinny Mine disaster. That I found my domestic duties demeaning, and resolved to pursue a new and nobler life. Then you would be reading about an altogether more forward-thinking woman. Sadly, I am not that woman, so you will have to hear how I was preoccupied with the task of getting the Benchley women through the Newsome ball without social disaster.
All three Benchley women were in a frenzy. Each felt the need to look her best. Dresses were presented, tried, and rejected in the hundreds. Shoes and jewelry matched and unmatched. We had little over a month to prepare, and as Mr. Newsome had business concerns in Pennsylvania, the Benchleys would not meet their future relatives until the actual day of the ball. A charming note had arrived from Mrs. Newsome, regretting the lack of time for a “simple tea where we might all get to know one another.” But she was sure the Benchleys understood, “as this will be my very first Newsome Christmas gathering as hostess.” Charlotte received that statement with a toss of her head and a comment that the staff was doing all the actual work.
Society opinion on Mrs. Newsome was violently split. Her mother-in-law, the formidable Mrs. James Newsome, had left the country rather than associate with her. Not even the revival of the famed Newsome Christmas Eve ball had enticed her back, as she let it be known that any event hosted by “that woman” would certainly end in disaster.
The new Mrs. Newsome’s supporters pointed to her tireless efforts on behalf of charity, her humility, and her touching devotion to her husband. Of course she was beautiful—“catastrophically so” in the words of one admirer—and the kind of beauty that allows a woman to break the rules is always fascinating. A besotted bartender at the St. Regis Hotel had created a drink for her, the Rose Blush, a delicate concoction of vodka, sugar, egg white, and crushed berries. To those who found the New York of Caroline Astor dull and fusty, Rose Newsome was a breath of fresh air. Who else would have the insouciance to host her first ball a mere month after returning from Europe?
Mrs. Benchley could not decide which camp she belonged to. On the one hand, she was about to be related to the lady. On the other, as a newcomer herself, she was anxious about an association with a woman many regarded as an interloper.
I did find it odd that Mrs. Newsome had not made more effort to invite the Benchley women to her home. Were the Newsomes playing for time in the hopes that Norrie’s attachment would burn itself out before a formal announcement had to be made?
At a time when her guidance would have been most welcome, Mrs. Tyler was notably absent. And Mrs. Tyler was not the only one who was avoiding the Benchley home. Norrie’s visits had become fewer and fewer. When he did come, the visit usually ended in an argument.
According to Bernadette, a house maid who was braver than I about listening at doors, Norrie’s affections were not much in evidence. “She’s doing all the talking, he just grunts. She asks him, does he like her dress today? He says it’s ‘quite Scarsdale.’”
Raising my eyebrows, I said, “What did Miss Charlotte say to that?”
“Not a thing. She wants to marry this boy bad, doesn’t she?”
“I guess so.”
“Then she asks what that stepmother of his is up to—you know, trying to make it her and him against the new wife.”
“Did that work?”
“No. Right in the middle of her talking, he says he’s meeting friends. She says, ‘What friends?’ He says, ‘You don’t know ’em.’”
Bernadette sipped her coffee. “Now that does make her mad, so she says, ‘I know Beatrice Tyler quite well, thank you.’ And he goes, ‘Only because your mother paid her mother for the privilege.’ Is that true?”
I shrugged as if I had no idea.
“So, anyway, she says, ‘I saw you dancing with her at the Bitterho
ffs’—all night you was dancing with her.’ And he says, ‘So what if I was? She’s a very fine dancer, and I get tired of the Scarsdale Trit Trot.’”
“Oh, dear.” I cupped the mug in my palms. “What did she say to that?”
“Well, she was mad, you could tell. But she’s still trying to be sweet, so she goes, ‘You’re upset because of those notes.’”
“What notes?” I asked.
It was Bernadette’s turn to shrug. “Don’t know. He just said, ‘Those notes are a joke, I told you.’ Then he left.” Bernadette sat back in her chair. “She should throw the ring in his face, you ask me.”
“She doesn’t have one,” I reminded her.
Then, a week before the ball, Norrie left the city.
In her room, Louise whispered, “He said he wanted to go to Philadelphia to look at his business. Charlotte said he never cared before, why now?”
“Perhaps because he is getting married,” I said, trying to put the best face on it.
“Maybe.” Louise leaned against the wall with her hands behind her back. “Charlotte’s horribly upset about it, though.”
People being upset reminded me. “Miss Louise, has your sister ever said anything about notes?” She shook her head. “Letters sent to the Newsome house?”
“No. Why?”
“Nothing. I must have … misunderstood.”
That evening, when I went to Charlotte’s room to prepare her for bed, I found her dabbing at her eyes with a cloth, a bowl of ice water nearby. Seeing me, she sniffed and said, “I hate when my eyes swell up. I look like a pig.”
Charlotte was so rarely self-critical, I felt sympathetic. “I’m sure Mr. Newsome will return from Philadelphia soon.”
Taking up the brush, I began pulling the pins from her hair. “And it’s a good thing, isn’t it, that he wants to take on more responsibility?”
“Is that what he’s doing?” she asked, looking at her reflection in the mirror. “Jane? When you worked for Mrs. Armslow…” She turned her head to look at me, and I had to stop brushing. “You must have seen them, Norrie and Beatrice. Together.”
A Death of No Importance--A Novel Page 4
