“Oh yes, that was most thoughtful of him.”
“Anyway, he asked if I wanted to stay at the dance, and he offered to be my escort.”
“And I take it you decided to stay?”
“Oh, my yes. It was still early and everyone was so jolly, I didn’t want to miss the fun. We had such a time.” She smiled in disbelief that there could be that much pleasure in the world. “Such a time.”
“And afterward?” Freddie saw that Rosa had become tangled in the memory and was unwilling to return to the present.
“Well, afterward, he escorted me home and asked if he might see me again sometime.”
“And you said, ‘yes’?”
“I did,” Rosa confirmed with a smile.
“And what about Mr. Sidley? He mustn’t have liked the way things turned out.”
Rosa grew embarrassed. “Well, you have to understand. Mr. Sidley and I were just friends. I never cared for him that way. He was clumsy and awkward and he stuttered whenever he got nervous, which was most of the time. A very nice man but... ,” she trailed off, leaving the rest of Sidley’s oddities unspoken.
“But didn’t he care for you?”
“Oh, I suppose. But when I explained things to him, he understood. We remained friends. Sometimes I think after all that happened, he was my only real friend.”
Freddie decided to let that remark pass for the moment. He focused back on Blackthorne instead. “So, in any case, you continued to meet with Mr... Bl... that is, DeVille?”
“Yes, but there was a complication.” Rosa grew hesitant. “You see, Mama always watched me like a hawk. She was scared that I’d turn out to be... to be... ,” she stopped and her face contorted with bitterness.
“It’s all right. I understand.” Freddie intercepted the explanation, fearing that it might upset her to continue.
Rosa laughed unpleasantly. “All my friends who went out in the evening with young men, she called them whores. But they weren’t doing anything wrong—just innocent fun. I don’t know what she wanted from me—to stay home and pray the rosary with her, I suppose. Maybe she thought there would be an arranged marriage for me someday, like there was for her and Papa in the old country. But things are different here. Girls don’t get shut up in houses until they’re married. They work in factories, and they go out in the evening. When I’d come home late, even from Mast House, she’d call me a slut. She’d say if I didn’t go to confession and tell the priest all the wicked things I’d done, then I’d burn in hell. Isn’t that funny? What she was most afraid of, that’s just what happened.” The twisted smile remained on her face.
Freddie tried to distract her once again. “So, you agreed to meet Mr. DeVille somewhere other than your own front porch?”
Rosa drew her wrapper more closely around her shoulders. “It had to be that way. Mama would have beat me half to death if she knew I had a gentleman friend. So we’d meet at different places in the city. Places where I was sure no one would tattle on me.”
“Such as?”
“Well, we’d go to different beer gardens on the North Side. They were respectable places and families would go there. There would be orchestras so it was noisy, with plenty of people so you wouldn’t get noticed. And he didn’t want to get noticed either.”
“Oh, why was that?”
“Well, from what he told me, he came from a rich family. And the turn things took between us…”
Freddie was confused. “I don’t understand.”
Rosa smiled wistfully. “Well, we got more and more attached to each other, so one evening, he said he wanted to marry me.”
“Really? That’s a surprise!” Freddie tried to fit the pieces together.
“Yes, it would have been quite a shock to his family. He said he was afraid they would disinherit him if they found out about it in the wrong way. I told him I didn’t care if he didn’t have a penny, as long as we could be together. But he just smiled and said, ‘No, my darling, I want to be able to treat you like a queen.’”
Rosa was luminous at the memory. “Can you imagine? I never expected anybody to say that to me my whole life, yet there he was saying something that wonderful. ‘I want to dress you in silks and I want to have enough money to give you servants and a fine house, and you’ll never have to lift a finger to work, ever again.’ That was what he wanted for me.”
“Quite a generous man. There seems to be no limit to what he’s capable of.”
