Compromise with Sin

by Leanna Englert

  “Please, may I go to the circus?” Marie asked, then shook her head and let out an embarrassed giggle. “I mean circuit.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Unless Louise changed the subject fast, Frank would pick up on Bernard’s suggestion. “I suggest we retire to the parlor to watch Bernard’s Magic Lantern show. And Marie, it’s time to say good-night to our guests and your father.”

  After Marie bid everyone good-night, Louise put her to bed. When she returned to the parlor, she encountered Dovie standing apart from the others.

  “She’s wearing the S-corset,” Dovie whispered. Her eyes were directed toward Giovanna, who was holding up a sheet as Yonder tacked it to a wall. The soprano’s bosom and bottom were thrust out, a look that had not yet reached Riverbend. “Isn’t it sensational?”

  “Do you suppose the stores in Omaha will have them?” Louise asked.

  “Let’s go shopping as soon as the Chautauqua is over.”

  When everyone was seated, Frank lit the Magic Lantern’s wick. Bernard opened his large case of slides, and Louise turned out the parlor lights.

  Projecting pictures of people who appeared to have been sculpted in lava, Bernard said, “Imagine these people some nineteen hundred years ago, going about their everyday lives, caught unawares by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.”

  As he showed the ruins of a bakery, laundry, and the Temple of Jupiter, he held his little audience spellbound with his descriptions of how people lived. When he came to an image of a faded mosaic, he said, “This picture is not one I show Chautauqua audiences. This was the floor of a brothel, one of about thirty brothels in the town. Pompeii was a veritable den of iniquity.”

  Louise was surprised and dismayed that Bernard would bring up such a vulgar topic with ladies present. Her face must have registered her displeasure because he moved quickly to the next slide.

  “This last picture shows the amphitheater, which could hold nearly twenty thousand spectators—approximately six times the number of people in Riverbend. Designed for one purpose only. Do you know what it was?”

  “Athletic contests.” Frank punctuated his thick-tongued response with a quick nod of self-satisfaction.

  “Killing exhibitions,” Bernard said. “The Romans had an insatiable appetite for blood sports. Men of wealth and culture took great pride in the gladiators they owned, pitting them against man and beast. For the owners and spectators, it proved a thrilling demonstration of raw power, perhaps the ultimate expression of a human being’s power—not the poor gladiator’s, mind you, but the owner’s, because his wealth and position rendered him capable of sponsoring such a contest.”

  J.D. removed a silver toothpick case from his pocket and settled back in his chair. Seated next to J.D., Dovie fidgeted more than usual, alternately twisting her wedding band and twirling a lock of hair. Louise reflected on the couple’s happier days when J.D. doted on his flighty wife, and Dovie had no cause to worry that he might stray. But recently Dovie had told her of J.D. coming home late with the scent of perfume on his clothes.

  His attention fixed on Giovanna, J.D. returned the silver case unopened to his pocket. “They got their just reward, did they not? God caused Vesuvius to belch forth its gases and ash and lava to smite them for their hubris and wickedness. Mind you, it’s no coincidence that God led us to discover the buried story in our time. Clearly a warning of what He shall do if we dare to put our love of money and flesh ahead of Him.”

  “Nonsense,” Giovanna said. “What moral lesson is contained in the deaths of innocent babies and children? If God truly wanted to teach people a lesson, He would single out only the wicked for destruction.”

  Louise and Dovie exchanged shocked expressions. Giovanna was a woman who didn’t know her place.

  “Ah, but there’s an important lesson we forget at our peril,” J.D. said. “Sinners themselves are not the only ones cursed for their sins. No indeed. Like it says in holy scripture: ‘I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.’” He emphasized the words “keep my commandments.”

  Louise stiffened, taking the brunt of his words as though they were meant for her.

  Giovanna’s eyes flashed. “That was written in Biblical times before science provided rational explanations for natural disasters and disease. I cannot accept that Miss Keller was struck blind and deaf because her parents or grandparents brought the wrath of God upon her.”

