“So you billed yourself as a medium?”
“Exactly. Most men prefer to think of women as passive channels. Or empty vessels into which something of value can be poured. The majority of them don’t care to entertain the notion we can be the source of power or ideas. It was a very simple thing to convince them that a woman, any woman, could be overpowered by spirits,” Sophronia said. “Surely you cannot deny you have felt the difference in reception of your ideas between those you speak as young Ruby Proulx and those you impart as the celebrated medium at the Hotel Belden?”
Sadly, Sophronia spoke an undeniable truth. I had long understood the power of the otherworldly. A rootless girl in a traveling show had little chance of her voice being heard and if it was, even less chance that it would be respected. But when I donned the guise of a gypsy fortune-teller by blackening my lashes with a burnt match end or draping my head with a dark lace shawl and altering my accent to that of an exotic stranger, suddenly my words had weight. Could I really fault Sophronia for wanting to bolster the cause of suffrage? Was she really doing anything so different than I when I smoothed the path for the Velmont sisters to follow their own desires?
“I see from your expression that you know quite well what I mean,” Sophronia said. I nodded.
“That does not mean that I am not genuinely hearing a guiding voice,” I said, hoping I sounded more convincing to her ears than I did to my own.
“I meant no offense. It is just that after watching the reading you just gave the Velmonts I believe you are someone who, like me, exercises a certain leniency with the truth if it serves the greater good . . .”
“Are you implying that you believe me to be a fraud as well?”
“Please do not be offended. You have my greatest admiration. You needn’t try to convince me of your talents. I assure you I do not care what part of what you do is genuine and which part requires a well-honed knack for observation and lucky guesses. What I do care about is how we could help each other to have what we both want most.” She gave me another of her smiles but this time it left me feeling chilled.
“What is it that you think I want most?”
“The ongoing success of this hotel? Being seen as the premier Spiritualist hotel in the nation, perhaps. Possibly something as humble as simply preserving its reputation as a place of genuine metaphysical marvels?” If Sophronia were not channeling spirits and hearing voices she was as adept at reading people as I was. I squirmed under her intense gaze and felt reluctant to answer. She tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows.
“Perhaps.” I doubted a lie would deceive her but I did not wish to elaborate. I was too busy worrying about what sort of an arrangement she wished to create. “How is it that you propose we help each other?”
“How do you feel about platform readings?”
“You mean readings in a public forum? Conducted from the stage?”
“Exactly. You are ideal for the role. You’re young, pretty, and very talented. The cause will benefit greatly from the participation of a modern young woman like you,” she said. “As compensation for adding your performance at the march tomorrow I plan to recommend the Belden as the preferred hotel of discriminating suffragists in all my interviews and advertisements. Before you know it you will be as widely recognized across the country as I am myself.”
My stomach fell to my feet. I had spent all of my childhood working the medicine show circuit with Father so it was not as though I suffered from stage fright. What made my knees wobble was the idea of calling such attention to myself.
It was one thing to work with individuals at the hotel in private. In that capacity it was unlikely anyone would connect me with the girl who was on the run from the medicine show where Johnny accidentally met his death while testing a new product for Father. If I stepped onto the stage all bets were off. Even though I would be using my real name and not one I had ever used on the road there was no guarantee no one would recognize my face, my mannerisms, or even my tone of voice. After all, only weeks before I had been recognized by a man who knew me from the medicine show. His eye for faces had almost been my undoing.
After all, New Brunswick and Quebec were not that far by train. In fact, a great many of the visitors to Old Orchard were Canadians. I had heard at least as much French spoken in Maine as I had across the border. Before, I’d worried Sophronia would cause problems if she thought I was not genuine enough. Now I wished she had not been quite so impressed. I needed an excuse and it had to be reasonable and inoffensive.
“I shouldn’t want you to feel I am not grateful for your offer. However, I cannot possibly commit to any public appearances without first speaking with my aunt. Part of the draw here at the Belden is the exclusive access our guests have to the services we provide. I’m sure you understand my need for Honoria’s permission.” I hoped that would be enough to close the matter, at least until I could come up with another excuse.
“Your businesslike attitude and devotion to your aunt do you credit. I am even more convinced that your appearance onstage tomorrow will stir additional interest in the event.” Sophronia pushed back her chair. “I’m sure you will be pleased to know I discussed it at length with Honoria after dinner and she eagerly accepted the proposal on your behalf. In fact, your name should already be mentioned in the newspaper article announcing tomorrow’s march.”
“You are certain Honoria said I should do this?” I asked. It wasn’t like Honoria not to consult me on something that involved me so directly. To have been so forgetful she must have been even more preoccupied with her prophetic dream than I had realized. Either that or she really was convinced I would have no objection and felt confident that accepting on my behalf would make for a pleasant surprise.
“Just think of it, Ruby, with all the press in town for the pier opening there is sure to be comprehensive coverage of the march.” She flashed me a final bright smile of the sort that reminded me disconcertingly of my father. “By tomorrow evening newspapers from New York to Montreal will have mentioned our names and printed our photographs. Won’t that be wonderful?”
