Compromise with Sin

by Leanna Englert

  She finished dusting and was straightening the newspaper shelf when he approached. “I seem unable to locate Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

  “Perhaps it’s over here.” A glance at the shelving cart told her it wasn’t there, so she led him to the shelves. His scent took her for an instant to the night in the infirmary, the moments they had worked together in harmony without words.

  “Have you read it?” he asked.

  “I have.”

  “I am revisiting the story. I enjoy being transported to its fantastical world.”

  She stopped at the “J’s,” ran her hand along the books, and scanned the titles.

  He said, “Verne.”

  “Of course.” He’ll think I’m a fool. Turning to the shelves behind her, there sat the book right where it belonged.

  “I somehow overlooked it.” He reached past her and took down the book. He smiled.

  His intense brown eyes aroused feelings unsuitable for a sensible, married woman. She lowered her gaze.

  “I’m as taken with your flightiness here as with your competence in the infirmary. What a charming combination of virtues in a woman.”

  She wanted to protest that being momentarily distracted hardly constituted flightiness, and who would ever think flightiness a virtue? But his look struck her speechless. It was the look he had given her in the dream.

  So it had begun with The Twister. No divine power controlled people’s lives and events like a cosmic puppeteer, so why had events conspired to throw her and Doc together? For no apparent reason the volunteer who ordered books and supplies for the library quit. Louise offered to take on the additional job. And decided to work on Wednesday afternoons, a time the library and all the second floor offices were closed.

  On one such Wednesday afternoon, Louise was unlocking the library door when Doc’s voice startled her.

  “Is the library open today?”

  She turned the doorknob, but she had inadvertently relocked the door or hadn’t locked it in the first place, she couldn’t recall which.

  “Here,” he said.

  He sidled close, his arm brushing hers. Was that deliberate? She stepped aside, and he unlocked the door.

  “It’s officially closed.” Her breath caught in her throat. “But I shall be working every Wednesday afternoon.”

  “Mind if I return some books later?”

  “Yes, I mean, no, I don’t mind.” She hoped he didn’t notice the flush creeping up to her cheeks.

  “Until later then.” He spoke softly, holding her gaze a bit too long.

  Shaken by that look without fully understanding why, Louise closed the door behind him and retreated to the library’s kitchen where she busied herself rearranging drawers and shelves. Not until she was satisfied that spoons and forks were properly nested and cups turned so their handles all pointed in the same direction did she allow herself to look in the small mirror. She pushed at tendrils that framed her face and undermined her efforts to present herself as a serious-minded woman.

  Louise felt anew the shame of being female. It was her duty, as it was that of all respectable women, to cultivate a pleasing appearance while masking the temptress that was her true nature as a descendant of Eve. She jabbed at the wayward tendrils, but they sprang back, visible reminders of the lesson drilled into her as a girl: woman is the Biblical embodiment of evil that drives men to commit acts for which they cannot be blamed. “Daughter of the devil,” Pa had called her.

  Men’s lascivious looks and advances frightened her. But what she feared more at this moment was her own sinful longing.

  Her passion had once been fulfilled in the marriage bed with Frank Morrissey. Their early years together were glorious, the years before he lost interest and she lost the ability to arouse him. Since then she had held her passion in check. But that was before Doc. Now desire consumed her, crowding out reason. The woman in the mirror looked irretrievably bent on seduction.

  She turned away. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Work would save her from herself. After making a quick mental inventory of the afternoon’s tasks, she set about boxing up old magazines, the first item on her list. Next she tackled the shelved books, putting them in their proper order and aligning them just so with the edges of their respective shelves.

  When she reached the end of the “Biography” shelves, she noticed the key resting in the door’s lock. She could lock up and leave now and go on with the admirable life she had worked so hard to create. Devoted Wife and Civic Leader. But perhaps she was mistaken, and Doc had merely intended to return books.

