A Proper Pursuit

by Lynn Austin

  I gathered my belongings and crowded into the aisle with the other passengers once the train stopped. The conductor placed a small stool below the passenger car, and he offered me his hand to help me down. The air stank of rotting garbage and hot metal as I hurried down the long platform, following the others.

  As soon as I entered the cavernous Union Depot, I began looking around for my grandmother. I heard joyful salutations and saw warm embraces and even tears as the other passengers met their loved ones, but there was no such greeting for me. Even Mr. McClure had been welcomed by two unsavory-looking men in dark coats and bowler hats.

  Where could my grandmother be? I visited so infrequently that perhaps we’d failed to recognize each other. But eventually the lobby cleared as porters and baggage agents hefted suitcases and trunks, conveying them to waiting carriages and drays. My fellow passengers hurried away to their destinations. And there I stood, quite alone.

  “Is this yours, miss?” I turned to find a baggage porter pointing to my steamer trunk, now loaded onto a cart. He was waiting for his tip, no doubt, but I had no idea how much money to offer him. I had only a few dollars to my name.

  “Yes, that’s my trunk. My family should be along any minute to fetch me.” He rolled his eyes before drifting away.

  My earlier euphoria vanished as I realized my helplessness. I had been abandoned. I was lost and alone in an unfamiliar city with little money. I didn’t know what to do. Madame Beauchamps may have taught me proper social etiquette, but I was thoroughly unprepared for real life.

  I wandered as far as I dared without losing sight of my trunk and saw people rushing to catch their trains, newsboys selling papers, and ragged urchins who probably were waiting to pick pockets or snatch purses. Where could Grandmother be?

  Time passed, and still she didn’t come. I stood alone, guarding my trunk, for what felt like hours. What if night fell and I was left here with no one to protect me from the ravages of beastly men? What if a stranger abducted me at knifepoint or even gunpoint! I recalled one of Ruth’s true crime stories where a man assaulted an innocent maiden in the most dreadful way and—

  “Miss Hayes?” When the male voice spoke close behind me I nearly leaped from my skin. “Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” It was the drummer, Silas McClure. If he hadn’t gripped my arm I would have run straight out the door and into the path of an oncoming train. “You need a lift somewhere?” he asked.

  “My family is supposed to be here to fetch me.” I looked around again as I battled my tears and tried to slow my galloping heart. “I can’t imagine why they’re so late.”

  “I’ll wager they’re stuck in traffic. I’ve seen snarls so bad it takes ten policemen to unravel them. You get a bunch of wagons and carriages and streetcars all trying to go one way, see. And they crowd right up against each other like freight cars. But the cross traffic is trying to go forward at the same time and so they meet in the middle.” He gestured with his hands to show the resulting collision. “There’s no room for anybody to go around because you got wagons and carriages parked along both sides of the street. Then you toss in a bunch of pedestrians trying to get across the road, and pushcarts and newsboys, and—well, you can see that you got a real mess in no time at all. Once they all get jammed up in the middle of the intersection like that, nobody can move.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “Yeah, I’ll wager that’s what happened. But I’d be happy to help you hail a cab, if you’d like.”

  “What happened to your two friends?”

  “Huh? Oh … don’t worry about them. They had business elsewhere.”

  My fear battled with my anger. I had been cruelly abandoned once again. First my mother had deserted me, then Father had decided to shove me aside for Maude and her impertinent imps, now my grandmother was taking her turn. My fury made me courageous. I would leave the whole lot of them behind and go straight to my mother’s house. I pulled her address from my satchel and showed it to Mr. McClure.

  “Are you familiar with the city—do you have any idea where this address might be?”

  He studied it for a moment, scratching his glossy head. I hoped his fingers didn’t leave grease marks on the paper and cause the ink to run. “It’s not too far from here, Miss Hayes. I believe it’s in the downtown area.”

  “Would it cost much? To take a cab there, I mean. I don’t have very much money, and I have no idea what a cab would cost.” Once again, I wished Madame B. had taught us practical information.

