Sisters (20 page)

She addressed the question
to Esther, but Sally answered--without breaking stride. "He left
before dawn!"

Sophie covered her ears
with her hands. The noise was too much. "Sally," she
shouted, "please find another game to play with Tom. A quieter
game, please."

The din abated and Sophie
sat down in the drawing room. Soon Sally approached. "Aunt
Sophie," she boomed. "Esther says you're gonna take her to
the circus this afternoon." Her words had an accusatory edge.

"Yes, and would you
like to come with us? We'll be leaving right after lunch."

"That'd be swell! I'll
get all my money together." She glanced at her sister to see if
this mention of wealth had the hoped-for adverse effect, but Esther
was paying no attention. "I'll get all my money," she
repeated loudly, "and be ready after lunch."

And what, Sophie wondered
as Sally skipped away, was she to do with herself all morning? She
had still not sketched an outline for the article she meant to write
on Cheyenne. She could occupy herself with that--except she was no
longer sure what she wanted to write. The dreadful encounter with
Wilson, her turbulent involvement with James--how could she write
about homesteaders and cattlemen? How could she write anything,
feeling as she did: restless, yet tired too. Enervated somehow.

Tom began barking
excitedly, and Sophie looked up to see the new game Sally had
invented. She had laid a small rag rug on the floor and run a
measuring stick under it. She would expose the tip of the stick, then
draw it back, concealing it from the dog's view. Tom's barking was
heavy with conviction that the yardstick was alive and evil, but the
activity of his tail betrayed that he also found its threat vastly
entertaining. He barked furiously as the tip emerged from under the
rug, and he lunged at it once or twice. when Sally pulled it back,
Tom waited for its reappearance, his eyes intent on the rug edge, his
front end lowered to give him a nearer view.

Sally magnanimously gave
her sister a turn, and Esther pushed the end of the stick out again.
Both children laughed raucously as tom renewed his mad barking. All
three of them were having an enormously good time---but the noise!
How it grated on Sophie's nerves. Rather than ask them to be quiet
again, she went outside.

She walked down the steps,
down the long curved walk, and when she reached the street, turned
and headed toward the Bellavance house. She would go visit Joe.

A maid answered the door,
and Sophie showed herself upstairs. For fear of waking Joe, she
didn't knock at the sickroom door, and when she entered, the nurse
knitting beside the bed gave a small gasp. On the other side of the
room, the Widow Bellavance twisted violently around. The old woman
was standing beneath the Landseer stag, and when she saw Sophie, she
stared at her for a moment. Nether of them spoke, and then the old
woman fled from the room, knocking against Sophie as she left.

"Is she in here
often?" Sophie asked the nurse.

"The last few days
she's been comin' in to look at the picture. The poor daft old thing,
she seems fond of it. Though I don't know, it is kind of a pretty
picture, isn't it? He's lookin' right at you with those nice eyes."

Sophie was uneasy at the
idea of the old woman in Joe's room, but there was nothing she could
say about it. This was, after all, the Widow Bellavance's home. As
soon as the nurse had left, Sophie made sure the door was latched
securely, then sat down beside Joe. He was asleep. He seemed to sleep
most of the time, and it was probably just as well. The one time she
had seen him awake, he was confused and frightened. Better for him to
sleep.

She stayed less than half
an hour, a much shorter time than she had intended. The sickroom was
too warm, and the lassitude she was fighting grew almost
overwhelming. She needed to move her limbs, to walk, and she knew
where she wanted to go.

She left the Bellavance
house and walked back down Ferguson Street, past the Stevensons' and
heading toward town. When she reached the Presbyterian Church, she
turned left and continued down the block until she was directly in
front of a group of new and expensive row houses. She paused and
looked across the street. There it was. Ida Hamilton's House of
Mirrors, though one would not immediately guess the function of a
rather prim-looking brick building. But Sophie knew. And she knew
inside was a woman with whom James had slept. She tried to imagine
him making love to... Gabrielle? Wasn't that her name? ...but she
couldn't. She had no mental picture of the woman. Was she pretty?
What was she like? What would it be like to talk to her?

