Angel of Brooklyn (27 page)

This morning when I sat with Mr Price having breakfast, I looked around the room, to see if I could perhaps detect some lovelorn expression, or exasperation on the face of Miss Flood, Mrs Mitchell, or Miss Stanley, but they appeared to be munching stealthily through their toast and sipping at their juice in just the usual manner. Mr Price kept yawning. I asked him if he’d been kept awake last night, and he seemed to redden a little, and so I asked him if he knew if any of the other guests had a beau. I made it sound like a very innocent question, and one that I wouldn’t be at all shocked or disgusted to hear if it were true, because I know that even the strictest of Methodists are allowed to have beaus, because it is only human nature after all. He seemed to choke a little. ‘Oh, I very much doubt it,’ he said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Whatever makes you think that?’ And so I told him about the very handsome young man, who’d been calling up to a window last night. ‘He looked very handsome you say?’ he asked, with a little shake of his head. ‘Oh yes,’ I told him. ‘I only saw him in the shadows, but he had the profile of a real Prince Charming,
make
no mistake.’ Mr Price licked his lips, smiled, and quickly drained his glass of orange juice. ‘Perhaps this young man was swooning around the wrong hotel?’ he shrugged. ‘Perhaps the object of his affection was really residing in the Somersby Hotel? It’s a very similar building and only the next block down, and in the half-light, and in such a heightened state of emotion, things can become somewhat blurred and confusing.’ And I must admit, when I looked around the room again – Miss Flood wiping down the tables with a dishcloth drenched in disinfectant, Mrs Mitchell scratching her neck, and Miss Stanley picking out the crumbs from her rather crooked teeth, I had to admit that Mr Price was probably right, which somehow seemed a shame, and I went upstairs, feeling strangely disappointed.

On my way to work, I thought about Normal, and it felt more than a million miles away, and that has to be good thing, hasn’t it? Do you miss it? I must admit that I sometimes wake up in the heat, listening to the traffic, to the people shouting in the street, and I think, ‘I’m tired and I want to go home,’ but then it passes, and I enjoy this new place all over again. The sights and the sounds. Really, Elijah, you wouldn’t believe the things I see on my way to the booth. Today, for example, I passed a magician picking cards from people’s ears, a camel, an opera singer in a big black cape, a man swallowing swords, and a young girl dressed as a tree, complete with initials carved into the bark, and a bird’s nest! It really is a fascinating place to work, and it beats the little streets in Normal hands down.

Take good care of yourself, Elijah, and keep yourself safe.

All my love, Beatrice

August 11, 1911

Dear Elijah,

Last night I went out dancing for the first time in my life! My head is still spinning with it all, and you mustn’t think that I was unchaperoned because I was with half a dozen girls and even Mr Cooper came for the first half an hour. I was dressed very modestly, and did not act in any way improper. Don’t I sound pompous? Why I feel the need to assure you, I don’t know. What
I
do know is that I sometimes feel my minister brother sitting in judgment on my shoulder, and as I’ve no one else to look out for me, I really should be grateful, yet it can also be unnerving – do you know what I mean? Or am I babbling again?

The dance was held at a place called the Bavarian Palace. And inside and out, it really does look like the kind of palace you might see illustrating traditional fairy tales and the like. It has cloud-topped turrets, and the walls are painted with alpine scenes that look so real you can sometimes feel quite chilly, which, let me assure you, in those crowds and at this time of year is a blessing.

I was asked to dance at least a dozen times, and I accepted most, encouraged by my friends. The young men, all of whom were extremely well behaved and proper, came from different walks of life. I can’t remember them all (see how popular your sister was!) but there was definitely a student from Princeton, a strapping blond baseball player, an encyclopedia salesman from New Jersey, and an Italian waiter, who works in his father’s spaghetti house. It was very noisy, with the band and the crowd, but I think his name was Luigi, and he congratulated me on my neat and dainty way of dancing, though I am sure he was being polite, because the only other time I’ve danced was way back in Normal with Bethan Carter, waltzing up and down in her yard.

I stayed late, drinking fruit juice and punch. We ate fried chicken and noodles and we girls laughed and talked about all kinds of nonsense.