  She returned to her task, arranging her least favorite shelves, those that housed the “Travel” books. Not that she didn’t like the books. It was just that some were too tall and had to be placed out of order on the bottom shelf. She picked up Herman Melville’s Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, to return it to its place. Holding the dog-eared volume brought a lump to her throat. It was a favorite of Frank’s. Who had she become to lust after someone other than her husband? To think of violating her own convictions as a morally upright woman? Now she understood. It was destiny she had seen in Doc’s parting gaze.

  “Satan, get thee behind me,” she whispered. She dropped the book on a shelf. Grabbing her handbag and the key, she hastened out the door and down the stairs to the boardwalk. She stopped to catch her breath. The key was in her hand, the door unlocked.

  She dashed back upstairs. Her hand shaking, it seemed the key would never find the keyhole, but finally it did and she locked the door. Out on the boardwalk once more, she looked back, her chest heaving. Virtue had triumphed.

  Virtue proved no match for longing. On the following Wednesday when Louise finished dressing for her afternoon at the library, she removed the stopper from her Muguet perfume and lifted it to dab fragrance behind her ear but caught herself with her hand mid-air and replaced the stopper. To wear her signature perfume would be a mistake, she realized after recalling a story about a philandering man who was caught bearing the scent of his best friend’s wife. Looking hard at her image in the dressing table mirror, she recognized the magnitude of this decision, that it set her on an irrevocable course. Turning away from the mirror, she took off her corset and replaced it with silk drawers.

  Nearing the library, with her body free of the binding garment, the thought of herself as a “loose” woman almost caused her to turn back. Almost.

  Doc did not appear. Nor did he appear the following Wednesday.

  He showed up a week later and acted the way she remembered him before they worked together in the infirmary, courteous, but aloof. He greeted her and went to the shelves. While he browsed she dabbed glue on ragged bookbindings and resisted the urge to look in his direction. Don’t be a silly goose. He’s just another library patron.

  Out of nowhere Doc suddenly appeared at her elbow. She flinched and nearly toppled the glue pot.

  “Didn’t mean to frighten you.” He handed her six books, and she pulled the cards for him to write his name. She picked up the date stamp and opened the inkpad. She took special care, gently rocking the stamp back and forth to ink it evenly. Then she firmly pressed the stamp on the return slip glued inside the first book. The date was imprinted smartly inside the little rectangle allotted for it, not smudged or sitting at a rakish angle like some of the preceding dates stamped by careless librarians. She sensed his watchful eyes as she methodically stamped each book.

  “You were one of the library’s founders, were you not?” he asked.

  That voice. If he merely recited the alphabet he could mesmerize her. “Yes, along with Dovie Henkleman and Alice Dietz.”

  He handed her the cards. “I admire your efforts to uplift the citizens of our little town.”

  His voice touched her like a caress. Be sensible. She set the cards on the desk. “Thank you. It’s a labor of love. As a young girl I had access to a fine private library. Most people aren’t so fortunate, and a public library provides opportuniti
es for them to better themselves.”

  “You are undoubtedly a lover of books.”

  “Yes. Like you.” She faced him across the desk as she had across that makeshift operating table in the high school gymnasium. She looked down, then up in time to catch his eyes sweeping over her body. With her fingertips touching the desk, she took tentative steps to walk around it, drawn into the space which their eyes electrified. She moved closer to him.

  But he held up his hand. She stopped, and her heart stopped as well. I’ve misread his intentions. What a fool!

  He smiled. “Better lock the door.” He walked over, turned the key, and returned to take her hands in his. She waited for him to come closer. When he did not, she leaned toward him, tilting her head, inviting his lips. As their lips met, he grasped her neck and the small of her back. He smelled of pipe tobacco. As his tender kisses meandered over her face and neck, she dismissed concern that her make-up would stain his white shirt collar. Her breathing quickened, and she yielded to his hand pulling her body into his.

