by Jane Steen
After a while, a portion of the crowd disappeared, having exhausted the bread and butter and cake. Two men brought in a wooden table and several chairs. Billy made an entrance with Tess and his parents, flanked by two women who turned out to be Mary and Aileen, Tess’s older sisters. Mary resembled her father and was a tall, strapping, buxom woman with a prominent chin. Aileen had her mother’s wild hair and a more slender build than Mary's. A permanent expression of narrow-eyed suspicion marred her otherwise attractive face.
There were a few minutes of flurry as introductions—or were they reintroductions?—took place. Then everyone seated themselves, with Mr. O’Dugan at the head of the table and Mrs. O’Dugan at the foot. A girl of around fourteen or so took Sarah outside to play, promising she’d keep an eye on her. The rest of the crowd drifted outside or busied themselves with clearing away the remnants of food and drink, and Mrs. O’Dugan let her gaze drift away from Tess and onto me.
“From what Tessie tells me, you’ve been quite the benefactor.” She extended a bony hand and rested it on my arm, smiling in the closed-mouth way that people usually affected to hide bad teeth. Her enormous eyes were red-rimmed and a little puffy, but her gaze held my own in a hypnotically beseeching way that smacked a little of the fanatic. The row of gaudy pictures of saints on a shelf testified to her devotion to the faith and looked oddly out of place in their surroundings.
“I don’t think of myself as a benefactor,” I replied. “Tess and I are the best of friends and are each other’s help and support. She shares in my fortunes most deservedly. I couldn’t have worked and raised Sarah without her help.”
There was much nodding around the table, and Mary spoke up.
“She shares in your fortunes? But there’s a sum of money that’s hers alone, isn’t there?”
I was taken aback but replied readily. “Of course. I’ve kept careful records of everything Tess earned while we were in Kansas. It would be easy enough to calculate the increase of her capital as a proportion of my own.” I left aside the fact that I had, for quite some time, been disbursing sums for clothing—and now room and board—for Tess out of my own funds. I had plenty of money to spare.
“Tess will never want for anything.” I tried to sound as reassuring as I could. “I think of her as a sister, don’t I, Tess?”
Tess beamed. “And now I have my family again, so I have two families.”
I was happy for Tess, but I was also uneasy. It was wonderful that she had found her family again, but who were these people, really? I instinctively liked Mr. O’Dugan, who largely sat silent and let his womenfolk do the talking, but Tess’s mother was disconcerting. Aileen spoke less than Mary, but she never took her eyes off me. Still, although the neighborhood was poor, the saloon itself was spotlessly clean and looked highly respectable.
“I never imagined a saloon could look so fresh and inviting,” I said by way of a compliment. “I’ve never set foot in one before.” Indeed, I could have gone my whole life without ever seeing a taproom. These were not places where a respectable lady would venture. It didn’t do to say so, of course.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness. It’s not only the Evangelicals who think that, you know.” Aileen’s voice was oddly girlish with a nasal twang to it. Mr. O’Dugan made a wry face and smiled at me.
“Don’t listen to Mother Aileen of the Sacred Heart, now. She likes to stick the needle in as often as she can find the opportunity. Aileen, remember that Mrs. Lillington has stuck by our Tessie and been a friend to her and treated her like a lady. And a lady she is, and I’m right proud of her for that.” He nodded gravely at Tess in approbation. Now that I could study him more closely, his resemblance to Tess was a matter of nose and chin more than anything else. In other respects, he looked most like Billy, who had sat at his left hand after making sure his father was comfortable and then lapsed into a respectful silence.
“Yes, Da,” said Aileen. “I just find it so strange that our Tess isn’t Catholic. I don’t remember the charity lady saying anything about such matters.”
“No more she did, and if you’ll remember, neither did we.” Mr. O’Dugan pulled an empty pipe from his pocket and regarded it thoughtfully. “We weren’t such good Catholics ourselves in those days.”