  J.D. leaned forward. “Ah, but mind you, God’s message has been forgotten in modern times. Miss Keller’s affliction is meant to be an object lesson.”

  To speak up would violate Louise’s code of ladylike behavior, but she wanted to say, “God forbid that Marie’s blindness is punishment for something her father or I did.” But, of course, Marie’s blindness was God’s punishment. She looked at Frank, who was eyeing his snifter and swirling the brandy. Could he not see J.D.’s argument as a personal affront? If he had been sober and half a man, he’d have stood up to J.D.

  Instead of holding her ground, Giovanna sat back and looked at the pendant watch that hung from a gold rope around her neck. “The hour is late. I must follow a strict regimen when I’m performing. We must bid adieu to you lovely people.”

  Grateful to Giovanna for breaking the tension, Louise stood and saw her and Yonder to the door. She watched them walk down the hall to the stairs where they stopped, reluctant to part. Louise had to turn away from their intimate moment, but she couldn’t banish the thought of their intimacy.

  She closed the door, reminding herself she’d become a sensible matron, one whose contentment was derived from carrying out her duty to family and community. And now there were guests awaiting her return.

  As she turned from the door to head back toward the animated voices in the parlor, she stopped as though physically restrained. A curious thought got her attention. She would never serve corn pudding again, and perhaps worse, never experience the anticipation of corn pudding, a loss that left her feeling old.

  She took deep breaths to collect herself, hating it when sentiment intruded on her carefully constructed world.

  J.D. was speaking as Louise entered the parlor. “Mind you, I am the first to say there are good ones, like Miss Sortino.”

  J.D. had recently begun writing editorials in The Riverbend Nonpareil, exploiting the threat of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. It was hard to discern when he sincerely believed something and when he was pandering to the newspaper’s readers.

  “Her family has probably been here as long as yours,” Bernard said. “We’re a nation of immigrants, but people get here and want to keep out anyone who isn’t their own kind.”

  Frank spoke up. “Want to hear something funny? When my father came to this country and looked for a boarding house, there was one that had a sign that said, ‘No dogs or Irishmen.’” Frank cocked his head, seeming to wait for a big reaction, but it didn’t happen. Louise wondered how many times their guests had heard his story.

  J.D. got a conspiratorial look in his eye. “Changing the subject, Yonder isn’t the first man to whom Miss Sortino has been betrothed.” He paused for effect. “I have it on good authority that she joined the Chautauqua—that would have been the season before last—after her fiancé in San Diego got cold feet and called off the wedding just days before.”

  Unable to sleep, Louise shifted her pillow once again. The rough seam of her nightgown was chafing her side so she rolled onto her back, trying not to hear Frank and Bernard’s voices which carried from the back parlor where they had settled after Dovie and J.D. left. Whatever they were arguing about would be forgotten tomorrow.

  Not until tonight had Louise realized how abrasive J.D. was becoming. Almost everything he said, actually everything he stood for, offended her. From his diatribe about God’s punishment, to his seeming enjoyment at revealing Giovanna’s
troubled romantic past, to his ugly stance on immigration.

  She turned from her back to her side and kicked off the sheet, knowing that in minutes she’d pull it back up.

  Dovie had been fidgety and unusually quiet throughout the evening. A reaction, no doubt, to J.D.’s behavior. Poor Dovie, as though a corset could help her marriage.

  Giovanna’s spirited opposition to J.D. had been something to behold. Was it her Italian nature or the West Coast influence? What would it be like to be Giovanna, a worldly woman who spoke her mind, had a glamorous career, and traveled unaccompanied by a husband? Recalling the trip with Marie to Philadelphia, Louise didn’t ever again want to juggle train and trolley schedules or deal with strange people and places on her own.

