The Banished Children of Eve

by Peter Quinn

  The routine dulled Eliza’s revulsion. She had an average of six or seven customers a night, all nervous and quick to satisfy themselves. They were hayseeds, tourists, young clerks, soldiers with boys’ faces. “Be sure not to let them fall asleep,” Madame Julia said. “They’re filled with liquor, and once they’re asleep it’s like trying to wake the dead.”

  Eliza slept most of the day. There was a cook who prepared the girls’ meals, and Madame Julia insisted they eat in the kitchen and not bring food to their rooms. There were five other women who resided in The Arms of Love. Four spoke with southern accents. They were not openly hostile to Eliza, but they never went out of their way to make conversation.

  “Don’t expect help from anyone in this house,” Madame Julia told her. “This business is already crowded, and you can’t blame them for not wanting to encourage the competition. Money means more than color. Negro or not, you might end up taking business away from them, and nobody is gonna abide that eventuality, not in this town. But if you’re here long enough, they’ll warm up.”

  In the room next to Eliza’s was a girl her own age who said she was from Pennsylvania. She had been sent to the Quaker School in New York to be trained as a teacher. She had run away. Most afternoons she stayed in her room and cried. On Sundays she went to the French church on Twenty-third Street to hear Mass. She tried to get Eliza to go with her. “The ceremony is so … so …” She threw up her hands, “I am tired of all that is drab. I want a world of beautiful colors.” She said she was saving her money so that she could move to Europe. “Negroes are accepted as equals by the French,” she told Eliza.

  “I worry about that girl,” Madame Julia said to Eliza. “She has more delusions than a man.”

  Madame Julia spent the greater part of the day sitting in the parlor, drinking, napping, talking to the guests, her great bulk bathed in the weak light that seeped through the shutters. Each Monday the inhabitants of the house stopped in the parlor to pay their rent. On the fourth Monday that Eliza was a resident, Madame Julia had a female guest with her when Eliza entered, a slim, attractive, middle-aged white woman in an elegant velvet dress and a hat with a green plume.

  Madame Julia introduced her to Eliza as Mrs. Josie Woods.

  “Your employer speaks highly of you,” Mrs. Woods said.

  Madame Julia nodded in Mrs. Woods’s direction. “You could hardly tell we started in this business together. We had the same figure once. Josie expanded her interests. I expanded my size.”

  Mrs. Woods said, “Tell me, what do you think of this profession?”

  “I try not to think about it,” Eliza said.

  “That’s a mistake. Thinking is essential to all success. ‘Cogito, ergo prospero.’ I’ve had that motto placed on my coat of arms. ‘I think, therefore I prosper.’”

  “Your coat of arms?” Madame Julia laughed and clapped her hands. The fat on her arms shook. “We’ve come up in the world, haven’t we, Josie?”

  “It’s either up or down,” Mrs. Woods said. “No one stands still.”

  “Most days I’m as still as can be. The gout makes sure of that. I sit here and watch the world go its own skittish way, and as far as I can see the great majority of people is traveling sideways. A portion may be going down, but very few are going up.”

  “Ah, my dear Julia, the problem is that you can’t see much from this self-imposed Elba of yours. Come for a carriage ride with me, and have a look at the city. It’s changing every day, the buildings and ambitions growing higher at the same time, new faces, new businesses, new notions, expectations increasing, capital expanding, investments growing, the panic is over, the country is on the move again. There are fortunes to be won. This is an age made by God for the industrious.”

  “I get tired just listening to you talk, Josie.”

  “And you,” Mrs. Woods said to Eliza, “have you ambitions?”

  “I thought so once.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Are you freeborn?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters, or I wouldn’t ask. We are entering a period of such progress that even the Negro shall share in it. Emancipation is only a matter of time, and the freeborn will be the leaders of their race.”

  “You sound like a Republican,” said Madame Julia.

  “I am a Republican, and proud of it. The party has my financial support, and the day that our sex is enfranchised, a day I pray for with some urgency, the Republicans shall have my vote also.”

