A Lack of Temperance (6 page)
“Hey, what are you doing in here?” I dropped the calling card. “This is Miss Edwina’s room.”
A girl, no older than nineteen, her freckled face taut from the pull of her bun, stood in the doorway holding freshly laundered dresses over her outstretched arms. A starched white apron covered her print house dress. A small book was tucked in the pocket.
“Yes, I know, I’m sorry, the door was open.” I picked up the card and added it to the papers on the desk. The girl scowled. Walking past me, she set the dresses on the bed. “I’m Hattie Davish, Mrs. Trevelyan’s new secretary.”
“You could be Sarah Bernhardt herself for all I care. You shouldn’t be snooping around in here. Does Miss Edwina know you’re in here?”
“No, actually I’m looking for Mrs. Trevelyan. I saw her last night but didn’t get a chance to speak to her. I haven’t been able to find her all day. In fact, no one seems to know where she is. Do you happen to know, Miss . . . ? I’m sorry; I didn’t get your name.”
“Mary Flannagan. And no, I don’t know where the lady is.” She shrugged. “I’m just the maid.”
“Did you happen to see her today, Miss Flannagan? Happen to hear where she was going or when she’ll be back?”
“I saw her this morning.” She yanked on the counterpane, straightening the already straight bedspread.
“You did? When? Did she say where she was going today?”
“I’m sorry, miss. I can’t help you.” The maid swatted a pillow.
“Can you tell me anything? You’re the first person I’ve talked to today who has seen her.”
“Sorry, no. And you still haven’t explained what you’re doing in here.”
“Miss Flannagan, I know you can appreciate my predicament. I’m trying to determine what my situation is. I don’t know why Mrs. Trevelyan troubled to arrange for my travel and engage my services. She has yet to avail herself of those services, and has a willing volunteer in one of her coalition members. If I came here under false pretenses, I need to make other arrangements. To tell you the truth, I don’t have anything to do. And it’s driving me crazy.”
“Sorry, miss.” The maid shrugged and swatted another pillow. She had to know more than she was telling me. I knew from experience that there was no such thing as “just a maid.” Before getting frustrated, I decided to try a different tactic.
“Did you hear about what happened last night at the Cavern Saloon?” The maid stiffened but said nothing. “I was there. It was awful. I’d never heard of such a thing as ‘saloon smashing’ before. Have you, Miss Flannagan?”
“Oh, call me Mary, will ya? Yeah, I heard. I heard all about it. The righteous lady goes preachifying and instead bashes up the place and tries to burn it down.” The maid snatched a dress from the bed and hung it in the wardrobe. “And where were the bloody coppers when you need them?”
“You don’t like Mrs. Trevelyan, Mary?” With her back to me, she hung the last two dresses in silence.
“Don’t get me wrong, miss,” she said, turning around. “Miss Edwina’s not all bad. In her way, the lady is good to me. She doesn’t ask too many questions, never once raised her voice or hand to me, and she’s been very generous. That trunk there is for a charity and it’s packed with most of her own clothes.” She jerked her head around. “Oh, looks like they took it already.”
She hesitated, as if wondering if she should say more. Her lips tightened. “But the lady’s difficult, unpredictable too, enforcing her own rules on the staff.” She crossed her arms over her chest, punctuating the words with a shake of her head. “And it’s not right what she did to that saloon. Not right at all. She deserves to be arrested.”
“My impression is that not everyone agrees with her tactics,” I said. “And I’m surprised the police haven’t been here.”
“Oh, they’ve been here, all right. I saw them in here with the manager earlier this morning.”
“Really, when was that?” I procured two glasses of water from the many bottles labeled
Magnetic Spring
next to the nightstand. I handed one to the maid, gesturing for her to sit, and took the next armchair. She swirled the glass for a moment, then gulped down the water. She poured herself another one.
Magnetic Spring
next to the nightstand. I handed one to the maid, gesturing for her to sit, and took the next armchair. She swirled the glass for a moment, then gulped down the water. She poured herself another one.
“I don’t remember. I’ve been so busy with these temperance ladies arriving. And this morning has been nothing if not hectic.”
“Could you hazard a guess?”
“It would’ve been well after breakfast. I came by early with the lady’s coffee. ‘After all the commotion last night,’ her words, not mine, she was anxious for her coffee.”
“But isn’t room service the dining staff ’s concern?”
“You’d think so. I’m supposed to clean the rooms, not cater to the whims of every highfalutin guest. It seems she doesn’t like the waiters from downstairs, so one of the maids has to fetch it. It was my turn this morning.”
“After you served the coffee, then what?”
