Etta: A Novel Read online

  Now, along with everything else, the graft that Father had received over decades was gone. Lorinda smiled slowly and briefly, knowing that even the waxed and shining carriage in which she now rode would shortly make its way to a family of their acquaintance: the same family that had scooped up her driver and two stable hands and purchased Bellerophon for a song. Old Hicks, who now drove the perfectly matched bays toward the business district, was the last of the servants still living at The Cedars. His wife Nancy, the family cook, had already moved on to the Moffitts, as had many of the staff. Clara Moffitt had always envied the Jamesons their retainers, especially the efficient Mrs. Reeves—who, rather than work for the celebrated dowager, had opted to return to Edinburgh. By week's end, the bays themselves would be transported to the Dagits in Bryn Mawr. At least Lorinda had never been introduced to that family, which somehow made it easier for her to bear parting with the horses.

  As she stepped from the carriage, her hand fell into the big rough glove of Hicks. Since childhood those hands had supervised her dismounts, holding her firmly about the arms and shoulders and swinging her down with a laugh from the cab. His huge mustache, once the color of the carrots he fed the bays, was now white with a hint of rust. And his eyes seemed bluer now for their moisture at the knowledge that they had completed half of their final ride together.

  “I'll be waiting, miss,” he said, taking a second longer than usual to release the green satin of her glove.

  “Of course you will, Hicks.” She smiled. “And what else would my dear Hicks do?”

  Hicks gave a short stiff bow. The unfinished tower of the City Hall threw its shadow over South Broad Street as she made for the entrance to number 106.

  It was not a new or luxurious building and clearly had seen its share of transactions through the years. In the elevator she asked the operator for the offices of Larabee, Hay & Litch, attorneys-at-law. Silently, the operator pulled back the brass and mahogany handle long enough to gain the third floor. Off the elevator and to the right stood the Larabee office, and although Lorinda had never been here, she knew instantly that Messrs. Hay and Litch were either long gone or dead. No secretary greeted her, no assistant offered her tea or water. The dust stood thick on the outer desks neatly piled with paper portfolios, some overflowing with testimony, others long unfiled or unread. From the private office of Mr. Rodman D. Larabee III, Esq., the half-built tower of the new City Hall seemed close enough to toss her hat upon. Emerging from a small chamber at her right, Larabee himself rose to greet her, bade her sit and returned to his chair.

  Rodman Larabee was another of the many prominent men Lorinda had known all her life. He had been her father's lawyer and her grandfather's. The old man had been a frequent guest at The Cedars but, unlike her father's other friends, he never came to hunt or drink or share bawdy jokes and low opinions of women about whom low opinions were deserved. His position was clearly that of counselor, a man to be paid mind. To Lorinda, he had seemed changeless, eternally one of those men who were never young. His manner of speaking was formal and stentorian. He always wore the same black frock coat, the same old-fashioned collars, high and stiff. And like many men “born old” he had aged to a certain point and then gone no further, his features frozen. There would be no additional wrinkles or crow's-feet, only a profile as sharp as a falcon's and as serious as a lawsuit. Lorinda thanked God for him. He was now the only remaining soul in the wide sweet world who had not deserted her over her father's profligacy and its resultant scandal.

  At the hearings, she had learned that Larabee had spent the better part of the past decade attempting to keep her father out of either the jailhouse or the grave. As she sat in the courtroom day after day, she came to understand why the old lawyer had stormed out in a rage so many times and why she had not seen him visit The Cedars for at least the past two years.

  “You are a strong young woman, Lorinda,” the old lawyer said, fixing her with his hawklike gaze. “You were a strong infant and a fearless little girl as well. Therefore I shall forgo placing my words in a honeyed envelope. Quite in truth, if your father were not already dead, I should like to make him so. I would like to wring his neck for the great misfortune he has visited upon you, his innocent child.