It suddenly occurred to
Sophie that Gabrielle might be easier for her to talk with than the
WCTU women were. About some subjects certainly. Gabrielle wouldn't
freeze at mentions of preventive devices. By her profession she
admits being a sexual creature, Sophie thought, an admission I also
make, though not publicly and not at such cost to my reputation.
Sophie pondered the moment why she had been able to remain a member
of polite society despite having violated so many of its rules, and
she decided the reason was her position. As head of Dymond
Publications, she could impose her will on others, and as long as she
could do that, the world could not entirely cast her down with its
opinions.

An insight came to her:
this is what men have always known. This is why they can behave
privately in ways that violate the public morality and not be ruined.
Because they have power. And then, as if to confirm her thought, a
well-dressed man came around the corner, pounded the heavy brass
knocker on the door of the House of Mirrors, and went inside. Sophie
was seized with a crazy urge to follow him, to go to Ida Hamilton's,
find Gabrielle, and talk to her.

But someone would see her.
There would be gossip. It might even end up in the newspapers. She
shuddered at the idea of such publicity, imagining what a gossip
sheet like Town Talk would make of it. She remembered how it had been
a few years ago when her association with Adah had come to light, and
she had no stomach to go through such a thing again. The world might
not be able to cast her down with its opinion, but why taunt it to
renewed effort?

She forced herself to walk
on, and when after several blocks she came to House Street, she
turned left. Soon she found herself in front of Amy Travers' home,
and decided to stop.

Miss Travers answered her
knock almost immediately. The schoolteacher looked exhausted. Her
eyes were two dark holes, her braids loose so that her gray-brown
hair was falling around her face. The ruching at her collar was
soiled and her dress badly wrinkled, as though it had been slept in.
"Sophie. I didn't expect a visitor so early."

"I was paying no
attention to the time," Sophie apologized. "I was out for a
stroll and found myself in front of your home."

Miss Travers made no move
to invite Sophie in. There was an awkward silence, and Sophie cast
about for something to say, something of substance--small talk seemed
inappropriate under the scrutiny of those intense eyes. Why was she
here anyway? Sophie asked herself. What had led her to turn up House
Street and stop at Miss Travers'? She gave little weight to James'
suggestion about a lovers' quarrel between Helen and Miss Travers. He
had simply been striking out, trying to hurt as he had been hurt. But
there was one thing which troubled her.

"Do you remember when
we first talked?" she asked Miss Travers. "When I asked you
about Helen's death?"

"Yes." Amy
Travers' eyes flicked back over her shoulder, and she closed the door
slightly.

Sophie found her actions
puzzling, but ignored them and plunged ahead. "I asked you where
James was when Helen died, and you said you had no idea."

The schoolteacher nodded,
her eyes flickng back again. Then she stepped out onto the porch and
pulled the door closed behind her.

Why was she behaving this
way? Sophie wondered. Was there something or someone in the house
Miss Travers didn't want her to see? "Is it possible he was at
Ida Hamilton's?" Sophie asked.

"Yes, he was there."

"But why didn't
you...?"

"It didn't seem
necessary. Why risk embarrassing the children? Why dirty Helen's
memory?"

"I see," Sophie
said, thinking this made the second thing Miss Travers had known
about James which she hadn't revealed. First she hadn't been willing
to talk about what he'd done to Helen, and then she had kept secret
his presence at Ida Hamilton's when Helen died. Her knowledge of
these things no doubt explained the schoolteacher's disdain for
James. And perhaps also his odd unwillingness to confront her. Even a
man as strong-willed as he would probably find it difficult to face
down someone aware of his most grievous failings.

"If you don't mind,"
Miss Travers said, "I'd rather we talked later. I'll be over to
visit the children this afternoon."

"I'm taking them to
the circus at one o'clock."

"This evening, then.
Sometime around eight."

"Of course."
Until Sophie was well up the walk, Miss Travers stood on the porch as
though she were guarding the door to her home. Why would she do that?
Sophie wondered. Who could be in the house? Or what? And why didn't
Amy Travers want her to know?