“I laid out her clothes. I was making up the bed when that Miss Cordelia showed up.” The maid shuddered. Remembering my encounters with Cordelia Anglewood, I didn’t have to wonder why.
Like many people of wealth, Cordelia Anglewood didn’t seem to have a high regard for women in service. But then again, Sir Arthur had been like that once too. The first time we met, I’d been called into the study in his rented house in Kansas City. He had always had male secretaries, never entertaining the idea that a woman was competent enough to work for him. But I had come highly recommended from an acquaintance, and he was in a pinch. He was midway through writing an article comparing the Civil War battles that took place in Westport, Missouri, in 1864 when his secretary quit. I had arrived on an hour’s notice on a Sunday afternoon, but as a man who expects everyone to be at his beck and call, he was unimpressed. And he told me in no uncertain terms how unimpressed. Then he began dictating, before I had barely time to take off my gloves, before I’d had a chance to sit down, before I had prepared my notebook. But I was quick and competent and had every word he had dictated that afternoon typed up before I was dismissed that evening. He had me back the next day, and my life hasn’t been the same since.
“After I fetched a second pot of coffee for them,” the maid said, “Miss Edwina gave me the dresses to take to the laundry and then dismissed me, thank goodness.” She yanked on a loose thread on her apron. “I didn’t have time this morning to run any of her errands.”
“Errands?”
“You know, sending telegrams, fetching books, delivering messages, buying train tickets.” She said the last pointing at me.
“But why would you be doing what is typically a secretary’s job?”
“That’s what I wanted to know. Her old secretary, Miss Rippetoe, the one that eloped two weeks ago, and then Miss Josephine usually took care of all that. Miss Josephine must be busy with all the meetings. So it’s ‘do this, Mary, do that, Mary.’ And all on top of my normal work too. I was happy to overhear Miss Edwina, complaining about ‘bungling secretaries,’ tell one of the old ladies that she was sending for a professional.” She attempted a grin, crinkling her face, showing a chipped tooth. “That would be you, miss.”
I smiled back. “Do you remember anything else?”
“No, not really. The last time I saw her, I’d finished cleaning 230. She was in the hallway, going back to her room. Probably had been to the bathroom again; she’s an old lady, you know.”
C
HAPTER
7
HAPTER
7
“V
ote Yes on 203, Vote Yes on 203, Vote Yes on 203.”
ote Yes on 203, Vote Yes on 203, Vote Yes on 203.”
Brandishing pro–Proposition 203 banners and pro-Harrison campaign posters, a group of temperance women chanted. They marched, among a gathering crowd, back and forth in front of a one-story whitewashed frame building decorated in red, white, and blue bunting. It was the polling place for today’s election.
“Down with Proposition 203!” a man from the crowd shouted.
“Down with you lousy meddlers,” another voice shouted at the marching women.
“Vote Yes on 203, Vote Yes on 203, Vote Yes on 203,” the women shouted louder.
After leaving Mary Flannagan to her duties last night, I had returned to my typewriter. In lieu of real work, I had kept myself busy by documenting all that I’d learned about the American Women’s Temperance Coalition, Mrs. Trevelyan, and possible reasons for her growing absence. I had prepared a list of facts, annotated as to when I had learned each one, how, and from whom. I had kept a separate list of unanswered questions, and another listing tasks I might perform to earn my wages during her absence. It wasn’t much.
This morning, after another failed attempt to find Mrs. Trevelyan in her room, I had spent some time attending to the daily stream of telegrams and correspondences sent by both her admirers and detractors alike. But I had been distracted. Was the entirety of this engagement going to be spent making piles of paper and chasing after hints of this woman? Where was she? Why hadn’t Mrs. Trevelyan been seen since yesterday morning? Has she been arrested after all? There was only one way to find out.
I had to circumvent the demonstration to get to the police precinct. It was all too reminiscent of the saloon smashing mishap. The chanting escalated into shrill cries and exclamations. Several fistfights broke out. Projectiles flew through the air. A rotten egg soared by, missing my head by inches as I crossed the street. And in the middle of it all was one man.
“Only George Shulman would dare take on the entire Temperance Movement single-handedly,” a fellow spectator said when I reached the wooden sidewalk on the other side. In the middle of the street, encircled by a dozen temperance women, a man stood his ground. His thick arms were waving as he shouted eye to eye with a woman several inches taller than him. Instead of a hat, a large bandage covered most of his short, cropped fair hair. “If he can defeat 203, he’s got my vote for city council.” Men around the spectator concurred.
“Mere placards?” George Shulman was shouting. “Where are your hatchets now? Y’all think you’re so high and mighty. You couldn’t burn down my bar, so you push for Proposition 203, to put me out of business?”