Mrs. O’Dugan looked about to burst into tears at any moment, but she took a deep, shuddering breath. “We were almost as bad as heathens, and look what happened.” She clutched at Tess. “I can go to my grave easy now that I have your forgiveness, but God let you be turned away from the true church as a punishment, of that I’m sure.” She twisted her fingers together nervously. “Although I was never right in myself after I had Billy, and with eight children, it was a desperate hard thing to feed and clothe us all. If the girls hadn’t gone into service, I don’t know what I would have done, what with the war and all. They were hard times, Mrs. Lillington.”
“And yet you’ve prospered.” I tried to sound cheerful. “You’ve all worked hard and achieved something to be proud of.”
There were general nods at this, and Mary, who had been comforting her mother with a solid, round arm, reseated herself. “But the Poor Farm was a good place, just like the charity lady said, Ma,” she said with the confident authority of the eldest child. “It was a dry roof over Tessie’s head and food in her belly when we had neither, and country air instead of the stink of cattle.” She looked at me, her head tilted to one side. “You’ve not told us, Mrs. Lillington, how you came to meet Tess, and I’m that curious. She said it was at the Poor Farm—were you a charity visitor? Or a patron of some sort?”
I took a deep breath. I had come to Chicago ready to lie to society to preserve Sarah’s good name, but somehow I couldn’t lie to Tess’s family.
“I was an inmate,” I said steadily. “I got myself in the family way, and my stepfather sent me to the Poor Farm to have Sarah there. He wanted her adopted, but I kept her.”
“Your family sent you to the Poor Farm?” Billy looked astonished. “Didn’t you have a sister or cousin who could have pretended the baby was hers?” He looked at Aileen, whose mouth tucked into tight folds as she glared back at him. She pushed back her chair noisily, rose to her feet, and stalked out of the door that led to the yard and outhouse.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Aileen made a mistake too, and shame on our Billy for hinting around it in company.” Mary sniffed loudly. “She’s sensitive enough that she had no more children after that.” Seeing my puzzled look, she explained. “I would have taken Aileen’s baby gladly, only she was born blue, poor little mite. I always wanted a little girl. And then Aileen up and married the father anyway when he took the pledge and stopped hanging around the taverns.”
“It’s a judgment,” Mrs. O’Dugan said dolefully.
They seemed to have completely disregarded the truth about Sarah, accepted it as if it were quite in the normal way of things to bear a child out of wedlock. I breathed a soft sigh of relief, only to wince as a loud clattering of boots announced the entrance of a gaggle of muddy, breathless, and runny-nosed boys. Mary bounced to her feet with more lightness than I’d expected and grabbed the collar of the filthiest.
“Out, the lot of you,” she bellowed, turning her captive around and giving all the children small shoves in the back. “You’ll be the death of me with the state you get yourselves in.” She gave the smallest boy’s nose a quick wipe with the corner of her own handkerchief as she herded them back out of the saloon. Four of them, I noticed, had identical heads of strawberry-blond hair, including the little fellow who’d had his nose wiped. I deduced they were Mary’s brood.
It was another forty minutes before I was able to extricate the three of us from our visit, and by the time we climbed into our carriage, it was growing dark. The driver, instructed to stay where he was as I hadn’t known how long we’d be there, had clearly had a hard time of it. He set up a continual muttering that didn’t abate until we had covered a good six blocks.
I too
was out of sorts and exhausted. What with Aileen’s sharp looks and pointed remarks and Mrs. O’Dugan’s general air of tragedy, the visit had been trying. A day of being stared at had left me feeling like an exhibit in a zoological garden. Tess was happy, and I was glad for her—but I hoped I wouldn’t be called upon to visit the O’Dugans too often.
