Chapter 7 Abby

7

ABBY

Miss Rhoades called Abby at home on Election Day, Tuesday, November 6, from the telephone in the matron’s office. “I know you’re working on this month’s ledger,” Miss Rhoades began.

“Yes, the board meets next week,” Abby replied. She’d finished her morning devotions and had been sitting at her little desk in the solarium, writing in her journal, when the telephone in her hallway rang. “Do we have a new entry for the ledger? Don’t tell me—did Dolly’s baby come?”

“No.”

Abby could almost hear Miss Rhoades wringing her hands. She’d hired Miss Rhoades herself, snatched her up, really, when a woman she knew from the Temperance Society mentioned that her children had outgrown their governess. Clean, orderly, sober, and upright: Miss Rhoades had lived up to Abby’s friend’s description of her, and Abby had been pleased with her service these last eight years, even though sometimes she wondered if the inmates tended to walk all over her. Showing kindness was one thing; laxity, another.

“Speak, friend,” she urged Miss Rhoades. “What is it?”

“A runaway. Constance.”

Abby removed her glasses and pinched her eyes with her hand. “When did it happen?”

“At night. I’m sorry, Mrs. Mendenhall. I hadn’t realized anything was amiss with her. Although she has been spending time with Faith—”

Abby cut her off. She’d hear no more hysteria surrounding their new arrival. The facts were what mattered, and the fact was, Constance had decided to leave. “I’ll have to begin a search, which means it’s unlikely I’ll be at the home for a few days. Will you let me know if we’re near running out of anything?”

“Of course,” Miss Rhoades breathed. She sounded relieved to have passed the burden of this news to someone else.

Abby returned to the solarium and stared out the window for a while, watching the wind pluck yellow leaves from a black walnut. “Crows flew by today,” she wrote in her journal, then shut it until tomorrow.

—

She had two girls to track down now, although one was in the unusual position of still being an inmate of the home. She began with her web of informers, asking if they’d seen hide or hair of Constance or had any information that would help determine where Faith had come from. A lumberjack who lived in the Bohemian Flats and a maid at an hourly hotel knew nothing, but the railroad worker, whose children received Christmas presents from Abby every year, and Abel Stevens, the dairyman, had at least seen Faith on her route to the Bethany Home. Neither had any idea where she’d been coming from.

“You should really talk to Swede Kate,” Stevens murmured under his breath, so that his wife wouldn’t hear. He stood on the curb outside his barn. “She knows everything and everybody.”

“I know Kate,” Abby replied, causing Stevens to frown in disbelief. She thanked him and signaled to her driver to start the horses. Kate Campbell’s parlor house was the last place Abby wanted to go, but Stevens was right. She went home and telephoned the local sheriff’s office, insisting on speaking to one deputy in particular: Officer Roland Nye. He agreed to meet her on Second Avenue the very next day.

Abby’s driver let her out at eleven in the morning, under Kate’s porte cochère. Madams and their girls tended to sleep late, working as they did till 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., so Abby knew to visit well after breakfast. When she arrived, she saw that Officer Nye had beaten her there; he reached for her horses’ bridles—Polly and Prince, sister and brother bay Hackneys—and held them as Abby disembarked. She paused for a second after stepping over the wet gutter, a bouquet of flowers for Kate tucked under one arm, inhaling the fishy scent of the river.

Officer Nye watched her do it. He had a jolly face, broad and fair, with a good deal of pink in his cheeks. “Manure, ma’am, from the west.” He winked. “That’s Minneapolis on a warm autumn day for you.”

Nye had been with the force for more than three decades. He and Abby had crossed paths in this district many times, and he was the only cop Kate would accept into her parlor. His sideburns were nearly all white now. Abby prayed he wouldn’t retire.

She shook her head. “It’s the water I’m smelling. Reminds me of home.”

“Were you born near St. Anthony Falls?”

“No, nowhere near here. In Cape Cod.” She hoped she didn’t sound boastful. Folks from the Bay Colony still ran this town, a coterie that once included her husband. Nye raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

They couldn’t see the river from here—mills, factories, slum housing for immigrant laborers stood between them and the muddy banks. But its proximity always reminded Abby of her mother, who’d kept Abby’s bedroom windows flung open to the sea all year round. As a child, Abby Swift had suffered hemorrhages of the lungs; not a handkerchief in their household was spared from bloodstains. Her father, one of the last of a Quaker whaling dynasty out of New Bedford, had been gone for years at a time, spacing the Swift siblings in increments of three, four, five years; by the time Abby, the last, was born, her mother was well past thirty. After her eldest children left the nest, to captain ships of their own or raise families, Chloe Swift spent hours holding frail, coughing Abby. She read her daughter Bible stories as Abby watched ships limp wearily into the harbor, sails torn and rudders pocked with barnacles.

