City of Light

by Lauren Belfer

  I nodded.

  Francesca went to the nurse. “Excuse me, Nurse Clarkson, there must be some mistake. Two babies have been confused. They don’t have tags—confusions can happen. The baby that you say was brought in last week, we’re certain that’s the baby we’re looking for.”

  “It cannot possibly be. The numbers don’t lie, Miss Coatsworth. We do not get confused, no matter what you think.” She swelled with indignation. “Number 3/247—I distinctly remember him. He’s an Alsatian baby, not a Polish baby.” She spoke with the venom of those for whom such ethnic distinctions mattered. “You have told me the baby came in the day before yesterday. Although it’s against the rules, I would give that baby back to you, upon your detailed description, knowing how such things sometimes happen. But to give you a totally different baby, a baby you have no relation to at all, to let you simply walk out with it—absolutely not.” She talked on and on, filled with righteousness. Possibly she had been lax about such matters in the past and had been reprimanded. Or perhaps she wanted money.

  Once more Francesca’s thoughts followed mine. She glanced around surreptitiously, making sure we were apart from the other nurses. Only the infants heard her words. “It’s difficult work you do here, Nurse Clarkson. You must need many things. Things which are not covered by the regular budget. As head nurse, you know better than anyone, what is needed.”

  Nurse Clarkson flushed, but said nothing.

  Francesca continued. “I for one would be pleased to entrust you with certain … discretionary funds, to use as you see fit. For the betterment of your patients, of course.”

  Nurse Clarkson regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Certainly we need many things here, Miss Coatsworth. I would accept with gratitude any donation you’d like to make on behalf of the Infants’ Ward. But even so you cannot simply take a baby.”

  And that was the end of our search. As we went outside, I felt as if I were falling into the sunshine, falling into the sky, with only Francesca’s hand on my shoulder to hold me steady.

  “What are we to do, Francesca?” I asked, filled with the image, not of Abigail’s child, but of Grace—of what would have happened to her if I’d been forced to bring her to a place like this.

  “You must tell the girl—”

  I tried to focus on her words but they disintegrated around me.

  “Louisa, listen.” She shook my shoulders. “Stop it.”

  I felt like a rag doll in her hands.

  “Louisa, look at me.” She held my chin so that I had to look. “You’ve got to think about this rationally.” Of course Francesca didn’t know why I had to struggle to be rational. “You must tell the girl that you found the child and turned him over to the doctor as you had planned. You must tell her that he’s gone to a good home, otherwise she’ll never be able to forgive her mother. She’ll never be able to live with herself.”

  That evening, I sat at my desk to write to Abigail. I was calm, finally. Drained. Able to calculate. To weigh the cause and effect that I controlled. Regret filled me that I’d ever taken on this burden. Abigail was my student, nothing more. Was it within my rights to shape her future?

  You must tell her that he’s gone to a good home, Francesca had said. So she can live with herself. So she will stay in Buffalo forever, hoping to see the child, hoping to be there if he needs her. Most likely never marrying, because a husband and legitimate children would interfere with her devotion, her godlike watch over a child she can identify only through suspicion. Could I condemn her to that?

  What would be gained if I told her that her baby was most probably dead? And if not dead, certainly lost forever. She would know that her child had died because of her own mother, her child’s grandmother. Could there be forgiveness? I would never forgive such a thing—yet that was blithely felt on my part, for I had little recollection of my own mother. But knowing the child to be dead, at least Abigail would be able to get on with her life, continue her education, start a profession, I hoped, without worrying about finding her mirror image at a garden party. Without searching, always, every drawing room, every picnic, every sleigh race, for her child.

  And yet … what if the truth unhinged her? What if it unleashed passions that led her into public revelations? Such revelations could destroy not only herself, but others as well. And why not, she might think. With her child dead, she would have nothing left to protect.

