The Measure of a Lady

by Deeanne Gist

  Lissa’s elbows and hands poked against the fabric as she removed her undergarments beneath the shelter of her nightdress. ‘‘There, you see. That’s just what I’m talking about. You want to work us to the bone, while all of them kick up their heels.’’

  Lissa’s movements stopped, a dreamy look transforming her face. ‘‘Oh, Rache, they give all kinds of fancy parties and balls. And you should see their wardrobes. It’s like a museum of Godey’s fashion plates. With no expense spared. And their food. Why, they have a cook that makes meals you couldn’t buy anywhere in town.’’

  As soon as Lissa threaded her hands through her sleeves, Rachel grasped them. ‘‘You mustn’t glamorize them, Lissa. For at the dark of night, they debase themselves in unnatural and unwholesome ways.’’

  The girl looked down at their clasped hands. ‘‘You want to know a secret?’’ she whispered.

  Alarm bells clamored inside Rachel. No. No, I do not.

  ‘‘I think I might be suited to be one of them.’’

  Rachel gasped.

  Lissa squeezed her hands, swallowing but refusing to look up. ‘‘I know this shocks you, but try to understand, Rache. I . . . I like the attention the men give me. I like it when they touch me. I especially like it when they touch me in places they oughtn’t.’’

  This last was said in such a hushed tone, Rachel could hardly hear it. But hear it she did. And with it came the horror of realization that she had experienced those self-same pangs in the arms of a saloon owner.

  Rachel wrenched her hands free and grabbed Lissa, hugging her tightly, the smell of smoke clinging to her hair. ‘‘It’s only because it’s forbidden that you feel that way. Eve felt the same thing about the apple, and look what happened to her. You must turn away from it. Stuff it down into a deep hidden place within and never let it out.’’

  Lissa gently withdrew from her sister’s embrace, a wry expression on her face. ‘‘Perhaps Dr. Everett has some tonic I could take. He should know. He was there tonight.’’

  Rachel groaned. ‘‘Oh, Lissa, please. These . . . these feelings you have. Are they for someone in particular?’’

  Moistening her lips, Lissa nodded.

  ‘‘Well, what happens when the next man wants a turn? Women of that sort have to go the whole hog. Don’t you see what I’m saying? They lose the right to say no. They have to accept the touch of any man who wants one.’’ She swallowed, apprehension shuddering through her body. ‘‘Think, child. Envision some of the filthy puguglies in this town. I cannot even stand to smell them. Those poor women have to accept touches of the most intimate nature from them.’’

  Lissa cocked her head. ‘‘How do you know all this?’’

  Rachel took a deep breath. ‘‘I’ve read most every book in Father’s library. You would be shocked to your very toes were you to have an inkling of what I’ve learned.’’

  ‘‘Tell me.’’

  ‘‘Certainly not. I had no business reading them. I’m not going to compound my sin by repeating their contents to you.’’

  ‘‘Did you read about kept women?’’ Lissa asked.

  ‘‘Kept women?’’

  ‘‘Yes. Women who are kept, or supported, by one man. He lavishes her with gifts, flowers, poetry, fancy clothes. Everything.’’

  ‘‘In exchange for her favors.’’

  ‘‘But she doesn’t mind sharing her favors with him. She loves him.’’

  ‘‘Then why doesn’t she marry him?’’

  ‘‘Not all men are the marrying kind.’’

  ‘‘The respectable ones are.’’

  ‘‘Like the respectable ones that came to the party tonight?’’

  Rachel had no answer for that. ‘‘Kept women aren’t loved, Lissa. They are like animals. Petted, offered a few treats, and caged. What woman wants that?’’

  ‘‘What woman wants to kill herself providing for a husband who saves all the sweet stuff for his moonlight lady?’’

  Rachel wrung her hands. ‘‘Not all of them have moonlight ladies.’’

  Lissa raised an eyebrow.

  ‘‘They don’t. And you’ll just have to take my word for it. Now, we’ll hear no more of this foolish talk, and we’ll no longer fraternize with women of ill repute. Do you understand?’’

  ‘‘Where did you get your costume?’’