  “It can’t be more than two bits or a half-dollar. But you can always take a streetcar if you’re worried about money.”

  “What about my trunk?”

  He turned to look at it and made a face. “I’ll wager you won’t get that thing on a streetcar. You’ll need a cab for sure. Listen, do you want me to tag along?”

  “Would you? Don’t you have your own business to attend to?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait. I’m always happy to help a lovely damsel in distress.”

  He grinned his wide candelabra grin as he offered me his arm, reminding me of a picture from one of my childhood storybooks: a wolf, dressed in a nightgown and floppy cap, smiling at Little Red Riding Hood. “Grandmother! What big teeth you have!”

  But what other choice did I have?

  “Thank you, Mr. McClure. I’ll accept your kind offer.”

  Chapter

  4

  I tossed all of my common sense to the wind and took Silas McClure’s arm. I was about to hail a cab with a traveling tonic salesman and drive to an unknown address. But before we could get the baggage porter’s attention, someone called my name.

  “Violet! Violet Rose!”

  My grandmother hurried toward me out of breath, towing my great-aunt Bertha by the hand. Relief settled over me like warm bath water the moment I saw them. Grandmother drew me into her embrace, obviously as relieved to see me as I was to see her.

  “I’m so sorry, dear. We made a terrible mistake and went to the wrong train station. And the traffic gets so tangled up this time of day. Thank goodness you’re all right.”

  She finally released me and waved to the baggage agent. He raced over to fetch my trunk and his long-awaited tip. Mr. McClure watched the drama in bemused silence as if viewing a theatrical production. Then I saw my grandmother looking him over and I remembered my manners.

  “Grandmother, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Mr. Silas McClure… . This is my grandmother, Mrs. Florence Hayes, and her sister, Mrs. Bertha Casey.”

  Grandmother nodded politely. “How do you do, Mr. McClure.”

  “I do just fine.”

  Aunt Bertha gave me a fervent hug. Then, much to Silas’ surprise, she proceeded to hug him too. She was opening her arms to embrace the baggage agent when Grandmother said, “No, no, Birdie, dear. That gentleman isn’t an acquaintance of ours.”

  My aunt Bertha’s sisters had nicknamed her Bertie, but when I was a child I thought they were saying Birdie. The name seemed to fit her, and she had been known as Birdie ever since. She always wore a dreamy smile on her face and a faraway look in her eyes, her brows raised in gentle surprise, as if she were listening to a pleasant conversation that only she could hear. Her expression was so unchanging that I often wondered if the faint smile and uplifted brows were there while she slept. She had seemed childlike to me when I was younger, more of a playmate than an adult. Now that I was older, she just seemed odd.

  “Are you heading off to the war?” she asked the baggage clerk, “or returning home from it?”

  “That’s a railroad uniform he’s wearing,” Grandmother told her, “not an army uniform.”

  “Oh, how nice. My husband, Gilbert, is fighting with General McClellan in the Peninsula Campaign, you know. He wants to help Mr. Lincoln free the slaves.”

  I waited for my grandmother to correct her. I knew that Aunt Birdie’s husband had been killed in the War Between the States. But Grandmother linked arms with her sister and sai
d, “Come, Birdie, we need to take Violet home. She must be exhausted from her trip.”

  How could she deceive poor, naiïve Aunt Birdie? Father had lied to me the same way, and it infuriated me. But before I had a chance to speak up, my grandmother turned to Mr. McClure and said, “Thank you so much for accompanying my granddaughter. It was kind of you to wait here with her when I’m sure you must be anxious to see your own family. I trust we’ll be seeing you again soon?”

  Grandmother had mistaken Mr. McClure for Herman Beckett! My father must have told her that a suitor would be escorting me to the Exposition and she thought Silas was the one. I decided to let my grandmother assume whatever she wished. Fortunately, Mr. McClure’s mouth had dropped open in surprise and he hadn’t responded.

  “Yes, Mr. McClure will be calling on us in the very near future. Isn’t that right?” I asked him, gently nudging his arm.