“The sea gives its greatest gift to those who remain on land,” her mother would say. “That salt air will cure anything.”

The gift Chloe gave her daughter was one of freedom: freedom to run barefoot through the dune grasses when her lungs had strengthened, to learn how to drive a carriage, how to butcher a whole hog, how to plant and tend her own wildflower garden instead of sitting inside practicing embroidery. Chloe did not believe in shielding her from the ocean’s spray, from the elements, which toughened Abby over time. For years, sand clung stubbornly to her fingernail beds and lodged between her toes.

Chloe had died here in Minneapolis, after living with Abby for the last fifteen years of her life. Abby had given her the sunniest, warmest room in the house, in quiet thanks for being well mothered.

“Shall we, ma’am?” Nye asked, extending an elbow.

“We shall,” Abby replied, and they started up the walk.

—

Swede Kate’s had once been a brothel owned by the cunning Mollie Ellsworth, who spread the lucrative rumor that Jesse James had been a client. Kate had taken over after Mollie’s death and livened the fa?ade by adding window boxes, which now held purple chrysanthemums. Elaborate topiaries curled up from her planters. Even now, with the city mired in economic woes, Kate had money for decoration, which meant some men still had the coin to buy women. Two such men were just now posted outside Kate’s front steps, ordinary-looking men who nevertheless gave Abby a feeling of menace.

A servant answered the door, scarcely out of girlhood, her face still dotted with acne. The girl shrank at the sight of Abby and the constable. Abby knew she could appear imposing: a gray-haired lady in black, with a hooked nose better fit for a bird of prey. She wanted to reach out and gently touch the girl’s shoulder.

Instead, she said: “Did someone call for a traveling vaudeville act?”

The girl’s eyes popped. She took a step backward, hand over her lips; a giggle was waiting to escape, but she was afraid to let it.

Abby leaned forward. “My colleague here is the acrobat.” Behind her, Nye snorted, his cheeks flushed. “I’ll be playing the part of the thousand-year-old crone.”

Now the girl laughed in earnest, a winsome sound, and led them into the dimly lit foyer, expensively decorated in dark damask with Chinese tasseled accents. A fresh arrangement of flowers, deep-purple hothouse tulips and chocolate cosmos, sprayed from a black-and-gold urn. Funereal, Abby thought with a shiver, her smile fading. Why did the décor have to be so grim?

“Mrs. Mendenhall. Officer Nye.” Kate had rustled into the room, a cloud of shimmery midnight-blue fabric and voluminous faded-orange hair. She smelled of bergamot cologne, which reminded Abby of tea. The first time she’d met Swede Kate, nearly twenty years before, Kate had had the air of a young mother caring for unruly children, her face still vivacious and apple-cheeked. Now she seemed more a grandmother, or a frazzled aunt.

“Zinnias!” Kate said, taking the paper-wrapped bouquet from Abby. “Such pretty pinks and reds.”

“They’re from Mr. Mendenhall’s greenhouse,” said Abby.

One of Kate’s cheeks dimpled. “For affection?”

“I was thinking for absent friends.”

Kate’s mouth went into a pinch. “These should go in water,” she said, handing the flowers to the servant girl. She turned back to Abby and rocked forward on her toes. “Can’t say I’m surprised to see you here.”

Abby felt her blood quicken. “Why is that?”

“You haven’t seen the paper?” Kate brushed past her visitors and through the front door, where she called to the two men lounging by the side of the house. “Go away and come back later. We’re not open until four.”

One of them must have muttered his displeasure, and she threw up her arms in exasperation. “The girls are at rest, gentlemen. Have some decency.” She shut the door with a flourish and brushed off her hands. “Come, we’ll talk in the parlor. Gilly?” The pubescent servant girl reappeared. “Fetch us bouillon toddies and today’s copy of the Examiner. ”

“No liquor in mine, please,” Abby told Gilly as she took her seat. The parlor was just as sumptuously decorated as the foyer, the cushions velvety and supple. On the satin-papered wall behind Kate hung an enormous painting of a Greek goddess, naked except for a length of fabric wrapped up one thigh and over her shoulder.

“The Examiner is a rag, Kate. Why should I care what they have to say?”