  O, Lord. ‘‘Where did you get yours?’’

  ‘‘From Carmelita,’’ Lissa answered.

  ‘‘Me, too,’’ Rachel replied softly.

  ‘‘Well, give it to me, and I’ll return it to her tomorrow when you go water the trees.’’

  Rachel was already shaking her head. ‘‘No, Lissa. You must stay away from those women.’’

  Smoothing the folded gown on the table, Lissa sighed. ‘‘Good night, Rachel.’’

  A lump as hard and heavy as a flat iron settled in Rachel’s stomach as Lissa pulled back the blanket and cozied into bed.

  ————

  Try as she might, Rachel could not get Lissa to accompany her. The girl outright refused. So, leaving her sister under Michael’s watchful eye, Rachel dressed in her Sunday best and made her way to the surveyor’s office on the corner of Sacramento and Stockton streets.

  The smell of fresh wood permeated the newly constructed one-room building. Architectural drawings, plot maps, and assorted papers covered every available surface. Surveying instruments and compasses leaned against the plank walls.

  In the center, a man in tattered flannel, dirt, and buckskin sat huddled over his scarred desk, scribbling notes. ‘‘Be with you in a moment, boys.’’

  Rachel’s stillness must have struck him as unusual, for he looked up and jumped to his feet. ‘‘Oh. Pardon me, Miss Van Buren. I didn’t realize it was you.’’

  ‘‘Good afternoon, sir.’’

  Rachel scrutinized him, trying to remember if he was one of the men who had attended the ball but could not tell for certain.

  ‘‘If I may say so, miss, you look lovely today. Quite lovely. Is there something I can assist you with?’’

  ‘‘I’d like to open a restaurant, sir. You are the Mr. Wingate that is on the town council, are you not?’’

  ‘‘Yes, yes. I certainly am, and this is wonderful news. I know the boys would love to sample some of those dinners they’ve been smelling over at Johnnie’s place. What did you have in mind?’’

  ‘‘I’d like a sound structure with a kitchen, at a good location, and for a reasonable price, please.’’

  He chuckled. ‘‘You and everybody else, miss.’’

  She folded her gloved hands in front of her and his expression sobered.

  ‘‘Oh, well.’’ He shuffled through some papers on his desk. ‘‘Ah, here we are.’’

  He withdrew a large diagram of the city showing a grid of streets. Instead of forming them around the hills, the men had graded the thoroughfares to run north and south or east and west without regard for the difficulty the people would have traversing up and down the steep inclines.

  ‘‘Here’s one a little distance from the business portion of the city that’s twenty-one feet by a hundred twenty. It’s going for seven to eight hundred dollars.’’

  ‘‘Per year?’’

  ‘‘Per month, miss.’’

  Rachel swallowed. ‘‘I think that particular location might be better suited for a residence. Have you anything else not quite so costly?’’

  He slowly straightened. ‘‘That was for the lot alone. Without a building.’’

  ‘‘I see.’’ Rachel glanced at the plot map. They had saved somewhere in the neighborhood of two thousand dollars. A fortune back home, mere pocket change here.

  ‘‘Are there any lots with buildings on them?’’ she asked. ‘‘Wooden ones, of course, not canvas.’’

  ‘‘Oh, sure, sure. But those run about eighteen hundred a month.’’

  Good heavens. ‘‘Mr. Wingate, I cannot afford such sums. Is there anyone you know that is looking to transfer their holding
s? Perhaps while they go up to the diggings?’’

  He unhooked the glasses that perched on his nose. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’

  Frowning, Rachel bit her lip. ‘‘I’ve noticed that the building next to the City Hotel has been boarded up since my arrival two months ago. Whom does that belong to?’’

  ‘‘I’m afraid that’s proprietary information. All transactions go through the council, but if you’d like, I can look that piece of property up.’’

  He replaced his glasses, pulled a ledger out from beneath a slew of papers, and flipped it open, running his finger down each page. ‘‘Ah, here we are. Yes, that lot is eighty by eighty, and with the building, the asking price is fifteen thousand.’’

  ‘‘Fifteen thousand! But it’s been sitting there empty for two months.’’