  I tried to put myself in her shoes. How easy it was, to see my own life spread before me. All that I had done, and not done, as the result of decisions I had made long ago. How would I feel now, if I had chosen differently? Which of Abigail’s two choices would I rather have had?

  I would have wanted to know that the baby was alive. To know that he was more than alive—that he was flourishing and well cared for. Not taken to an infants’ asylum to be misplaced or confused with other babies, or to die of starvation or dehydration or sickness with no one to comfort him or even notice. Only knowing that he was alive, could I live with myself.

  With that conviction, I picked up my pen. I knew what I had to tell Abigail: I had found the child, and everything had gone according to plan. I also wrote to Dr. Perlmutter that day. With him I had no need to conceal; to him, I could tell the truth.

  A few days later, I heard at the club that Lucinda Dann, one of my graduates, had given birth to a full-term but stillborn baby. She was a lovely young woman who had hoped for a child through five years of marriage. She’d hidden her pregnancy from her family up until the seventh month, so as not to disappoint them with another miscarriage. She’d been filled with hope and excitement, until the end. Dr. Perlmutter, I heard, had attended her.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  There’s a conspiracy afoot to impoverish me,” Francesca confided with the irony that for her always concealed the most serious truths. “Do you think it’s revenge because I wore a top hat to the Milburn ball? Or perhaps I didn’t meet the gentlemen’s sartorial standards: Should I have ordered my suit from London tailors, do you think? Possibly my cravat wasn’t properly tied. I should have asked Cousin Freddy to redo it. Wouldn’t that have made him blush!” She tossed back her head in joyful mirth.

  One week after our visit to the orphanage, we were reclining on the beach at the Coatsworth family compound on the shores of Lake Erie, on Abino Bay in Ontario, Canada, about ten miles west of Buffalo. We had come out by boat that morning, taking the ferry from the foot of Main Street across Lake Erie to Crystal Beach, and then a launch up the bay to the Coatsworth dock. Francesca and I were indulging in a four-day holiday together. I was trying to come to terms with my sadness and guilt about Abigail and her baby. I knew I had done all I could, and yet … the baby’s apparent death, the actions of Mrs. Rushman, these haunted me. Abigail was thriving, however: Elbert, home from his lecture tour, had written that she was out of bed and eager to begin work on the manuscript pages he had promised her. At least I’d done right by sending her to East Aurora and placing her under Elbert’s care.

  While I thought about Abigail, Francesca mourned the temporary loss of Susannah, who was visiting her mother in Fredonia for several weeks. Or so she had claimed. Without evidence, Francesca had been speculating jealously about more nefarious activities relating to the preservationists.

  Although it was mid-August, amazingly we were alone here at the family compound, except for the servants we had brought with us and the local caretakers. Such was the power of the exposition to readjust people’s habits. So much the better. Our relaxation would not be marred by the shrieks of frolicking children or the sidelong glances of their curious parents, and I wouldn’t have to maintain my dignity for the benefit of any Macaulay students, present, past, or future.

  The Coatsworth compound consisted of five large, gray-shingled houses widely spaced along the shore. The houses were shaded and sheltered by tulip trees that rose high and straight, branches spreading at the top. Back from the shore, the lawns were manicured but always cool and moist, the grass thin; because of t
he age and spread of the trees, tulip giving way to maple, little sunlight sneaked through.

  Even the beach was partly shaded. The sand was fine-grained and pearl-colored. Francesca and I reclined in the sun near the gently lapping water on large, oriental-patterned cushions. Wide-brimmed hats enveloped our heads to prevent the sun from reaching our precious skin, and fine netting covered both hats and faces to keep away the sand flies. For the same reason, we wore long white gloves that rose to our elbows. We wore ivory-colored tunics over our dresses in case the wind became strong, and certainly we would never dream of swimming.

  The lake was aquamarine, the color of the sky. I felt content as the sunshine warmed me. To my right, Point Abino curved in a long green crescent out into the lake. The air was lightly fragrant, the scents seeming to rise from the water itself. The only sounds were rustling leaves and Francesca’s lilting voice.