  “And so it is my sad duty to inform you that of your father's estate there is nothing left. In fact, there is less than nothing. As you are doubtless aware, his debts to the bank, his creditors—everyone, in fact, down to the horse farriers and haymakers—amounts to a sum that has cost you your home and lands, everything…” His voice trailed off.

  “Please, Uncle Rodman,” Lorinda said, fixing the old man with a withering gaze, “it is no good now reporting the misdeeds of the dead. The esteemed Federal Court of Philadelphia quite did its job of telling me just how much of a wastrel I had for a father. But if they now seek to have me renounce him, they will be disappointed. This was my father. And I believe there should be at least one soul to hold the memory of who he was before grief brought his downfall.”

  The old lawyer leaned in closer to his young client and briefly pressed his palms to his eyes. “I understand, dear child. And I wish that the souring of his reputation were the worst of it. But in recent months it has come to light that your poor father had been laid to considerable debt by a cabal of gamblers, unscrupulous and desperate men who preyed upon your father's weakness for horse betting, no doubt with his enthusiastic support. Like the remainder of his creditors, these villains have contacted this office and informed me of their need to be remunerated. They have also advised that if they do not quickly receive what they believe is theirs, they shall be forced into actions that will mean suffering for any whom your father loved in life. I need not tell you who that is.”

  Lorinda felt a chill at her back but neither moved nor spoke.

  “I would not uneccessarily alarm you, Lorinda, but these are men to whom evil is second nature, Sicilians who have come here to mock our way of life. They tell me they have studied your whereabouts, your comings and goings, and if they do not receive recompense they shall punish you in your father's stead. They are aware of your beauty: I daresay they have described it to me in the crudest of terms. They have also described the method by which, should payment not be received within a fortnight, they intend to disfigure your face by means of vitriol.”

  The cold along Lorinda's spine expanded. She had read of such attacks. It was not an uncommon occurrence among some dark men who ran strings of prostitutes within the city's seamier quarters. By one account she had read only the month before, a poor young woman had had a bottle of the acid slowly dripped upon her by her employer, a man the papers decribed as belonging to something ominously called “The Black Hand.” When his evil work was completed, she was described by the newspapers as “half-pretty half monster” and blind in the left eye. Unable to imagine that there were very many men in Philadelphia vicious enough to perpetrate such an act, Lorinda concluded that they must be the same fiends who now demanded their due from the old man.

  “Uncle Rodman,” she finally said, “how great is the sum in question? I have a small amount of money of my own put by. Perhaps that will satisfy them.”

  “I would be greatly surprised, my dear, if you were in possession of such a sum. The amount your poor father owed is in the general neighborhood of twenty thousand dollars.”

  Lorinda did not reply but no words were neccesary to explain that she had no such amount and no means of obtaining it.

  Larabee rose to his feet and walked toward a painting of a steamship tossed upon the ocean. “Take heart, Lorinda. I did not summon you here today to introduce despair without offering hope. I have cherished your family far too much and for far too long to leave you with no option but misery.”

  He gripped the painting along its side, and it swung away on a hinge. Behind the boat was an iron safe, which Larabee swiftly unlocked.

  “You are to go away from here,” he said. “Far away.”

  From the safe's interior, Lar
abee took a small alligator box. He lifted the lid and removed several different-colored envelopes waxed with the seal of his firm, a small leather purse, and some papers in various colors. Tears welled in his eyes as he cleared his throat.

  “For now, this small packet will be your freedom. It contains some money from my own humble resources, a train ticket, and these letters. The ticket will provide you safe passage out of Broad Street Station and will bring you to Chicago, Illinois. There you will meet my agent. The papers in the purple ribbon are personal identification documents: your certificates of birth and baptism and your references.”

  “Uncle,” she said softly, nearly laughing, “how could I have any references? I have never worked for anyone. And I can't imagine that anybody is looking for a too-tall girl who knows little but how to muck a stable and clean a rifle.”

  “Where you are headed, such skills may not ultimately prove wasted. As for your references—well, I may be an honest man, but I am still an attorney. Your curriculum vitae, as it were, is, I am afraid, a forgery— and, I may say without undue modesty, an excellent one.