  ‘‘I’m just going by what it says here, Miss Van Buren.’’

  ‘‘Perhaps you could speak to the owner on my behalf? I would be glad to exchange my services for rent. Why, he could receive all his meals for free, or I could take in his washing, or any number of things.’’

  He slowly closed the book. ‘‘I will ask. Could you come back in a couple of days?’’

  ‘‘Yes, of course. And thank you.’’

  ————

  ‘‘But I don’t want to,’’ Lissa whined. She fell into one of their chairs, shoulders slumped. ‘‘I soak my hands every day at this time in peppermint tea. Besides, the men will be coming soon for their shaves.’’

  Rachel squatted down at her sister’s feet, taking hold of her hands. The peppermint tea soaks had not done much to slow the callouses that had formed on Lissa’s pretty white palms and fingers. ‘‘Your shaving-salon days are over. And my saloon-cleaning days are over. We both need a switch.’’

  ‘‘We’re not working in the hotel anymore?’’

  ‘‘Only for as long as it takes us to get the restaurant open and running. Then no more cleaning up after all those men.’’

  Lissa stared at Rachel, her expression inscrutable.

  ‘‘Come on, let’s go see what our new home looks like.’’

  She tugged Lissa to her feet and grabbed a lantern, and then the two of them walked over to the abandoned building next door.

  The proprietor must have been convinced by Mr. Wingate of Rachel’s potential for success, because the rent he negotiated on her behalf would start out ridiculously low and move up on a graduated scale. Lord willing, this would give her time to establish her business and turn a bit of a profit before being expected to pay the inflated prices that currently pervaded the market.

  It took her three tries to make the key turn within the rusted lock on the front door. The sound of scurrying rodents reached her ears as she slowly pushed the door open and sunlight spilled into the large spacious room.

  The girls stood side-by-side in the doorway, trying to see beyond the path of light and into the gloomy darkness. Rachel lit the lantern and held it high. Whoever had lived in the house before had been in a great hurry to leave.

  A rough plank table, three times the size of an ordinary one, afforded ample room for an entire family plus a number of guests. Long benches lined both sides of the table. Dishes and doilies coated in dust lay eerily in place, as if the family would be called to dinner at any moment. No time had been taken to cover the furniture with cloths or stack the dishes on a shelf.

  A huge boarded-up window with real leaded glass was to the immediate left of the door. The daubing that filled the cracks in the plank walls had long since disintegrated and crumbled, allowing shafts of light to pierce through the darkness from all sides.

  Some broken bamboo fishing rods made frames for two screens covered in cream material and painted with sprays of wild roses. This token attempt at domesticity looked rather pathetic hanging at odd angles from two rusted nails along the otherwise bare wall of the building.

  ‘‘It has a wooden floor,’’ Lissa said.

  And so it did, filthy though it was. They stepped inside, a closed up musty smell dominating the room.

  Lissa caught the door. ‘‘Don’t close it. This place gives me the collywobbles.’’

  Rachel left the door open and they walked across the room to an archway that separated them from the remainder of the house. Their high-heeled slippers echoed within the room, bouncing off every corner, their skirts setting off a whirlwind of dust.

  Lissa sneezed. Rachel pulled a cobweb from her nose and mouth.

  The other side of the archway held a kitchen with everything in its proper place. Three pairs of work boots were neatly lined up by the back door, a set of stockings slung over the edge of one boot. They had clearly once been wet but were now as dry as a sand bed and hard as tack.

  A table covering, which had formerly been flour sacks, had taken on the appearance of a mop cloth and was neatly folded atop a pastry table. A muddy pair of well-worn pantaloons lay across the back of a spindly chair that, along with three other chairs, surrounded a second table.

  A broom, dishcloth, and face towel each occupied a nail in the wall. A frying pan, with marks of grease, sat ready and waiting atop a wood-burning stove.

  Rachel moved to examine the stove more closely. Every part of it showed signs of gross neglect, but with a bit of attention, perseverance, and hard work, she just might be able to make it work again.

  ‘‘Would you look at this, Lissa? It’s a Leamington. Why on earth would someone leave such a thing behind?’’