This morning I woke with a headache, but it was the kind of headache that makes you smile, because you remember why you have it, and somehow it was worth it, and though I know you think that punch is a sin, it was really quite delicious, and refreshing, and it has not made me hanker after anymore, or stronger, liquor. (Please don’t worry. I know all the pitfalls, and I will be very careful.)

I was in another world at breakfast. Couldn’t stop yawning. I am sure the others must have noticed. Mr Price did not appear. When I asked Miss Flood where he was, she said she had really no idea, but that he was probably ‘lying in’ and he would have to go hungry.

I must get myself off to work.

Please don’t worry or despair, I am still the same old (young) sister you saw off on the train.

Let me know how you are, when you can.

Love and best wishes,

Beatrice

August 15, 1911

Dear Elijah,

I hope you are not working too hard. I would love you to pick up your little pile of mail and write and let me know how you are doing. I picture you all the time, stopping crowds, talking with all your heart exposed about the word of God, what it means to you, and what it means to many. I just wish I had your conviction. I sometimes feel that I have let you down, and I hope you don’t think too badly of me, or spend too long praying for my soul, because I’m sure my soul is still pretty healthy, considering.

News here from the Galilee. Mr Price has left in mysterious circumstances, and I must admit, I am more than a little worried about him, because it seems so out of character. When he didn’t appear at breakfast, four or five days ago now, nor at lunchtime, or for dinner, Miss Flood went from agitation to anger (lamb chops don’t fry themselves!). Eventually, after much knocking and calling, she took the skeleton key and let herself into Mr Price’s room. We found her later on, white-faced and shaking in the parlor, where Miss Stanley had to fetch a glass of iced tea and a water biscuit.

Apparently, the room had been stripped and all his things had gone. There wasn’t a note, but the window was open, and she assumes that he shinned down the drainpipe in the dead of night, though Miss Stanley and myself don’t believe it. Mr Price is sixty-three years old. How would he get down the drainpipe, along with his clothes, his extensive collection of toiletries and his very thick scrapbooks? Anyway, why did he have to leave like that without saying goodbye? Miss Flood assures us that he didn’t owe any money. He didn’t need to escape when there’s a perfectly good front door. It is all very puzzling.

I liked Mr Price. He seemed so easy to confide in, and he was full of stories about his past tempestuous life, and how he found salvation when he was in his darkest hour. So I wonder what has happened. I wish I knew where he was. I hate to think of him sunk once again and alone. He’s the second person to have disappeared since I got here. (By the way, all that we have left of Mr Price is a large tin of shoeshine he’d left at the bottom of the wardrobe, and half of that had gone.)

Mr Brewster left. Have I said that already? He went to stay with his brother who owns a carpentry shop. We do have a new guest. A Miss Holland, who used to be the nanny in charge of four small girls, but ran away when the father of these girls started harassing her in a most indecent manner. Why are people always running away? Thank goodness for the refuge of the Galilee. Miss Holland, after her ordeal, is still a bag of nerves. She started crying over her plate of bean stew yesterday, and I tried to make light of the situation by assuring her that the food wasn’t always quite as bad as this, and that I knew a good little store that sold the most delicious cream-cheese rolls, and I would treat her to one. Much to my chagrin, she bawled even louder, and I got a ticking-off from Miss Flood who quickly came to Miss Holland’s aid with a newly ironed handkerchief and a murky glass of water.

How is Chicago? Am I talking to myself? Is it warm? Hot? Indifferent? It is so warm here that I often feel like I’m melting. The air sits so tight it’s like walking through sheets drying on the line. Writing that made me suddenly think of Joanna. I can see her now, her arms plunged in a tubful of soapsuds, and beating out the rugs hanging on the line. I wonder how she is?

And you. How are you?

Please, please, write when you can, even if it’s to tell me you are too busy to write, and to stop asking you so many stupid questions! I just want to hear.

I miss you. I miss Papa.

Love, Beatrice

August 30, 1911

Dear Elijah,

I didn’t write for a couple of weeks, because I thought, if I don’t write to him, perhaps I’ll hear something back. But still no word.

We had the most tremendous electric thunderstorm here yesterday. It was like the sky was crashing down, and we all had to rush around trying to save the cards from melting into nothing, and we ended up huddled under the canvas awnings watching the strips of jagged light over the ocean, and when the rain came, it was so thick and straight it sounded like the boardwalk was being hit by balls of glass.