“It was wonderful! Like a beautiful dream, and I was floating on a pink cloud somewhere up in the sky. He gave me a china rose pendant to wear around my neck. He said that it was a pledge of true love, that I should wear it until he made good on his promise, and that on our wedding day he would exchange it for a gold ring. He said that if I ever parted with it, he’d know I didn’t love him.”
Dreading the answer to his next question, Freddie asked anyway. “And what happened then?”
Rosa shook her head as if she couldn’t reconcile the contradiction. “It all went wrong. Terrible things began to happen—terrible. One night, when we parted, he said he was going to break the news to his family about me. We arranged to meet the following Thursday at a beer garden we used to go to. But when I went there, he didn’t come.”
“Oh?” Freddie was puzzled. “Did he try to get a message to you?”
“No.” Rosa’s face grew troubled. “I waited and waited, but there was still no word. So I went back there every night for a week, hoping I could see him.”
“But didn’t you try to contact him?”
“I never knew where he lived. It was somewhere north of the city. I’d never known anyone in high society before. I didn’t know where to start. I got more and more downhearted. I still kept up with my classes but my blue mood must have shown through, because one night Mr. Sidley came by as I was leaving and asked me what was wrong.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“We went to his office, and I just blurted out the whole awful story—how I couldn’t reach Jonathan, how I didn’t know if he’d forgotten me. I even showed Mr. Sidley the rose pendant.”
Rosa stood up and walked to the window. She leaned out for a breath of fresh air. Freddie got up and came to stand beside her. “I’m sorry this is so painful for you to tell me.” He felt genuinely concerned.
She looked up at him and smiled slightly. “The way I recollect things, it’s so strange. After two years, you’d think it wouldn’t matter to me at all, wouldn’t you?”
Freddie regarded her sadly. “I think memory can have a way of making you feel as if the past is happening right now. All the misery... it feels just the same.”
“You’re a very kind man, mister.” Rosa looked at him pensively. “But you asked, and I won’t quit until I’ve told you the whole story.” She took a deep breath of fresh air and returned to her seat on the bed.
“So anyway, Mr. Sidley said he knew some people who might be able to tell what had happened. He told me not to give up hope until he could find out the truth. In the meantime, I still went to the beer garden every night, but Jonathan was never there. And every night when I came home late, Mama would spit on the floor and call me a whore.”
Freddie remained at the window, looking down at the street. He saw a man, obviously a tourist dressed in his Sunday-best checkered suit, wandering up and down Clark Street trying to decide which brothel to visit. Freddie turned away and sat down next to Rosa.
“What did you do then?” he asked distractedly.
“I might have gone on doing the same thing ‘til doomsday, except one night at about ten o’clock I was sitting at a table alone when who should walk up to me but Mr. Sidley.”
“What a small world.”
“Oh, it was no accident, mister. He had followed me there.”
“Why?”
“Well, as I told you, he was a true friend to me. He knew I went there every night, and he wanted to tell me as soon as he found out anything about Jonathan. From the look on his face whe
n he walked up to the table, I knew it wasn’t good. ‘I’m sorry, Rosa,’ he says to me, ‘but it’s bad news about your gentleman.’ I remember my heart was pounding so hard I thought it would burst. Mr. Sidley told me he found out Jonathan was engaged to marry some society lady and that it was announced in one of the suburban papers.”
“Hmmm.” Freddie was still trying to make sense of Sidley’s role in the charade.
“I was so upset by this time, I nearly fainted from the shock. Mr. Sidley jumped up and said he was going to get me something to revive me. He came back with a glass of brandy.”
“That’s rather a strong drink for a young girl."
“Yes, that was the first time I ever drank it. Awful-tasting stuff. So bitter it makes absinthe taste like honey.”
“Bitter, you say?”
“Yes, I’ll never forget the taste of it, and I’ve never been able to bring myself to drink it again since that night because it would remind me... ,” she trailed off, distracted.
Freddie had to prod her to continue. “Did Sidley offer to take you home then?”
