My Notorious Life (39 page)

—What if I am arrested? I says to Charlie.

—We’ll bail you out and get the charges dropped, Mr. Optimist Charlie replied.

—And how will you do that? A magician trick?

—Friends in high places. Judges. Police lieutenants. A payment. That’s how it’s done, right? That’s what your Mrs. Evans claimed.

—And if that fails?

—We hire a lawyer. But I STILL don’t think any woman would testify. Why would she?

—But if you’re wrong then it’s a year in jail for me and do you think your daughter will like to have a mother in the Tombs?

—My darling, they are all talk and no action. What can they prove?

The answer was, nothing. Charlie was a salesman. He sold his argument to me, and really, what he said made sense. I trusted my ladies above all. They had good reason to be quiet, and that was my best insurance.

*  *  *

It was a chicken-neck cop, so young you seen where the pinfeathers was plucked above the neck of his uniform, who walked Liberty Street daily between my office and my house, swinging his shillelagh and whistling Toura Loo. One morning I went out with a market basket, to welcome him.

—Good morning, Officer, I said, very smiley.

He gave me a cold stare.

—Lovely weather, I said. Which it wasn’t. The poor trap was blowing on his hands and stamping, his nose red, so when I returned from my errand I sent our Maggie McGrath out to him with a cup of hot cider, fluttering her considerable eyelashes.

—Madame DeBeausacq sent this, in thanks to you for protecting our establishment, Maggie said with no apparent sarcasm.

When the temperature dropped into the cellar so did Officer Corrigan’s resolve, which finally was melted altogether by the heat of the soups we sent him from Rebecca’s kitchen, and the warm lights of Maggie’s smile. In no time, he was stepping in the back door to thaw his mitts at our fire, and we women was giving him pints of ale and remedies for his Mam who had the consumption, and contributions to the charity of his choice, namely his own pocket, and generally taming him down from Foe to Friend.

But Police was like roaches and when you saw one it was well knownt here was a nest of them under every crack of the floor. We advised ladies
to lower their veils upon leaving, and not to speak to anyone, and to walk some distance the wrong way, to see if they were followed. Afraid as we was of the hairy hand of the law, we placed our trust in our own mutual interests: not to be exposed. None of them would tell. And so still the women came, or sent their husbands, or their sweethearts, or sometimes even a brother. These men scuttled in with their paws in their pockets, stammering, did I have a remedy for their sweet Martha? their Jenny? their Missus? Could I pay a house call on Margaret? Come quick please for Mrs. Roper? It touched the heart to see these fellas’ concern and their relief as they paid me, pocketing the pill bottles and the pamphlets of advice, or hurrying me through the dark streets toward their ladies’ trouble. I remember especially Mr. Bivens, a kindly fellow, hostage as any to his own masculine urges. He came fresh from praying on his knees in church.

—I told God my Ruby is in the family way again, said Mr. Bivens, —and if she has one more it’ll surely kill her. Well don’t you know He answered my prayer to say it was no sin to come and ask for your help as well as His, if it would spare poor Ruby.

Well his Ruby came to my door, too, some time after I sold her husband some medicines and preventatives, expressly to thank me for the improvements in her health (and, she said shyly, OTHER improvements). Her husband had read all of Charlie’s pamphlets. —We’re following the ways of them French, she said, —and have stayed with just our four children very happily since, and don’t expect to have more.

If only such a happy ending was the result for every woman who crossed my threshold, but too bad, there was one or two of them ended up like poor Cordelia Purdy, which is one or two more than I care to remember.

C
ordelia was just a small bony girl with a tumble of black hair like scribbles under her hat. I put her age at the time to be sixteen years, not more. When I brought her into the office she would not look at me. She was nervous and sidelong as a bird.

—Is everything I say here private? she whispered.

—My dear Mrs. Purdy, you bury your secrets when you tell them to me.

She sighed and fidgeted very childish with the strap of her handbag. —My husband has sent me here from New Haven . . . to procure an . . .
abortion
.

