by Lynn Austin
“I’m sorry, Violet,” Father said again. “I should have told you the truth years ago.”
I glimpsed a Chicago address beneath Mother’s name before Father whisked away the papers and stuffed them into the drawer. I stared at my father as if at a stranger as I struggled to grasp the truth.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I murmured.
He took a moment to reply, silently fingering his watch chain. When he spoke, his voice sounded hushed. “I’m sorry… . I think … I think I always hoped she would come home to us again.”
Chapter
2
I couldn’t fall asleep that night. I had too much information to digest along with Maude’s indigestible mutton. My stomach ached in protest.
Father’s engagement to Widow O’Neill had shocked me badly. But to suddenly learn that my real mother hadn’t been ill all these years but had abandoned us to live in Chicago—I couldn’t comprehend it. My mother was a traitor, my father a traitor and a liar. Where did that leave me?
I had to stop Father’s wedding, of course. I’d always thought of the two of us as happy, living a quiet, comfortable life in our home on the hill overlooking the canal in Lockport.We had Mrs. Hutchins to keep house for us and cook our meals—wasn’t that enough for my father? How in the world could he expect me to share him with a stringy widow and her dreadful children, Homely and Horrid? I had decided I would secretly refer to Harriet and Horace by those more appropriate names. Yes, I must stop the wedding at all costs. But how?
I climbed out of bed and lit the gas lamp, then retrieved my journal from under my mattress and opened it to a clean page. I wrote PREVENT FATHER’S MARRIAGE!!! in bold letters across the top and underlined it three times, breaking the pencil point in the process. I found another pencil and numbered the page from one to ten.
What to do? What to do?
Perhaps with a little detective work I could prove that Maude had murdered her first husband and send her and her odious offspring to prison for the rest of their lives. Homely and Horrid had been accomplices—I was certain of it.
I wrote:
#1. Investigate Mr. O’Neill’s death, then added: (Re-read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Allan Pinkerton’s detective book for inspiration.)
I spent the next ten minutes drumming the pencil against the page as I searched in vain for another idea.
When my head began to ache from thinking too hard, I turned off the lamp, climbed beneath the covers again with my journal and pencil, and pondered the second piece of shocking news I’d received: My mother had abandoned us.
For eleven years, I’d imagined Mother pining away in a stark sanitarium as she valiantly struggled to regain her health and come home to us. The scene always scintillated in dazzling light: White hospital walls, white sheets, white-clad nurses, and Mother in the middle of it all, her skin as pale as alabaster, clothed in a frothy white nightgown. She kept a photograph of Father and me at her bedside, and she wept with longing whenever she gazed at it.
Now, with three cold, blunt words, my father had shattered that ethereal image.
She abandoned us.
It couldn’t be true. Why would Mother do such a thing? What was wrong with me that had made her decide to leave? I couldn’t recall being a demanding or difficult child, but perhaps my memory was faulty.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember what life had been like before my mother left us. Days and days would go by when she wouldn’t get out of bed—which surely meant that she was ill, didn’t it? Father hired a young Swedish girl who barely spoke English to take care of me during that time, and Mrs. Hutchins had cooked and cleaned for us for as far back as I could recall. But I remembered crying one day and throwing a temper tantrum because it was Mrs. Hutchins’ day off and I was hungry. I escaped from my Viking jailer and tugged on Mother’s limp arm as I tried to rouse her from her lethargy, demanding that she get out of bed and fix me some lunch. What I really wanted was for her to get dressed in one of her rainbow-hued gypsy dresses and whirl around the parlor with me, laughing the way she used to do. Had my tantrum driven her away that day? I wished I knew.
In the wee hours of the morning, after covering my diary page with dark, impassioned doodles, I realized that if I found my mother I could solve both of my dilemmas at the same time. She would see that I was a young woman now, a graduate of Madame Beauchamps’ School for Young Ladies and no longer prone to temper fits. Once I convinced her to come home, Father would have no reason to marry Murderous Maude. And if Mother still wouldn’t come home, I could escape from my father’s impending marriage by moving to Chicago to live with her.