“Well, what happened next was strange. I stood up to go, but the room was spinning. I could hardly walk and he had to help me out the door. When we got outside, I still was doing poorly from the shock, so he said to me, ‘Rosa, you’re not well. You can’t go home in this condition.’ And didn’t I know it. Mama would have beat the daylights out of me and then prayed over me a month after. So I asked him what I should do.
“‘Come with me,’ he says. ‘I know a boarding house nearby. It’s one I used to live in when I first came to Chicago. The lady who owns it will let you stay the night, no questions asked. You can tell your mother tomorrow that you stayed overnight at Mast House in one of the guest rooms.’ So we walked about three blocks to the house he mentioned. All the while I kept thinking to myself, how could Jonathan do this to me? How could he say he wanted to marry me and then turn around and marry somebody else? I remember I felt dizzy and weak and sick to my stomach. Mr. Sidley said he thought it was the shock and that I shouldn’t distress myself any further about it.”
As the memory of the night came flooding back, Rosa grew more agitated. She stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the window. Freddie merely watched her without interrupting.
“When we got to the boarding house, the lady who owned it opened the door. She recognized Mr. Sidley because she called him by name. He told her I was ill and needed a place to stay for the night. He even offered to pay for the room since I only had enough money with me for carfare. So Mrs. Hatch, that was the owner’s name, she led us to a room on the first floor, at the back of the house. She told us to keep quiet because all the other boarders were asleep. By this time it must have been almost midnight. I just kept feeling sicker and sicker and when we got to the room, it was spinning. Mr. Sidley asked her if she had anything to quiet my nerves and she said yes there was a special cordial she kept for just such purposes. He was so kind to me. Sat there with me and waited until she came back. He insisted that I finish every drop of the cordial, though I thought it tasted just as bad as the brandy. It’s funny how your feelings can affect your senses that way.”
“Yes, funny.” Freddie wasn’t laughing.
“So Mr. Sidley and Mrs. Hatch sat with me awhile, but I seemed to be feeling worse instead of better. Finally at about one in the morning, Mr. Sidley got up to leave. He said I needed my rest, so Mrs. Hatch let him out the back door because there was a separate entrance right off the room where I was staying. He said he’d come back for me in the morning to see if I was well enough to go back home.”
“Very solicitous.” Freddie still wasn’t sure what game Sidley had been playing, but he was unwilling to risk a question that might arouse the girl’s suspicions. Finally he asked, “Did you sleep well?”
Rosa shook her head. “No, not at all. I kept having terrible dreams. I felt like I’d been locked in the room and there was a man there with me. I couldn’t get out. Every time I thought I called for help, I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice. It was like drowning in a nightmare, and the man in the dream—his face kept changing. First it was Jonathan. Then he seemed to look like Mr. Sidley. It was all so jumbled up and confusing. But then, when I woke up, I realized it hadn’t been a dream at all.”
“What?”
“When I woke up, I felt numb all over. My head was pounding so hard I felt it would split in two. My clothes were lying all over the room, but I wasn’t wearing anything. When I went to pick my blouse up off the floor I saw that it had been torn, but I couldn’t remember how. I reached around my neck for the pendant, but it was gone. I felt as if I had lost my mind. I started searching everywhere. But then Mrs. Hatch burst into the room, and she was furious. She had Mr. Sidley with her. I scrambled to put on some clothes, but she tried to drag me out of the room before I was dressed. Mr. Sidley stopped her, though.”
“What on earth had happened?”
“I didn’t know it at the time, but it came out in bits and pieces. Mrs. Hatch was in a rage. She turns to Mr. Sidley and says, ‘I run a respectable house, Mr. Sidley. I welcome your friend into my home and this is how she repays an act of kindness!’
“Well, I can tell you I didn’t know what to say or think. Mr. Sidley looked just as shocked as I did. ‘Why, what’s wrong, Mrs. Hatch?’ he says to her.
“‘Just this,’ she says, still in a rage, ‘after you left, she went out like a common streetwalker because she brought a man back to this room—into my house, sir! What can you say to that!’
