Parlor Games A Novel

A START FOR PAULINE DAVIDSON



CHICAGO—AUGUST 1887



August 10, 1887





Robby my dear,

I will not give you the address of Mr. and Mrs. Ellwood. I refuse to take a chance on you doing something foolish. Think about what I have said. Be patient. I promise, my way is better.

I’ll write more later.





All my love,

May


I had hoped that a few months apart would have diminished Robby’s ardor. But now he actually threatened to come to Chicago. Thank goodness, I’d had the foresight to use general delivery for all my Menominee correspondence, which required long walks three or four days a week to the post office at Dearborn and Adams. And from the first moment I set foot in Chicago, I’d shed the name May Dugas.

I was Pauline Davidson now, frequenting Chicago’s finest dining rooms and hotel lobbies, praying to attract the attention of a man who could lift me out of my now precarious financial state. But after two months I’d encountered only traveling drummers, a few overeager mashers, some local businessmen, and a simple-witted resort manager. When Mrs. Farnsworth pressed me on my overdue room and board, I knew I needed to change my strategy. If I failed to fend off Robby’s impossible plan or somehow establish myself in Chicago, I would be forced to return to Menominee and, worst of all, admit defeat.

It had become painfully clear that I needed new dresses and a new pair of shoes, which I simply couldn’t afford while threatened with removal from my humble room. My funds had run so low that I was reduced to dining out only on the odd occasion that some gentleman invited me, and I did not particularly care for subsisting on boiled eggs and biscuits for days on end.

Perhaps, I thought, employment for a period of time at the Boston Store, or some other such store, would enable me to secure new attire. I had seen shopgirls working on the floor there.

I visited the Boston Store’s administrative offices on the sixth floor and asked to see the manager.

The desk clerk looked up from his paper-strewn desk. “May I say what this is regarding?”

I clasped my purse tightly against my abdomen to quiet my rumbling stomach. “I’m inquiring about the possibility of employment.”

“Oh, you’ll want to see Mr. Jeffries, the assistant manager,” he said, rising. “Let me see if he’s in.”

The clerk returned and escorted me to Mr. Jeffries’s office.

A lanky Mr. Jeffries unfolded himself from behind his desk and stood to greet me. “Welcome, Miss Davidson. Please, have a seat.”

I walked to the chair beside his desk, sat, and delicately lifted and positioned my skirt to hide my scuffed shoes from his view.

He perched on his chair and folded his hands on the desk. “You’re responding to the clerk advertisement?”

“Yes, sir. The position is still open, I trust.”

“Well, most likely not for long. What experience do you have?”

“I’m quite familiar with women’s wear.” I imagined that reporting on Maman’s expertise as a dressmaker would not win the day, so I tried my father’s favorite gambit—salesmanship. “I worked in a women’s clothing shop in Menominee, Michigan.”

Mr. Jeffries jerked his head back ever so slightly. “I’m sorry. This position is in draperies and bed sets.”

“Oh, I’m sure I could do that as well.”

“Of course you could. But we already have several experienced applicants.” He rose. “Please don’t hesitate to apply in the future, Miss Davidson.”

As I closed his office door behind me, the blood emptied from my head. I braced one hand against the wall and clapped the other over my eyes and forehead. Pinpricks of light exploded before my eyes—from hunger, desperation, annoyance, or all these things. Breathe, I told myself, taking several deep breaths. Looking up, I steadied myself and stepped forward on wobbly legs, my stomach rumbling and growling.

I needed a friend.

I took the elevator down to the main floor and, when the piano player finished “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” I marched right up to him. “Sir, I have been meaning to tell you for the longest time how very much I enjoy your music.”

“And whom do I have the pleasure of thanking?”

“Pauline Davidson.” As I spoke these words, dizziness overtook me. I slouched over the piano seat. “Dear me, I’m afraid I might faint.”

That is how I made the acquaintance of Mr. Claude Montcrief, who revived me by fanning sheet music and then kindly invited me to join him for his midday dinner at the Windsor Hotel dining room on Dearborn. As we readied to depart, he reached down and took up a walking stick, a smooth-varnished stick with a coiled dragon carved on its ivory top. We strolled out to State Street. He offered me his arm and I took it, though it was I who steadied him, for a shortened leg left him with a lilting gait. The contrast jarred: At the piano, with his fingers flying over the keys and his torso swaying to the music, he was all elegance and poise. But stand him on his feet and he became an oddity—a cripple in a fancy suit. I almost pitied him.