  “What I don’t understand is, if it’s a conspiracy to make me poor, it will also make Freddy poor, and I’m sure he would never have agreed to that. But on the other hand, he has so many more … sources, he may not even notice.”

  “Oh, Frannie, what are you talking about?” I asked with tolerant good humor. She rarely discussed personal money matters; in her set, to do so was considered rude, although that never stopped her from gossiping about other people’s finances.

  “A certain person,” she replied meaningfully, “has asked if we would be willing to make our grain elevator available now and again at night for certain … situations.”

  “What?” Startled, I sat up.

  “That’s precisely what I said when Freddy called on me to ask my permission. I said, ‘Whatever do you mean? What does this person want with a grain elevator—at night, no less?’ Apparently Freddy hadn’t thought to ask. Or he’d been too intimidated to ask, more likely. I’m afraid I rather teased him.” She gave me a coy look. “‘Freddy, you don’t mean this certain person is planning to change the locale of his costume ball, do you? Has he a hankering to dress up as a stevedore?’” She imbued the word with licentiousness. “Freddy has no sense of humor, I’m sorry to say, and he just squirmed. Another black mark for me, I’m sure.”

  I believe Francesca intended for me to laugh. To join her in the satisfying deprecation of Freddy, who as the current male head of the Coatsworth family behaved (in her opinion) as if his sole purpose in life was to thwart her. I’m sure she also intended for me to join her in the luscious gossip about this “certain person.” But I didn’t; I couldn’t.

  “When was this, that your cousin first came to you?”

  “No need to get so grim about it,” she said, put out because I wouldn’t join in the joke.

  “It was when?”

  She shook her head in exasperation. “All right, if that’s how you’re going to be. It must have been in June sometime. A few weeks after the vice president’s visit. When everyone was talking about the invitations to you-know-who’s Bastille Day ball.”

  “Oh,” was all I said.

  Unable to gauge my reaction, Francesca looked almost comically confused. I was confused too, but I knew better than to reveal my thoughts even to those I counted my closest friends. I’d shared the search for Abigail’s baby with Francesca because I’d really had no choice, and also because I knew I could rely on her in an emergency. In her heart Francesca was trustworthy and loyal. But in something so layered, so fraught with ambiguities as this situation with Milburn, I had to keep my own counsel.

  “Well,” Francesca continued, “I certainly didn’t object to closing the elevator for one night. But last week Freddy came back to say that Mr. Milburn would like a kind of carte blanche, and wonders if we could make the space available on an ‘as-needed’ basis. Of course Milburn didn’t mention compensation, and stupid Freddy was too scared to ask; claimed it would’ve been an ‘ungentlemanly’ question! Particularly because Milburn says he doesn’t expect to need it, but wants to know it’s available, just in case. Apparently things worked out so well the first time, he wants his options open. He even claimed that it would be a ‘comfort’ to him, to know he had the option; it would let him sleep better at night!”

  Impassively I studied her. Was this little explication beginning to sound contrived? Like a well-rehearsed performance? Or did I simply imagine that it was, because suddenly everything seemed so obvious—every detail clicking into place, forming a line like a child’s puzzle spread out along the floor, at the end of which was the picture of a terrified girl standing on a narrow walkway above an open grain bin.

