The Bridegrooms: A Novel

by Allison K. Pittman

  “Oh, right.” Hazel fumbled through her pocketbook. “I forgot to tell you. There’s a nickel donation to the cause.”

  “Well, then, find a dime,” Vada said, keeping her smile sweet. “It’s your cause, not mine.”

  If the lavender lady heard them, she gave no indication. She simply took Hazel’s dime in her hand and raised it, a shaking fist, above her head. “Votes for women!” she cried in a thin, creaking voice.

  “Votes for women!” Hazel raised her own fist. Over her shoulder she whispered, “Now for sorbet and a seat in the back.”

  Vada followed her sister’s lead, nodding greetings to several women she recognized from the neighborhood. Soon she was being handed a delicate glass dish with one rounded scoop of peach sorbet and a small spoon with which to eat it.

  “Thank you,” she said, accepting the treat.

  “Votes for women!” the table hostess replied, holding the next glass high above her head.

  The sentiment was echoed on banners and ribbons strewn across the walls of the grand room, and a statuesque woman stood at the front of it, pounding a wooden gavel on a podium, encouraging the others to finish their refreshment and take their seats.

  Hazel and Vada chose to take their sorbet with them, holding the dishes close, shielding them from the prying eyes of the hostess.

  There was a brief surge in conversation as the women complied, and Vada noticed every one there seemed dressed in the best her wardrobe allowed. Certainly Hazel did, and Vada, wearing a simple shirtwaist and skirt, felt positively dowdy beside her.

  “Don’t worry,” Hazel whispered, reading her mind. “Nobody cares what you look like.”

  But the sidelong glances said differently, and Vada stuck even closer to her sister.

  They found their seats in the back row—as promised, and by the time they settled in, the gavel and podium had worked its magic, bringing silence to the room.

  “Good morning, women.”

  Vada craned her neck to get a better look but could not come up with the name of the gavel wielder.

  “Welcome to the Wednesday morning meeting of the Terrington Heights Women’s Suffrage Association. If you will join me, please?”

  The room was full of rustling as fifty or more women took to their feet, Vada and Hazel among them. From somewhere at the front of the room, a piano pounded the familiar opening chords of “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and soon the hall exploded in soprano passion:

  Like a mighty army moves the church of God;

  [Sisters,] we are treading where the saints have trod.

  We are not divided, all one body we,

  One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

  Vada, unfamiliar with the lyrics, barely moved her lips, but Hazel joined in with lusty enthusiasm, offering a sorbet toast when she sang “Sisters,” forgetting for the moment that she was not supposed to have her refreshment at her seat.

  When they were once again seated and attentive, the minutes from the previous meeting were read, and Vada spooned the icy peach treat into her mouth, grateful she hadn’t been hogtied and dragged here last week. The woman’s voice became a droning nuisance, incapable of diverting Vada’s attention the way she’d hoped.

  She sloped further down in her seat, seeing nothing but the bunch of silk azaleas on the hat of the woman in front of her until the smattering of polite applause called her attention, and she sat up to see Mrs.

  Cordelia Thomas—the widow Cordelia Thomas—making her way to the front of the room.

  Vada leaned over and whispered, “What’s she doing?”

  “Every week different women speak or give some little presentation.”

  “What could she possibly have to say?”

  Hazel shrugged and then twisted herself, seeking a comfortable position.

  The last time Vada had seen Mrs. Thomas, the older lady had been chastising her unruly behavior, and now a whole room of women were going to be subjected to her insufferable arrogance.

  “Well, I’m not listening to her.”

  At this point, the bundle of azaleas disappeared from view as the woman in front of Vada turned around and scowled.

  “Pardon me.” Vada smiled sweetly until the flowers reappeared.

  “My fellow women of Terrington Heights,” Mrs. Thomas prattled in her overly cultured voice, “I am both pleased and honored that you would select me to be the bearer of feminine truth this lovely morning.”

  “‘Bearer of feminine truth,’” Vada said, mocking. “And just what exactly is that supposed to be?”