By the time we reached the Windsor, I had quite forgotten his limp, taken as I was with his report that he read five newspapers each morning, loved nothing more than a leisurely fitting session with his tailor, and had an elderly aunt on the North Side whom he visited every Sunday.

After we ordered, Mr. Montcrief flicked his napkin open and dropped it to his lap. He had a round-cheeked, boyish face, with an upper lip that curled when he smiled, and his eyebrows arched high on his brow, as if he were in a state of perpetual observation. He sported a white bib-fronted shirt and powder-gray frock coat and trousers, all nicely set off by a burgundy silk cravat.

“I’ve noticed you in the store on several occasions,” he said. “You shop, but never buy.”

“Prudence dictates against extravagance for one such as me. I’m new to town.”

“Where do you hail from?”

“A small town in the Upper Peninsula,” I told him. I wanted to trust this man with silver-templed black hair and watchful blue eyes. There was something at once both serious and frivolous about him—like a gay entertainer intent on beguiling. Truth is, his manner put me in mind of Papa. “And you,” I asked, “are you a Chicago native?”

He flared his hands, as if to invite me into his bemusement. “Hardly anyone here is from Chicago. Perhaps my Michigan town is even smaller than yours. Manistee. Ever heard of it?”

“Why, yes, I have. My family lived not far from there, in Muskegon, for a time.”

That led to a round of reminiscence about Michigan summers: lake swimming and his game of gliding under water and snagging his sisters’ ankles; my memories of wandering the hills of Menominee with my little brother and foraging wintergreens and strawberries; and our mutual restlessness with small-town life—how he’d left to find someplace more exciting, a place where a piano player might be appreciated, and how I hoped to relieve my poor family’s suffering. Lively conversation it was, and all fine accompaniment to my colorful salad of beets and greens and dinner of capon, cranberry relish, and roasted turnips. How easily the food went down, lighting the furnace of my belly and spreading the warmth of contentment to limb and brain. The wine lightened my head, and even after I’d filled my stomach with sufficient food to absorb it, its pleasant glow still tingled my cheeks.

I didn’t want dinner to end without learning more about Chicago from him, so over our after-meal coffee I asked, “Do you enjoy your work at the Boston Store?”

“What I enjoy most, after playing the piano, is having money to spend, although the salary at the Boston Store is not overly generous.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how do you manage, then? Chicago certainly demands more income than any Michigan village.”

He lowered his coffee cup and quietly replaced it on its saucer. “Ah, you’ve discovered that much during your short stay, I see.”

“How could I not?” His company and the dining room’s fine décor had put me at ease. This was the kind of life I sought: dining under chandeliers dripping with crystal; folding my hands on lily-white napery; enjoying the delicate touch of thin-edged, blue delft china. And all in the company of a self-assured man-about-town.

“The Boston Store is just something I do for pleasure—and a little extra income. My primary employment is an evening job. At the piano, of course.” He twisted his napkin into a tight twirl and nestled it beside his plate. “And you, how do you manage?”

“In truth, not well. My mother is ailing; I should like to send her money to convalesce at a sanitarium.” It was a white lie, but I needed more than just a friend: I needed a sympathetic friend. “But it is a struggle simply supporting myself.”

“A beautiful young lady such as yourself need not struggle.”

“You’re too kind.”

“On the contrary. I’m only being honest.”

“When I first arrived I thought I might easily manage on my own. But my efforts have borne no fruit.”

“Perhaps you would be interested in hearing more about my evening employment?”

“If you believe I may benefit from the knowledge.”

“I’m the piano player at Miss Carrie Watson’s.”

“A private residence?”

“Much more than that. A bordello, my dear, of the highest reputation in all of Chicago.”

I cast my eyes downward. He had announced it with such bravado, such careless ease, that it took my breath—and words—away. This man needed no pity. He possessed the politician’s knack for disarming with brash honesty.

“Forgive me, Miss Davidson, if I have offended you. We need say no more of it.”

I lifted my face. “Not at all. I appreciate your candor.”

“The city is hard on young ladies. I should hate to see it swallow you up.”

“I have no intention of being swallowed up. I need only secure some introductions and I shall do fine.” All along it had been my hope to simply place myself in the path of high-society men in Chicago’s finest establishments, but of late I had begun to fear that this would be neither easy nor straightforward. And now Mr. Montcrief was confronting me with just the sort of circuitous route I’d begun to consider, though with the utmost apprehension and ambivalence.

“Yes, that is the dream of many a young lady. Though you, I suspect, have more talents than most.”