  But to be honest, the coming of the Chautauqua aroused nostalgia for a time before Marie was born. Those were the days when the raw drive to establish herself as a civic leader led her to found the library and to campaign for the Chautauqua. She slept well then and bounded out of bed each morning eager to tackle the tasks that would occupy her till nightfall.

  Devoting herself to Marie’s welfare and piano studies had been a conscious decision, one she didn’t regret. But she had never intended to trade her reputation as a civic leader for that of a hostess who dazzled her guests with a flaming peach melba.

  And there was the way Bernard, who had once studied medicine, looked at Marie’s eyes. Did he know about babies’ sore eyes?

  Her meandering thoughts turned to Yonder, to the way Giovanna took over his story about St. Deroin, not in the collegial manner of couples who finished each other’s sentences, but in a condescending way as though his telling of it wasn’t good enough. She couldn’t shake the bad feeling she had about their union. If it failed, she hoped he would come back home.

  12

  August 1904

  For five days each August a grassy Missouri River flood plain was transformed into a cultural mecca with the coming of the Chautauqua. As the Morrisseys walked through the grounds on opening night, Frank swept his arm wide to indicate the whole scene. “Look what we started, Louise.”

  Louise didn’t take issue with him, but it had been she who had mobilized a group of women fifteen years ago in a campaign to bring the Chautauqua to Riverbend. At the time, Frank had called it her “little project.” Only after her efforts had turned local indifference to enthusiastic support did he see the bandwagon and jump on.

  A tall tent commanded the temporary, bustling Chautauqua community. A hundred or more small camping tents dotting the grounds were rented by families who came from the countryside and small towns by train, buggy, or the occasional automobile. The campers brought along sleeping bags, which resembled long pillow cases, and stuffed them with straw, provided free by the local Chautauqua Committee, which also maintained outhouses and water wagons.

  Outside some of the campers’ tents sat little cages with squawking chickens that would end up as stew before the week ended. Families who could afford it ate from the many food concessions operated as fund-raisers by local churches and civic groups. Long lines always formed at the booths of the Methodist Missionary Society, famed for fried chicken, and the Bohemian Society, whose members dressed in colorful folk costumes and served hearty suppers of pork sausage, sauerkraut, dumplings, and kolaches. Other vendors sold lemonade, root beer, ice cream, and corn on the cob slathered with butter.

  Absent were the fortune-tellers, hucksters of rheumatism cures, and peddlers of girlie pictures who followed carnivals and other traveling shows. The Chautauqua prided itself on moral purity, and vendors had to meet the organization’s standards.

  The main tent’s vast canvas canopy covered a platform and orderly rows of wood plank seats. The tent remained open on three sides for ventilation unless rain necessitated the lowering of canvas curtains. Families arriving early took seats near the openings so they could send children outside if they became restless during the long show. Older children climbed the steep hill to the south to play in Chautauqua Park, another civic improvement instigated by Louise, or to roll down the hill.

  After the mayor took the platform to greet the audience, the Chautauqua manager opened the show with the Alpine Yodelers. Outside the tent several ruffians howled in imitation until a man seated near the tent opening chased them off.

  At the end of the act, the audience applauded and waved white handkerchiefs in the “Chautauqua salute,” a tradition that had begun when the Chautauqua had a deaf presenter who was unable to hear applause.

  When, several acts later, Giovanna Sortino sang selections from “La Boheme,” Louise observed Frank looking mesmerized, probably by her rising and falling bosom which was accentuated by her S-corset. Other men seemed transfixed as well, and Louise wondered how they would explain to their wives their sudden passionate interest in opera.

  Next came a ventriloquist with his dummy, and the audience strained to catch the man’s lips moving. This was the first of several olios, which included a juggler and The Man of a Thousand Bird Songs.

  Bernard Feldman was an old favorite. He excited children and adults alike with demonstrations of electrical power and magnetism. Less popular with children was his graphic chalk talk on germs which helped advance the “sanitary revolution” going on in homes across America. Indeed a look at the audience would reveal a testament to this revolution. With growing public awareness that beards and floor-length skirts harbored deadly germs, it was becoming a mark of sophistication for men to be clean-shaven and women to wear skirts with raised hemlines.