*

"Look, there's the
giraffe! You can see his head!" Sally began shouting while they
were still at the ticket wagon. Sophie pushed three dollars across to
the man inside, and as soon as he had given her three tickets, Sally
dashed toward the roped-off area where the giraffe swayed gracefully
above the zebras and horses. Sophie and Esther followed at a more
sedate pace, and by the time they'd reached the giraffe, Sally had
gone on to the elephants. They were nearby, also in an area fenced
off by ropes, but for extra measure, each of them was fastened by a
large chain to a thick stake sunk deep in the ground.

Next came a row of gaily
painted wheeled cages, recently off-loaded from huge flatbed cars
standing in the nearby railroad tracks. The cages were gleaming, and
the sunshine in which they sparkled was growing warmer by the minute.
It had sucked the last moisture out of the air, and as Sally ran
along the row of cages, she kicked up little clouds of dust.

"Come look at this
one!" the girl called out from in front of a red-and-gold case
with a jungle scene painted on the side. "You gotta see the
lions!"

Esther hung back a little,
and Sophie suspected she understood why. She herself had always been
a little saddened by the sight of wild creatures in captivity, and
she guessed Esther shared her feelings. But no such notion troubled
Sally. One of the lions was lying with his head very near the bars,
and she roared at him, producing quite an impressive sound,
discouraged not a whit when the beast ignored her.

As they moved on to see the
ostrich, Sophie was suddenly and roughly bumped from behind. She
turned to see Jake Rodman's smirking face. "Why, Mrs. Dymond. I
do beg your pardon. How clumsy of me!"

She felt certain he had
bumped her on purpose, but why? Simply to annoy her? She turned away
from him without speaking and walked on to Esther and Sally.

"Look Aunt Sophie,
let's go there." Sally had spotted a sideshow advertising
"Marvelous Living Curiosities." The ticket booth was framed
by paintings of freaks: a woman with snakes coiled around her, a
giantess with a tiny man sitting on her lap, a creature who appeared
to be half-human and half-ape. A barker in a checkered suit sat in
the middle of these portraits and worked to enlarge the small crowd
he had gathered. "If you're fainthearted, pass right on by,"
he shouted. "The man-ape from Borneo isn't a sight for the
cowardly!"

"I'll use my money,
Aunt Sophie," Sally implored. "I'll buy your ticket. I'll
even pay for Esther."

"No. We have to hunt
if we want good seats." There probably was time, but Sophie
would not go into the sideshow tent. Wasn't it enough that nature
played such cruel tricks? It was insult piled on outrage that the
only way for such people to survive was by displaying their
deformities, and she had no wish to view it.

She and the two girls
entered the main tent in time to get seats near the performance ring.
The bleachers filled up quickly, mostly with women and children, but
there were a fair number of men too, even a few cowboys. It wasn't
just their clothes that made them recognizable. When they took off
their hats, there was a telltale line across the forehead, white
above, where the broad-brimmed hats gave protection, red beneath,
where the wind and sun of spring roundup had burned.

As Sophie looked over the
crowd, she saw Lydia Swerdlow sitting a few rows above. She had twin
boys with her that looked to be about Sally's age. Sophie smiled and
made a small wave. Lydia nodded at her gravely.

It was hot in the tent, and
the ringmaster, who took the center to announce the grand entry, kept
wiping his forehead. He introduced the animals, and while the plumed
horses pranced by with their tails held high and the elephants
lumbered past with gilded harnesses and blankets, he repeatedly wiped
a handkerchief over his glistening brow. He introduced the clowns,
who were playing in a ragtag band, and as they passed in a cacophony
of horns and drums, it was off with the hat and up with the
handkerchief again. Sophie wondered how the poor man survived when
the circus played in humid climates.

It made her hot to watch
him, and she turned her attention to the circling parade. She saw she
had not escaped the sideshow. Several freaks were parading in the
grand entry: a midget--"Dr. Petty," the ringmaster called
him; a giantess known as "the female Samson"; and an albino
family, father, mother, and daughter, all with startlingly white
hair. Sophie looked over at Sally and saw that the child was
particularly taken with Dr. Petty. She laughed at his baggy pants, at
the tumble he took when a clown made a swipe at him.