Compromise with Sin

by Leanna Englert

  At the split tree, she turned toward Frank. He looked down at his feet.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  His hesitation fueled her imagination. Was it illness? Financial ruin? Another woman, one capable of reviving his manliness?

  “It’s the Whirlwind Maid.”

  Relief came over her, then irritation at having become alarmed over nothing.

  “Louise, there will never be a finer cleaning system.” His voice brightened, his eyes nearly sparkled. “I have a foolproof plan—”

  Recalling her husband’s many abandoned ventures, such as his “foolproof plan” to own a string of hotels or his “foolproof plan” to breed mink, got Louise’s blood boiling. But two women were approaching on the path, so she masked her anger with a cordial nod.

  “Lovely evening for a stroll, ladies,” Frank said.

  The taller of the two pointed down the path behind her. “When you get further along, you’ll see a baby owl in a cottonwood tree.”

  Her companion scowled. “They live here. Don’t you suppose they’ve seen baby owls before?”

  Louise chafed at the intrusion but said sweetly, “I never tire of seeing the owls, especially the babies.”

  The women passed, and Louise decided to broach a subject she’d been withholding. If Frank had grand plans for his invention, he needed to know that Hoover was far ahead of him. “I didn’t tell you this, but I was invited to a Hoover party, but of course—”

  “Don’t you see, Louise, Hoover is doing me a big favor. The man is a marketing genius. He stirs things up, convinces every woman she needs to own a vacuum cleaner. He creates the market, then I come along with the Whirlwind Maid, which is obviously superior. I’ve worked it all out. Tom knows the bicycle can’t compete with the automobile, and he’s got to get into a new line of work or go out of business. Right now he’s tickled to have my business to keep his boys busy. Once I get going, we’ll expand his shop into a small factory.”

  Louise thought of Hoover salesmen going door to door or putting on party demonstrations. “Will you hire traveling salesmen?”

  “No. They couldn’t begin to do her justice. I plan to go on the road and sell her myself.”

  Louise pictured her husband, a caricature perched expectantly on a doorstep with his Whirlwind Maid. She sensed desperation. Perhaps his string of failed schemes weighed too heavily or he felt he was running out of time to make his mark.

  “Door to door?”

  “Goodness, no. The Whirlwind Maid has too much class for that. I’ll take orders from hardware stores and mercantile stores. Put this baby in a store window, and everybody will want one.”

  She had to agree it was probably far superior to the Hoover. She could tolerate—even enjoy—her husband being gone a few days each month. “Where would you go, Omaha? Kansas City?”

  “No, Hoover’s already in the big city stores. But up-and-coming rural towns that have electricity, why, the Whirlwind Maid will sweep them right off their feet.” He grinned at his little joke.

  “How are you planning to get to these places?”

  “I’ll buy a truck. And during the winter months, I’ll just take one sample along and ride the train.”

  “How long would you be gone?”

  “Couple of months at a time. Then—”

  “You can’t mean it. If you think you’re going to leave me here to run the Inn alone, you have another think coming—”

  “Listen, Louise.” Frank looked away, his eyes scanning the trees left of the path. “The hoot owl. There. There’s two of them.”

  “Don’t change the subject. Have you given any thought to Marie? How could you abandon her to go off on some lark?”

  She could see that her words stung. Accusing this loving father of failing his daughter, calling his beloved project a “lark.” She had crossed a line. A woman might confide her husband’s failings to her closest friend but should never question his authority to his face. A prudent woman would drop the subject. But if she didn’t vent, she could choke on the grievances stuck in her throat. “What about our dream house, a proper house for Marie? Must we remain trapped in this mausoleum all our lives?”

  “Mausoleum?”

  “I’m sick of living with your parents’ ghosts. Everything we own belonged to them. I want my own house, furnished to my taste. And I want a proper porch and garden that I don’t have to share with paying guests.”

  He straightened to his full height and glared at her. “I always admired you as a woman who knew her place. My business is none of your business. I intend to forget this conversation ever occurred.”

  She strode out of the woods alone. She passed a blur of guests without a word or a nod and headed to the back door. Let them think what they will.

  The following morning Yonder brought the last of eight Adirondack chairs to the yard behind the Inn where Louise had begun scraping peeling paint from a chair back. He reached for a scraper and began working on another chair.

  “These chairs have seen better days,” Louise said.

  One of the hired girls, walking by with a basket of laundry, greeted Louise, and gave Yonder a quick, shy glance when he looked up.

  After the girl passed, Louise said, “She likes you.”

  Yonder did not respond.

  “Ever been sweet on a girl?” The question slipped out, its boldness catching her by surprise.

  Yonder dipped his paintbrush, wiped it against the can’s rim, and applied paint to a chair leg with sure, steady strokes. “There was someone in St. Deroin, blonde hair, green eyes, rebellious spirit.”

  Louise worked on a matching chair, scraping weathered paint that flaked off to expose the wood beneath. “What happened?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.” His sarcastic tone—so uncharacteristic of this gentle man—caused Louise to stop scraping and look up.

  He straightened and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I got beat up and left for dead.”

  “I am so sorry. Is that why you came here?”

