Parlor Games (4 page)

“How did she manage this? My head spins trying to keep track of her conniving ways. She persuaded Miss Shaver to borrow forty thousand dollars from her family and then ate her way through it like a hungry wolf. She even convinced my client to invest nine thousand dollars in remodeling her mother’s home right here in town, over on Stephenson Avenue.” Sawyer jerked his head to the side, as if we might actually glimpse my family’s house through the brick wall.

“The Baroness’s actions were bold as could be. Just three months ago, she tried to cash in one hundred and sixty shares of Westinghouse stock rightfully belonging to Miss Shaver. And in 1913, during the illness of the Baroness’s mother, she played on Miss Shaver’s kind sympathies and talked her into paying for the medical specialist brought in to tend her own mother, claiming she’d repay the debt. The Baroness even went so far as to trick Miss Shaver into making a will bequeathing the sum of eighty thousand dollars to her, promising she’d do the same.”

Sawyer paused and swept his gaze over each juror, as if preparing to serve up some shocking revelation. “Did she repay the forty-thousand-dollar loan? Did she settle up the medical expenses for her mother? Did she write the promised will with Miss Shaver as beneficiary? No, no, and no.”

Mutters erupted from the spectators. The judge thumped his
gavel. “This is a court of law, not a playhouse. I will not allow such outbursts.”

Sawyer settled back into his tirade, and the onlookers stifled themselves as he harangued on and on. I scanned the faces of my twelve-man jury—twelve Menominee men whose wives have no doubt repeated all manner of titillating rumors about me. Do they think I know nothing of
their
dirty laundry—with my two brothers living in this town for the last three decades and rubbing elbows with the lot of them?

There’s jury foreman Arthur Wheaton, a butcher widowed last year, after thirty-some years of marriage to Opal. That Opal could talk circles around an auctioneer. I’ll wager Mr. Wheaton is pleased to report for jury duty. The poor man’s probably been as bored as a tree stump without Opal’s company. Personally, I have no objections to Mr. Wheaton. He’s a quiet sort, with doleful eyes, and not much of a backbone. They probably elected him foreman out of deference to his age and state of mourning. Still, he’ll just follow the crowd.

Peter Stocklin is the one I worry about. One might think a superintendent at Crawford Manufacturing would beg off jury duty. But not in Menominee, and certainly not for this trial. Such a sight he is—as stiff and proper as a country preacher, with a sinewy ostrich neck. He’s prepared to do his duty, by God: I’m sure that’s how he sees it. He’ll pass judgment just as he pleases, regardless of people’s foibles or the mysteries of human intercourse. Mean and ruthless—that’s his type. I learned long ago never to trust a man who waxes his mustache into unnatural contortions.

The first day of the trial did not shine a flattering light on me. Mr. Sawyer took plenty of time droning on about my “deliberate scheming,” as if I’d planned every single step, right up to this very moment. But if I’m as devious as he implies, why would I behave in such a way as to open myself up to this circus of allegations? These lawyers always try to have it both ways.

Am I surprised that Frank is dragging me to court? Not at all. Frank may be a woman, but she’s no different from the many jilted men I’ve dealt with over the years. She couldn’t win my heart with money, so, being a lawyer, she naturally turned to the law.

I can guess what you’re thinking, dear reader: What have I gotten
myself into? Is my new friend May some unsavory character I’ll regret taking up with? I hate to disappoint you, but it’s not that simple. I will tell you right now: I never took anything from Frank without giving something in return. I did not set out to ruin her, either in love or in fortune.

But I believe you’ll find my story speaks for itself.

CHICAGO BIG AND BRASH
CHICAGO—JUNE-AUGUST 1887

I
knew not a soul in Chicago. There I was—eighteen years old, unfamiliar with any city more than two miles square, and marked as an out-of-towner by my battered suitcase and tawdry straw hat. I possessed only a single pair of shoes, the two new dresses Maman had made for me, and a plan that depended wholly on my own wits.

To make matters worse, my brother Paul and I had quarreled before my departure. While I was packing, he’d slipped into my bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him. “Do you know Maman emptied the household savings for your new dresses?”

“I told her not to be extravagant.”

“Maman? Not extravagant? With her darling daughter going to the big city?”

Our mother, in fact, was not overly encumbered with common sense, but that was beside the point. “You just don’t want me to go.”

Paul flashed his open palm toward me, threatening a slap. “Don’t you trifle with me.”

I gripped the skirt of my faded cotton dress and shook it. “You expect me to help our family by showing up in Chicago in this old rag?”

“You can help by staying right here and keeping this house.”

“Stay in Menominee? What future is there in that?”

“Your family’s future.” He poked his chin at me. “Unless that doesn’t matter to you.”

“That’s precisely what matters.” I smoothed out my skirt and returned to my packing, hoping to conclude the conversation. But that only perturbed him all the more.

“You really think some rich man’s just waiting for you, like you’re Cinderella off to marry her prince?”

I spun around. “I’ll wager I can do better than a lumber miller’s salary in Chicago. And that’s what I intend to do.”

That last comment dogged me during the whole train trip. Paul worked hard to support the family, and I ought not to have insulted him. But he’d pushed me to the brink, and I refused to countenance his bullyragging one moment longer.

Still, as I stepped off the train at Chicago’s Wells Street Station, I pined for the familiar company of Maman, Paul, and Gene. Row upon row of tracks surrounded me, reaching out behind the station, big as the prongs of a gigantic pitchfork. A putrid odor hung over the expansive train yard—a metallic and sewage-like brew—and I surmised the Chicago River lay nearby.