8
Gambarelli’s
I spent most of Monday prostrate on the sofa, suffering from a headache. This was highly unusual for me, but the nervous energy from our long journey to Chicago had drained away and left me feeling somehow depressed. It didn’t help that there was absolutely no sign of Martin. I would, after all, have to go to his store and inquire after him like a tradesperson, or at best a mere acquaintance. So, naturally, I was cross with him.
When Tuesday dawned, my low spirits had converted themselves into something resembling a feverish state. I snapped repeatedly at Sarah, who had decided to master the skill of buttoning all of her buttons, including those on her boots. This procedure threatened, to my overheated mind, to take all morning. I ground my teeth at Tess’s slowness in eating breakfast and wondered if it were possible for someone to chew toast so many times. I responded to Alice’s remark that there was a curl coming loose from my hair with a glare and a hasty poke at my chignon. This disarranged more than it remedied, so she had to take my hair down and do it up again—during which time I glared at her reflection in the mirror some more.
By the time we met Elizabeth in the hotel lobby, Tess and Sarah were communicating with each other through rollings of the eyes and significant glances that did nothing to improve my temper. But here, at last, was Elizabeth, and our outing to State Street could commence. My bad temper evaporated.
I had agreed to Elizabeth’s proposal to start with Gambarelli’s and The Fair, then proceed north to Field and Leiter’s before doubling back toward Rutherford’s. This, we felt, would be quite enough excitement for a small child in a single day. It would leave out several other stores of interest, but as Elizabeth said, there was plenty of time for the others.
“And Rutherford’s has a tea room,” Elizabeth explained, “which will be an excellent place for Tess and Sarah to rest and refresh themselves.”
“I bow to your superior knowledge.” I smiled, but my insides were in turmoil. What would I have done if I’d been on my own? Probably run straight to Rutherford’s and made a fool of myself. Better to start with Gambarelli’s.
“I told you it was vulgar.” Elizabeth made a slight motion of her head toward the milling crowd of shoppers on the main floor of the Gambarelli store.
“It’s—overwhelming.” In the center of the expansive space, a modestly clad marble nymph raised her eyes to the heavens while the cornucopia she carried shed water into a large basin. Other statues of a classical bent were ranged in niches along the walls. Plaster cherubs decorated a ceiling hung with baskets, from which overflowed a profusion of silk flowers in colors never seen in nature.
“It’s beautiful,” said Tess, gazing, rapt, at the flowers. “Look at all the people, and look at all the things we can try on and not have to get measured for. Do you think we can find a pink hat for me?”
“That says, ‘artist’s supplies.’” Sarah spelled out the words on one of the many signs. “Does that mean paper, Momma? I need some paper to write on.” She was exceedingly fond of writing, which consisted of spelling out the words she knew and inserting much gibberish in between.
“I suppose there’s a place where you can buy paper. There seems to be a—well, I suppose you’d call it a department—for everything.” The signs were ornately lettered and hung from every vantage point, as if guiding a traveler through some fantastic voyage. The effect was quite overpowering.
“I heard Mr. Gambarelli senior started out by buying anything that was cheap and could be resold for a little profit.” Elizabeth nodded her thanks at a pair of roughly dressed women who stepped back to allow us to progress through the crowd. “Every time he laid his hand on some new wares, he started a fresh department. When he runs out of room, he finds a way to buy the next adjacent building. That’s why this place is such a warren once you get out of the main hall.”
“Look at the women,” I said under my breath, watching a gaggle of middle-aged housewives argue vociferously about the relative merits of a range of petticoats. “You could almost imagine that shopping is some kind of entertainment for them, like going to a play.”
“Well, why not?” Elizabeth grinned at Tess, who had come to a dead stop in front of a massive display of parasols, her eyes as round as saucers. “Many of these women can’t afford well-cut clothes. Here they can buy gimcrack articles that fall apart after the tenth round with the mangle but which are within their reach for now. Now, as the journalists remind us, is the American obsession.”