  The azaleas twitched again.

  “I find it intolerable,” Mrs. Thomas continued, “as should you all, that this day and age, when women are on the cusp of being seen as the political, social, and economic equal of men, so many of our young sisters see no greater fulfillment in their life other than marriage.”

  Vada nearly choked on a delicious chunk of fruit-flavored ice, even as the azaleas in front of her bobbed in approval.

  “Did you hear that?” she hissed once her throat was cleared.

  “Every now and then we get one of these,” Hazel replied. “Last week it was all about equal wages for equal work. You just never know—”

  “Shhh!”

  It was impossible to tell just where the hushing originated, and Vada responded by staring straight ahead.

  “They seek nothing more,” Mrs. Thomas intoned, “than to hitch their lives to one of the very same sex who would seek to keep us mired in subservient silence.”

  “Hear, hear,” the ladies chirped from their chairs.

  “Oh, for the love of—” Vada twisted in her chair, turning to face Hazel head on. “We cannot possibly sit and listen to this. Of all the hypocritical—”

  “Will you please be quiet?” The azaleas now hovered above, and half a dozen from the row in front of them were also turned around. Reactions rippled through the room, punctuated by the pounding of the gavel.

  “You! Back there!” Mrs. Thomas called from the podium. “What is this disturbance all about?”

  Suddenly Vada felt a hundred eyes turned on her and heard her sister groaning.

  “See here, I demand to know the nature of this disruption.”

  The audience concurred with Mrs. Thomas, and Vada dug her elbow into Hazel’s side. “Say something!”

  “Me?” Hazel was incredulous. “You’re the one making all the comments.”

  “I just think, given how she’s always snooping around our father…”

  “Don’t tell me.” Hazel spoke from behind her hand. “Tell them.”

  By now the crowd was on the verge of eruption, and poor Hazel looked like she was trying desperately to disappear, bending her head so low the rim of her hat almost graced the ruffles of her blouse.

  “I’m sorry.” Vada reached out a comforting hand. “You brought me here to support you and I’ve—”

  Hazel recoiled at her touch, and now every woman knew the precise source of the commotion, including Mrs. Thomas herself, who called out from the podium.

  “Vada Allenhouse! I should have known. You and that sister of yours.”

  The woman’s insulting words from Saturday afternoon rankled inside Vada’s head. The woman could say whatever she wanted about her, but Hazel had done absolutely nothing to deserve such derision. Slowly, Vada stood; the crowd grew quieter and the sorbet warmer with each passing second.

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said to the sea of turned faces. “I simply cannot see how the desire to be married has anything to do with the suffrage movement. Would married women be any more or less likely to vote?”

  To her satisfaction, there were scattered mutterings of agreement.

  “My dear Miss Allenhouse, had you been able to restrain yourself for the entirety of my thesis, you would know that I make no such assertion. I simply believe that a woman should have higher ambitions.”

  “But weren’t you married once, Mrs. Thomas?”

  At once the faces—even the
azaleas—turned to hear the response.

  “I was,” Mrs. Thomas said, without the slightest hesitation. “But that was a different time. I had nothing better to aspire to.”

  “So, shall I tell our father that he is safe from your pursuit?”

  “Oh, no…”

  Vada looked over to see Hazel bent fully forward in her chair—perhaps to shield herself from the onslaught of laughter that burst forth from the women in the audience.

  “Come on, sis.” Vada reached for and found Hazel’s hand and pulled her from the chair. They stopped briefly at the hostess table, depositing their empty sorbet dishes before dashing out the door, the laughter behind them nowhere near dying. They themselves didn’t laugh, not until the lady in lavender, still holding her station at the registration table, lifted her hand in salute, proclaiming, “Votes for women!”

  At that, as they spilled onto the front steps, the sisters dissolved, barely able to stand straight enough to walk down the perfectly paved pathway out to the sidewalk, taking a block to fully recover.

  But once she recovered a sobering breath, Hazel asked, “Do you think she has a point?”