  “Please, no politicking on these premises. I do not permit the discussion of politics in The Arms of Love. It bores me and distracts my customers.”

  “You’re the one who raised the issue, but I respect your wishes.” Mrs. Woods turned in her chair to face Eliza. “Besides, my real reason for coming was to see if you were as pretty and alluring as Madame Julia told me you were, and having seen for myself, I would, with the permission of our hostess, like to offer you a position with my establishment.”

  “I’m not a Republican,” Madame Julia said, “but I never stand in the way of ambition. As I told you before, you may offer her whatever you wish.”

  Mrs. Woods said to Eliza, “Do you know the difference between a whore and a courtesan?”

  “The price she’s paid,” said Eliza.

  “That’s a consequence of the difference, not the difference itself. The real difference is here.” Mrs. Woods tapped her forefinger against the side of her head. “In the mind. A whore sees herself as a commodity. A courtesan understands that what she is selling is not herself but her services. She respects herself as a member of a profession, the way a lawyer or a broker does, and she never allows her patrons to ignore that fact. Have you ever heard of Theodora?”

  “Another Republican?” asked Madame Julia.

  “She was the empress of Byzantium, the wife of Justinian, and she’d been the most famous courtesan in the imperial city.”

  “Any of your girls ever marry emperors?”

  “One married a senator, another the president of a railroad. Should an emperor ever appear on the scene, I wouldn’t hesitate to offer one of my girls as a suitable candidate for his attentions.” Mrs. Woods directed herself to Eliza again. “Can you play a musical instrument?”

  “No.”

  “Can you sing?”

  “Yes.”

  “You read and write, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Certain of the gentlemen who patronize my establishment have a predilection for women of color.”

  “Are they all Republicans?” asked Madame Julia.

  “For a woman who bars politics from her establishment, you nevertheless seem incapable of divorcing yourself from its associations. No, they are not all Republicans. Some are Democrats. But it is not color alone that interests them. They look for poise, gentleness, refinement, a facility for conversation, a delicate nature, and an educated sensuality devoid of the gross and distasteful. You,” she said to Eliza, “seem possessed of these or, at least, capable of mastering them, and since I am at present lacking a woman of color, I’m glad to offer you the opportunity to join my staff on a trial basis.”

  “Old men will ask you to beat them with whips,” Madame Julia commented, “and you shall see for yourself that no matter what his age, a man is always a boy. But the pay is good and the demands are few. My advice is, Take it.”

  “Julia, you are the prisoner of your cynicism. It is what keeps you locked up in this tomb.”

  “There isn’t a better view of the city to be had than the one from this chair.”

  Eliza took the offer. The best part of Josie Woods’s establishment was the library, a whole room of leather-bound books that the staff was free to use; novels, histories, poetry, a complete set of Shakespeare. The other women ignored Eliza as much as they could. With their coldness they made it clear that if some of the clients had a taste for the dusky, it wasn’t shared by the staff. The only one to be
friendly was Ellie Van Shaick, a young woman with thick black hair and deep green eyes. She and Eliza sat in the library during afternoons and read aloud to each other. Sometimes they would enact an entire play, each taking several parts, and speak with such verve and enthusiasm that a few of the girls would stop outside the door, where they didn’t think they could be seen, and listen.

  At night, the girls would receive the customers in the parlor. Certain men maintained their anonymity, entering and leaving by the rear entrance, especially men of political stature or of the cloth. But a significant number of the older men enjoyed sitting and listening to a recital or a dramatic reading. They drank champagne or brandy, and then one by one they slipped away with their escorts for the privacy of the upstairs. Eliza had a roster of six. One a night. They were not inexperienced like those she had encountered in The Arms of Love, and she learned their preferences very quickly and did what was expected of her in an expert way, her mind detached from the mechanics of her work, the poetry she had read that day in the library repeating itself in her head.

  Ellie Van Shaick left after two years. She said she was going to California and would write Eliza when she got there. She never did write. Six months after Ellie had left, Mrs. Woods discovered that Ellie had never left the city.