  When the piano soloist played Debussey’s “Claire de Lune,” Louise watched with amusement at Marie’s hands playing an imaginary piano and pictured her on a concert stage one day.

  Among the various acts that followed were the Voices of Beulahland singing Negro spirituals; Anna Joy Blake whistling a patriotic medley and reciting “The Highwayman;” the Children’s Chorus; and Bernard’s program on Pompeii.

  And finally opening night closed with the ever-popular “Acres of Diamonds” motivational speech presented by the Reverend Russell Conwell. His very long speech had been published so widely and delivered so often that Frank and other ambitious men in the audience could mouth significant passages, such as one in which Conwell exhorted men to see it as their Christian duty to acquire wealth which was not to be found in far-off places but in their own back yards if only they would dig there. The end of his speech was met by thunderous applause accompanied by fluttering white handkerchiefs.

  When the Morrisseys stood to leave, Frank said, “You see, Louise, Conwell speaks directly to me. My Whirlwind Maid, now if that isn’t an invention from my own back yard─why, you know what gave me the idea was watching our hired girls lug around all their cleaning supplies. Mark my words, Louise, we’re going to be rich.”

  Louise and Marie were finishing breakfast when Frank charged through the door as though possessed. His face was lathered with shaving soap except for one clean swath.

  Eyes flashing, he jabbed at the air with his razor, punctuating his announcement. “I’ve just been struck with a capital idea. How is it the most wonderful ideas pop into my head when I’m shaving? Remember hearing Anna Joy Blake last night? ‘The highwayman came riding—riding—riding—’” He mocked the girl’s sing-song delivery. “’The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.’ That girl sucked all the life out of that magnificent poem. I kept thinking how our Marie Alouette could do better without half trying. It dawned on me this morning. They’re looking for a new child elocutionist for next season, so why not take Marie for an audition?”

  “You want her to be a presenter with the Chautauqua?” Louise said. Had he been too drunk to recall it was Bernard’s idea?

  His eyes brightened. “Have you been thinking the same thing?”

  “Marie, go outside and play. I need to have a word with your father.”

  Louise shook napkin crumbs into the plates, rolled up the napkins, and slipped them in their respective rings. She
waited for the sound of Marie’s footsteps on the stairs to fade, then turned to face her husband. “Have you given any thought to how disruptive it would be, traveling like gypsies? That’s no life for a sighted child, let alone Marie. She depends on familiar surroundings and routines.”

  “A break from routines, a little adventure would do her good. Untie the apron strings, Louise. They’re strangling her.”

  “Not to mention interrupting her piano studies. And do you think I can just drop everything to accompany her?”

  “Here’s the beauty of it.” His face smeared with shaving soap, his eyes and voice charged with hell-bent enthusiasm, he seemed a comic figure. “I’ll travel with her and make sales calls along the way.”

  Far from being appeased, Louise was repulsed by his giddy delight, which was part and parcel of his reckless nature. Struck with an idea, he became oblivious to everything else, and ideas struck often. It would be foolhardy to entrust him with Marie’s care. Louise focused on breathing and remaining calm. She stacked the breakfast dishes. She could not bear to look at her husband. “And I suppose you’ll braid her hair and iron her dresses.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Louise moved the sugar bowl to its proper place where it hid a permanent stain on the tablecloth. “Little things, like the dependable placement of her plate and fork and glass—she needs that stability.”

  “You need for her to have that stability. Marie will have fun.”

  “What if she auditions and doesn’t get selected? I would hate to see her hopes dashed.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith. You’ll see.”

  Her arguments exhausted, Louise turned back to the table. Nothing she might say or do would stop her husband. But there was something she would not say, and she clung to it as the little remnant of power left to her. She would not aid Frank’s scheme by reminding him of Bernard’s offer to arrange an audition.