  “Who?” Vada said with one final splutter. “That sack of hot air? Of course not.”

  “You don’t think maybe we should want something more?”

  “Than what? Love? Security?”

  “Marriage?”

  “You, of all people, Hazel, should realize what a buffoon that woman is. Look at the lengths you’re going just to get one up on the vote.”

  “Maybe.” Hazel’s steps began to slow. “But I have to admit, it’s just as much for love as for—”

  “The Cause?”

  “You make it sound silly.”

  Vada instantly regretted her sarcastic tone. “It’s not silly, Hazel. Not at all. It’s important. And I think you believe in it more purely than anyone else in that room. Certainly more than Mrs. Thomas.”

  She seemed satisfied, and for a while neither said anything.

  “Do you hope to marry Garrison?” Hazel asked after a time.

  “Yes. I mean, I hope to marry. And I love Garrison. So…”

  “Does it hurt you that he’s never proposed?”

  “Sometimes,” she said, and all of the morning threatened to wash over her again. “But if he did, he might just try to mire me in subservient silence.”

  These final words she delivered with a near perfect impersonation of Mrs. Thomas, and the two were still chuckling when they staggered through the kitchen door for lunch.

  “Well, I must say it’s good to hear some laughter comin’ out o’ the two of you,” Molly said upon their arrival. “It’s been too long.”

  Indeed, laughter reigned in the kitchen throughout the meal as Vada and Hazel stumbled over each other’s words, trying to relate the story. Even Althea, risen from her late-morning sleep, participated in wide-mouthed glee, scribbling short jabs on the pages of her little notebook and passing them to her older sisters who shared them and howled until tears came to their eyes.

  Never, in recent memory, had there been such a meal at the table, though the food was nothing extraordinary. It was a simple repast—chopped egg and ham salad with a dozen rolls baked that very morning in the Allenhouse oven. Perhaps the informality of the food added to the levity of the conversation. But when Doc arrived midway through, his very presence made for the final outburst, causing Molly to wipe away tears from her reddening cheeks.

  “Girls! Molly! Just what is all this noise?”

  “Oh, nothin’ you’d be likely to see the humor in, Doctor. Now,” she continued, her breath even, “will one of you take this up to that poor boy sittin’ with our patient?”

  But right at that moment the poor boy himself walked into the kitchen, his face glowing. “He–he opened his eyes.”

  Vada’s heart recovered from its tumbling mirth and soared. The most welcoming silence fell all around the table.

  “He looked right at me, and I told him I was sorry. That I…” Kenny broke down sobbing.

  While Molly grasped him to her ample bosom, the rest of the Allenhouse family clattered up from the table and ran right past him, following Doc in a mad rush to Vada’s room, only to be stopped abruptly at the threshold.

  “All of you,” Doc held up his hands, “stay here. The young man won’t be able to take so much stimulation.”

  He went in and shut the door, leaving the three sisters in the hall. Althea’s face was one of rapturous joy, and she immediately clasped her hands and bowed her head. Vada went to her, as did Hazel, and all three sisters’ hands intertwined, their heads bowed to a common center.

  This, surely, was a moment that called for corporate prayer.

  “Thank You, Father!” Vada spoke aloud, but words seemed inadequate for the gratitude she felt for this healing. Still, she repeated her thanks over and over as the sisters drew closer. In her heart, she saw it as more than just the waking moment of this young man but an awakening for herself.

  This is Your power, Lord, she prayed behind her vocal repetitions of thankfulness. This is Your promise, Your faithfulness, Your answer to Althea’s prayer. Hear mine too. Deliver me from my temptations. Keep me…

  She paused, hearing the sweet strains of “Amazing Grace,” made all the sweeter because it was Althea making the music. Here, in their presence, she hummed a sound sweeter than any prayer that could ever be uttered. More articulate than any spoken word.

  For the moment, Vada abandoned her prayer, adding her own voice—the tune, not wanting to mar the moment with some other poet’s lyrics. Soon Hazel joined them, bringing a sweet, low harmony. With their eyes squeezed shut, all their senses imbibed this sound, verse after verse, until Vada felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see her father’s face.

