by Tom Murphy
“Will you have tea, Lily?”
“No, thanks.”
“Foul day, is it not?”
“Gray as gray. Sophie…”
“Yes, my dear?”
I’ll never be able to say the words. I will stand here forever, tongue-tied. “Once you said, if I came to work here, that in time I might be able to…”
“Start a business of your own. Exactly. Is that what’s been bothering you, my dear?”
She noticed. I’ll never be able to keep a secret, and I don’t know why I even try. “Yes. Now that Fergy’s come…”
“He can help, naturally. What could be simpler? Not that it’ll be easy without you, Lily, for what I predicted truly happened, didn’t it? You did become my star attraction.”
She thinks I’m going to open a little dress shop. Lily took a deep breath and blurted it out. “We’re starting a house, Sophie.”
There seemed to be no way to soften these words or of making them easier for Sophie to digest. There was a pause. Sophie Delage looked up from her teacup and stared at Lily. Lily felt those dark eyes drilling into her with all the force of two knives. Sophie’s expression changed not at all, and for some reason this was more ominous than rage or tears.
The silence grew heavier as it lengthened. Lily felt it crushing her with an almost physical force. Finally she could stand it no longer.
“It’ll only be for a little while, Sophie,” she began, too quickly. “Just until I can save enough to get out of whoring forever, just as we planned. The town’s growing so fast, I won’t be taking your business, I promise. I’ll help you if I can, just as you’ve helped me.”
Still the silence filled the space between them, solid as cement.
Breathless now, Lily went on. “We won’t even be nearby! We’ll be ’way on the other side of town, far from the docks.”
The silence deepened, and suddenly Lily felt a mortal fear creeping up her spine. Sophie, she knew, kept a small derringer in her bedside table. I wouldn’t be surprised if she shot me dead, and don’t I deserve it?
“Sophie, please, say something. I mean no harm, truly, I’m doing it only for Kate, for I must make a proper home for the child soon. Say you understand that. Say…something!”
When the sound came from the woman on the bed, it was a long and joyless sigh. It was so deep, this sighing, and so long-drawn-out that to Lily the noise might have been some distant autumn wind mourning the loss of springtime. Finally Sophie spoke.
“Once,” she began slowly, softly, with a quiet dignity that Lily found more fearful than a scream, “once I met a girl, a shy little mouse of a thing she was, small and frail-looking, but with something about her, a kind of delicacy you might call it the promise of beauty. And nice she was, in her way, ignorant of course, unformed, terrified of the great world, not knowing what to do with herself. Well, I took her in, that child, and protected her, offered her what I seldom offer anyone—man, woman, or child. Took her in, that’s what I did, nursed her when she was sick, helped her in childbirth, gave her food, shelter, gave her hope, gave her a way of earning a living when she asked me, and—”
“Oh, Sophie, please don’t go on so. I can’t bear it!”
“You can’t bear it? Can’t bear it? You can bear it enough to do the thing that drives me to say such words, though, can’t you, Lily Malone? You can do that easy enough. Do it with a smile, you can. I expected better of you, Lily. I expected more of a reward than this.”
“Sophie, I am sorry. I don’t mean to harm you, or to take any business away, or to offend you. Can’t we still be friends? Can’t you understand why I must do this?”
“Of course I understand, child. That is precisely what makes me so very sad. Understand greed? Understand disloyalty? And am I not Sophie Delage, who has seen things that would make even you blush, my proud Lily, my fine Lily, my thousand-dollar-a-night Lily, my Lily whom I nourished and tended and set in a special place, only to discover I have been nurturing a poison weed? I understand you all too well, Lily, and I am the sadder for it.”
In that moment Lily felt the gates of hell itself closing behind her. It would have been kinder if she had shot me. “Then there is nothing more for me to say.” Lily turned from the bedside. She would pack this very day, and go to a hotel, and never see Sophie again. But the voice called her back.
“There may come a time when I’ll forgive you, Lily. But you can’t expect me not to be hurt, can you?”