  He smiled his ornate grin and said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  We arrived home an hour later to find my great-aunt Matilda pacing in the front foyer like a circus lion. “I was beginning to think something terrible had happened. Was the train late? If women ran the world, the trains would all run on time, you know.”

  “The train was on time,” Grandmother told her. “Birdie and I were the ones who were late. We went to Dearborn Station instead of Union Depot.”

  Aunt Matilda glared at Grandmother as if she deserved a rap on the knuckles with a hickory stick. To tell you the truth, I had always been a little afraid of my great-aunt Matilda—Aunt Matt for short. She was the oldest of the four Howell sisters and still a spinster. She always wore a look of displeasure, as if spoiling for a fight, her eyebrows knit together, her mouth downturned. She seemed perpetually disgusted with life in general and with men in particular. To Aunt Matt, men were the chief perpetrators of everything unfair.

  “If women ran the world …” she would insist, “tea wouldn’t be so expensive … the politicians would be honest … the sun would set at a more convenient hour …” She held her hands curled tightly into fists, her knuckles white, as if she needed to be prepared at all times to punch someone.

  “Well, dinner’s ready,” she said with a sniff. “We’d better eat it before it’s thoroughly ruined.”

  “Dinner can wait five more minutes,” Grandmother told her. “I believe Violet Rose would like to freshen up after her journey.”

  “Well, don’t blame me if the food is stone-cold.”

  “We won’t, Mattie, dear. It’s my fault entirely. I had no idea there were two train stations in Chicago.”

  “If women ran the world, there would be only one station so people wouldn’t get confused.” Aunt Matt marched into the dining room like a general charging into battle, shoulders set, head thrust forward.

  “Come, Violet,” Grandmother said, steering me away. “I asked the driver to carry your steamer trunk up to your room.” As she led me down the front hall, Aunt Birdie stopped us.

  “Would you like to stay for dinner?” she asked me in her fluttery voice. “I’m sure we have plenty of food.”

  “I am staying for dinner, Aunt Birdie. I’m staying for a month, in fact.”

  “Oh, how nice.”

  The tall case clock in the foyer chimed six o’clock as I followed Grandmother upstairs to the guest room. I loved this grand old house. My great-grandfather, the Honorable Judge Porter C. Howell, had built the graceful Greek Revival-style home in 1830 and raised my grandmother and her three sisters here. Grandmother, Aunt Birdie, and Aunt Matt still lived here, while the fourth sister, Aunt Agnes, lived across town with her husband.

  According to my father, this house had narrowly escaped the Great Fire that destroyed much of Chicago more than twenty years ago, the flames halting a mere city block away. Great-grandfather Howell had deeded the house to Aunt Matilda, who had never married. Aunt Birdie had moved in after her husband died in the war, and my grandmother joined them when her husband died. It remained a mystery to me why my grandmother hadn’t moved in with Father and me, since my mother had already left us by then.

  I was very hungry, so I washed quickly using the pitcher and bowl on my washstand, then tidied my hair. On my way down to the dinner table, I paused to peek into the other bedrooms, glimpsing how very different the Howell sisters were from one another. My grandmother’s room resembled a monk’s cell, with bare wood floors, a simple dresser and mirror, and a plain white spread on the narrow bed. A spare wooden cross was the only wall decoration.

  Aunt Birdie’s room across the hall was packed to the ceiling with color and pattern and ornately carved furniture. A scarlet Turkish rug stretched across the floor; pink floral wallpaper clashed with framed botanical prints and lush landscapes; a red floral bedspread and dozens of tapestry pillows covered the bed; and gold brocade curtains hung on the windows. Jammed into the room beside the four-poster bed were two dressers, a wardrobe, a mirrored dressing table, two end tables, two slipper chairs, and a washstand, barely leaving room to walk.

  Aunt Matt’s bedroom on the first floor had once been my greatgrandfather’s study—and it still resembled one except for the quiltcovered daybed shoved against one wall. A massive desk, buried beneath piles and piles of papers, took up most of the room. Glassfronted barrister’s shelves filled with my great-grandfather’s books lined two walls. I had no idea where Aunt Matt kept her clothing; the room had neither dresser nor wardrobe. I suppose it didn’t matter because she always looked the same to me and might well have owned only one dress: high collared, ankle length, prim, and black.

