What the Lady Wants

by Renée Rosen

  “Oh my goodness,” said Abby, her eyes wide, taking it all in. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Delia said, hugging Flossie.

  Despite a grand opening gala that was planned for the following week, all the society ladies were there that first day, not wanting to miss a thing. They were coolly polite to Delia, merely acknowledging her before moving on to Abby. When Sybil Perkins and Annie Swift arrived, they brushed past her as if she were invisible. Another woman, Thelma Moyer, glared at her and that’s when Delia motioned to her sister, indicating that she and Flossie were going up to the second floor. Anything to get away from those women.

  Delia browsed through the stationery and fountain pens. She was admiring the ambergris-scented sealing wax when she glanced up and gasped, nearly dropping the stamper she was holding. There was Nannie. Standing just three feet away.

  “Nannie—” That was all she could manage to say.

  Nannie said nothing in response. She simply stared at Delia with a cold, eerie glare. It was as if her face were a mask, frozen with a smirk in place. The silence lingered too long, adding to the tension.

  “Well, say something, for God’s sake!”

  But Nannie only tilted her head and continued with that eerie stare of hers, her menacing smile more disturbing than any words could have been. Finally, Delia couldn’t bear it any longer. She clutched Flossie closer to her chest and scurried away toward the first floor, past the doorman and out onto the street.

  Once outside she held Flossie tight and reminded herself to breathe. She was so disturbed by Nannie’s behavior that it took a moment before she became aware of the chaos swarming around her. A group of protestors had formed an angry demonstration that stretched half a block long. Red and black anarchist flags waved in the air as they chanted, “Death to the capitalists,” and, “Down with the rich, let the working class rise.”

  Delia felt so vulnerable. They hated the wealthy and all they’d have to do was look at her in her fine tailored dress and her dog with the diamond collar, and they would know that she was the enemy. She feared they would see her and turn their rage toward her. Her palms began to sweat. She wanted to get away from them as quickly as possible and hurried away from the store entrance.

  As she turned the corner at State and Washington, she spotted Augustus standing there among the crowd, listening intently to the speaker. He’d recently grown a scraggly beard and replaced his stylish monocle with a pair of spectacles. He looked more like one of them than a high-priced railroad executive. He hadn’t seen her and she couldn’t imagine what he was doing there. She knew he’d been unhappy with his position and supposed her brother-in-law identified more with the men who worked under him than with his fellow executives. But still, these socialists and anarchists were violent men. Could Augustus have been in favor of their movement? Was he getting involved with them? It wasn’t possible. Or was it?

  “. . . And we shall win this war at any price,” cried the man in the center of the group. There was a burst of applause and cheering and Delia was relieved that Augustus didn’t join in. He stood neutral, but she knew that even neutrality was an adversary as far as Marsh was concerned.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  1886

  It was because of Paxton that she would always remember the date, Saturday, May 1, 1886. The night before, much to Arthur’s distress, Paxton married Penelope Briggs. The ceremony took place at her family’s country estate in Highland Park and immediately following the reception, Arthur escaped and headed downstate to Ottawa for a few days to avoid the hoopla surrounding the affair. Delia offered to go with him, but he said he needed to be alone.

  Delia had just come from seeing her sister, her mother and her five-year-old niece, Catherine. It was a beautiful spring day with trees in bloom and the smell of fresh grass in the air. Delia and Flossie decided to stroll along Michigan Boulevard and slowly make their way back to Calumet Avenue.

  As she reached Eighteenth and Michigan, she was stopped by a police officer. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, running his gloved hands over the brass buttons on his uniform. “This street is closed.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “The demonstrators,” he said, pointing north. “They’re marching down Michigan Boulevard. We’re expecting some eighty thousand protestors to come through here.”

  “Eighty thousand?” Delia looked down the boulevard and noticed another policeman stationed on the roof of a building, a rifle at his side. She looked across the way and spotted two more riot officers, both armed with guns.

  “If I were you,” he said, “I’d go home and stay there until it’s safe.”

  But she didn’t go home. Arthur was in Ottawa and she couldn’t bear the thought of being alone, not when the city was on the brink of revolution. Nannie was back in Europe with the children, so Delia went to the Field mansion.

  She knew it was a bad sign that Marsh was already home from the store and in a meeting with the police inspector, Captain Bonfield, and General Sheridan. After the butler announced her, Marsh came out of the library and asked Delia to wait. She took a seat on the settee just outside the closed door where she could overhear the three men. Their conversation sent a chill running through her body.

  “. . . We know it’s going to take force to stop them,” said one of the men.

  “They’ve gotten ahold of dynamite now,” said the other.

  “And I don’t doubt for a second that they’re prepared to use it,” said the first.

  “You tell me what you need,” she heard Marsh saying. “I don’t care what it costs. I’ll give you whatever additional financial backing necessary to stop these bastards.”

  Delia raised her hand to her mouth. Marsh was going to fund the riot police? There was more talk, some of which she could hear, some muffled and hushed. Her anxiety mounted. Whatever was happening in the city today was more serious and dangerous than she’d realized.

