Within seconds, these calls were met by eager bargaining.
I’d seen it in abusive homes while visiting with Mother, and now I saw it on the street: how our far-lower wages force women to become the chattel of men. Yet what makes a man take part? Only a sickened soul could enjoy the caresses of a person chained by circumstance. Might some of these opportunists consider me for sale, as Albert had? I shrank against a brownstone wall, out of reach of the gaslights, and willed myself invisible.
An ill-matched couple aimed their unsteady bodies past me, heading toward a saloon. The man was short and swarthy; his muscles strained the seams of a faded suit; his fresh-shaved cheeks and chin shone pinker than the rest of his face. The woman, much taller, struggled along in high French heels, her bosom swelling at the neckline of her purple dress. Her eyes were ringed by black paint, her lips smudged with red. The man pinched her buttock, and she opened her mouth in a fraudulent laugh.
The last time I’d seen that face, a firm line defined the lips, and the eyes were swelled from mourning a baby’s departure. I called out, “Nancy!”
She stopped and looked about the crowded street. I stepped from the shadows, called again, and waved. She stared, comprehending, and held up a finger as if to say, “One moment.” She entered the saloon with her companion but soon burst onto the sidewalk and approached me in a puff of perfume and alcohol. I reached an arm toward her, craving a friend’s embrace. She drew back.
“Please don’t judge me,” she begged, looking as if I were her accuser.
“Goodness! Who am I to judge? What happened to thee?”
Her words came in a rush. “The maid position was a trick. The woman runs a brothel and locked me up. She sent in men to ruin me.”
“I’ll help thee escape!” I exclaimed, my spirit rising. “Let’s go right away!”
Nancy lowered her head and shook it. “There’s no use. The manager would find me and beat me. And she’d take you, too!” Her eyes brimmed with tears as I considered these points. “You can do one thing for me,” she said—“find out what family took my William, and where they live.” She bent to bring her head to mine, showing me her bloodshot eyes, her pores clogged by paint, her unclean teeth. “I want to see him, even from across the street. Do you think he’s well?” A tear drew a line of flesh through the rouge on her cheek.
That’s when I remembered: Nancy had given William to the almshouse. The chance of his having been adopted from that nursery was slim. Most likely he’d been among the babies I’d left behind, if he wasn’t already dead.
I held back my dismay. I couldn’t possibly tell this to Nancy and increase her burdens. Already she’d been sent out to service and raped by her employer, had given up her son and then been made into a woman of the night.
Charlotte began making bird-like sounds beneath my shawl—her first joyful noises since I’d reclaimed her. She must have recognized Nancy’s voice! And Nancy knew hers. My friend’s sorrow parted like the Red Sea.
“You have her! Let me look!”
I pulled back the fabric. Charlotte tried to make another sound but coughed. Her eyes poked forth too prominently against her flattened cheeks, and her thinness was evident even through the blanket that wrapped her.
“She’s ill!” Nancy stiffened.
“But she’s improving.” Already her complexion was less sallow, and her lips were moist.
“At least you’ve got her.” Nancy eyed the saloon. “I have to go in. Where are you living?”
I told her our situation as rapidly as I could. She pulled a dime from her pocket. “I’m not supposed to keep money, but I have this. Take it.” When I hesitated, she forced it into my pocket and kissed my cheek with her painted lips. “The lamps stay on all night at Broad Street Station,” she advised. “Go there.” She reached to squeeze my hand; hers was unnaturally warm. Perhaps she’d caught a disease—from her new profession or from Mabel.
“Thee can get away,” I urged. “There are asylums downtown that help”—what should I call her?—“degraded women. Please go to one.”
Her aspect sharpened with her thought. “There is one girl going to escape to the Magdalen Asylum.”
I pushed. “Go with her. Please don’t accept this as thy life.”
In a choked voice she replied, “I’m not worth saving.” Then she rushed into the saloon. A cloud of tobacco smoke wafted out in her wake—a fragment of the debauched soul of that place.
As it stung my throat, I prayed for strength. I had to make my way through this trial. I had to undo the damage I’d done to Charlotte. Then one day I’d seek out Nancy and prove her worth to her.
I set off toward Broad Street Station. The streets grew empty, save for an occasional inebriated man who wove about, gesturing and shouting into the silence. I’d heard that gangs of young bloods roamed the streets at night, but I met none. Then the street cleaners began their work, urging their horses from house to house, debarking to overturn full ash barrels into their wagons, and sweating as they shoveled up the grease and kitchen scraps, the manure, the occasional dead animal piled at the curb. When a policeman passed, tossing a stick hand to hand and eyeing me too eagerly for comfort, I veered onto a path between two buildings and began traversing the alleyway behind, where open drains overflowed with sewage. I tried to avoid stepping in their effluence and breathed shallowly. Over low backyard fences I saw gardens, clotheslines, sheds, privies, tethered goats—and these mundane sights of normal life soothed my fear.
Finally I arrived at an area of splendid edifices, with the four-story, granite-and-brick building of Broad Street Station ahead. Across from it lay a huge structure of stone blocks and bricks, surrounded by monstrous heaps of materials and machinery: our new city hall in process. The workers were gone till morning, but dust still floated.
I entered the train station. Throughout its long, low-ceilinged lobby, flames burned in wall fixtures and chandeliers. Rows of people slept on the floor or whispered together against the walls. Some showed the jerky movements and off-kilter expressions of the insane; some sat with opened, unseeing eyes; some lay in puddles of urine. Many had feet in poor condition, with their filthy shoes cast to the side, sodden socks removed, the skin blistered and bloated and scabbed. Nancy had directed me to a place where the neglected and the desperate cast their anchors before hobbling through the streets again in search of coins and food.