“Yes, and you would thank me for it,” the woman replied, her arms locked across her chest.
“Then it’s a damn good thing women can’t vote,” someone from the crowd exclaimed.
George Shulman raised his arm, as if to toast. “I’ll drink to that.”
I could still hear the roaring laughter of the crowd as I entered the police station several blocks away. I’d always imagined police stations as dark, cheerless places, but to my delight, and surprise, several species of exotic plants decorated the waiting room: A lemon tree stood in one corner, a flowering fuchsia draped over a plant stand next to the south window, and a shiny green cast-iron plant was in a clay pot on the desk.
“I’d like to speak to the sheriff, please,” I said to the clerk. He grabbed a sheet of paper from a towering stack next to him.
“Out of town,” he said, without putting down his pen.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Won’t be. He took a prisoner back to Berryville.”
“May I speak with someone else, then? It concerns Mrs. Edwina Trevelyan, of the American Women’s Temperance Coalition.”
“It’s Election Day, lady; the officers are busy.”
“I’m willing to wait.”
“Oh, all right, wait here.” The clerk lifted himself from his chair and shuffled through a closed door at the back of the room. He returned alone and slumped back down without acknowledging me.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Over there,” he said, pointing to a long wooden bench against the wall. A gaunt old man with calico patches sewn on his cap and a bottle clasped between his knees sat with his head back, snoring, at one end. “Someone will be right with you.”
A few minutes passed, then an hour. The old man, coughing himself awake, took swigs from his bottle each time before falling asleep again. Several other men passed by me on their way out the door. For a time, I was absorbed with watching a cricket scurry from one shadow to the next until it disappeared altogether beneath the clerk’s desk. The hard bench made my back ache. I was forced to stand and stretch my legs several times before a lanky man with a sharply pointed nose, carrying the round, high-crowned hat of a policeman, strode toward me. He stopped briefly, sticking his finger into the fuchsia pot to test its soil moisture, before approaching me.
“You the one asking about the temperance lady?” he said, squinting down at me.
“Yes, my name is Hattie Davish. I’m Mrs. Trevelyan’s secretary. I’m concerned about her unexplained absence. I was hoping you might have some information, Officer?”
“It’s Jackson, Chief of Police, Miss Davish, and there’s nothing to tell.” He stroked his thin black mustache.
“So you haven’t arrested her?”
“Arrested her? No, we haven’t arrested her.”
“But I thought you might have, after the other night.”
“Oh, yeah, there’s a warrant out for the lady, all right. She attacked the Cavern Saloon, its patrons, and its owner.” He shifted his helmet from one arm to the other as he viewed the wall above my head.
“I know. I was there.” His eyes darted down to my face. I had taken him by surprise.
“Then you know she almost set fire to the place.”
“But then why not arrest her?”
“Miss, I went to the Arcadia Hotel. The woman had already left.”
“She had? Were you able to track her or determine when and how she left?”
“Miss, I don’t know why you’re asking me all these questions.” He turned away from me to watch another policeman enter supporting a man incapable of walking on his own. They were both splattered with tomatoes and smelled of sulfur.
“Chief Jackson,” I said, hoping to recapture his attention. “Could something have happened to Mrs. Trevelyan? The facts don’t add up.”
“Miss, the facts are simple. The lady broke the law and then skipped town. End of story. I’ve got better things to do with my time than chase some bottle-breaking fanatic across the Ozarks.” He placed his hat on his head. “Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
But that couldn’t be. Before leaving the hotel, I had checked again with the desk clerk. Mrs. Trevelyan was still registered. Could she have left without checking out? From what I had learned about her from her letters, this was not a woman to shy away from controversy. Besides, with the majority of the coalition’s members assembled in one place, she had more support for her cause and predicament than at any other time. But then where was she? And what was I going to do now?
I took a detour down two short flights of stone stairs to North Main Street and, after passing the bottom of Tibbs Alley, a narrow staircase of at least a hundred steep steps that connected to Center Street high above, started looking for the Cavern Saloon. North Main Street, unusually flat and wide for this mountainous town, was lined with clusters of buildings, mainly of unpainted wood, that were marked by mud from a recent flood. And it was bustling with activity. Farm wagons, water wagons, and carriages of all sorts fought for room in the street. At the one-story, sprawling wooden livery on the corner, three stable hands frantically tried to groom and house eight horses at once. The two restaurants I passed, one with a second-story terrace, were both crowded with patrons, and the Grand Central Hotel, a long, three-story brick building, with its doors almost continually opening and closing with arriving and departing guests, had a group of young men playing marbles inconveniently in the middle of the sidewalk. I noticed no fewer than four other saloons, all with men loitering about outside, before I found the place I was looking for, between a blacksmith shop, with its telltale rhythmic clank of metal on metal, and Crandell’s Tobacco and Fine Cigars.