  “Freddy’s a great believer in the idea of quid pro quo,” Francesca was saying. “We do a favor for Mr. Milburn, who knows what favor he may do for us? His debt is especially great because he keeps asking that we keep the arrangement ‘private.’ We all know what that means, don’t we?” In a dramatic stage whisper, she confessed, “He’s not going to tell Mr. Rumsey about it. Freddy said over and over that I mustn’t tell anyone, not anyone. Poor Freddy seemed to think he couldn’t trust me! His own cousin!” After a good bit of laughter, she became thoughtful. “It’s dangerous, though, this business of keeping a secret from Mr. Rumsey. Our little … community has always presented a united front. Tous pour un, un pour tous. I would say that Milburn has opened himself to blackmail. It’s useful to know the stakes are so high. Whatever his intentions, he considers them worth the risk. Which makes me wonder, what could Milburn be doing there? It must have something to do with the Pan-Am’s profits. I was among the few wise enough not to invest, I’ll have you know,” she said pertly. “I think Milburn’s walking a financial tightrope: investors wanting returns on one side, while suppliers and contractors demand payment on the other. Even so … a grain elevator,” she mused. All at once her face lit up. “I could be wrong about the profit motive, however. Although it’s not the sort of place to rendezvous with one’s mistress, it would be the perfect place to meet one’s mister, should one be so inclined. The atmosphere there is so very … masculine. And I wouldn’t put it past our friend Milburn. All that charm for which he’s so notorious, always makes me suspicious.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped.

  “Why do you think it’s ridiculous? It seems perfectly plausible to me,” Francesca pouted while nonetheless eyeing me with shrewd expectation. “Do you know anything I don’t know?”

  There it was: what all of this had been leading to. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask outright if I was privy to any currently circulating rumors.

  “I know nothing about it whatsoever,” I replied. “But if you’re worried about your income, maybe you should speak to Freddy on that score.”

  “I did. He wasn’t the least bit concerned. Retorted that he’s the one with children to think of, and if he saw no cause to worry … Oh yes, it’s easy enough for him to give up profits, when he has so many other sources—” I had no idea what she was trying to imply about Freddy by her repeated stress on that word, and I didn’t want to know; the city was overlayered with secrets. “And I have only my limited share from the elevator revenues each quarter.” She shook her head in mock despair. Both of us knew full well that her “limited share” was anyone else’s tidy fortune.

  For a long time we sat in silence. I heard the tinkling of glasses and silverware behind us, and I knew without turning to look that the maid was preparing a table on the screened-in porch for our tea. Francesca abhorred sand in her food and never ate on the beach or even on the veranda. I closed my eyes and tried to come to terms with what she had told me, so that I could get beyond shock and examine her news rationally. Yet shock alone continued to fill me, along with a worry: A few days ago at home, I had received an invitation to a reception for the president and Mrs. McKinley at Rumsey Park, the home of Bronson Rumsey, on the first day of their visit in early September. The invitation had been addressed to “Miss Louisa Barrett and guest.” This was unheard of, that I should be invited to attend a party with a nameless guest. I could only assume that the invitation
s had been made out by someone unfamiliar with our local customs; someone in the First Lady’s entourage, or perhaps Mayor Conrad Diehl’s secretary, who might be familiar with political mores but not the social ones, which also told me that the reception would be a large one.

  At any rate, I had decided to take advantage of the error and invite Mrs. Talbert. No, I hadn’t stood up for her at the Buffalo Club, nor at the exposition, but after what happened to Millicent … I knew I had to do something more. I would bring her to this party, where her accomplishments rightly placed her, and thus publicly display my support. She had accepted my invitation by return post and offered to call for me in her carriage. But now, with this news of Milburn … should I rescind the invitation? And if I did, what reason could I give? I didn’t feel that I could share with Mrs. Talbert what Francesca had told me—the story was too entangled to go outside our circle. But anything less would seem so ill-mannered as to be a betrayal. No, I was trapped now within this invitation….

  “Is something bothering you?” Francesca finally asked.

  I knew I had to make some concession to her. I decided to tell her one small thing, to shift the discussion away from Milburn.

  “Frannie,” I said, opening my eyes and turning to her, “I never told you, but about a month ago someone—I assume a workman—painted something on the school door. Mr. Houlihan washed it away. It was something—indecent. About Negro workers. I remember you hired—forgive me, your contractor hired—”

  Abruptly she sat up beside me. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” she demanded, flushed with worry. “You should have told me. One incident like that can lead to more, and worse.”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “I could have done something about it then, when it happened.”