  “I had to leave town. It was that or get killed.” He looked directly at Louise, his eyes cold with resentment. “Know what happens to white men who kill a halfbreed?”

  She nodded. She’d made a mistake prying into his past, thinking it just a bit of playful mischief. She hadn’t meant to arouse some barely repressed bitterness. Was the anger in his eyes meant for the men who had assaulted him or for all whites? Might it include her? The thought brought on a sensation like her skin was shrinking. She set down her paintbrush and stroked her left arm as though she could comfort herself.

  Yonder must have read her thoughts. His eyes, no longer angry, sought connection. “I didn’t mean to burden you with this.”

  Never had Yonder been more dear to her. She grasped for healing words. “I cannot dare to say I’ve shared anything like your experience. But you were the learned man who wore pigskin boots, and I was the cultivated lady who wore snakeskin pumps. I suspected that, like me, you had known the pinch of hand-me-down shoes, and you seemed to understand that I was an outsider, that like you, I had shed my old skin.”

  He nodded. “We pay a price for denying our roots, for striving to become someone our ancestors wouldn’t recognize.”

  “Isolation─that’s what pretending has cost me. I had grown numb to it.” What she wanted to say was that knowing him, coming to accept him and feel a kinship with him, awakened something real in her. But if she dared to say those words, other words might tumble forth, revealing improper feelings that wanted to surface in spite of her every effort to censor them. Instead she dipped her brush in the can and without wiping off the excess paint slapped the dripping brush onto the raw wood of a chair leg.

  11

  August 1904

  Frank winked at the supper guests when he deflected Marie’s question. “Chautauqua? It’s an Indian word. Tell us what it means, Yonder.”

  Affecting an authoritative tone, Yonder said, “’Chautauqua’ is a very old Iro
quois word. It means ‘wallowing in culture.’ And there’s no one who likes to wallow in culture more than your mother.” He grinned at Louise.

  “I’m not alone.” Louise was in her Chautauqua mood, happily anticipating five nights of entertainment, music, and lectures, as well as classes during the day. She still regarded the event with the pride of ownership, having led the campaign to bring the tent Chautauqua to Riverbend, though it had been so many years ago that most people did not know her role or had forgotten. “Chautauqua brings a cultural and educational feast to a starving town.”

  Inviting J.D. and Dovie, Yonder, and one or two presenters to supper on the eve of Chautauqua was a tradition. As in years past, Bernard Feldman, the Chautauqua’s popular Mr. Science, was a guest. A bald, scrappy man with expressive eyebrows that looked like brown woolly caterpillars, he had passed the age when most men retire; however, his eagerness to share his fascination with medicine and science seemed to keep him young. A new supper guest this year, something of a surprise, was Giovanna Sortino who accompanied Yonder.

  “I’d like to bring a guest this year,” Yonder had said to Louise. “Miss Sortino.”

  Louise tried not to appear startled. “The Chautauqua soprano?”

  “We met last year. I’d very much like for you to meet her.”

  His face had the bright glow of what could be eagerness or pride . . . or love. The idea of this woman enjoying his affection stirred resentment, which was foolish because he didn’t belong to Louise. But she couldn’t help herself. “Of course. I’d be honored to have her at our table.”

  J.D. ladled gravy onto a slice of beef tenderloin until it pooled perilously close to the edge of his plate. “Speaking of feasts, Louise, I do believe you’ve exceeded your own high standards tonight.”

  The others murmured agreement. The men raised their cocktail tumblers, and the women, their glasses of champagne and sloe gin.

  “Thank you, J.D.,” Louise said. “Most of the credit belongs to Henryetta.”

  “Will someone please pass the corn pudding?” Marie asked.

  “That’s what’s missing,” Bernard said. “I had come to think of it as a tradition.”

  Louise had hoped no one would notice the omission and momentarily wished hers was a household in which children were seen and not heard. “I thought potatoes au gratin might be a welcome change.”

  Giovanna scowled. “Is corn pudding not a dessert?” Her lyrical voice was quintessentially feminine yet suggested her power to reach an audience in the back rows.

  Yonder explained. “It’s a savory dish my mother used to make, and when I described it to Louise, she was able to recreate it. As you can tell, it found favor with guests.”

  It was deliberately omitted tonight because Frank had said to Louise days before the party: “I don’t know why everyone makes such a fuss over corn pudding. It tastes like paste with lumps and looks even worse.” Knowing him to be anything but a picky eater, Louise found his words disturbing. She had said nothing about the party menu, yet he had been thinking about corn pudding. Was this a sign of jealousy? If so, why now after all these years? Did it have to do with Marie falling from the pony cart? When the driver called Yonder “Dad?”

  Following the entrée, Henryetta cleared the table and wheeled in a serving cart bearing Louise’s new silverplate chafing dish, an essential item for the up-to-date hostess.

  “Can it possibly be peach melba?” Bernard said.

  Louise nodded as she assembled the dessert in the chafing dish with practiced flair. She poured brandy in a steady stream to bathe the warmed peaches and raspberry sauce without splashing, then touched a candle flame to the pooled liquid. The resultant spectacle brought the “oohs” and “aahs” she had anticipated.