But how in the world would I find her?
Getting permission to travel alone to Chicago would be my first hurdle. I would figure out how to find Mother once I arrived.
I remained in bed until eleven o’clock the next morning. When I finally did rise, I refused to write Maude a proper thank-you note for last night’s dinner. I also refused to speak to my father for an entire day.
I was sitting alone in the parlor after supper, reading a proper, boring novel, when Herman Beckett came to call. Herman was an earnest young man of twenty-three and my only suitor, so far. I hadn’t decided if I would allow the courtship to continue or not. Herman worked as a clerk for a shipping company, and on our first outing I made the mistake of asking him which commodities his company shipped and where he shipped them. His answer proved so long and boring that I actually dozed off for a moment. Madame B. would have poked me with her parasol for committing such a social faux pas.
“Good evening, Miss Hayes,” Mr. Beckett said upon arriving at our door. He bowed as if his dark, dreary suit was too tight and might split at the seams. “I was taking my evening constitutional and thought I would pay you a visit. We could get to know one another a little better—that is, if you’re free to accept callers.”
If he hadn’t explained his purpose, I would have guessed by his somber expression and sober attire that he was on his way to a wake rather than paying a social visit. I weighed the merits of my boring book against an hour spent with Herman and decided to invite him to come inside. Father came out of his study to chat with Herman while I fetched glasses of cider for Herman and me. My traitorous father could fetch his own cider.
When I returned, Father retreated into his study across the hall from the parlor, leaving both doors wide open, of course. It took only a few minutes of idle chitchat to discover that I had made a poor choice; Herman was even more boring than my book had been. I had to do something—and quickly—in order to stay conscious.
“If you could choose,” I asked him during a long, embarrassing pause in the conversation, “would you rather be a horse or a carriage?”
My friend Ruth and I used to entertain each other for hours debating questions such as this one, but Herman gripped his cider glass with both hands and bolted upright in his chair as if the fate of the world might depend on his reply.
“I-I don’t understand.”
“It’s a simple question. If you could choose, which one would you rather be? There are advantages and disadvantages to each, you see. A horse is alive and can fall in love with another horse and have baby horses—”
“Oh my! Miss Hayes!” His face turned a remarkable shade of red.
“A carriage can’t fall in love, but it has the advantage of traveling to exciting, faraway places and conveying interesting people— perhaps even royalty. So which would you choose?”
He gulped a mouthful of cider, as if stalling for time, then said, “I-I wouldn’t care to be either one.”
Herman didn’t get it. I would have to make the game simpler. “Okay, then. Would you rather be unbelievably handsome but poor, or enormously rich but disfigured?”
This time his reply came quickly. “I’d rather be myself, thank you.” He frowned in a way that made his bushy black eyebrows meet in the middle, forming one long caterpillar-like eyebrow. I wanted to point out that the frown was quite unbeco
ming, but the resemblance to a caterpillar reminded me of another one of Ruth’s favorite questions.
“What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten, Mr. Beckett? I hear that in some countries people eat things like insects and dogs and cats. Would you sample one if given the opportunity?”
“No.”
“What if you were starving? Or if you were a missionary to a pagan country and they offered caterpillars to you, and you had to accept them in order to be polite? What if your missionary endeavors would suffer if you didn’t eat one?”
“I hardly think—”
“At Madame Beauchamps’ school she once served snails because she wanted us to learn what the special fork was used for and how to handle it properly. Madame is from France, you see, and snails are a delicacy over there. As soon as Madame tugged one from its shell my friend Ruth gagged at the sight of the slimy thing and had to leave the table. None of the other girls wanted to eat one, but I removed my snail from the shell with great ease and gulped it right down. It wasn’t so bad. The only thing I could taste was the garlic butter. The snail was so slippery that it slid right down—”
“Please, Miss Hayes.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m beginning to feel quite ill.”