She said the word so quiet I cocked my ear to her. —You have other little ones at home then?

—We have no children. She squirmed and gnawed at a fingernail, twisting it between her teeth till it came away in a spot of blood. —You’re sure it’s secret?

I nodded.

—Oh Madame, she cried, —I am not his wife, though I am called Mrs. Purdy.

—I see.

—No I’m afraid you don’t. He is . . . my uncle. I am his ward and niece.

—His ward?

—Yes, but he presents me as his wife. My name is Cordelia Shackford but he calls me Mrs. Purdy.

—He’s your guardian, you say?

—He’ll marry me soon. He promised. He treats me all right.

—Right as ruin, I said under my breath. —How many months are you, my dear?

—No more than three.

—Have you tried any tablets?

—They made me sick. He says it’s the operation now or else.

—Are you committed to this course? It’s not just your so-called guardian, trying to bury his shame?

—It’s MY shame, she cried. —I don’t have a choice about it. He’s made it plain. If I don’t do as he says he’ll let it be known I have gone off with soldiers which I haven’t. Uncle George loves me he says but he can’t have a scandal, so the operation it is, again.

—Again?

She looked away. —I’ve been to Mrs. Costello before. Twice. If I refuse he’ll throw me out and never marry me as he promised. We saw your notice in the New Haven paper and came since a girl at Costello’s told me you was gentle.

—Three times! Your guardian belongs in jail.

—And what would happen to me if he was? Where would I go then?

I sat beside the girl on the sofa and put my arm around her narrow shoulders. She smelled of lilac water. She had tiny feet in tiny boots that buttoned up the sides. There was a plain ring on her wedding finger. He gave it to her, she said, so she could tell me and anyone who wondered that she was Mrs. Purdy and there wouldn’t be gossip.

—Where’s your mother, sweetheart? I said, soft.

—She died when I was fourteen. Two years ago.

I told her mine died too. For a while we sat very quiet, the two of us, thinking of our mothers, and how, had they not left us, neither of us would be having this talk.

—In her will, Cordelia said, —she trusted me to Mr. Purdy. To provide my education.

—And so he has provided one, the old ferret, though not the kind your mother hoped for.

—He has promised to marry me in two years, I told you, when I turn eighteen.

—Is that your choice then?

—It’s no choice at all. I’ve to do as he says.

—All right then, I sighed very heavy. —Return tomorrow after dinner with the money, my dear, and I will relieve you of your trouble.

—Thank you Madame. She put on her blue shawl, the color of a hyacinth, and went out to the street chewing her finger, wary and hunted.

*  *  *

The next afternoon Cordelia and I sat together on the bed upstairs. —All right, sweetheart? I asked her. —Are you sure, then?

She nodded and rummaged in her bag, handed me the price, then smiled weakly.

—Ah there now, love, don’t be too sad. You’re a pretty girl and will have pretty children. You’ll keep your kids one day.

—Oh, Madame, I pray it’s true.

—You’ll have a better class of man then, let’s hope. I pushed the silk of her hair off her face. —Now Cordelia, sweetheart. I’m afraid I have to probe you.

—I know.

—And you’ll be a brave girl.

—I will.

*  *  *

It was a difficult one. The probe could not find the channel. There was scarring thanks to the work of Mrs. Costello. My poor girl bit down on a piece of rawhide I gave her. Halfway through she fainted. Throughout, my throat was half-closed with panic and a chemical pulse of fear went through me as I worked, my heart pounding so fast, my hands damp. It never was easy for me, not once or ever, though I known my way around as expert as possible. Each time was different and each time could be the time of a terrible mistake and each time I cursed and wished for some magical elixir to send these poor ladies to oblivion whilst the task was under way. But there was nothing for it except for them to suffer. Thus I had learnt to make my heart a hard nut, like the Brazils or the filberts you could only crack with bricks, and though Cordelia cried, I did not crack. I said, —Be still. Hush. I was sharp with her, as I was sharp when I had to be, for while I was not even
ninety pounds, they knew it was me in charge of them at that minute. What they did not know, my ladies, was that if they flinched wrong a nick could kill them.