  He gave only a terse shake of his head and peeled her away from her sisters, bringing her into the room and closing the door.

  “I don’t doubt that young Kenny saw what he says he did,” Doc said, looking drawn. “It happens sometimes; they go in and out of these states.”

  Vada stepped over to the sleeping figure, noticing a renewed air of peace ruled his countenance. In a gesture she hadn’t attempted before, she stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers, taking comfort in the growth of new, soft whiskers.

  “Does that mean he’ll wake up again?”

  “Not necessarily. But it doesn’t mean he won’t. The fact that he regressed shows that he needs to fight. I just hope he has something to fight for.”

  Outside the door the music continued.

  “I think he does, Doc. We should tell the others.”

  “Not yet. Might be good for them to have this time.”

  Vada agreed. “In the meantime”—she drew her father into the farthest corner of the room and dropped her voice to a whisper—“I know the story of the letter.”

  For the next several minutes, the door to Vada’s room divided worship from whispers.

  Although Vada would have liked nothing more than to sit at home waiting for Eli to come to light again, neither the revelations of the morning nor the lunchtime miracle impacted the responsibilities she had for the afternoon. Today’s box-office receipts could be recorded tomorrow, but Herr Johann still needed his tuxedo picked up from the laundry, and the reserved seating still needed its embellished velvet coverings. All of this needed to be accomplished by four o’clock, the time Lissy would be home from school to sit with Eli when Althea left for her job at the telegraph office.

  The fact that there’d been a glimmer of consciousness made Vada all the more anxious about leaving him in her youngest sister’s care; she was apt to say something so snide, he might slip back into his coma as a means of escape. Goodness knows Vada had often wished to do so.

  Armed with a list and an envelope filled from a quick stop at the office to raid the petty cash box, Vada set out to fulfill her obligations. She journeyed to the store farthest away from the theater, planning to work her way back, starting at
the laundry up on the corner of Cash and Cleric, where Mr. Ping presented her with a long, flat box. He opened the top, revealing a pristine black wool suit folded within layers of tissue paper.

  “Look good?”

  “It’s lovely, Mr. Ping. Thank you.”

  He wrapped the box in brown twine, and Vada tucked it under her arm before setting off for Madame Grenier’s shop on the next block.

  “Bonjour mademoiselle!” The tiny French woman bustled all about her the minute Vada walked through the door. Madame Grenier’s Stitcherie felt like an ornate front parlor—plush chairs and windows dressed in velvet and lace. Madame Grenier herself sat at a white and gold-leaf desk, while three assistants wearing stiff pink aprons sat in the chairs, hunched over their needlework.

  “I have everything ready for you.” She clapped her soft hands and a startled assistant jumped from her place and ran to the back room accompanied by the sound of Madame Grenier’s, “Rapidement! Pour l’orchestre!”

  Minutes later Vada’s arms were draped with beautifully quilted velvet pieces, each large enough to drape over the back of a theater seat. The corners were embellished with gold tassels, and the word Reserved was stitched in gold thread. And of course, Mme Grenier was quick to point out, “Réservé” on the opposite side.

  “Because sometimes only le français will do.”

  The more Mme Grenier spoke, the more Vada heard LaFortune’s voice. For that reason alone, she felt a mounting desperation to escape. Bad enough the man had taken up permanent residence in her mind; she should not have to endure his presence in her ears. Still, she endured the fountain of conversation politely, silently urging the jumpy assistant to quickly wrap and tie the beautiful pink and white striped paper around the rolled bundle of velvet.

  Finally released, Vada once again tucked the long box under one arm and looped three fingers through the string tying the package from Madame Grenier’s.

  The walk back to the theater took her right past the printer in charge of the programs, and her mind flashed to Dave Voyant’s flirtatious promise to have them finished by today. Tempted as she was to pop in and see if he could live up to his word, she had no way to carry them back.