It must rain in Chicago. Tell me about it.

Your loving sister,

Beatrice

September 8, 1911

Dear Elijah,

It has been a strange, cold day. It is half past ten in the evening, and I am writing this facing the window of my room, with the drapes open, and the world below me still moving about as if it were late afternoon.

At eight o’clock this morning, a policeman appeared, with his cap under his arm, which Miss Flood took straight away to mean he was the bearer of bad news. And he was. He was here to inform us that Mr Price had been found dead under an ‘L’ pillar. He’d been badly beaten about the face. We all felt very shaken and had to sit down, even Miss Holland who had never met Mr Price went as white as a sheet and was trembling. The policeman could offer no real details of the assault. There were no witnesses. All he knew was that Mr Price had been found at four o’clock this morning by a man on his way to his shift at the fish market. Then the policeman coughed, and the noise made us jump in our seats. ‘Why do you think Mr Price was wearing female cosmetics?’ he asked. We were silent for a moment, and then Miss Flood sat a little higher in her chair. ‘Mr Price was an actor,’ she informed him, with a certain sense of dignity. ‘I believe it is customary for
actors
to apply a little greasepaint?’ The policeman nodded, made a note of it, but he didn’t look entirely convinced. When he had gone, we all went to our rooms. I cried for Mr Price. But I also cried for Papa, and then for myself. I just couldn’t help it.

Where are you, Elijah?

Write to me.

All my love,

Beatrice

September 12, 1911

Dear Elijah,

I have not given up on you, so please don’t think I’m going to stop all these letters, because I’m not. Who else really knows me in this world?

The weather (why do people always talk about the weather in their correspondence?) is cooler, and much more refreshing, and the sky is no longer shrouded in a hazy kind of blanket. After work, or in between shifts, I often sit with the girls (their names are Nancy, Marnie, and Celina), and we pass the time of day, watching the crowds go by with their sunburned cheeks and hopeful expressions. I also like to walk along the beach, especially when the people have all but disappeared. It’s a good place to think, with the ocean often pressing at your boots, and the curve of the horizon reminding you how great the world is.

The hotel is a somber place to live right now. We were informed that Mr Price’s body had been released for interment, but that no one had come to collect it. Miss Flood offered to contact an undertaker herself, because she couldn’t bear the thought of a committed Methodist and friend being treated as a pauper. When she arrived at the mortuary, she was informed that the deceased had finally been taken away by his younger brother. Miss Flood was unhappy, and said she felt strange and perturbed because Mr Price had always told her that he was an only child. ‘He said that being an only child was what led him into the world of the theater,’ she told us. ‘That because he had no playmate, he had to read and use his imagination a little more than was good for him.’ Miss Holland talked about body snatchers, which only
made
things worse. The mood at supper time was black.

I had been thinking about leaving the hotel and perhaps finding a room in a (respectable) boarding house, but at the moment I think that Miss Flood and the others need all my support. My room here is light and airy, and I like looking down at the street where I can watch the people come and go. As I am writing this, a group of women are standing on the corner, looking dangerous, smoking cigarettes, holding them high, and laughing through the fine gray plumes like conspirators. I wonder what they are saying? One of them, a plump redhead, is holding her stomach as if she might break herself in half with all the carrying on.

Well, Elijah, need I say it again?

Write to me soon.

I miss you,

Love Beatrice

September 17, 1911

Dear Elijah,

Wishing you a very Happy Birthday. Please find enclosed a picture postcard of the Dreamland Dock. It is one of our most popular cards.

Love and best wishes,

Beatrice

September 25, 1911

Dear Elijah,

I met a Wesleyan preacher today. He was visiting cousins who have a balloon and trinket stall on the park. He has worked in many cities and has written books about his travels, one in particular,
People Preaching
, is apparently very well known. Do you know it? I asked him if he had ever visited Chicago, and he said, ‘Once or twice.’ Of course, I asked him if he’d met you, and he told me that he’d met hundreds of people, and couldn’t recall them all. Perhaps you remember him? His name is Todd
Grammar
, a tall man with a long pointed face and thinning brown hair. He is about fifty years old. He has a wife called Olive. It would be nice (and comforting) for me to have the connection.