“I guess not. But I thought you might understand that I do everything I do only for the child, Sophie, only for Kate. Do you imagine I enjoy letting your customers have me for cash? That I like the smiling and pretending, and being gracious and all? I never told a lie, Sophie, until I began to lie with my body, and may God forgive me for it. You know I tried everything to get honest work, and failed. And as soon as I get enough by whoring, you may be sure I’ll get out, and for good, and you’ll have nothing to fear from Lily Cigar. Including the sight of her.”
Choking back her sobs, blinking back her tears, and stumbling like a drunk, Lily walked to the door and opened it.
“Stop.”
She turned. Sophie was sitting up now, and her face had gone pale. Her lip quivered. Lily realized the woman was on the verge of tears.
“I couldn’t help what I said, Lily, for in all these years you are the only girl I ever cared about as a friend. I never had a child. I never had much luck with the men. Delage left me a month after we got together, never even married me, the beast. I’ve made myself into what I am, Lily, built walls around me, worked and schemed and done things so terrible no one will ever know them, not even you. And now I have it all, and it is nothing. For I have no one to share it with. Remember that, Lily, as you go out into the world. Don’t let the world make you into a lonely old woman, for that is more painful than any wound, and more sorrowful than any loss. Of course I understand, Lily, and I forgive you. Let us remain friends, as best we can.”
Lily ran to the bed and kissed her. Tears mingled with tears, and Sophie hugged her so tightly the teacup overturned. They laughed then.
“Oh, Sophie! Thank you. Thank you.”
“I wish you the best, Lily, and I always have. It won’t be easy, but you’ll do fine.”
“I hope so.”
“With Fergy to help you.”
“With all you’ve taught me.”
“Don’t go, Lily, don’t move out just yet. You can stay here as long as you like, it’s a comfort to me. I’m nearly sixty, Lily, and rich enough to retire if I want. That’s the real reason I went back to New York, to look into some investments. In a year or so I’ll be out of the business too. I get so tired some of the time, you wouldn’t credit it. That may be why the thought of losing you upset me so. For watching you blossom, my Lily, has been a great pleasure these last two years.”
“I’ll never forget you, Sophie.”
“Nor I you, my dear. Now! Tell me all about it.”
And Lily did, smiling, and in detail.
29
The fact that it was an unexpectedly glorious afternoon in March did nothing to relieve Brooks Chaffee’s mood as his one-horse cab made its way up Fifth Avenue to the meeting at Delmonico’s. The year 1859 did not promise happy things for America, even though it had begun well enough for the bank. No more did Brooks dismiss Caroline’s predictions of war as a kind of womanly homesickness, a sort of reverse patriotism. Every week brought more news of bitter developments on the slavery question, and these items were always followed hotly by debates on states’ rights, about the fatally imprecise borderline between the national government’s authority and the power of the individual states to govern themselves. Ironically, maddeningly, Brooks found himself humming the silly minstrel-show tune that was suddenly the rage. “I wish I was in the land of cotton…” Caroline assured him that this slender musical thread was practically the only thing the South had in common with the North these days, that it was every bit as well-loved down home as it was in New
York. “…old times there are not forgotten: look away! Look away!” The name of the silly damned tune was “Dixie’s Land,” and Dixie’s Land was going to be drenched in blood if things didn’t take a dramatic turn for the better, and very soon.
Brooks and all his friends bitterly resented the concept of slavery. The Chaffees had never owned slaves and never would. For Caroline, who had grown up in a big New Orleans house filled with black slaves—very well-treated black slaves, she was ever quick to remind anyone who questioned her—it was not such an easy decision. She could readily see the underlying evils of the system, but Caroline could also see huge injustices in the aggressive Northern economy. And Brooks admitted that working conditions and wages weren’t always fair, even right here in New York. But factories could be improved, and wages could be raised. Slavery was another thing altogether, a basic moral question. If slavery were to be lawful, then why not murder, or bigamy, or any number of other crimes against humanity? The problem had never been resolved between them. They dealt with the question by skimming over it.