  “I can’t believe it,” Mrs. Woods said, “but from what I’m told she trusted a man with her money. She always impressed me as smarter than that. It seems he was from a good family, and Ellie fell in love with him, which is understandable, I suppose, but to have let him take charge of her finances, such foolishness on the part of an intelligent girl! The boy did what you might expect him to do. He fled to England with Ellie’s money and has married a British woman—titled, of course.”

  “Where is she now?” Eliza asked.

  “This is the strangest part. She is working in a concert saloon just around the corner. A concert saloon! I sent word that she was welcome back here but never heard anything in response. Ellie has her pride. She comes from one of the city’s ancient families, and I respect that. I know that she might feel some embarrassment at the consequences of her naïveté and wish to avoid old acquaintances, but a concert saloon!”

  Eliza thought about going to see Ellie, but she knew that Ellie must feel humiliated by her mistake. Eliza remembered the enthusiasm with which Ellie had left Mrs. Woods’s, and her high hopes for finding a new life in California. Eliza had felt her own expectation rise with Ellie’s. She had seen Ellie as a pioneer who would open paths that even a colored girl might follow. She had no desire to cause any embarrassment to Ellie or to aggravate Ellie’s sense of disappointment, so she never approached her.

  In the early fall of 1860, Eliza told Mrs. Woods that she would soon be leaving, that she had saved a sum of money. Mrs. Woods said that she was sorry to lose Eliza. “Where do you intend to go?” she asked.

  Eliza had no idea. Were the French really without racial attitudes? What would Haiti be like? Or Cuba? Eliza had read in the Tribune of a colony of Negroes from the United States that had been established in Montreal.

  “I’m going to Canada,” Eliza said.

  The last week Eliza was at Mrs. Woods’s the Prince of Wales paid a visit to New York, and except for the sullen hostility of the Irish, the event turned into an immense holiday, with businesses closing early the evening he arrived, and spectators lining Broadway from the Battery to the Fifth Avenue Hotel on Twenty-third Street, where the Prince was staying. Like many other homes and shops, Mrs. Woods’s establishment had the Union Jack draped out of a window. Mrs. Woods herself went to the ball held in the Prince’s honor at the Academy of Music. Her ticket was sent with the compliments of Edwin Morgan, the Governor of New York. Since all of her gentlemen clients were also to be in attendance, Mrs. Woods had given her employees the night off.

  Eliza was in her room when she heard Mrs. Woods return from the ball. It was still early, not yet eleven o’clock, and Eliza was surprised that Mrs. Woods hadn’t stayed longer. She could hear Mrs. Woods yelling at the servants, something that never happened in the house. Eliza opened her door and stood by the stairwell. “He’s coming! He’s coming! My God, he’s coming!” Mrs. Woods’s words echoed through the house. She came flying up the stairs, her gown billowing around her, a crown of flowers tilted off the side of her head.

  “How many of the girls are home?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Eliza said. “I’ve been in my room all night.”

  “Get dressed immediately. The best you have. If you need jewelry, go to my room. There’s no time to waste. I’ll see who else is here.”

  Mrs. Woods ran past Eliza and began banging on doors.

  Eliza said, “Who’s coming?”

  Mrs. Woods turned quickly. She covered her eyes, and with the full force of her voice screamed, “The Prince! My God, the Prince is coming here!”

  There were six of the girls in the house. Once dressed, they waited in the parlor. They didn’t talk. Mrs. Woods kept fanning herself and pacing near the window. She held on to the drapes. After a few minutes, she told all the women to stand. She inspected each one like an officer at a dress parade, adjusting clothes, straightening shoulders, rearranging hair.

  “The city was disgraced tonight,” she said as she went about her inspection. “Absolutely disgraced. It was a riot, not a ball. Half the guests were intruders who forced their way in without an invitation. Rabble, the lot of them. At one point, part of the floor collapsed. I was ashamed to be a New Yorker. Ashamed. But then I found myself squeezed into a corner with this magnificent specimen of a British officer, Captain Grey, one of the royal equerries, and once I was introduced to him, he said, ‘I have a good friend who has spoken very highly of a Mrs. Woods, but I’m sure you couldn’t be the lady of his acquaintance.’