  She recalled an argument that Marsh and Augustus had a few weeks back. They were all riding to the country in Arthur’s coach when Marsh opened a copy of The Alarm, a weekly newspaper published by the anarchists.

  “Did you see the story in there, instructing new recruits on how to use dynamite?” Augustus asked.

  “Damn those fools,” said Marsh. “They’re telling people to kill us with explosives. They’re even teaching them how to do it. We have to stop them.”

  “But really,” said Augustus, “is an eight-hour workday so unreasonable?”

  Marsh had clenched his jaw and Delia could see that he was offended. “It is if you’re the one paying them.”

  The voices coming from inside the library broke into Delia’s thoughts. She glanced at the clock in the hallway, listening to it tick off the minutes. The cockatiels in the next room squawked. She heard the hushed footsteps of the servants in other corners of the house. Everything was still, but not at all tranquil. Even Flossie picked up on the tension.

  Twenty excruciating minutes later, the door opened and out walked the general and the inspector. They were so preoccupied that they seemed not to notice her sitting there.

  After they’d gone, Delia rushed to Marsh’s side. “Dear God, Marsh, what’s happening?” She followed him back into the library. It smelled of cigar smoke and she saw the embers smoldering on a stub left in a crystal ashtray.

  Marsh sat in his wingback chair and rubbed his eyes. “The damn workers have called a general strike. The whole blasted city’s come to a standstill. The streetcars aren’t running. Trains aren’t letting people into town. The restaurants have all closed their doors. All my clerks, my shopgirls, my cashboys, even some of my supervisors, never showed up for work today. We had to close the store. All this over wanting an eight-hour workday. They’ll get eight hours,” he said through gritted teeth, “over my dead body.”

  She had never seen him so agi
tated, not even when it came to Nannie. His fury was ferocious. This was a side of him she didn’t even know existed.

  By nightfall, the marchers dispersed and there was an eerie calm left in their wake. But the streetcars still weren’t operating and no one was going to leave their house. The whole city was terrorized.

  • • •

  On the night of May 4, Delia braced herself while Marsh went to a public meeting that the anarchists were holding at the open market on Haymarket Square. This rally was in reaction to the police retaliation that had occurred the day before at the McCormick Reaper Works. The riot police—whom Marsh had financially backed—killed six striking workers during a demonstration outside the plant.

  Before he had left for the meeting, Delia tried to persuade Marsh not to go down to Haymarket Square. “Please,” she’d said, grabbing hold of his lapels, “don’t go to the rally tonight.”

  “Delia”—he pried her fingers free—“these people are calling for my death.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Running away and hiding isn’t going to make them back down. The only way is to stand up to them. I’m doing this for all our benefits. This entire city is in jeopardy and those rebels have to be stopped.”

  After he left, she headed around the corner to her house on Calumet Avenue. She so wished Arthur were home. She hadn’t heard from him in nearly a week and she knew he was sick inside over Paxton’s marriage. She imagined him in the drawing room down in Ottawa, lost in a drunken stupor.

  It started to rain, the kind of steady drizzle where the dampness seeped into her bones. The next several hours dragged on as she sat with Flossie in the library, thumbing through the latest issue of Vogue, trying to keep her mind busy. The second hand on the wall clock seemed to take forever to move. She sat down and played piano for the first time in ages, then played solitaire before she reached for her sketch pad and tried to draw. But nothing would distract her.

  Two hours later, not wanting to be alone, she packed up Flossie and went over to her family’s home.

  “This is nerve-racking,” Delia said to Abby and her parents as she removed her gloves, one finger at a time.

  Abby set her needlepoint aside and sighed. “Augustus is attending the rally. I couldn’t stop him from going.”

  “I just pray no one gets hurt,” said Delia.

  “Don’t forget, the mayor is down there tonight, too,” said Abby. “Augustus told me the city is taking every precaution to make certain it’s a peaceful demonstration.”

  But that did little to calm Delia. She kept repeating over and over again in her mind, Please, please let it be peaceful. Keep Marsh safe.

  “I suppose all we can do is wait,” said Mrs. Spencer.

  “I’d be down there myself right now except your mother has forbidden me to leave the house,” said Mr. Spencer. “Personally, I hope they crush the rebels.”

  Delia looked at her father in disbelief. He sounded just like Marsh. When it came to their business, men like Marsh and her father were as fierce as a mother bear protecting her cubs.

  The rain picked up in the evening hours, pelting the windows like a steady hand of pebbles being thrown at the glass. Spencer, now twelve years old, lay on the floor in the drawing room reading, and Catherine, just five, was already asleep upstairs. Abby and Mrs. Spencer picked up their needlepoint, and Delia and her father read. It reminded Delia of her childhood and how they used to pass the time, and she found some comfort in that. She gradualy began to relax and had even grown sleepy when suddenly Augustus stormed through the front door.

  He panted as the rainwater dripped off his hat and shirtsleeves, puddling at his feet. The right lens of his spectacles was cracked, the frames bent. Abby shot up off the settee and rushed to his side, with Delia and her parents close behind. Augustus was pale. His eyes seemed unfocused; his clothes were splattered with mud.