Brooks began thinking about the British banker he was about to meet, and the terms of a mortgage the Britisher wanted to effect for a big block of real estate north of Fiftieth Street off Fifth Avenue. The cab swung around the corner and Brooks was startled to see his wife walking briskly out of Delmonico’s and into a waiting cab. She was too far away to hail, but unmistakably Caroline. He’d know that flower-stalk carriage, that elegant head, the imperious mask she sometimes wore in public, whose intimate smiles were reserved only for him. God, but what a beauty she was! And how lucky he was to have her. He grinned as heads turned to stare at Caroline, who, typically, looked neither left nor right but marched about her business. A smasher, positively à smasher, to use one of old Jack’s favorite expressions. Probably coming from tea, or a late lunch. He’d ask her later. Then his mind slid back into the intricate complex of international real-estate financing as the cab pulled smartly to a stop at the granite curbstone in front of the glamorous hotel.
The meeting dragged on, as meetings with Britishers tended to do. Brooks was late getting home, and Caroline was already dressed for the dinner party they’d promised to attend. He kissed her, quickly bathed, and was dressed in twenty minutes.
“I nearly bumped into you this afternoon,” he said when they were snugly in the passenger compartment of their carriage, being driven up Fifth Avenue. “Coming out of Delmonico’s.”
“Oh, indeed, yes, I had tea with Miss Sally Patterson.”
Caroline smiled and took his hand. “It was a typical day in the life of Mrs. Brooks Chaffee,” she went on, happily. “We went shopping at Lord and Taylor and then I entered into—and handily won—a debate with your Mr. Honest Abe Lincoln on the subject of states’ rights. You will be sad to know he has left politics forever as a result of my little efforts.”
Something clicked in Brooks’s mind: Wasn’t Sally out of town? He could swear she’d gone to Paris with her father. But maybe they’d decided not to go, or maybe he was thinking of someone else. Too silly to go into in any case. Caroline ought to know whom she’d taken tea with. He’d never met a girl so positive in all her opinions. He turned to his wife, whose delicate profile was at that moment framed by a halo of gas light as they passed a lamppost.
“You,” he whispered, although there was no one else to hear him, “are the most beautiful woman in America.”
“And you,” she said, laughing her husky and infinitely tempting laugh, “are the most shameless flatterer in America!”
She leaned across the tiny distance between them and kissed him in a soft cloud of jasmine perfume. The carriage moved discreetly up the avenue to the huge limestone palace wherein a Vanderbilt dowager kept looking nervously at the door because her evening’s social triumph would be incomplete unless it included the dazzling young Caroline Chaffee.
On the night of March 20, 1859, you could have shot a cannonball through any of the fanciest parlor houses in San Francisco and injured no one. It was Lily Cigar’s twenty-second birthday.
It was also the official opening of the Fleur de Lis.
The rumors had been building along with the limestone structure itself. For several months the demimonde of San Francisco had been hearing tales, hints, and speculations. The Fleur de Lis was to be the definitive pleasure palace of the West, perhaps of all the world. Five stories tall and glittering it rose, filling half the block, looking down on most of the city and all of the other parlor houses, gambling halls, barrooms, and cribs.
Lily fed the rumors, and so did Fergy. But mostly the myths created themselves, for there was nothing the San Franciscans liked more than a spectacle, especially when it was a success story, and more especially when it involved wine and women and pleasure.
There were carpets from Brussels, tapestries from France, marble from Italy and an imported crew of Italians to carve it. There was a genuine pipe organ in the main parlor, and a rosewood bar seventy feet long. Paintings of naked ladies and nearly naked gentlemen cavorted up the soaring walls. The gas chandeliers dripped real crystal, the main stairway had a balustrade plated in real gold. Or so it was said, and no one denied it. The chef and the wines would be French, the musicians from Vienna, the girls from every corner of the world. And it was all the more wonderful because Lily and her dashing brother had put it together in just a little more than four months.