  “I also hope that you will quickly adjust to your new name. I understand that it is indeed traumatic to submerge one's identity, even for a short time. Please do not think me supercilious for my choice, but I had to devise something quickly. Believe me when I say there was no attempt on my part to be humorous.”

  “But what will happen to you? Isn't it conceivable they will soon discover that I am gone? They will know who informed on them. What will stop them from taking revenge on my only friend?”

  The old man smiled faintly the nostrils flaring beneath the hawk's beak. “I have lived a long life and a good one, Lorinda. One need only look to these humble surroundings to know that I took no opportunity to profit overly from my practice. For more than fifty years I have defended poor and rich alike, often discovering that the first couldn't pay, the second couldn't be bothered to. I owe no man money or favors. I have no children, and my wife is long dead. Worry not about me. Anyone who settles accounts with Rodman Larabee will find himself poor indeed. As to my bravery, have no illusions. It is fairly as much for my safety as your own that I urge your escape. I am a lawyer, not a soldier, and certainly no hero. Should they attempt to torture me I know not how long I would last. But, given their skills and experience I would not wager on a long session.”

  Larabee turned to the window and faced City Hall. A workman was struggling to set a window below a gigantic effigy of Moses.

  “I often wonder what might have been had your dear mother survived. You are so very like her. The same beauty … the same spirit. Perhaps, had she lived, your poor father would have been blessed with sons, and you would have had a normal girl's upbringing: parasols and lawn parties instead of rifles and shotguns and horses.”

  “That was all he had to share, Uncle,” Lorinda said. “And, bless me, I loved every moment. To be raised without the stupidities of a rich girl was the gift that made me love him. If I could have banished every tutor and silly instructress in etiquette from our home I would have, if it meant I could have spent one more minute in the woods hunting down a deer or one more second on horseback racing him to the barn.”

  Larabee nodded, replaced everything in the box and handed it to Lorinda. “I would ask that you not linger unduly over these papers. Right now the deadline the gentlemen in question have set for their payment is drawing very near. Every day you stay in Philadelphia, your life is in peril. I beg you to trust me that this journey is the most advantageous solution. I understand it will be difficult for a young lady of your upbringing to make her fortune in the world. But happily it is a world that is fast changing for your sex and, from what I have seen of you in a horse barn, hard work holds no fear for you.

  “As for the future, the police are on the case, but I fear that in our fair city justice has not yet replaced bribery as the driving wheel of ambition. There may come a time, and God grant it be soon, when you will return to us. But for now, you must go and go quickly. I will do the very best I can to maintain contact with you by letter and wire. And please know, dear child, that you will remain in both my thoughts and my heart.”

  The young woman and the old lawyer rose from their chairs, and her hand slipped into his. “Thank you, Uncle. I shall do as you instruct. My father and I attended more than one horse exhibition in Chicago. I … always liked it there.”

  Rodman Larabee's cheek was wet when Lorinda kissed it. Before the lawyer could even bid her a formal goodbye, she squared her shoulders, turned without a word, and walked through the grimy outer office into the dim corridor. Stepping to the window, she breathed deeply. She removed her gloves, opened the box, and untied the purple ribbon. The cream-colored envelope atop the others was addressed with her name. The letter inside began:

  My Dear Lorinda,

  Enclosed you will find complete documents legal and proper pertaining to all aspects of your personal history. You will also find an itinerary of your journey. I pray you read it carefully. As time is of the essence, it will explain everything I have not been able to, and answer the many questions I am sure you wish to pose.

  As your schedule states, you will proceed from Philadelphia to Chicago, where you will be met by Mrs. Loretta Kelley who has been alerted to your arrival. Upon that meeting, Mrs. Kelley will accompany you and several other young women to your place of employment. Please be assured that your work will be of the most respectable nature.