  But Rachel received the sound of hollow footsteps as a response. She turned in time to catch the back of Lissa’s skirts heading up a set of stairs tucked into the opposite wall.

  A bubble of excitement began to percolate inside Rachel. How precious of the Lord to provide her with a home already furnished. She had expected to find a vacant building and instead had been blessed with a structure that would require very little investment indeed.

  Lissa clunked back down the stairs. ‘‘It would be easier to knock the whole thing down and start over than to try and clean this place.’’

  Rachel smiled. ‘‘What’s upstairs?’’

  ‘‘Besides rats?’’

  ‘‘Besides rats.’’

  ‘‘Two rooms. Two cots. One stove.’’

  Warmth at God’s generosity swept through her. ‘‘Well, I suppose we should start at the top and work our way down. You ready?’’

  ‘‘No, I’m not ready. I want nothing to do with it. This is your idea, not mine. If you want to work yourself to an early grave, you go right ahead, but leave me out of it.’’

  Even angry, the girl was a sight to behold. The red scarf wrapped about her head would not quite hold the profusion of blond hair within its confines. Her green eyes snapped with anger and life. Her pretty jaw jutted out in stubbornness.

  Rachel could love no babe born from her own body more fiercely than she loved this sister of hers. ‘‘Come now, it won’t be as bad as all that. A little scrubbing never hurt anybody.’’

  Lissa burst into tears. Not little tears. Not quiet tears. Big, bold, dramatic tears. She flung herself into a chair, sending up a poof of dust around her, and covered her face with both hands.

  Honestly. It was a shame that acting was such an immoral occupation. For Lissa certainly had a flare for it. Rachel moved to her and pulled her up into her arms, holding her while the girl spent out her sorrow.

  She patted Lissa’s back. ‘‘We shall make a list of all that has to be done. I will let you choose which tasks you find least offensive and you can start with those. Agreed?’’

  ‘‘I’ll find them all offensive.’’

  Her muffled reply caused Rachel to give her a tight squeeze. ‘‘It will be fun. We shall sing while we work, and when we are through, we will have a place all our own.’’ She pushed Lissa back a ways so she could see her face. ‘‘And we will buy you some pretty fabric for a new dress that you can wear on opening day.’’

  Lissa wrinkled her nose. ‘‘Nothing calico.’’

  ‘‘V
ery well, dear. We shall buy you something frivolous indeed.’’

  ————

  Rachel wasn’t going to buy that girl anything. Not at this rate. Every job Lissa did she left half done. Every job she did took three times the amount of time it should. Every job she did was accompanied by incessant complaining.

  What should have taken the two of them three weeks at most was stretching into more than a month, and they were still far from done.

  Michael could not help much, what with all the jobs he held during the day and on into the night. And the girls only had the afternoons to work due to their obligations at the hotel and greenhouse.

  Still, enough was enough. There was nothing hard about weaving a chair seat, but there were certain steps to follow, and if you skipped any steps, it would show.

  Rachel looked at the ladder-back chair and its freshly woven seat, sagging in the middle and fracturing along the sides. Clearly, Lissa had not soaked the splits in water before starting. If she had, they would have tightened on the chair frame as they dried, produced a good firm seat, and not cracked along the edges when she nailed them down.

  Rachel tossed down her mop cloth and burst through the back door. Lissa was not in the yard.

  Rachel checked upstairs, downstairs, inside the scullery, inside the pantry. Where in the world had that child run off to now? There was nothing to do but carry on until her sister returned. But when she did, there would be a reckoning like never before.

  Not even a full hour had passed when Rachel had given up all pretense of anger, overcome instead with concern, and went to find Michael. The two of them combed the town but had no luck in finding Lissa.

  Darkness fell, so she and Michael decided one of them should stay home so that when her sister returned it would not be to an empty shanty. The obvious choice for staying behind had been Rachel, but she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  She locked up their soon-to-be restaurant and, instead of going to their shack, hid in the shadows of the alleyway watching for any sign of the girl. Friday nights were always bad, but tonight the Plaza was even louder than usual, filled as it was with recent arrivals.