Blessed Assurance (9 page)

“Are you all right?” her voice came softly.

“Jessie?”

Dr. Gooden's voice came from the doorway before he could reply. Lee bolted upright nearly upsetting the chair.

“You came!” Jessie sounded tearful, almost hysterical.

“Caleb had many places to go before he found me,” the doctor replied. “I have worked a busy day.” He immediately crossed to the table and opened his black bag. “Reverend Mitchell, your son told me of your symptoms and I have brought a powder for you.”

At the doctor's request, Jessie poured water from the kettle into a cup. And the doctor opened a small white packet, measured out a few grains of powder and swirled the cup. Caleb propped up his frail father and the doctor helped his patient painstakingly sip the mixture.

Lee watched from the shadows. The doctor had come. Shock and something else shimmered through Lee's fatigue. Was it resentment? But Lee hadn't wanted the old man to die. He should have been relieved, but he wasn't.

“This is a new mixture of digitalis.” Dr. Gooden motioned Jessie to sit in her chair by the door. “It should bring relief almost immediately.”

“Hello, Doctor,” Lee finally forced himself to say.

“You, here, Smith?” The doctor offered Lee his hand. “I'm so glad you stayed with Mrs. Wagstaff until I could arrive.”

Lee wanted to spit in the man's eye. He didn't want to delve into
the why of this. On the other hand, he was grateful the man had brought medicine to the Reverend. He didn't know what to think.

The doctor snapped open his pocket watch, leaning toward the lamp. “It's near midnight, Mrs. Wagstaff. We stay up together another night.”

She reached for his arm. “I'm sorry to call you out, but—”

Reaching out, he grasped her hand. “I gave my promise.”

Under the cover of night, she lifted his hand and pressed its back to her cheek. She whispered brokenly, “I've fought alone for so long.”

“Jessie,” he murmured. “I'm here now.”

A silent witness, Lee burned at his own helplessness. He should have been the one to help her. But he couldn't do this. Lee didn't trust himself to speak.

“My father is sleeping easily.” Caleb walked to them in the doorway. Faint moonlight silvered the strong features of his face. “I owe you, Doctor.”

“I charge only fifty cents for a call. I'll leave you another packet of medicine.”

“I owe you more than money.”

Dr. Gooden offered Caleb his hand. They shook.

Caleb turned to Jessie. “And Mrs. Wagstaff, you always come whenever you're needed.”

She touched Caleb's arm. “You should sleep now. Will someone stay with your father tomorrow while you're at work?”

“Ruth stays with him during the day.”

Jessie nodded. As she gathered her bonnet, gloves, and basket, the doctor and Lee waited outside.

The three of them crowded into the doctor's gig. Soon they were making their way home through the nearly empty streets. The doctor didn't hurry his tired horse. Its hooves made a sad clip-clop on the wooden streets.

The doctor stopped at a corner near Jessie's house. “I'll let you down here, Mr. Smith. You do not live far, do you?”

Lee wanted to refuse. “Thanks,” he said as he climbed down to the street. Irked, he watched the gig drive away.

Almost without realizing it, Jessie leaned against the doctor's side. She knew she should draw away, but when he took her hand in his free one, she didn't pull away. Having someone to lean on, after standing alone for so long, just felt too good to deny.

Finally, the gig stopped in front of Jessie's house. She sat up, but when she tried to pull her hand from his, he prevented her.

“A moment. I ask a favor.”

Jessie cleared the sleep from her voice. “What is it?”

“In a little over a week, I will attend a party at the Potter Palmer home.”

“The Palmers?” Jessie was surprised. The Palmers were high society.

“Yes, I am invited by Mrs. Palmer. She toured Rush Hospital this week and was very interested in my ideas for better public health through cleaning up Chicago.”

Jessie felt a lift. “Oh, that's wonderful.”

“Yes, I think I'm beginning to make the contacts I need for my future work. But for success I need one thing more.”

“What?”

“You to go with me.”

His words shocked her into silence.

“I need a woman like you on my arm. I need you to charm the men and speak with intelligence to the women. As Linc would say, I need to cover all of my bases. Will you help me, Jessie?”

So many thoughts rushed through her mind she couldn't speak at first. “I'm not the kind of woman you need. I'm just a poor widow.”