“Mr. Sidley, he just stood there, and then he looks at me like I had played him for a fool. ‘Is this true, Rosa?’ he says. My head felt as if it was being squeezed in a metal vise, and I couldn’t think. I couldn’t remember and yet, somehow I knew there had been a man there. I just couldn’t remember how he came to be there in the first place. ‘I don’t remember,’ I said. ‘Please stop asking me. I don’t know!’”
Rosa was in a frenzy by now, reliving the episode. She was still pacing and Freddie stood up to catch her in mid-stride. “Rosa, you must calm down. It happened a long time ago. Here sit down by me. Take a deep breath and try to relax.”
His words helped to pull her out of the memory, but still she had begun to cry. “I couldn’t remember anything and yet something inside of me said that it was true. My body ached everywhere. There were bruises on my arms, and I don’t remember how I got them. So it had to be true.”
She wept for a few minutes, and Freddie didn’t attempt to push her forward in her story until she was ready. Finally she continued. “Well, Mrs. Hatch didn’t believe me, and as soon as I was dressed she pitched the both of us out the back door. She told Mr. Sidley never to come back, and she said if she ever saw me anywhere near her place she’d report me to the police for soliciting.”
“But how did she know you’d brought a man back to your room?”
“She said she saw him sneaking out the back as she came down the stairs to prepare breakfast. She called him out and he told her he had been with me—that I had invited him in to spend the night. That I said something about needing to pay somebody back for something he did to me.”
“Do you remember that part of it?”
“No, not at all,” Rosa said desperately. “I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my mind, and it’s as if my memory has been erased. And then there was what happened to the pendant.”
“What happened to it?”
“Well, after Mrs. Hatch threw us out, I was still upset and I told Mr. Sidley I had lost the pendant and he says, ‘Rosa, don’t you remember what you did with it?’
“‘No,’ I said. ‘Not a bit.’ Well, he looked really surprised and he said, ‘Why, you smashed it in the gutter before we came up to the house.’ ‘But I couldn’t have done that!’ I said. ‘I never would have done such a thing!’
“He just stared at me as if I had gone crazy. ‘Look I’ll show you,’ he said. Then he led me around to the front of t
he house. There in the gutter, I found the chain and bits of smashed porcelain in the street. He told me that before we got to Mrs. Hatch’s I was carrying on and talking pretty wild about how I’d get my revenge on Jonathan for what he did to me. He told me that I stopped in the street and ripped the chain off my neck. ‘I’ll start with this,’ was what I said, and I threw it down and smashed the china rose against the curb. And sure enough, there it was lying in the street. I bent down and picked up the chain to keep.”
“Did he know anything about the man you were with?”
Rosa shrugged. “No, just what Mrs. Hatch told him. It must have been a stranger.” She laughed again bitterly. “Just the first of many strangers.”
“Rosa, don’t talk like that!”
The girl looked cynically in his direction. “If I could betray somebody who loved me, there’s nothing I couldn’t sink to.”
“But you’re forgetting. He betrayed you.”
She began to cry again—not violently, but tears ran silently down her cheeks. “No, he didn’t. That was the worst part of it. He never betrayed me at all. Mr. Sidley was wrong.”
Freddie sat open-mouthed in astonishment at the twists her story had taken. Knowing Blackthorne’s character as he did, he couldn’t believe his ears. “What do you mean Sidley was wrong?”
“He had gotten bad information from somebody. There was an engagement, but Jonathan never intended to go through with the marriage. That was just to buy some time. He had come to meet me that very same night—the night Mr. Sidley showed up. When he saw the two of us together, he didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t afford to be seen by anyone else, so he waited outside until we came out and he followed us. He saw everything.”
“What do you mean, he saw everything?”
“I mean he was outside there the whole night and saw everything I did.”
“But how do you know that?”
Rosa got up and wordlessly walked over to the dresser. She opened the top drawer and took out a creased, stained envelope, which she handed to Freddie. “A week after everything happened, I got this letter in the mail.”
The Fall Of White City (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 1) Page 25