—Stop that now, I said, when she set up a piercing cry, and after that she only whimpered. When I was done at last I spoiled her. I spoiled them all, but her, more. She was a lost wild girl of sixteen and her guardian would not guard her. I tucked Cordelia in. —Just rest now,
macushla
. I called her in my mother’s Irish word for darling and kissed her clammy head and smoothed the black hair off her face. I brought her mint tea and fresh sheets. She drank the tea and vomited. I put her on the groaning chair with the basin below and she sat doubled over. She cried and I held her in my arms and called her wee babby, girleen, and sweet Cordelia,
aroun machree.
I called her child although she was just ten years younger than myself. She could have been Dutch, I thought, what if she was my sister? Something frightened about her made me feel she was mine to keep care of. All night she went back and forth from the chair to the bed. —Terrible blood comes from me, she said. I slept on the floor of her room. By morning, her head was hot. Her lips was dry and shiny with fever.

I thought she would die.

For two days, the fever in our little Cordelia Purdy had us running. I didn’t go home to my Belle all the night long and sent word to Sallie the nurse to spoil her with a sugar lump after dinner to make up for missing me. How that child still at five years of age did fret when I was not there to sing her
shoul aroun
. Instead, I sang to Cordelia very soft. Me and Greta was up and down with compresses. Buckets. Water. Sheets. We fanned her. Her brow was hot and the pillow soaked. —Mama, she called out, and cried in my arms. We would lose her, I thought. The bones of her frame were so light when I held her, willow bones. The skin of her face was tight across her cheeks. On the second day I sent Greta for leeches from the apothecary. They were dark and meaty, thick as thumbs along her white skin. The poor patient did not notice. They lay on her skin drawing the fever out of her. She was listless. Her limbs were limp and her breathing shallow. On the morning of the third day when I pressed her abdomen it was tight across the bowl of her hips. There was a smell of old blood, musk.

—I’ll have to probe her again, I told Greta, and so spent another night away from my little one.

*  *  *

In the morning afterwards Cordelia was better. After another day the fever cleared. We helped her sit up in the bed, and she was so damp and gray colored.

—If he doesn’t marry me now, she whispered, —I’ll kill myself.

—Aw sweet, I said. —Don’t trouble your head about it.

—I will do it.

—No, now shhh, you won’t. You’ll come back here, lamb. You come here if ever you need a hand. For anything. You can always come to Madame’s.

I don’t know why I said it. Sure I wouldn’t have, had I known how it would play out later. But I said it. You can always come to Madame’s. There was plenty of girls desperate as Cordelia Purdy, as young and troubled. I didn’t say it to them. But there was something about this one. Her motherlessness. And that black hair of hers in a tangle. It put me in mind of Dutchie. Of my younger self. And I thought of my sister across the sea with her fancy husband, probably dancing the valse in Vienna with the Kaiser, or back in Chicago with the Ambroses and their high society.

*  *  *

Three years had passed since our tragic missed connection. I did not write Dutch now for I had no safe address. I could not write Chicago no more because I feared exposing her secret, that she was not a natural-born Ambrose but A KIDNAPPED PAPIST CHILD, a New York Irish, apparently a fact so shameful it would be her undoing. Did my sister have her own babies to run after? Likely yes, and my brother Joe would be a man in long pants by this time. Was his hair thick as our Da’s? Could he carry a tune like our Mam? Charlie had not contracted another detective for we wished to avoid police at all costs now, along with private dicks like Snope who’d only swindle. I cursed myself anew for my broken promise to her, yet still this longing for my old family was a cool moon, sometimes sharp like a scythe blade, other times round as a coin, a wealth I couldn’t have, lurking far away behind clouds. I turned my nervous protections as best as possible toward my own daughter and all the troubled ladies who came to my door. Instead of a big pile of relatives, I had one little girl, and desperate females like Cordelia under my roof to watch over.