The first time I had gone to the Cavern Saloon, I had gone out of sheer curiosity, to see the chaos and destruction caused by the temperance crusaders. And now, out of some necessity, I was going there again. But I hadn’t known where to find it; Sunday night, I had followed a crowd from the Arcadia Hotel by the glow of fire and street lamps. Today I had to ask for directions, and after several uncomfortable exchanges, I had found a woman with a bright red checkered cloth wrapped around her head, and a bareheaded young boy in a well-used white apron pulling fresh cabbage off a cart on the street a few doors down from the police station. I’d asked if they knew where I could find the Cavern. With a questioning glance and a backward wave of her hand, the woman had sent the youth into the store.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you, ma’am, but that’s no place for a lady.”
“I need to talk to the saloonkeeper about a mutual acquaintance,” I said.
When she had finished giving me directions, repeating, “Past Tibbs Alley, now, no use looking for it before,” she placed her hands on her hips.
“I hope you’re not fixin’ to go there right now, ma’am. Old George is in a foul mood. I think he would wrestle his own mama to the ground if she looked sideways at him today. Besides, it’s getting late. A lady like you shouldn’t be wandering around alone.”
I had thanked her for her directions and her advice and then walked until I found the saloon. Luckily, no one loitered about outside.
I’d never been inside a saloon before. I didn’t intend to enter one now. Built into the side of the rocky hillside, I could see how the saloon lived up to its name. I didn’t recognize any of the shops or buildings surrounding it and realized that the events of Sunday night must have taken place on the third-story entrance, two street levels above. I waited outside for several minutes until a man emerged. The strong smell of tobacco and alcohol (Now where had I smelled that recently?) accosted me as the doors swung open.
“Excuse me, sir? Would you be kind enough to ask the owner if he would grant me a few minutes?”
The man offered me one long, uncomfortable stare and continued down the street. I attempted this three more times, twice with men going into the saloon and once with another man leaving. However, I waited in vain. I glanced at my watch; I’d been waiting for over an hour and it was starting to get dark. I was going to have to enter myself or abandon my mission. I stood there a few more minutes gathering my courage.
“May I help you, miss?”
I recognized his voice. Until that moment, the men that had frequented the Cavern had dirt under their nails and few words on their lips and were looking forward to a well-earned drink. But I knew when I turned to see him that his dress would be impeccable. I wasn’t disappointed.
“Ah, the lovely lady from Sunday night’s bar raid.” The gentleman I had met two days ago removed his top hat. “May I be of service?”
“Yes, thank you. I was hoping for an audience with the saloonkeeper. Would you ask him if he would step outside and give me a moment of his time? It’s about a mutual acquaintance, Mrs. Edwina Trevelyan.”
“Mrs. Trevelyan?” The gentleman laughed as he removed his gloves, one finger at a time. “I’m not sure George wants to talk to anyone about the good and righteous Mrs. Trevelyan. But for an introduction, lovely lady, I’ll do whatever is in my power to help you.”
“Miss Hattie Davish.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Davish.” He took my hand, lifting it against his soft lips. “Walter Grice, at your service.” Slightly flustered, I could feel the blood rise in my cheeks.
Walter Grice released my hand. “I must warn you, Miss Davish, George isn’t in the best of moods. As you can imagine, Mrs. Trevelyan is not his favorite topic, and with what happened this afternoon . . . But if you would still like to speak to him, I’ll get him for you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Grice. Yes, I would like to speak to, is it George?”
“Yes, George Shulman.”
True to his word, Mr. Grice disappeared into the saloon and emerged within minutes with the man I’d seen standing up to the temperance demonstrators earlier that afternoon. George Shulman, after wiping it on his apron, held out his hand as we introduced ourselves. It was as callused as Walter Grice’s hand had been soft.
“Walt says you want to talk to me?”
“Yes, Mr. Shulman. I’m Mrs. Edwina Trevelyan’s secretary and—” I didn’t get any farther. With a menacing glare at Mr. Grice, George Shulman stormed back toward the saloon. He collided with one of his arriving customers and, without an apology, yanked open the door, shoving the man inside.
“She’s missing,” I cried. George Shulman stopped, the open door still in his hand, and looked back at me. The dramatic tactic worked, but I felt embarrassed in front of the attentive eyes of Walter Grice. “I know she disrupted your business, but—”
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