“You are poor only in money. I will buy you a dress for the occasion.”

“Oh, no! You can't!”

“Please. I need you. I'm counting on you, Jessie.”

If he'd said any other words, she could have refused. But how could she deny this good man her help?

She bowed her head. “If you think I'd be of help to you, I'll go.”

Bending toward her, he kissed her hand.

Jessie felt a chill go through her when she realized he had kissed the palm of her hand, not the back.

June 27, 1871

The sharp rat-a-tat on the front door caught Jessie on her knees polishing the railing of the front staircase. “A delivery from Field & Leiter's for Mrs. Jessie Wagstaff,” a voice called from outside.

Oh, no!
Jessie pushed herself up, yanked off the apron, and hurried to the door. She summoned up a smile for the boy in the blue uniform with brass buttons who gave her a large box, saluted, and left.

Closing the door, Susan took the box from Jessie. “Now what's this?”

Shock seizing her, Jessie felt unable to explain. How had Dr. Gooden protected her reputation when purchasing an appropriate dress for her?

Plus the unusual occurrence of a department store delivery had garnered an instant audience. Miss Greenleigh on the landing above, flanked below by Miss Wright in the doorway to the parlor, and Ruby in the one to the dining room. Why couldn't the delivery have come when everyone was out?

For just a second, Jessie longed to run up into the attic and hide. She'd hoped Dr. Gooden would reconsider his invitation. Should she tell them he'd bought her the dress?
Never
.

Ignoring the fluttering of her heart, she announced, “Dr. Gooden
has invited me to accompany him to a dinner party this Saturday evening. This is my new dress.” Suddenly she envisioned Mr. Smith's reaction, a negative one, to this dress and the doctor's invitation. Confused, she pushed the thought from her mind.

Around her, the women hummed with excitement as they all hurried to Jessie. “Susan, would you please get my sewing box from my room?” Miss Greenleigh said. “We'll have this fitted to Jessie in two shakes.”

After a flurry of activity around her, Jessie stood behind closed doors in the dining room. Susan slipped the black dress off over Jessie's head, revealing Jessie's embroidered white corset cover and starched petticoats. Then Susan slid the silk dress over Jessie.

A spontaneous “Ahh” breathed through the ladies surrounding Jessie who was still having trouble remembering to breathe.

“Oh, it look just like the dress Miss Charlotte wore to that fall cotillion her daddy give in fifty-nine.” Ruby rubbed her hands together.

From the elegantly carved wooden sewing box, Susan lifted out a round pink pincushion. “But, Grandma Ruby, see how the overskirt sweep up into this bustle. Miss Charlotte's dress had a hoop.”

“It does outline your tiny waistline perfectly.” Miss Greenleigh grinned.

“Very nice.” Miss Wright lowered herself onto a chair.

Being the center of attention was a new experience—both thrilling and horrible. Jessie had a hard time lifting her chin to face them. But she had to or the hemline would suffer. And the thought of revealing that Dr. Gooden had bought the dress for her still made her heart throb. She'd have to find some way to pay him the money back, bit by bit. And Mr. Smith must never find out about this. His sarcasm would be hard to bear.

While Ruby hovered nearby in the doorway, Miss Greenleigh and Susan deftly lifted and adjusted the fit at the cap of the sleeve. “Ruby!” Miss Wright's sharp voice made Jessie and the other three women jump. “You're too old to be standing. Sit.” She pointed her cane to a dining room chair.

Ruby hesitated.

“Sit!” Miss Wright ordered her.

Ruby sat.

Jessie, Susan, and Miss Greenleigh exchanged covert glances that told Jessie they were just as surprised as she about Miss Wright's concern for Ruby's comfort.

“Mrs. Wagstaff,” Miss Greenleigh said, interrupting the alterations. “There's something special about this dinner party. This is really an evening gown, isn't it?”

All of the women, even Miss Wright, gazed at Jessie, who felt as though a brick had become wedged sideways in her throat. “Mrs. Potter Palmer toured Rush Hospital last week. Dr. Gooden had the opportunity to explain some of the new concepts of better health through public sanitation—”

Miss Greenleigh squealed, “You've been invited to dinner at the Palmer mansion?” The young woman danced a little jig. “I can't wait to tell Mrs. Bolt. She'll turn absolutely pea green!”