Kate only smiled, taking the love seat opposite Abby. Officer Nye stood beside the window, peering out suspiciously.

Abby wished she couldn’t picture the upstairs rooms of this house, with their deep-piled rugs, gleaming oak headboards, silver hairbrushes, and gilt mirrors, all designed to entice girls into staying there, as much as to impress the male clientele. Each brothel had its theme, its standard visitors: There were the rowdy saloons and gaming halls, which catered to a lower class of men, and lavish feasting-houses for wealthy rogues. Gambling halls staffed prostitutes to take the winners’ money and comfort the losers. Kate’s establishment had an air of exclusivity, with its warren of private sitting rooms, inviting gentlemen to linger in conversation. This parlor had a library ambience, stacked with works by Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The man who frequented Kate’s would consider himself an intellectual—yes, a misunderstood species of genius—and the women who worked here would be trained to flatter and listen and confirm every grandiose notion he had of himself.

The servant girl came with the newspaper and steaming mugs of broth for Officer Nye and the women; Kate’s, presumably, was laced with Angostura.

“Thank you for the toddy,” Abby commented, setting her saucer on the table.

Kate scoffed. “I hear the young ones are serving Colombian coffee now. Another fad I can’t keep up with.”

“You seem stylish to me.” Abby knew little of fashion and cared about it even less, but she had to admire Kate’s street gown—a walking suit, she believed it was called—and its big sleeves, which billowed out like legs of mutton and did not deflate even when Kate sat back and drank.

“Look at us,” Kate said. “What a funny little reunion this is.”

“It’s too bad we aren’t all here,” Abby replied evenly.

Kate hesitated, then gave a stiff nod. “To Delia,” she said, lifting her cup.

Abby didn’t follow suit. Delia deserved better than a halfhearted toast. She deserved to be alive.

By the time Abby had tracked Delia to this brothel, after the girl had fled the Bethany Home not once, but twice, after Abby had even tried taking her into her own house, she’d found Kate sobbing in the upstairs corridor here; Delia had ingested a lethal dose of morphine. It had taken the Sisterhood’s involvement to persuade the coroner to complete his inquest here, instead of bringing Delia’s body to the city morgue, which would have guaranteed her a pauper’s funeral. Instead, the Sisterhood had paid for her burial. Kate resented the interference, Abby knew—the fact that she’d had to rely on women the authorities deemed respectable.

Despite her best efforts, Abby could never clear the images of that dead girl from her mind. In death, she hadn’t looked like Delia at all: her pale eyes open, pupils reduced to pinpricks; the blue-gray cast to her skin. Abby had arrived just in time (yet too late, infinitely too late) to see lice flee from the body.

Abby watched Kate drink her cocktail. A yellow diamond, at least three carats, glistened in a brooch at the center of Kate’s neckline. In front of the authorities, Abby and Kate had presented a united front. Women versus men: an unspoken, unbreakable code. Behind closed doors, they’d fought viciously. Abby had accused Kate of profiting off the girl’s vulnerability. Kate, in tears, had insisted she cared for Delia just as much as Abby did. She’d only been trying to give the girl a chance at a better life.

An odd choice of words, Abby had thought; she so often used them herself.

“Don’t keep an old woman in suspense,” she said now, clearing her mind of ancient grievances. “What’s this business about the Examiner ?”

“Ah.” Kate flipped open the paper. “Shall I read you the headline? ‘Former Inmate at Bethany Home Alleges Chaos, Starvation Exist Within Its Walls.’?”

“Starvation!” Abby’s nerves jolted. “Let me see that, please.”

The story took up a whole page and bore an illustration of a shapely young woman, leaning with her elbows back on what appeared to be an upright piano. The caption: “Tuva Larsen, Runaway from the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers.”

Tuva Larsen. Constance. Abby couldn’t bring herself to read on. A dollar sign, however, caught her eye: the newspaper had published Tuva’s new hourly rate.

“She’s working at Agnes Bly’s now,” Kate said, her voice silky.

Of course, Agnes Bly would allow the newspaper to print her name and a flattering sketch of one of her workers. Free advertising. “Well, at least Tuva’s made herself easy to find,” said Abby, casting the paper aside.

“She claims you’ve lost control of the home. Some witch girl has taken charge.”

“Witches are not real.” Abby felt a headache coming on. No one took the Examiner seriously, but a story like this could alert other papers. And what would the City Council think?

“Abby? Abby!”

Abby started. “Good grief, do not snap your fingers at me. I am no dog.”

“Will you finally tell me why you’ve come? I’m a busy woman, you know.”