  The room grew still, the only sound that of silver spoons scraping china bowls.

  Frank held his spoon aloft, using it to punctuate his slurred words. “Louise, here, deserves credit for the dessert. She’s been practicing for weeks. I’ve got peach melba coming out my ears.” He settled back in his chair, a self-satisfied grin on his face.

  Giovanna said, “Louise, I have enjoyed peach melba in the finest restaurants in Vancouver and Boston, and I daresay yours is without equal.”

  Murmurs of approval underscored her praise.

  She continued. “I am afraid I could never be as clever as you in the kitchen.”

  “Thank you, Giovanna. Perhaps you underestimate yourself.”

  Bernard dabbed his mouth with his napkin and pushed back his chair. “I have some Chautauqua news. I understand that Miss Helen Keller will join the circuit next year.”

  “As a presenter?” Louise asked.

  “Yes. Her topic will be ‘My Life.’ The public is fascinated with how she manages given her handicaps.”

  “But can she speak?” Giovanna asked.

  “Yes, but most people can’t understand her. Her companion and former teacher, Miss Anne Sullivan, will translate.”

  A lull in the conversation followed. Marie spoke up. “I know something no one else knows. May I tell, Uncle Yonder?”

  “Go ahead, Miss Smarty-pants,” he said.

  “Uncle Yonder and Miss Sortino are going to get married.”

  Scarcely hearing Frank’s call for a toast, Louise was slow to raise her glass. She half-smiled, her eyes drawn to a candle flame’s flickering reflection on her crystal wine glass. She tried to feel happy for Yonder, but part of her spirit had been sucked from her body.

  Following Frank’s toast, Louise, looked at Giovanna. “I’m happy for you both. Have you set a date?”

  “I’ve always dreamed of a wedding on my parents’ anniversary, March twenty-fourth.” Giovanna smiled at Yonder.

  “Does this mean you’ll no longer favor Chautauqua audiences with your presence?” J.D. asked.

  Giovanna nodded. “I’m weary of living like a gypsy. We plan to settle down in San Diego near my family.”

  It dawned on Louise that Yonder’s trips to California over the past year probably had nothing to do with the assimilation movement.

  Giovanna continued. “We both want a place to call home.”

  Louise bristled at the implication that Yonder had no home. All these years—fifteen at least—Riverview Inn was his home. He was family.

  “San Diego will be the perfect place for Yonder to assimilate,” Giovanna said. “He has the blessing of my father, and that makes him as good as a full-blooded Italian.”

  “We haven’t told him everything about my heritage,” Yonder said. “He doesn’t know that I’m half French.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “What do you plan to do in San Diego?” Bernard asked.

  “Giovanna’s father plans to make me a partner in his construction business, and Giovanna will open a music conservatory.”

  Frank looked at Bernard. “Yonder came to Riverbend from St. Deroin, hardly famous like your Pompeii, but fascinating nonetheless.”

  Yonder said, “I never intended to leave St. Deroin. But I saw signs the river was changing its bed and about to take the town.”

  Giovanna looked at Yonder and placed a hand on his arm. “You’re making it sound so matter of fact.” She looked at the guests. “When he told me how he watched chunks of earth and houses and stores fall into the river, I could scarcely believe my ears.” Excitement shone in her eyes and voice. “And at night it rumbled like thunder. Some people moved up on the bluff, but most people left. Fortunately for me, Yonder decided to come to Riverbend or we probably would never have met.”

  That Yonder had told Louise of his first love, his real reason for leaving St. Deroin, gave Louise some satisfaction. She and Yonder had a special bond. He might be smitten with the lovely soprano, but she doubted they were kindred spirits.

  “Pardon me,” Marie said, “may I be excused?”

  “Of course,” Louise said.

  Marie whispered to her mother. “Do you know where I left Dolly?”

  “In the back parlor n
ext to the piano.”

  Marie excused herself from the table and walked a familiar path to the adjacent parlor.

  On the threshold of inebriation, Frank nevertheless succeeded in pouring brandy for everyone without spilling a drop. He had begun drinking bourbon before the guests arrived, and no doubt he and Bernard would continue drinking long after the other guests left. In a non sequitur, he announced “Ozymandias” and launched into a recitation of his favorite poem.

  I met a traveler from an antique land

  Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

  Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

  The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed . . .

  When Frank paused to take a drink, the sound of Marie’s voice came from the back parlor:

  And on the pedestal these words appear:

  “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;

  Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

  Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

  The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  Frank gestured toward the parlor. “Ah, but there’s my immortality; I shall live on through my daughter.”

  “Come here, child,” Bernard called out.

  Marie retraced her steps to the dining room and went to Bernard’s side.

  He took both her hands in his. “The child has a gift.”

  The way Bernard looked at Marie’s eyes, the slight wrinkling of his brow, caused Louise’s shoulders and neck to tighten.

  “The Chautauqua is looking for a new child elocutionist,” Bernard said. “Anna Joy Blake is going on fourteen and won’t return to the circuit next year. Seems she pines for a beau back home in Ohio and has not renewed her contract. Just say the word and I’ll arrange an audition.”