All for a Sister (14 page)

He spoke of your father in a way that showed me he disapproved of my choice of husband as much as my family had.

I asked his forgiveness and indulgence, as I hadn’t felt up to receiving visitors, and even in that moment I felt my strength begin to waver. But then I glanced around his office, seeing all manner of framed certificates on the walls, and shelves lined with thick, leather-bound books. No fewer than three robes hung on a brass tree behind him. I’d never had the opportunity to see him in his robes, but I imagined he would disappear within them, he was so thin.

“I’ve followed the story in the papers, of course. I understand the girl is still being held at the police station, special guest of the officers until a trial date is set?”

I told him I wasn’t at all concerned with where the girl was living, and he switched his tone from brisk advocacy to concerned confidant.

“There’s been no one to post bail, as I understand it, though it seemed to me a moderate amount.”

My stomach lurched at the very thought of a price being placed on the life of my daughter, but I hid my illness by leaning forward in my chair, as if hanging on his every word.

“And I do hope, my dear, that you will find comfort in the verdict of the coroner’s inquest. Accidental death. I highly doubt any formal charges will be brought against the girl. She is, after all, merely a child herself. I imagine her grief is surpassed only by your own.”

Oh, how he was poised to continue a monologue concerning that “poor girl,” and I somehow kept myself from lunging across the desk to strangle any further words of misplaced pity. The best I could do was interrupt him, which I did, asking just why such a verdict would bring comfort.

“Why, to realize that you hadn’t opened your home to any premeditated evil. And that you have no need to fear we are turning a killer back out onto the streets.”

So this was it. I ran my fingers along the fold of his letter, pressing the crease to knifelike sharpness. And we were all supposed to simply go on with our lives?

“Darling Margi.” He came out from behind his desk and took the seat next to me, leaning forward as if to grasp my hand. “It’s the kindest way, sparing all of you from a trial. Imagine having to testify about that dreadful night, reliving it over and over again.”

I asked him if he didn’t think I already lived that night over and over. Along with the earlier evening when I allowed that girl to sleep in my daughter’s room. Or the earlier afternoon when I allowed her in my home. Or the previous day when I informed her mother we’d be happy to let her help serve at the party.

“Of course you do. And it might be that you always will. But I’ve a strong suspicion the prosecution won’t want to risk ruining another child’s life. Let alone the unfavorable press.”

Even he seemed embarrassed by that last bit, and I held my tongue. I’d seen the papers, too. The overwhelming sympathy for this poor girl being held prisoner by the cruel, relentless, punitive wealthy family. I suspected Arthur shared the same opinion and, like the rest of the city, would like to see this all behind us. Only I could see that it would never be behind us at all. The joy of Mary’s life and the stabbing pain of her death crippled me, and I pressed George’s letter into his hand, reminding him that he’d promised to help me in any way he could.

“And I will,” he reassured. “Anything.”

I’m glad I couldn’t see the smile that crept upon my face, for while I strove to appear grateful, a darkness tugged at my heart, destroying any hint of true graciousness.

I told him I didn’t want to go through a trial, and when he attempted to reiterate his reasons for believing there wouldn’t be one, I held up my hand to stop him before I lost the courage needed for my quest. You see, I didn’t want a trial, but I did want her to go to prison. For a while. I took a deep breath and stated the sentence I’d calculated as being beneficial for all extenuating circumstances. A year, at least. Maybe a little more. To teach her a lesson and see to it that she, and she alone, suffers the punishment for her actions.

George bent his head to an indulgent angle and looked upon me like I’d been reduced to some petulant child.

“Even if I were to be assigned to the case, which is very unlikely given the circumstances, I cannot simply hand down such an arbitrary sentence without the benefit of a trial, and no lawyer would counsel her to confess her guilt.”

I impressed upon him again my need to have her put away.

“I’m sorry.” And this time, he seemed genuinely so. “I am simply not in the habit of banishing children to prison.”

I’d known it would come to this moment, much as I dreaded it. I withdrew myself from being anywhere near the range of his touch and asked if it wasn’t true that there were other habits he indulged in rather freely, at least according to the conversations I’d heard between my mother and father late at night when they didn’t know I’d slipped down the stairs for a final kiss.

“What habits would those be?” He managed to speak without a breath of fear, though I knew what must have been churning deep within him.

I reminded him of a night, long ago, when I’d been just a little girl and the house teemed with servants. Mother and Father had hosted a dinner party, and due to the lateness of the hour and
the amount of liquor consumed, Judge Stephens opted to stay the night in our home.

“There were many such evenings.” Already he seemed poised to discredit me. “Before I met my wife. Had my children. I daresay few people would ever connect the person I am now with the man I used to be.”

I kept cool, murmuring something about how lovely it would be if that were true. If people didn’t have such long memories and insatiable appetites for fresh scandal. But he and I both knew the contrary to be true. After all, there I was, with my recollection intact, and a secret long held beneath the surface of propriety.

“You were just a girl.” And there, a crack in his calm facade as our memories found each other.

I admitted that I didn’t know why, at first, the young man I knew as Freddy, a footman in our house, went running through our hallways wearing a nightshirt—

“It was a misunderstanding.”

I went on as if I hadn’t heard him, musing about the fact that it was the first time I’d seen any man in a nightshirt. Not even my father, as he was always so careful to wear a dressing gown and slippers when he wandered around the house. The sight had frightened me, Freddy with his hair askew, nonsensical jabberings coming out of his mouth. The things he said Mr. Stephens tried to do.