All around us was the hiss, buzz, and trill of many different languages. I could hear a great deal of German, Italian, and a language that seemed to contain many iterations of the letter Z—Polish, perhaps? The women talked and laughed, and I felt a brief stab of envy at how purposeful they seemed. For them, shopping was the whole point of their day.
“Do come along, Nell.” Elizabeth’s voice recalled me to reality. “There’s plenty more to see.”
So this was Lucetta’s world. Did she too find it vulgar? The gowns I’d seen her wearing couldn’t possibly have come from this vast bazaar of cheap articles. Did Lucetta simply accept her father’s emporium as the source of her wealth? Did she walk through it as a princess walks through the city that lies outside her palace walls?
A shiver ran through me as I imagined meeting Lucetta Rutherford here, in the midst of her inheritance, with me gawking like a visitor from the country. I saw her in my mind’s eye, proceeding through the crowd with Martin a step or two behind her. A rush of anticipatory mortification sent the blood to my cheeks, and I almost demanded that we exit the store that instant.
Except that Elizabeth had turned away from me and was smiling politely at a man who had stepped up to her.
“Miss Parnell, what a pleasure.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were as black as midnight. He was a vigorous-looking man with an abundant black beard. His excellent tailoring enhanced rather than disguised his prizefighter’s physique, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. His voice was low and pleasant, but the sensation I experienced as he turned his impenetrable gaze on me was fear. This man, my instincts declared, was dangerous.
“Mr. Gambarelli.” Elizabeth nodded graciously, but there was no warmth in her voice.
“I hope you and your friends are finding what you’re looking for.” He raised his eyebrows at Sarah. “If the young lady would like a new doll, we have a wonderful selection on the second floor.”
Sarah glanced at me before replying, uncertain as to whether he’d addressed her directly or not. “If you please,” she said, hesitating a little, “I don’t much care for dolls. Do you have any books?”
Elizabeth was now clearly in a position where introductions were obligatory. “This is Mr. Alessandro Gambarelli,” she explained to us. “Mr. Gambarelli, allow me to present Mrs. Lillington, Miss O’Dugan, and Miss Lillington.”
Mr. Gambarelli bowed, but I had the impression he barely registered our names. “Our book department is on the third floor,” he said, speaking more to Elizabeth than anyone else. “I hope the young lady will enjoy our selection.”
He bowed again and then, seeing a clerk trying to get his attention, made his excuses and left us alone.
“I don’t like him,” said Elizabeth into my ear as we turned in the direction of the steam elevators.
“He seemed to be making a point of paying attention to you,” I said.
Elizabeth shrugged. “We have money and a position in Chicago society—at least, Mother and Father have money. And for some unaccountable reason, my sister, Frances, likes Gambarelli’s. She’s dragged me in here often enough.”
“A dangerous-looking man.”
�
��Hmmm.” Elizabeth watched Tess and Sarah confer about what kind of book they should buy. “He has a reputation for ruthlessness, although I’ve never been able to find out why. Father knows far more about him than he lets on, I think. It’s one of the drawbacks of womanhood—men so often don’t tell you things, as if you’d break in half with the strain of knowing the truth.”
That was an interesting thought, and one I would have liked to pursue. But the elevator had arrived, and Sarah had run back to tug at my hand.
By the time we were done with Gambarelli’s and were about to leave the store, I could sense a change in the atmosphere. It had changed in the literal sense—the gasoliers had been lit because the sky outside had darkened, with drifts of somber clouds sliding under higher banks of grayish-white.
“I do hope we won’t be outdoors when the storm breaks,” I said to Elizabeth.
“Oh, the weather doesn’t count for much on State Street,” she replied cheerfully. “You just buy more, that’s all.”
“We’ve bought enough already. Thank goodness you insisted on everything being sent.”
“It’s going to be like Christmas tomorrow.” Tess grinned with glee. “A new book, marbles, and paper and pencils for Sarah, new handkerchiefs for me. If I’d just found a hat I liked, it would have been perfect. A nice pink one with ribbons.”