“Potter Palmer?” Ruby quizzed Susan. “Who that?”

Susan exclaimed, “One of the richest men in the city—that's who!”

“Lord, have mercy!” Ruby clapped her hands.

“But how can I go to Potter Palmer's?” Jessie voiced her worry. “No matter what I wear I'm nobody—”

“You're the equal of any of those society women.” Miss Wright's adamant words halted everyone. She drew her bent body up to lecture them. “I, for one, see clearly why Dr. Gooden wants you by his side.”

“Then explain it to me.” Jessie folded her arms over each other.

“Dr. Gooden knows that the men he'll meet are all busy making and tending their fortunes. In the matters of charity, it's their wives who must be influenced. That's why he needs a woman like you Jessie.”

Looking thoughtful, Miss Greenleigh went on: “I see. A single man like the doctor must tread warily around these married women. He mustn't give the wrong impression. But if he comes with a lovely, intelligent woman on his arm, he'll give just the right kind of impression.”

Jessie's feelings of inadequacy nearly choked her. “But I'm not lovely or intelligent.”

“Stop that nonsense right now.” Miss Wright thumped her cane.

“Look at your beautiful brown eyes. This dress looks gorgeous on you,” Miss Greenleigh insisted. “And how many times in your life will you be invited to the Potter Palmer mansion?”

I didn't even want this one time
. And Jessie for some unknown reason felt traitorous to Mr. Smith. Was it because he'd come with her to nurse the Reverend?

“Besides,” Ruby urged, “if the doctor need you, you got to help him.”

Miss Wright spoke up, “Now, you two young women, step back so I can see the effect. Jessie, turn slowly, so I can see the dress on you.”

Jessie did as she was told.

Miss Wright nodded. “Elegant. And remember, Jessie, you're the equal of any woman there. They're just women who married men who made money. The Wagstaff name has been respected in Chicago for over thirty years and don't you forget it!”

What could Jessie say? But she still felt her head shaking no.

“Mrs. Wagstaff,” Miss Greenleigh suggested, “why don't you come up to my room and look at yourself in my full-length mirror. If you only saw yourself, I'm sure—”

At the idea of seeing herself in anything but black, Jessie panicked. “Oh, no!” The women all stared at her as she flushed, surprised at her own vehemence.

Then Susan muttered, “One of these days I'm gone burn every black dress in this house.”

“Amen to that,” Ruby said.

 

“Dr. Jones, can't I say anything to change your mind?” Jessie, clutching her purse with both hands, tried to keep the quaver from her voice as she tried to persuade the fifth doctor.

The young man with a fair beard shook his head. “I'm sorry. What you suggest is impossible.”

“But you've just opened your practice—”

“If I take in black patients, my practice will close even more quickly than it opened.”

“But…” Jessie's mouth was so dry she couldn't finish her sentence.

A bell jingled.

“My next patient.” He smiled with tight lips and showed her to the door.

Crushed, Jessie departed without another word. A horse trolley passed her, raising dust from the unpaved street. She pressed a handkerchief to her nose and mouth to filter out the dust as she breathed.

She walked blindly for several blocks, trying to understand why everyone couldn't see the obvious. Susan's people needed medical help regardless of their dark skin. How could people just ignore such a glaring need? She hunched forward as though carrying a heavy burden.

Coming back to herself, she realized she was only about a half mile from her mother's home and her stepfather would be at work. She hadn't seen her mother since Linc's birthday. The chance of a quiet visit alone with her mother was too inviting to be ignored. She strode down the familiar street and turned up the alley.

Smiling, she ran lightly up the back steps to her mother's home. “Mother!”

“Jessie!” Esther threw open the back door and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “I saw you coming!”

Tears sprang to Jessie's eyes. Her mother's embrace was more than she had hoped for. How many times in the lonely years after losing Will and Margaret had she yearned to feel her mother's touch?

“I'm so glad you came,” Esther murmured. “I was afraid after…” Her voice ebbed, then died.

“Let's not discuss him,” Jessie replied, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

Esther put her arm around her daughter's shoulders and drew her into the kitchen. Jessie sat down at the dark oak kitchen table. Glancing at the stark white walls, she felt a painful tug at her emotions. As long as she could remember, her mother had longed for a blue kitchen, but Hiram Huff decreed the extra charge for tinted paint was an unnecessary extravagance. After all, his mother's kitchen had been plain white—like a kitchen should be.