At that moment, Mr. Stephens—Judge Stephens—had gone quite pale, and a tiny flickering of pity campaigned for my attention, but I strove on, about how I’d sat on the bottom step, just a jack’s toss away from Father’s open office door, and I’d heard Father berating him, telling him that what was fine and forgotten as a young man’s college hijinks had no place in a God-fearing man’s home. And if he garnered one more complaint from a clerk or intern, Father would personally see to it that he was disbarred.

“That was a lifetime ago.” The man had aged twenty years since I walked into his chambers. “I have a wife. Children. Grandchildren.”

All of whom would be devastated if they ever learned of his previous exploits.

“Why would you ever tell anyone?”

Perhaps, I said, I am simply incapable of keeping a promise.

Silence drifted down around us, and as it piled up, it sealed the veracity of my threat.

“Why should anybody believe you?”

A better question might be, why should anyone believe I would make up such a slanderous tale? I’d quite forgotten it myself until it occurred to me that I might benefit from our old family friend’s advancement to the bench. How serendipitous to need from him a favor, and to have such a favor to offer in return: my silence.

He stared at me, clearly rattled, before crossing over to a tall filing cabinet behind his desk and returning with a thick, green folio.

“What do you want?”

I repeated, once again, my request. The girl quickly and quietly locked away. And, happy with my newfound ground, tacked on a new requirement. Two years.

He made one last attempt. “No one would believe you.”

I looked at the folder, somehow knowing it held my answer, and drove the argument home. Perhaps no one would believe me, but they would believe my father. He might be dead, but he was known for keeping meticulously detailed journals.

This was, of course, a bluff. Father was known to scribble his thoughts, and his notebooks might very well be stashed away in the attic or in the cabinets beneath the bookshelves in the library,
but I’d never once bothered with familiarizing myself with their contents. And I had no intention of doing so now. I held my breath until he opened the folder and took out a crisp, white sheet.

“There is a place . . .”

Before the fire, it was called the Bridewell, but now it was simply the House of Corrections—in Chicago, a lifetime away from our own home. And it was known to house children, often without benefit of trial, sentenced directly by arresting officers. Petty thieves, mostly. Vandals. Most often victims of their own circumstances, but taken to Bridewell—sometimes for as little as a single night, to learn a lesson.

Sweetly, I said it would be like sending her away, using the same indulgent, optimistic tone I might if we were launching her on a European tour or sending her to some refined East Coast boarding school.

“If such a thought helps you sleep at night, yes.”

The way he looked at me—from that moment I knew he’d spoken a curse. That I’d never again enjoy a full night’s rest. At least, not until the girl was free again, home with her mother, wherever that home might be.

But I know now, too, the curse spoken to me that day reached far beyond a few wretched hours each night of wakeful time to ponder. My physicians could never prove this, of course, and might think me mad to even say so, but as I spanned the distance between us to shake Judge Stephens’s hand, I know his touch wakened the disease which even now devours me.

CELESTE, AGE 9

1915

CELESTE WORE HER BEST
green wool coat and warmest muffler and hat to guard against the February chill. Mother still laughed at what Californians deemed winter, and Daddy wore only a scarf draped around his neck in deference to the cold, but they were always saying that Celeste had the thinnest blood of them all. She gripped the chocolate bar in her pocket with a mittened hand and gripped Daddy’s with the other. Mother and Calvin lagged behind, not nearly as excited as Celeste to see the film.

She skipped to match his stride. “Will there be a talking rabbit?”

He squeezed her hand. “Of course, darling. You can’t very well tell the story of Alice in Wonderland without a talking rabbit.”

“And will it be in color? Like the other one?” For her seventh birthday party, he’d shown her an
Alice in Wonderland
film, projected with beautiful colors on their own living room wall.

“No, darling,” he said, before going on to explain, again, that the film’s colorization was a result of tinting individual frames of film. A process far too expensive and detailed to be applied to anything but the most special of projects.

As they approached the theater, the crowd grew dense, until
everybody’s steps slowed to a near stop. Tucking herself closer to her father’s side, Celeste looked up and around. No wonder Mother wasn’t happy. She hated crowds, and moreover, she hated for Celeste to be a part of one, always worrying that she would get lost or snatched away. Now Mother sidled up beside her and clamped a hand on her shoulder with a heaviness Celeste could feel through her coat.

“Still think this is going to be a stupid film,” Calvin said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked around, as if fearful to be recognized standing on the street, waiting for a chance to see a film adaptation of a children’s book. “A guy’s got better things to do of an evening than hang around with his parents and kid sister.”

“You didn’t seem to be above our company when you were wolfing down that steak at the restaurant earlier,” their father said. “And how do you ever expect to learn about the business by hanging out at some pool hall with your hooligan friends?”

“Business.” Calvin’s dismissive tone raised Celeste’s hackles on her father’s behalf. She could recite the argument that would follow. How Daddy’s patents on his film-developing processes would make them richer than they could ever imagine, countered by Calvin’s caustic remarks about Mother’s money making it possible for Daddy to “play” at being a scientist.

Film developer today, producer tomorrow.

If film production is the highest goal, might as well work in a camera factory.

Ingrate. Most young men would love to have—

And here, Calvin would explode, spouting off about how all of his friends’ fathers have actual professions, while he’s saddled with an eccentric who fancies himself equally a scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, while being nothing more than a womanizing—

And
here
, Mother would step in and hush them both.