I refused to give up. “So what was the most … adventuresome … thing you’ve ever eaten?” His mouth hung open, but no sound came out. “How about buffalo, Mr. Beckett? Would you eat a buffalo steak? They serve them out west, you know.”
Herman didn’t reply. He obviously had no imagination at all. I could see that a lifetime with him would be uneventful and predictable. Surprises would fall into the same category as typhoid fever: something to be avoided at all costs. I felt grateful to have discovered this truth about Herman now rather than after I’d consented to marry him. I would sooner become a spinster than spend a lifetime with a boring, unimaginative man.
Had that been the reason my mother had left us? My father could be boring and pedantic too. “She hated her life with me,” my father had said, “hated living in such a small town.” Had the monotony so wearied her that she simply had to leave? But then why not take me with her? “She hated being tied down,” Father had said. That must have included me. I must have tied her down.
“Miss Hayes?” Herman was staring at me as if I had devoured an entire bucketful of snails.
“I’d much rather eat buffalo,” I told him, “than dine on—” I nearly slipped and mentioned Maude O’Neill’s mutton, which had been as tough and tasteless as horsehide—not that I’ve ever tasted horsehide, mind you. But just in time, I recalled Maude’s friendship with Herman’s mother. I remembered the plans I had outlined in my journal last night to investigate her husband’s death and decided to steer the conversation in a different direction.
“That reminds me, Herman. I understand that we have a mutual acquaintance, Maude O’Neill?”
“Why, yes. My family knows her very well.”
“It’s so tragic that she was widowed at such a young age, isn’t it? I was away at school when her husband died, so I’m not sure I ever heard the cause of his demise.”
“It was most unfortunate, I’m sorry to say. He tumbled down the cellar stairs and struck his head.”
Ah ha! Just as I thought! Murderous Maude had pushed him! Homely and Horrid had probably strewn objects in his path to aggravate his fall, and greased the handrail for good measure. I masked my glee with what I hoped was a look of horror.
“How perfectly awful for Mrs. O’Neill! I hope she wasn’t home at the time.”
“I’m afraid she was. She sent poor little Harriet to fetch Dr. Bigelow, but he arrived too late.”
Probably hours too late—and only after Maude had caved in his skull with a sledgehammer for good measure. I was deep in thought, pondering these highly suspicious circumstances, when Herman cleared his throat again.
“Did I mention that I’m going to Chicago to see the World’s Columbian Exposition?”
“Really? When?” I handled the abrupt change in topics with finesse, taking care not to reveal the fact that I was investigating Mr. O’Neill’s murder.
“I plan to go next month, when the weather warms up a bit.”
Herman blathered on and on about the fair’s architectural marvels and educational wonders until, once again, his monotone began to induce a hypnotic stupor. My eyes watered from stifling yawns.
“Are you and your father planning to visit the fair, Miss Hayes?”
His question gave me a brilliant idea: I could use the Exposition as an excuse to travel to Chicago and find my mother! I would begin badgering my father to go immediately.
As soon as Herman finished his cider—I didn’t offer him a refill—and I’d closed the front door behind him, I turned to my father, who had ambled out to the foyer to bid Herman good-night.
“Herman is going to Chicago to visit the Exposition this summer. I would very much like to go as well.”
“It so happens I’ve planned a trip to Chicago. I thought that we all could go.”
“All of us? You don’t mean Maude and her children?”
“Well, yes—”
“Father, please—no! I don’t want to go with them. I’m a grown woman, not a child like Homely and Horrid.” I didn’t realize that I had used my secret names for them until I saw Father’s shocked expression.
“Violet! I’m surprised at you.”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s unlike you to be cruel, Violet. Are you … might you be … a bit jealous of them?”