Abby took a deep breath and told her. Tuva’s story held a kernel of truth; they’d taken in a girl the others called a ghost, or Marguerite the Magnificent—Kate didn’t seem to have heard of this character—who was mute and had spooked the others. “You know I generally do not investigate the backgrounds of the girls we accept. In this case, however, I figured a bit more information might be useful.” Abby chose not to mention the gold that Faith had come with.

Kate pinched at her chin, stroking some fine blond hairs. “She’s joined the pudding club, I presume?”

“She’s in a delicate condition, yes.” Privately, Abby wasn’t sure. The visiting doctor had examined her and said she must be early in pregnancy, for he couldn’t find physical evidence. The home had seen ghost pregnancies before—the inmate might feel unwell for a time, her womb might even grow, but then no baby.

It had happened to Abby herself, once, and had ended in a torrent of blood. Her only pregnancy. But that wasn’t something she was about to tell Kate, or anyone else.

“Do you know any girls who fit the description?” she asked Kate. “Unable to speak, dark hair, freckles on the nose? A comely girl, but slight, frail.”

Kate shrugged. “I shall ask around.”

“You shall do nothing of the sort,” Abby said with such force that Nye broke his gaze from the window, and Kate blinked in surprise. “I don’t want to put her in danger.”

“You’re afraid.” Kate put her teacup down. She fiddled with her clothes, then rubbed her hands together vigorously, as though trying to warm cold fingers.

“Seems I’m not the only one who’s afraid, Kate.”

“Women in our line of work need always be afraid,” Kate replied. “This past year has been very difficult. When men are in a losing position, you can guess where they come to let off steam. Some of the madams have decided to take advantage of this, and allow their customers to—”

“Please, stop,” Abby interjected. “I don’t want to hear it.” But May had mentioned bruises, hadn’t she? Dark-purple bruises, wrapped around Faith’s throat.

Kate inhaled. “That isn’t the kind of business I run, Abby. But there’s only so much one woman can do to curb some men’s violence.” She cast a meaningful look at Officer Nye, though Abby knew it would do little good. The police didn’t protect prostitutes. They arrested them, sent them to the courthouse to pay their fines, then went back to ignoring them.

Abby drank the last of her toddy, down to the yellow dregs of chicken bouillon at the bottom of the cup. “Have you heard of any girls being killed?”

“We’ve had no such news in the department, ma’am,” Nye interjected.

Kate gave him a withering look. “Unfortunately, yes,” she told Abby. Nye took out his notepad and flipped to a clean page. “Someone did a sporting girl in a couple of weeks ago, and a madam has just gone missing.”

“Which madam?”

“Priscilla Black.” Kate hitched her shoulders up a few inches, till those mutton-chop sleeves grazed her long earlobes. “Her girls woke up one morning and she was gone.”

“That could mean anything. She could have taken off for a new life.”

“Without shoes, a cloak, any money or jewelry? I think not. All her shoes were left in her closet, Mrs. Mendenhall. All of them.” This seemed to be a detail that particularly bothered Kate: the shoeless madam. “Can’t say her lot were sad to see the back of her, though. She worked her girls to the bone.”

“And the sporting girl. How was she…?” Abby prayed Kate wouldn’t say strangulation.

“I heard she fell from a high window.”

Abby squeezed her eyes closed, her lips twitching in prayer.

Death is but a horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

But she could see it: the body of a woman in her prime of life, twisted and motionless on the cold ground.

“The man got away before anyone could catch him,” Kate said quietly. “A phantom, they’re saying. Must have persuaded her, somehow, to jump. He was already out the door and down the street when they heard the—”

The door to Kate’s parlor opened, and Gilly came back in to whisper something in Kate’s ear. Kate draped her arm gently about the girl’s shoulders, and after she’d listened for a moment, she gave Gilly a nod and a smile, stroking the long braid that went down her back. “My luncheon is ready,” she told her visitors.

Kate’s motherly affection for the girl filled Abby with a sense of unease, though she couldn’t say why, exactly; perhaps it was because the scene felt familiar, like one of Abby’s own inmates coming to fetch her. Anyhow, she had to get home so that she could contact the other board members before they saw the Examiner . She wished she could talk to Mrs. Overlock, her dearest friend, but Euphemia was on a monthlong trip to New Orleans. Abby would call on her as soon as she returned. Euphemia would know what to do.

Abby gestured for Officer Nye to help her from her chair. She bade Kate and the servant girl farewell, eager to leave this place as quickly as possible.