  But just as the awakening of pent-up desire urged her on, Doc released his hold and turned her away from him. Surprised by his move, she wondered what she might have done to cool his ardor. Her own mood broken, she heard Pa growling the words “daughter of the devil.” She stepped back, but Doc, seemingly amused, moved with her, then picked her up, carried her to the sofa, and placed her in a reclining position. For the moment she inhabited an other-worldly body, one soaring beyond the narrow confines of a proper, small-town existence. Not even the threat of eternal damnation could stop her.

  All-consuming passion made the time from one Wednesday to the next almost unbearable. Physically and emotionally her anticipation on Wednesday mornings nearly drove her mad. Days before, she would decide what to wear, but come the appointed day she would change her mind several times, her mood bouncing from exhilaration to dread. What if he didn’t come? What if they got caught? What if she should conceive?

  As she left the Inn one Wednesday, Louise paused to say good-bye to Frank, who stood on a ladder scraping bird droppings from his treasured paddlewheeler. “While you’re at it, she could use a coat of paint,” Louise said.

  “She’s a wreck,” Frank said. “Wouldn’t do for her to get too prettified. But you look mighty pretty, too pretty to go hiding yourself in a dusty old library.”

  Her hand went to her earlobe, to the pearl earbobs that had belonged to Frank’s mother. What have I become? She burst into tears.

  He put one hand on her shoulder and lifted her chin with the other so that she had to look at him. “What’s wrong, my pet? One minute you’re giddy as a schoolgirl in puppy love, and the next you look like you’ve lost your best friend.”

  “It’s nothing.” It had been years since he’d called her “my pet.” She leaned away from him and reached in her pocket for a handkerchief, an excuse to avoid the possibility of an embrace.

  “A female malaise?”

  She nodded as she turned to go.

  After an hour or so at the library Louise paced from window to door, checked the time, straightened shelves, emptied ashtrays, paced again. She busied herself with one task and another and yet another without completing any. Alone with the ticking Regulator clock, she brooded. Doc doesn’t want to see me anymore. He has someone else—Irina? How could I be so naive to think I was his only plaything? He’s sick. He’s dead. His wife found out. Doc did not come.

  On the next Wednesday she was deliberately subdued. Doc might arrive with a perfectly forgivable apology. Still, she wanted him to have suffered as much anguish over their missed meeting as she had.

  Seated at her desk in the library she wrote up orders for new books and avoided looking at the clock. But in spite of her effort to concentrate, she couldn’t resist thoughts of Doc. Truth to tell, much about his behavior was unsettling. He rarely touched her except in the act of lovemaking. He was secretive. His self-confidence bordered on arrogance.

  When at last he arrived, he greeted her as though nothing were different. Looking at him, she saw not the lover she had found fault with in his absence, but the competent and dedicated doctor she had so admired in the infirmary. Only after they had made love did she have the courage to ask him where he had been the previous week. Without apologizing, he said he’d had business to attend to in Chicago. His tone suggested that any woman should understand that a man’s business was paramount, and she did.

  Placing a finger on her neck, a touch that sent a shiver through her, he said, “Till next time.”

  Once again her self-imposed yoke of respectability fell away, releasing the passionate woman it had restrained for too many years.

  Week by week Louise slid further down the slope until what had been unthinkable seemed inevitable. She would leave Frank to become the wife of Dr. Benjamin Dewitt Foster.

  9

  June 1904

  Frank finished helping Buster, the Inn’s building superintendent, replace weathered shingles and then called it a day. Although tired, he bounded up the back stairs, his spirits lifted by a fresh scheme. As he entered the kitchen by the back door, he heard Marie’s voice from the breakfast room. Stopping in the doorway he watched and listened. She was speaking aloud, apparently composing a poem. Perhaps stuck for a word, she paused, reached till she touched the sugar bowl, and popped a sugar cube in her mouth.