  I pray that you will have a pleasant and not uncomfortable journey. Please also know that I shall work tirelessly to bring you home as soon as possible.

  May our Lord hold you ever within the hollow of His hand.

  I remain, very truly yours,

  Rodman D. Larabee III

  Attorney-at-law

  Replacing the letter, Lorinda began to examine some of the papers. A ticket here, a document there. And then, as she raised her handkerchief to dry her filling eyes, she caught sight of a yellow label affixed to a very formal letter of introduction: a stiff paper label bearing her new name.

  She laughed aloud.

  The ink on the label was as green as the spring fields of The Cedars. Above a blank space it read “kindly return to” and below, “The Pennsylvania Railroad: Standard of the World.”

  In the yellow center, scrawled in black upon the first of two green lines, was her saving alias. Uncle Rodman had made certain that the memory of her home would never allow her to forget it.

  It read simply: Miss Etta Place.

  From the

  JOURNAL OF LORINDA REESE JAMESON

  10 May 1898

  Aboard the Pennsylvania Railroad train Chicago Arrow,

  Sleeper Car Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Diary,

  How beautiful the view is from my little moving window. I had always thought that little could match our home … the surrounding green, the noisy magnificence of the cities of Philadelphia and New York. But the farther we go toward the prairies, the more glorious the country becomes. Past the black fog of Pittsburgh there is an exquisite nothing for miles and miles, with only a farm or perhaps a single home standing bravely alone among chestnut and buckeye. West, it would seem, is the proper direction of paradise.

  It would be well that I remain satisfied with the magnificence of the scenery, as the food has been entirely another matter. Of course I am spoiled, but one need not have been raised in wealthy circumstances to retch at the swill the Pennsylvania Railroad sees fit to serve its second-class passengers! This evening my meal consisted of ham, half of which was green and shiny, and potatoes that I suspect had been scraped from a previous diner's plate, owing to the presence of cigarette ash. The mince pie smelled for all the world like an old woman's saddle mixed with beeswax. The rest of the meals have been equally nauseating. Having merely looked at yesterday's luncheon (veal loaf, the like of which might be Sunday dinner for the devil), I have managed to survive mostly on bread (which they seem to stock fresh from depots along t
he way), butter (which apparently is consumed in such large quantities on this train that there is little time for it to go rancid), and tea.

  But perhaps even more disgusting than the food itself is the fact that a goodly proportion of the passengers seem to have no problem with it at all. They down it with, if not relish, then at least calm acceptance. Well, most of them anyway. There was, of course, the small boy who vomited on his mother this morning after munching on what was barely recognizable as bacon. I nearly gagged myself to see barely cooked slabs of fat sitting astride a cold and viscous poached egg. But one must maintain some semblance of the lady, Diary, even under such noxious conditions.

  All in all, it is a “hell” of a way to spend one's eighteenth birthday. Perhaps when I change to the Union Pacific, the culinary experiences shall change as well.

  The victuals aside, my enforced lack of contact with other passengers has made for a lonely ride. But Uncle Rodman has admonished me to keep all contacts with other passengers, even those with seemingly suitable young men or girls my age, to an absolute minimum. I suppose he is right. It is possible that this “Black Hand” ends at a longer arm than we suspect. The sad result has been that I have spent the majority of my journey inside my little cabinet, reading and writing and venturing out only as needed for meals (I shall never eat bread again!) or for those functions required by nature. I long, Diary, for two things: a contemporary to talk to and a hot bath. I vow that once I am settled in Chicago I shall speak to whomever I choose, go wherever I choose, eat whatever I choose. Villains and poor chefs be damned!

  n the eleventh of May, the newly christened Etta Place stepped off the Chicago Arrow and on to the platform of Dearborn Station. Near the end of her long ride she had hoped for some time to drink in the magnificence of the city but no sooner had a cool blast of the town's famous wind blown a railroad cinder in her eye than she and her cohorts were confronted by a jagged line of boys, evenly staggered up and down the platform and stretching the length of the train.