“Can you advise me, Mr. Montcrief?”

He flattened his right hand over his chest, showing off a thick-banded gold ring with a square-cut diamond. “That depends on your aspirations.”

“I intend to meet businessmen, society men. And I do not mean to take up residence in the Levee District.”

“In all honesty, Miss Davidson, the surest route to meeting such men is through Carrie Watson. And her business, I can assure you, is a far cry from the grog shops, strumpets, and hoodlums of the Levee District.”

“I do take offense now, sir, at what you are proposing.”

“Come, now. I mean not to offend, but to flatter. You are the sort of young lady that a respectable gentleman might exalt in plucking from Carrie Watson’s—shall we say?—influence.”

“And how am I to know you speak honestly? Perhaps you stand to benefit by luring me to this place.”

“You are clever, Miss Davidson. So clever I’ll not toy with you. Being the house’s piano professor, I, too, have a reputation to uphold. Each young lady I have introduced to Miss Watson has been to her liking, as I believe you would be. It would be reward enough for me to assist you.”

Reward enough? I imagined some more venal reward figured in as well. “How do you know I would meet with her approval? Especially in these old clothes?”

“Because I can see beyond your rumpled dress. You are not just clever, but shockingly beautiful. You, my dear, are what we Chicagoans call a stunner: those eyes as soft and tawny as a fawn’s; that sublime hourglass figure; and your lovely, slender hands. All you need to put the polish on your beauty is some of Miss Watson’s primping and pampering.”

He glanced at my crossed hands. I withdrew them, unsure of whether to be offended or flattered, and studied his expression.

He brushed his fingertips together and shot me an impish grin. “Because you possess poise and worldliness beyond your years. Because you could enchant any man.” He cocked his head, as attentive as a suitor. “And because I believe we understand each other.”

I won’t lie—I had considered what it might be like to live the life of a courtesan. But not seriously. Not until now: not until I’d been forced to go without dinner for days at a time; not until I had been threatened with removal from my meager room; not until Robby wrote panicked letters declaring he wanted to fetch me. Still, I did not wish to become ensnared at such a place for any extended period; I had plans for a different kind of life. I braced my spine against the chair. “This is not what I imagined when I set out to make my way in Chicago. I would rather secure some well-paying job.”

“The best you’d find is work in a factory at four dollars a week. Or maybe as a clerk at eight or nine—barely enough to subsist on in this city. Miss Watson pays her girls well. She includes generous meals, clean quarters, and a handsome dress-budget.”

“And if some gentleman did not rescue me from this place, I’d become a prisoner there.”

“Miss Watson does not keep any girl who wishes to leave. She is on the best of terms with the chief of police, for he knows she is respectable and honorable in her dealings.” He raised his coffee cup to his lips and gazed at me over the rim. “But you really should have more confidence in yourself.”

“You portray it as the most pleasant way to pass the time and earn a living, which I doubt very much it is.” Still, part of me wanted to imagine Carrie Watson’s as a luxurious abode frequented by Chicago’s wealthiest men, wanted to believe I could be schooled there in the art of allurement, wanted to think Miss Watson would outfit me in stylish gowns.

“Miss Watson admits only the most refined clientele and does not overtax her girls. You could do much, much worse than work at a house that gushes each night with laughter and gaiety. It’s all in one’s attitude, my dear.”

“And what, exactly, is the proper attitude?”

“Possessing the secret knowledge that a beautiful young woman is like an exotic fruit—many a respectable man will want to pluck her from the tree.”

My mouth had turned cotton-dry. I sipped some water. Was he right? I had bargained on using my charms and wiles to meet Chicago’s society men, but the closest I’d come to any man of influence was Mr. Montcrief himself, who had obviously found his own profitable niche at Miss Watson’s.

He reached inside his vest, pulled out a black leather billfold, leafed through a dozen-plus bills, and extracted a ten-dollar note, which he slipped onto the tray with our dinner bill. Tucking his billfold away, he said, “And I should hate to worry about you accepting dinners from strange gentlemen.”

I could guess his game: showing off his money; pretending it was nothing to him if I declined his offer; and firing off some vaguely frightening insinuation that forced me to act now or forever regret my reticence. Chances were good he stood to gain by introducing me to Miss Watson.

I thoughtfully touched a finger to my lips, studied the table, and turned doleful eyes on him. “If you would be kind enough to buy me a new dress and new shoes, Mr. Montcrief, I believe I would make a more favorable impression on Miss Watson.”