  Then she began writing. A piece of stiff paper was clamped in her metal Braille slate, which had rows of rectangular “cells” cut out, one for each letter. Locating the edges of a cell with her Braille stylus, she pushed it against the paper to raise carefully aligned dots─from one to six─to make a letter. Then her stylus moved to the next cell. The first time Frank saw her working in this way, he thought she was doing everything wrong because she was working from right to left. Then he realized that Braille letters had to be made from the back of the paper, the letters reversed so they could be read from the front. Struck by her ability and tenacity, he’d had to fight back tears.

  He walked up behind her and kissed her on the head. “Where’s your mother?”

  Marie continued writing. “Sleeping.”

  “Well, I have something to tell her that will be worth waking up for.”

  He found Louise lying on top of the bedspread, still clad in her clothes, her shoes tucked neatly under the bed. She lay perfectly straight and rigid on her back, as though refusing gravity’s invitation to relax. Only a fool would try to fathom her mood.

  He told himself it would be wise to leave her alone, but his idea spilled forth before he could contain it. “I have a grand idea for Marie’s birthday party. What say we hire a pony cart to take her and her little chums for a ride? Yonder met a fellow who works at Dietz’s stable. The guy dresses up like Buffalo Bill and entertains the youngsters with Wild West stories.”

  Louise sat up, and her expression let him know she was not keen on the idea.

  “First of all,” she said, “Marie has acquaintances who play amongst themselves and exclude her. She has no ‘little chums.’ Second, why must you go overboard for her birthday?”

  Frank shook his head. “I don’t understand you.”

  “Do you honestly think your efforts will make those children be her friends?”

  “I just want to make her happy. You don’t seem to care about her birthday. Look at you, moping in bed.”

  “Nine years ago I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl, and my heart overflowed with the hope every mother has for a daughter. Then the sight vanished from her eyes, and I had to abandon hope. Yes, I become melancholy as her birthday nears. I always wonder if I could have done something to save her sight.”

  Frank had heard enough. “You sure know how to rain on a fellow’s parade.”

  Standing at the water closet basin, he scrubbed his hands, then washed his face with a cool washrag. It reminded him of when Marie was a baby, how he swabbed Louise’s feverish body and cleansed Marie’s eyes with boric acid.

  He vaguely re
called the night Marie must have been conceived or, rather, he recalled the fragmented thoughts that surfaced in his throbbing head the next morning. Struggling to remove his boots. Stumbling into bed. Then oblivion until well after dawn. He remembered his disbelief and joy when Louise told him she was in the family way.

  He stared at the washrag in his hand. He had done just what Doc told him, but maybe Marie’s eyes did not get washed out often enough. What if he had taken her to an eye doctor in Omaha right then and there; could he have saved his precious daughter’s sight? He dried his face and looked in the mirror. There he saw a father who had failed his daughter.

  Frank finished tacking yellow crepe paper streamers at the corners of the dining room’s crown molding and moved the stepladder so he could attach them to the chandelier above the dining room table. Marie, clutching the strings of a half-dozen balloons, followed.

  “I’ll take those balloons now, Junior.” He was tying balloons to the streamers when Henryetta, carrying a birthday cake, came through the door from the kitchen, and what had been the sound of muffled laughter rose.

  “What’s going on in there?” Frank said.

  “Mrs. Morrissey was watching Yonder crank the ice cream maker and let her fudge sauce boil over.” Henryetta set the cake on the table and smoothed the tablecloth where it wanted to wrinkle. “They’re laughing because the same thing happened on Marie’s birthday last year.”

  Frank found it heartening to hear Louise finally joining in the spirit of Marie’s birthday celebration.

  After Marie handed him the last two balloons, she started making a clapping motion.

  Frank came down from the ladder. “I’ll show you once more. Here’s how you make a galloping sound.”

  Holding her wrists, he clapped her hands together and then one after the other against her thigh.

  “Let me.” She bit her lower lip and practiced clumsily.

  “Faster,” Frank said.