Chapter Fifteen
Fog billowed up from the shore and blotted out Yancey’s view of the buildings all up and down Old Orchard Street, creating ideal conditions for pickpockets to have a banner day in their chosen profession. He stopped at the walk-up eatery nearest the station and bought a box of corn fritters. Truth be told, he had hurried out of the house without breakfast to avoid encountering either his mother or Lucy. They had all gone to bed in a bit of a huff and he had no interest in reviving the argument of the night before.
He felt certain telling the chief about the march was in the best interest of the women involved but he still felt disloyal about carrying tales. Halfway down the sidewalk he pushed open the glass door of the police station. The air in the small office was humid and smelled of stale sweat and the remains of an aging fish dinner.
Yancey offered the box of fritters to the other officers scattered around the room before taking one for himself. As he chewed slowly he tried to convince himself someone would have broken the news about Sophronia’s planned march to the chief already. By the time the last bite of his fritter had landed with a heavy thump in the pit of his belly he had reconciled himself to the fact his conscience would not allow him to shirk his responsibilities to the public or to his ungrateful family. He steeled himself for what would likely be an unpleasant encounter and knocked on the chief’s door.
“What do you want?” Chief Hurley lowered the morning paper and scowled over the top of it at Yancey.
“Are you aware of the suffragist Sophronia Foster Eldridge’s plans to organize a march here in Old Orchard?” Yancey asked.
“It’s right here at the end of this article about that rally she held yesterday.” Hurley slapped the paper onto his desk and jabbed a blunt finger down onto a block of text. “It says here she’s planning some kind
of a big hoopla with a march through town, a speech, and even a performance by that pretty little medium from the Belden,” Chief Hurley said. “You know the one, Honoria Belden’s niece?”
Yancey’s pulse began to pound. The march was enough of a worry without the added concern of Miss Proulx standing onstage offering her person as a target for any angry bystander with a rock in his or her hand. He was just as irritated at himself as he was with her. This was exactly the sort of stunt he should have expected from Miss Proulx. After all, she was a professional mountebank. Why would he not have expected her to climb up onto a stage and advertise herself?
He was more convinced than ever that she and Lucy were headed for a world of trouble. Her plans to appear gave him all the more reason to convince the chief to send men to the march. “We need something like that in town right now about as much as a dog needs a second tail.” Hurley shoved back his chair and crossed his hands on his paunch. “You’re going to have to make sure Miss Foster Eldridge doesn’t do anything to make even more of a nuisance of herself than she has everywhere else she’s gone.”
“It’s likely she’ll draw a large crowd,” Yancey said.
“It says right here they had nearly a thousand people attend her speeches up in Portland last month.” The chief shook his head and groaned. “I see no reason to expect we won’t have at least a few hundred.”
“Do you plan on hiring extra officers to police the march?” Yancey asked. “We’re stretched to the breaking point with the pier opening and I don’t think we can pull anyone off other duties.”
“Like I keep telling you, there isn’t any money in the budget for more officers. You’re all just going to have to do your jobs without whining about it.” The chief slammed his hand down on the desk. “After all, how hard can it be to keep a bunch of women in line?”
“It wasn’t the women I was thinking about so much as the mobs that always seem to gather at suffrage events. The marchers are likely to be hurt by protesters if it doesn’t look like we are there keeping an eye on things.”
“I have no intention of wasting our budget on them. In fact, I am looking forward to seeing them get their comeuppance when things get ugly.” The chief flashed Yancey a rare smile. “Should be a good show. I plan to have a front-row seat.”
“So you don’t care if people get hurt?” Yancey knew he shouldn’t feel surprised, but he did. The chief was a hard man and a self-serving crook but he wouldn’t have thought he’d be so outspoken about his willingness to shirk his duty. There had to be something more behind his attitude. Knowing Hurley, it came down to a payoff or a political alliance. Hurley hadn’t kept his job for as long as he had without some well-connected politicians supporting him for reasons of their own. Yancey was going to try like hell to find out who was the one doing the paying.
It was no surprise the chief was unwilling to expend resources. After all, if he used money to pay the officers there would be less left in the coffers to line his own pockets. But surely even that greedy bastard wouldn’t want out-and-out rioting in the streets. At least not just days before the pier opened. What would his cronies on the board at the pier company or the board of selectmen think if the town garnered the sort of bad press such a thing would produce? Surely no one would want that just before the biggest event in the town’s history was scheduled to take place?
“If those women haven’t sense enough to stay home where they belong instead of making a spectacle of themselves in the streets I’d say society will be better off with a few of them put out of commission.” He pointed a stubby finger at the door of his office. “You take Frank and whichever other officers are on duty tomorrow and make do or I’ll replace you with someone who will.” Hurley lifted the paper in front of his face again and gave it a thorough shake. Yancey knew there was no arguing with him. There never was.
Yancey pulled the door behind him hard enough that the plate glass window in the front of the station rattled in its pane. The other officers looked up but no one said a thing. The chief had that effect on most of the members of the department but he got under Yancey’s skin worst of all. He tried not to let the corrupt bastard get to him but every time he saw his face, instead of the podgy middle-aged man before him his memory supplied the image of a much younger man. The man who had arrested Yancey’s father for the murder of Gladys Willard, a young singer at a local dance hall.