“Certainly not! They’re children and I’m a grown woman—and that’s the point I’m trying to make, don’t you see? Maude spoke last evening as if we will all settle down and become one happy family, but her expectations aren’t realistic. I won’t be linking hands with her little urchins as we skip through the Exposition with a picnic basket. I would much rather see the fair with companions who are my own age.”
“I understand. But it’s out of the question for you to accompany Mr. Beckett without a chaperone.”
“What about Grandmother? Why couldn’t I spend a few weeks in Chicago visiting with her?” The idea came to me in a flash of genius. My father could hardly argue that his own mother was an unfit chaperone. Grandmother kept quite busy working for several charitable causes, so I was certain that I could slip away from her for a few hours to search for my mother once I was in Chicago.
“I don’t think that’s wise, Violet. Your grandmother doesn’t need the added responsibility of watching over you. She has enough to deal with as it is, with her sisters.”
“But I wouldn’t be any trouble at all. There’s plenty of room for me in that huge old house. Please, Father? Grandmother is always inviting me to come and stay with her every time she writes. Why won’t you ever let me go?”
Father paused as if carefully phrasing his reply. “You’re a very … impressionable … young lady. I fear that the Howell sisters would have a disruptive influence on you.”
His words intrigued me. Here was another mystery to solve. How could my devout grandmother and her three aging sisters possibly have a bad influence on me? I was more determined than ever to go—just to find out. I chose my next words with care.
“You began courting Widow O’Neill while I was away at school and never breathed a word of it to me. Instead, you’ve sprung the news of your engagement on me without any warning and without ever asking for my opinion on the matter. Next, I discover that you’ve been lying to me about Mother for more than ten years, telling me that she’s ill when it seems she isn’t ill at all. Taking all of this into consideration, one might say that you’ve been extremely unfair to me. And faced with such lies and betrayals, one might simply decide to leave home unannounced—and without a chaperone.” I had delivered a threat without raising my voice. Madame Beauchamps would have approved.
“I never intended to hurt you, Violet, I thought that—”
“Then you might show your re
morse by treating me as a grown woman instead of a child. I’m merely asking to take a brief trip away from home to see the World’s Columbian Exposition. Perhaps the time away will help me accustom myself to the new state of affairs here at home. And I’ll be in the company of your own mother during that time.”
“That’s what worries me,” he mumbled.
“Why? What’s wrong with Grandmother?”
He gazed into the distance, slowly shaking his head. His eyes wore the vacant gaze of a stuffed elk.
“Father, why is it that we so rarely see Grandmother when she lives a mere train ride away in Chicago?”
“It’s complicated, Violet… .” Father groped for the comfort of his watch chain, as if reaching for a weapon to defend himself.
I refused to back down. “May I travel to Chicago to visit with her or not?” He opened the watchcase and stared at the dial before snapping it closed again. I was quite certain that he couldn’t have said what time it was.
“Let me think about it, Violet.”
“Very well.” I turned and glided regally up the stairs. “I will write a letter to Grandmother while I await your reply.”
Chapter
3
Monday, June 5, 1893
I settled onto the stiff, velvety train seat, adjusting my skirts before waving a curt good-bye to my father, who stood outside on the platform. Then I turned my back on him. Maude O’Neill and her ill-behaved brats had accompanied us to the train station, and I had no wish to gaze upon them for another moment. She was not my mother and never would be. Homely and Horrid, who had entertained themselves by making ugly faces and rude noises at the other passengers, would never be my siblings. All in all, my send-off had been nearly unendurable. Maude talked on and on about Herman Beckett until I wanted to scream—in spite of everything I’d learned in school about proper manners.
“Mr. Beckett will be so lonely without you,” she’d insisted. “I understand Mr. Beckett is eager to accompany you to the fair …” Mr. Beckett this … and Mr. Beckett that! If she had mentioned how “smitten” he was with me one more time I would have lost control and smitten her.