But Jessie wouldn't let Hiram Huff spoil this rare, private visit with her mother. “How are the twins?”

Esther set two cups of coffee onto the table. “They're working hard, preparing for the sixth-grade spelling bee.”

“That's nice.” An uncomfortable pause began. Jessie craved sympathy and encouragement in her effort to find a doctor for Susan's people, but knew—out of a sense of duty—her mother would not voice any opinion that countered her husband's. The memory of Mr. Smith's face as he'd agreed to escort Susan's friends home popped into her mind.

“Mr. Smith seemed like a very nice man,” Esther said softly, then looked into her daughter's face.

How had her mother known she was thinking about Lee Smith? Avoiding her mother's glance, Jessie sipped her coffee. “He's been very good to Linc. He comes every evening to play ball and takes him to Saturday games as often as he can.” Again an uneasy, unnatural silence cropped up between them.

“I was happy Susan's grandmother found her granddaughter again.” Esther traced the rim of her cup.

“Yes.”
As happy as I would be if I could be close to you, Mother, as I've always wanted to be.

“It must have been a terrible thing to be separated from your only living relative like that.”

“Yes.”
I know how that feels.
Tears threatened Jessie again. She regretted coming. Sitting near her mother, trying to chat politely made Jessie's emotional separation from her mother feel more stark, more cruel than ever.

Esther took a deep breath. “I wish—” She broke off at the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the wooden back porch steps.

“Esther—” Hiram stepped into the kitchen and halted. “
You're
here?” Her stepfather wore his fire captain's uniform, blackened with smoke.

“Yes.” Jessie rose to face him. “I happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“I didn't expect you home, Hiram,” Esther said, also rising.

Jessie silently fumed. How did he manage to make them feel as though they had been caught doing something wrong?

“Didn't you hear the alarm bells all night?” he snapped. “My men are exhausted. I had to call the next shift in early.” He pulled off his fire hat and raked soot-blackened hands through his hair.

Esther murmured, “I'm so sorry—”

“One small fire after another and then an abandoned warehouse down by the river. Someone's careless match destroyed it. We barely contained it. Water pressure was dangerously low.”

He glared at his stepdaughter. “Evidently having a new cook gives you time to gad about, missy.”

Hot words frothed up inside her throat. She choked them back for her mother's sake. “Missy” was the childhood name he had used when he'd scolded her. He must know his using it would goad her. He nearly succeeded in making her say something indiscreet, but she wouldn't give him the pleasure of knowing he'd vexed her. “I do need to go,” she said in a carefully colorless voice.

“Even a few of my men had heard about your colored party. Everyone in your neighborhood is outraged by your ridiculous display, missy. You don't seem to have any sense about what is proper or how gossip might affect us.”

Jessie stood stock-still, her face warm with a deep flush. “Stepfather, I don't dignify gossip by regarding it—or do I regard those who spread it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught her mother's pained expression.

If she continued, her mother would suffer for it, not with blows, but with endless hectoring. Her eyes averted, Jessie walked past her
stepfather. Without a wave or backward glance, she said, “Good day, Mother.”

 

Tense and afraid to sit down and possibly wrinkle her dress, Jessie stood in the middle of her parlor. Earlier Miss Greenleigh had done Jessie's hair and buffed her nails. She'd loaned Jessie long gloves and a gossamer shawl. Before that, Miss Wright had surprised Jessie by giving Susan the money to buy a pair of shoes of silk dyed the same color as Jessie's deep amber dress. This occasion had drawn them together in some way.

“You will do fine,” Miss Wright said gruffly.

Jessie looked askance at the old woman who kept watch with her. “I'm worried I'll do something that may reflect poorly on Dr. Gooden.”

“Be brief. Tell the truth, but don't explain.”

“You mean that we're as poor as church mice?” Jessie managed to smile.

“We're not poor, just thrifty. This is America. Remember you're the equal of any of the ladies you'll meet tonight.”

“And I married Will.” Her eyes strayed to his daguerreotype on the mantel. What would Will say to her in this silk dress? She knew. He'd say,
“You look beautiful, princess.”