  “They set off a bomb!” cried Augustus. “The anarchists threw a bomb into the crowd. I’ve never seen anything like it. People are dying down there. They’re killing people.”

  Delia went light-headed. She knew Marsh was a target. The anarchists wanted him dead. She grabbed hold of his sleeve. “Did you see him? Did you see Marsh? Is he all right?”

  Augustus shook his head. “I saw him earlier, but once they threw that bomb, I lost track of everyone. . . .”

  He kept talking, but Delia could no longer listen. The room was spinning around her as she let go of his sleeve and started for the door.

  Her hand was reaching for the knob when Mr. Spencer grabbed her from behind. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I have to go to him. I have to see him,” she said, turning to free herself.

  “Now, you listen to me.” Her father moved to block her from leaving. “It’s dangerous out there,” he said, shaking her by the shoulders. “You’re not going anywhere. And don’t forget, you are a married woman.”

  Delia gave her struggle one last attempt before the fight drained out of her and she dropped into her father’s arms, willing herself not to cry.

  “You’ll stay here tonight,” he said, patting her back. “There’s nothing you can do right now anyway.”

  The room she’d once called her own had long since been occupied by Spencer, so she stayed in a guest room down the hall. She was staring out the window when Abby knocked on the door and came inside.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, sitting on the side of the bed.

  Delia nodded, too afraid to speak, for fear she’d start crying.

  “I want to discuss something with you,” Abby said. Her sister met her gaze and took a deep breath, as if to steady her nerves. “I’ve never said anything about this to you before, but you must realize that I know about you and Marshall. Everyone does.”

  “Oh, Abby, must we—”

  “I have and will continue to defend you against the gossip, but I have to ask, what are you doing? How can you do this to your poor husband?”

  Delia pressed her fingertips to her temples. Her husband was heartsick over another man getting married. How could she begin to explain it all to her sister? “Things with Arthur and me are not as they appear.”

  “I know he drinks but—”

  “It’s not just the drinking. Please, Abby”—she was begging with her eyes—“I’ve already said too much.”

  “But I’m your sister, Dell. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?”

  “No one.”

  Abby gave a slight nod. She knew the discussion was over. “I’m sorry. I won’t pry anymore.” She got up and kissed Delia’s cheek good night.

  With the sound of rain still hitting the windows, Delia crawled beneath the covers and turned down the lamp. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the tears began to flow. She was terrified that Marsh had been among the wounded or, God forbid, killed. It wasn’t fair. Marsh was being punished for having built his business. He’d given people jobs, he’d put a city to work, he’d made Chicago a better place for everyone and now, in exchange for all his efforts, they wanted him dead. These thoughts spun inside her head until just before dawn when she finally fell asleep.

  The next morning, once they were certain the streets were safe, Delia raced over to the Field mansion. She found Marsh in the library sitting before a stack of newspapers strewn across the center table. A tray of coffee and an untouched plate of eggs with a rasher of bacon had been pushed aside.

  Even before the butler announced her, Delia rushed to Marsh with tears collecting in her eyes. Her legs went weak with relief as she knelt at his side, clutching his hand, pressing it to her cheek. “Thank God you’re all right.”

  Marsh stood up and lifted her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. “Come on now, I need you to be strong,” he said, his mouth pressed to her ear. “Things are going to get ugly from this point on.”

  Delia clung
to him thinking, How could things possibly get any uglier?

  “We’re in the fight of our lives,” he said in a tight voice. “And I don’t intend to lose.” He looked worn through. She saw there was a gray cast to his skin and circles beneath his eyes.

  “Why don’t you try and get some rest?” she said, stroking his hair.

  “There’s no time for rest.” He released her from his embrace and walked over to his desk. “Those bastards are trying to blame it on the police now. I saw what happened. I was standing right there. Their last speaker was on the platform, spouting off about killing every last capitalist. Then they threw the goddamn bomb and now they’re going to pay for it.” He clenched his jaw as he reached for the telephone.

  He was as angry as she’d ever seen him. He was a force and she knew the anarchists were about to get a dose of just how powerful Marshall Field really was.

  Delia stood off to the side, overhearing his half of a conversation with Captain Bonfield: “. . . Well, of course the public is outraged. Their security has been challenged. No one feels safe anymore. The Knights of Labor and the IWPA are a direct threat to everything this city and this country stand for. . . . We have to stop the hysteria and the only way to do that is to destroy this movement. I want those labor newspapers shut down. I want the people responsible for this arrested and thrown in jail. . . . I don’t care—whatever it takes. I want that labor union crushed.”

  He slammed down the telephone base and Delia jumped.

  Marsh drew a deep breath and calmed himself before he telephoned Mayor Harrison. “. . . Search their houses, arrest them on sight. . . . Declare martial law. Do whatever you have to do to put an end to the anarchists and the labor organizers once and for all.”

  Delia sat by Marsh’s side watching as all his demands unfolded. Later that day, the city of Chicago declared martial law, and the police set out like hunters, searching for anyone and everyone suspected of participating in the uprising. She would always wonder how much of what happened in the coming weeks and months was a result of Mr. Marshall Field making those telephone calls on the morning of May 5, 1886.