Along the platform, well-dressed men and women, with the occasional child in tow, ambled past me. Expectant parties milled in chattering clutches under the shadowy sheds, all of them oblivious to the bewilderment of travelers, such as myself, who were strangers to this place. Humidity hung in the late-afternoon air, as thick and suffocating as a wool blanket. As I sauntered along, emulating the nonchalant bustle of the crowd, perspiration prickled my brow. A man in an ill-fitting uniform passed by, leaning nearly horizontal, tugging a flatbed cart overflowing with trunks and suitcases. I ventured a smile, but he only proffered a quizzical, wide-eyed glance, as if he were unaccustomed to simple friendliness.

I marched into the station’s cavernous waiting room, where, against one wall, racks of newspapers confronted me. So many newspapers—
the Chicago Banner, Citizen, Chicago Daily Tribune, Knights of Labor, Chicago Times
, among many others—with blaring headlines—“Coffee Prices Tumbling”; “A Senseless Shoemakers’ Union Strike”; “Millions Lost in Wheat Panic”; “Jewels Disappear in Mysterious Safe Robbery”; “Protests Against the Return of Captured Confederate Flags”; “Carlisle Graham Survives Barrel Ride in Niagara Waterfall”—that Chicago seemed the very hub of the world, a world so vast I feared it would swallow me up if I did not make something of myself in it.

I parted with a penny for a
Chicago Herald
—it promised the splashiest coverage of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee—lifted my suitcase, and prepared to greet my new city. Outside the station, I hired a horsecar,
instructing the driver to take me to a modest hotel near the business district, though I had no idea where the business district was, what kind of hotels were nearby, or how much a modest room might cost. Our open, one-horse carriage rattled down Kinzie Street and turned onto State. We crossed over the sluggish, mud-brown Chicago River, which ran under the long bridge, and I wondered whether fish of any sort managed to dwell in its mucky filth.

The carriage wove its way among red-and-bright-yellow trolleys and all manner of fancy carriages and hansoms traveling this way and that. City racket swarmed around me: streetcars dinging as they drifted along; horses’ hooves clomping on the brick streets; brougham bells tinkling; and boys in knickers hollering from street corners, hawking newspapers bundled under their arms.

Puffed-up men in derbies and natty frock coats strode, as if they owned the sidewalks, alongside women in dresses with ample bustles, trim waists, and lovely summer colors—peach, sage green, ivory, and baby blue. The women’s hats, some decorated with long feathers, others with bows, all broad-brimmed enough to protect the delicate, white-powdered faces beneath them, drifted along the walkways like a sea of fancy bobbers.

As we rumbled down State Street, I tried not to crane my neck, but the gleaming new buildings—so tall they cast long shadows even under June’s high sun—filled me with awe. Their wide expanses of glass reflected the passing pedestrians and vehicles, multiplying the busyness of the crowded street scene. I mustn’t be daunted, I kept telling myself: I’m equal to this challenge.

The next day, after settling into the Howard Hotel, I undertook the task of acquainting myself with the city, its denizens, and the lay of its streets. State Street beckoned me back, and there I wandered into the six-story Boston Store. Up and down the elevator I rode (for the first time in my life), surveying each of the floor’s offerings. I stopped on the fourth floor to peruse the bins of silk and spun-cotton chemises and petticoats—so plentiful, and in so many styles and designs, that I would have been hard-pressed to select just one.

The main floor attracted me the most. Close to the front doors, in a cleared area lined with potted petunias, a gentleman of about
fifty in a dapper, dove-tan waistcoat sat at a piano playing folk tunes. I lingered nearby, sifting through dresses with elegant bustles, all the time basking in the piano’s welcoming melodies and studying women shoppers as they sized up the dresses’ lace collars and bead-galloon trimmings. I strolled by the piano player, delighting in his rapt expression. He looked up, nodded at me, and mouthed “Good day”—the first truly warm gesture anyone had offered since my arrival—and I smiled in return.

I circled around to the other side of the first floor, to women’s shoes, and admired the selection of Curaçao-kid, pebble-grain, and French-kid styles. But I could afford no purchase, and self-consciousness overtook me, as if I were a maid pretending at her lady’s mirror. Reluctantly, I withdrew, promising myself I would return another time.

The next day, I wandered into three small banks to inquire how I might open an account, whether a certain balance would be required, and what benefits each bank could offer. It pleased me to explain that I was exploring several options and would return if I chose to do business with them.

Over the next several days, I visited other places of business, and shops as well, engaging the proprietors in both business exchanges and casual conversations: law firms (in search of a lawyer to advise me on a family matter); architectural offices (in the event I decided to build a home); dry-goods stores; apothecaries; and art galleries. I scrounged rumpled newspapers from hotel lobbies and pored over them by the smoke-stained lamp in my cramped hotel room. An article in the June 22
Chicago Times
caught my eye:

Detective Wooldridge Saves Three from White Slave Trade
CITIZEN TIP LEADS DETECTIVE TO LEVEE ATTIC

Early yesterday morning Detective Clifton Wooldridge, accompanied by a band of three police officers, staked out a house at 404 Dearborn Street. He was said to be acting on a tip from a courageous citizen who picked up a note flung from an upper window of the residence. The detective and his troops stormed the place at dawn, no doubt hoping to take the sleeping occupants-cum-captors by surprise.