  The three women had filled the remaining rooms of the house with the accumulated possessions of all their lives, and I had fun trying to guess which items belonged to whom.

  I slipped into my place at the mahogany dining table, where the Howell sisters sat waiting for me. We bowed our heads as Grandmother said grace.

  “Did Father tell you he’s planning to remarry?” I blurted moments after Grandmother said “Amen.”

  “Oh, how nice,” Aunt Birdie said. “I love weddings.”

  Aunt Matt huffed in disgust. “I’ll never understand why any woman in this modern era would feel the need to subject herself to a man’s control.”

  “Yes, your father told me he’d met someone,” Grandmother said with a sigh. She rested her hand on my arm in a gesture of comfort. My grandmother used her hands more than any person I knew— touching, caressing, or gently laying them on someone’s shoulder or arm. When her hands weren’t soothing they were working: scrubbing, baking, cleaning, cooking. Then when her other work was finished, she would sit in the parlor to do her darning, mending, crocheting, or knitting. “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings,” she often insisted.

  I took another bite of mashed potatoes and returned to the subject of my father, hoping to win my devout grandmother as an ally. “Have you given his marriage your blessing?” I asked. “I would think that divorce and remarriage are against your religious principles.”

  “Your father didn’t ask for my opinion, dear—or my blessing.”

  “Well, did you know that he’s been lying to me all these years, telling me that my mother was ill? I learned only this month that she hasn’t been sick at all. And now he has divorced her!”

  “I gather you don’t think much of his decision to remarry. Do you know this Mrs. O’Neill very well?”

  “I hate Maude O’Neill!” I said, banging my fist on the table and rattling the silverware. There. I’d spoken the truth. Grandmother laid her hand on my arm once again.

  “The Bible says we mustn’t hate anyone, Violet Rose.”

  “Hatred is what’s causing this terrible War Between the States,” Aunt Birdie added.

  I might have known my grandmother would react this way. She was the walking embodiment of the fruit of the Spirit, carrying love, joy, peace, and all the rest around with her as if toting an invisible basket, passing them out freely to everyone she met.

  “Please don’t let hatred over
take you, Violet.” Jesus’ eyes must have looked just like my grandmother’s: kind, loving, sorrowful, or sometimes filled with righteous indignation—over the very same things that moved my grandmother. She turned her woeful Jesus eyes on me now until I had to look away in shame.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “But I can’t help disliking Maude. Father gave me no warning at all. I arrived home from boarding school one day, and he announced his engagement the very next evening.”

  “Marriage is bondage,” Aunt Matt declared. “This widow ought to think twice before sacrificing her freedom. Did she inherit any property from her late husband?”

  “She has a house … and two perfectly wretched children.”

  “My husband adores children,” Aunt Birdie said dreamily. “We plan to have a large family once he returns from the war. He has to conquer Richmond and defeat Robert E. Lee first.”

  “Maybe I should have a word with this Widow O’Neill,” Aunt Matt said. “Someone needs to tell her how much she stands to lose if she remarries.”

  “Oh, I wish you would speak to her, Aunt Matt.” If anyone could frighten Maude into canceling the wedding, it was my militant Aunt Matt.

  “Now, Mattie,” Grandmother said, “you know John would never allow you to interfere with his life—”

  “Did you know,” Aunt Matt continued, “that when a woman marries, her property, her wages, and her inheritance all become the property of her husband?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said in surprise. “I think someone had better warn Maude right away before—”

  “There are poor women in this city who labor for twelve hours a day in sweatshops and factories, yet by law, their drunken husbands can take their wages straight to the saloon and indulge themselves with what she’s earned by the sweat of her brow, leaving her and her children to starve.”

  I had never heard Aunt Matt express her views so strongly. Perhaps it was because I’d never visited my grandmother’s house alone before. My father always accompanied me. He was probably the reason my aunts never talked about my mother. I decided to steer the conversation back to her.