  “‘Who might that friend be?’ said I.

  “Says he, ‘Colonel Percy of the Irish Guards. He was posted for a year at the embassy in Washington and managed to spend a good deal of that time in New York.’

  “‘Bootsie Percy?’ I asked, and the Captain near jumped out of his skin. We spent the next hour talking about Bootsie and other things until Captain Grey informed me that he had to rejoin the royal party.

  “I extended an invitation to him to visit these premises, and he said that he would do everything in his power to see that he did, but would I mind if he, perhaps, brought along another guest? Would I mind?

  “‘Bring along anyone you like,’ I said. ‘Why, bring the Prince himself!’ I was trying to be humorous, of course. Never did I dream. But he pressed my hand and said, sotto voce, ‘Ah, Mrs. Woods, I shall try. Nobody would benefit as much from what you offer as our young friend.’ My God. Our young friend. The Prince here. Among us. I shan’t believe it until it happens, until I see him here in the flesh.”

  They sat for another half hour. Mrs. Woods kept getting up to look out the window and fidget with the curtains. The room was warm, and the women began to yawn. They listened to the sounds of approaching wheels on the pavement, wheels that then moved past. At last they heard wheels that stopped. Mrs. Woods ran to the window. Her voice quavered. “The Prince is here,” she said. She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress, and walked toward the door.

  Eliza went to the window with the other women. They jostled one another to see out. A landau was pulled up to the curb. The driver was sitting on his raised seat smoking a pipe. The women couldn’t see if anyone was inside. Mrs. Woods reappeared with a tall man in a suit of hound’s-tooth check. He wore a monocle and had a luxurious mustachio, glistening with wax and twirled at its ends.

  Mrs. Woods introduced the women to Captain Grey. He bowed slightly to each one. The madam took him by the arm and they went back to the door. Captain Grey went outside. A servant came in and said that Mrs. Woods wanted to see Eliza upstairs, that she was waiting on the first landing.

  “They are pulling the coach around to the stables in the back,” Mrs. Woods said. “He can’t be seen by anyone. Captain Grey im
pressed the need upon me. He needn’t have. I understand, of course.”

  For the first time, Eliza felt nervous. Until now, she hadn’t taken the Prince’s appearance among them very seriously. But now she knew not only that he was there, but that she had been chosen to be his.

  Mrs. Woods took a deep breath. “He wants an Indian,” she said. “That’s what the Captain insists. Nothing else will do. All other possibilities are available in London and Paris.”

  “An Indian?” Eliza asked.

  “‘An American aborigine’ is how he put it.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  Mrs. Woods bit her knuckle. “Well, I told him that, well, yes, I had a young woman who was half Indian. Her mother, I said, was a princess of the Montauks. He came in to see for himself. He thought you looked splendid.” Mrs. Woods was a step above Eliza. She put her hand on Eliza’s shoulder. “I shall be eternally indebted to you. Whatever I can do for you, I will.” Her crown of flowers was askew again.

  “What is my name to be?”

  Mrs. Woods let go of her shoulder. “Running Deer. Princess Running Deer.”

  They went to Mrs. Woods’s room. Mrs. Woods took a length of red ribbon and tied it around Eliza’s forehead, like a headband. “Remember one thing. You must not speak unless spoken to. Captain Grey was adamant about that.” She kissed Eliza on the cheek and left. Eliza sat on the bed and waited. Her heart was racing. After a few moments she heard footsteps outside the door. She stood. Mrs. Woods entered without knocking. A young man stood behind her. He was short and a little plump, with a round face and a receding chin. He reminded Eliza of the many clerks and mechanics she had met at Madame Julia’s, nondescript, ungraceful, unable to hide their nervousness.

  Mrs. Woods said to him, “This is Running Deer.” Eliza curtsied. Without saying another word, Mrs. Woods turned and left.

  The Prince had his hands in his pant pockets. He walked over to the window and parted the drapes to look down at the street. With his back to Eliza he said, “This is Captain Grey’s idea. Military men have trouble thinking of anything else.” He kept looking out the window.