Lily had used her time at Sophie’s well, and her memories of the Wallingford mansion on Fifth Avenue were deep and clear. The Fleur de Lis was a fusion of all that was best in Sophie’s place with the gaudy display that had so delighted the Wallingfords.
“You’ve made it,” said Stanford Dickinson when she took him through the nearly completed rooms, “a true palace of love, Lily.”
Lily looked at him fondly. She knew she could never love the man, but she hoped he would remain her friend.
“I’m delighted to hear you say so, for that is just what we intend it will be.”
“There’s nothing to touch it from here to Chicago, I can personally swear to that!”
“Very personally, no doubt, you villain.” But Lily laughed as she took his arm and led him down the grand staircase.
The invitations had gone out two weeks in advance of the occasion—engraved, they were, on Shreve’s finest cream paper; the governor himself sent no better. “The Fleur de Lis requests the pleasure of your company at a small supper dance on Wednesday evening, March 20, 1859.”
There was a traffic jam on Nob Hill that night. Extra police had been hired for the occasion, directing the carriages, keeping the gaping crowds at bay. The mayor was there, and the chief of police, and the cream of the fast set. Five prominent madams came in varying degrees of jealousy, all except Sophie, who had made her peace with the situation now and was actually glad to see her protégée doing so well by the profession. Fergy, well-versed in such matters, had gone to Chicago on the Wells Fargo coach to recruit new girls, and on to St. Louis and Denver. He personally investigated the qualifications of every candidate and returned, exhausted but very happy, with an even dozen of the prettiest and (Fergy assured her) most accomplished girls Lily had ever seen. This added a rare piquancy to the festivities, for San Francisco was a small town still, for all its pretensions, and all too soon the men who could afford the very best knew the merchandise of every top-flight parlor house by heart.
The Fleur de Lis had the shimmer of novelty, then, on top of its very obvious luxuries. A new house in town, with new girls, a new chef, and more gambling and drinking accommodations than anywhere else! It was a spectacle, and a most welcome spectacle.
Lily stood at the top of the great curving staircase and received all her guests personally. Fergy presided over the gaming rooms below. The string quartet from Vienna played all the latest tunes, gliding waltzes, merry polkas, passionate gypsy tunes, and even the well-loved melodies of Mr. Stephen Foster and others. Once Lily caught the familiar strains of “Dixie’s Land” bouncing and tumbling
up the densely carpeted stairs. She smiled at the merry tune. The South and all its problems seemed far away even on a normal day. Tonight they might not have existed at all.
Two hundred and fifty invitations had gone out, and no one counted the number of people who actually came. The rooms were so tall and so spacious that they never seemed truly crowded, although the sound of laughter and the tinkle of champagne glasses testified that there were guests aplenty, and every one of them a potential customer.
At last all the guests seemed to have arrived. Lily stood alone for a moment at the top of the stairs, then felt a gentle hand on her arm. Stanford Dickinson. She turned and smiled.
“It’s beautiful, Lily.”
Lily paused for just a moment then, and put her small white hand over his, strong and tanned and near to twice her size. It was good to have him here this night, of all nights. He might try to be her lover, but he would always be a friend, she was sure of that now. Lily looked down at the glittering rooms and the glittering people who filled them. Oh, and for sure ’tis a triumph. Then why aren’t you feeling triumphant, Lily, and on your birthday, too, and all of this yours? The spectacle below her blurred for a moment, and suddenly Lily saw, not the gilt and dazzle of the Fleur de Lis, but her daughter’s face, radiant with health and with innocence. Lily sighed softly, and softly she replied to Stanford Dickinson.
“It’s a whorehouse.”
“It’s the best.”
“Yes. It is that. Do you think we’ll do well?”
“I’d bet anything on it. Have I told you how lovely you look?”
“Many times. But thank you.”
“How about buying a good customer a glass of champagne?”
“It’s my pleasure.”
Lily led him into the reception rooms, where space had been cleared for dancing. There were six bars scattered through the huge house, including the gigantic one downstairs. They got their champagne. He lifted his glass.
“To the Fleur de Lis and its lovely owner.”