There had been no doubt that Oren Yancey had been romantically entangled with Miss Willard at the time she had been found strangled in the grubby little room she shared with another girl. There had also been no doubt about the heated argument that had taken place between the elder Yancey and the victim not long before her death. The two were overheard by other residents of the rooming house quarreling about Miss Willard’s refusal to leave town with Mr. Yancey in order to start a new life together funded by the money he had embezzled from the bank where he worked.
What had been surprising was Oren Yancey’s shock at her death and his subsequent arrest. He had proclaimed his innocence right up until it appeared he took his own life by hanging himself in a cell at the jail in the neighboring town of Saco. Yancey could still see the sly look on Hurley’s face when he had accompanied his mother to the station to retrieve his father’s effects. He didn’t believe his father killed Miss Willard then and he didn’t believe it now. He was even less convinced that Oren Yancey had killed himself.
Yancey had joined the army in a cowardly attempt to leave the gossip and the reputation his family endured as far behind him as he possibly could. But there was at least as much to try to forget from his time in the army as his childhood in Old Orchard. When he’d found he had his fill of making bad memories, he came home determined to lay his father’s ghost and Gladys Willard’s to rest by joining the police force and poking into the cold case. He’d been surprised when Hurley had hired him on but Yancey figured if he was given a chance to access files and the authority to question people he wasn’t going to second-guess the chief’s motivations. Still, despite himself, everything about his boss rubbed him the wrong way.
Frank stood at Yancey’s desk, fishing the last fritter out of the box. Not that Yancey cared. He’d lost his appetite completely.
“What’s got you so riled up?” Frank asked through a mouthful of fried food.
“There’s a suffrage march scheduled for tomorrow and the chief won’t authorize any additional officers to help keep the peace,” Yancey said. “He’s got to have a reason for being so irresponsible, hasn’t he?” Frank often had more insight into the chief’s motivations than Yancey did. Ever since Frank had been involved in the death of a prisoner he had been tucked right down in Hurley’s pocket. Yancey was never sure anymore where Frank’s loyalties lay but he was content to make use of his insider knowledge whenever possible
“He’s a member of one of those anti-suffrage organizations. Rumor has it his wife has joined the suffrage movement. I’m thinking he’s hoping if things get too ugly she’ll scurry back where she belongs. He’s made several mentions lately of meals left in the oven for him while the missus went out to some meeting or other.” Frank gave Yancey a smile. “Glad my wife knows her place.” Yancey’s stomach tied itself into a double knot. The chief could say what he wanted about hoping the crowd got out of hand but Yancey doubted his boss would hold that position when he witnessed the danger to his wife. He hated to consider the sort of dressing-down in store for an officer who allowed harm to come to Mrs. Hurley.
Yancey’s thoughts turned to what he knew of Frank’s young wife, Sadie Nichols. From what he had observed from infrequent invitations to dinner at the Nichols home, he was certain her lack of involvement in the cause of suffrage was purely her own decision. She deftly allowed Frank to think he was in charge while always doing exactly as she pleased. Even their daughter, who was barely walking, had more say in the household than Frank did.
Yancey kept his thoughts to himself about
the balance of power in the Nichols marriage. After all, with no wife of his own he was hardly the one to venture an opinion on that state of affairs. Besides, he and Frank had managed to patch together an uneasy peace after Frank had been involved with violence against a suspect that left him beholden to the chief in ways that worried Yancey. While he still couldn’t quite dismiss the idea that Frank was keeping an eye on him for their boss he didn’t need anything rocking the leaking boat of their partnership. Sharing a confidence might go a ways toward mending fences.
“My mother and my sister are involved with organizing the march. In fact, Lucy is acting as Miss Foster Eldridge’s personal secretary while she’s in town.” Yancey felt a vein in his forehead twitch as he said the words aloud. In his mind’s eye he could see his mother and little sister sailing up Washington Avenue on the way to a rally, their chins held high, daring jeering men standing along the sidewalk to pelt them with rocks or rotted produce. He was especially irked to realize his thoughts turned also to the image of Miss Proulx striding alongside them with her deep red parasol held at the ready in case of trouble.
He had no reason to think the unsettling Miss Proulx had changed one whit in the weeks since she had struck her head on the pavement after fighting off a pickpocket with that very same parasol. He doubted very much she would accept harassment any more demurely than anything else. Having had more than enough experience with angry mobs out West, his guts churned at the notion of those three ladies putting themselves in harm’s way.
“Then that Miss Proulx is sure to be in the thick of things as well, isn’t she?” Frank asked, winking at Yancey. “I expect her involvement worries you at least as much as your womenfolk’s.”
“Miss Proulx is no special concern of mine other than the fact that she is my sister’s closest friend. Any particular attention I pay to her is to ensure she does not have the opportunity to lead Lucy astray. Unfortunately, they seem to egg each other on.”
Whispers of Warning Page 9
