Secrets on 26th Street (6 page)

Mum chuckled bitterly. “His business would have stood still for half an hour at most. That's how long it would take him to replace us, and he knows it. If any of us had said a word, he would have fired us in a snap. And we need our jobs.”

“So you stood by while Kathleen lost hers—because she believed in a cause.” Susan had never heard Bea speak so harshly.

“A cause doesn't pay the bills. Kathleen's stand was very noble. And very foolish.”

“You think suffrage is foolish, Mum?” Susan asked.

Susan was shocked by the intensity of Mum's reply. “Why are you twisting my words, Susan? I'm trying to say that there are reasons why some people can't stand up for causes, even if they believe in them!” With that Mum jumped up from the table. “I'm going for a walk,” she said. She slammed the door behind her.

Mum had not come home by the time Susan went to bed. Later, Susan was awakened by Bea and Mum arguing in the kitchen. Susan strained to listen as their words came through the darkness.

“What you're doing for us is splendid,” Bea was saying, “but you could do more.”

Bea was talking about “us” again.
Who in the name of heaven
, Susan wondered,
is “us”
?

Mum said something that Susan couldn't make out.

Susan heard Bea again. “You can't be paralyzed by fear. That's what they want. I know how you feel—”

“No, you don't!” said Mum. “You come from—”

The rest was drowned out by the rattle of a passing train.

Then Susan heard Bea slam her bedroom door and mumble to herself in the bedroom. Susan knew she shouldn't, but she put her ear to the wall to try to hear what Bea was saying. All she could make out were a few words. Something about a war and beating them at their own game.

Anxiety began to creep up Susan's spine. What did Bea want Mum to do?

Suddenly Bea's secret came crashing back into Susan's brain. Maybe it wasn't a romance Bea was hiding after all. Maybe it
was
something to do with the war. Susan's heart pounded. Thoughts of spying and secret missions again raced through her head.
Dangerous
secret missions. Was Bea trying to involve Mum in something dangerous?

No,
Susan told herself fiercely,
Bea wouldn't do that
. Maybe she didn't know
everything
about Bea, but she knew her well enough to feel certain that Bea wouldn't intentionally put Mum in harm's way. Besides, the idea that Bea might be a spy—why, that was just Susan's imagination running wild. Russell was right, Susan told herself. That sort of thing happened in books and faraway places, not in humdrum Chelsea.

Susan tried her best to put it all out of her mind and go back to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, some noise—the elevated train rumbling by, an argument in the flat downstairs, a cat wailing from the alley—would jar her. Finally she felt herself drifting off.

The next thing she knew, she jerked awake. She'd been dreaming of Dad, and his face was as vivid before her eyes as if he had tucked her into bed that night. The anguish of missing Dad came to her more keenly than it had in months. Her throat ached; a massive weight pressed on her chest.

Susan slipped from the warmth of the covers and crawled off the bed, careful not to wake her sisters. She crept into the kitchen, slipped out into the hallway, and ran two flights up to the roof.

Far below, the backyard light illuminated the gray wash pole and the clotheslines spreading like silvery spiderwebs across the yard. Incandescent lights from shopwindows, left on all night, glowed red, and the blinking lights from boats moved sleepily up and down the river. The baritone of a ship's horn drifted across the water.

Susan knew no lonelier sound in the world, and it pierced her with such a feeling of emptiness, she began to cry. Huge, rolling sobs poured from deep inside her. She covered her face.

Then she felt a hand on her back. It was Bea. Bea took off her robe and put it around Susan's shoulders. “A bit chilly to be out in your nightgown. What's wrong, love?”

Susan's voice came out raspy. “I … I dreamed about Dad, and it made me wish for him so much.”

“I know, love.” Bea pulled Susan close to her. “What was he like?”

What was he like? Why, he was the best father a girl ever had. But how could Susan make Bea understand? “Well, he was big—he towered over Mum—but gentle. He didn't have to be tough. His voice was enough to make you jump. And he was redheaded like me. Some people said he had an Irishman's temper, but he never lost it—hardly ever—around us. He laughed all the time—” Then she couldn't go on. The lump in her throat was too big.

At first Bea didn't speak. Then she said, “I should've liked such a father. I never knew my own dad. My grandfather was the man in my life. An important member of Parliament he was.” This she spoke with a regal, put-on voice. “But he was so stern, I was afraid to go near him.”

“How old were you, Bea, when your grandfather died?” Susan asked softly.

Bea stared out across the river. “He's not dead. We had rather a nasty disagreement a few years ago and haven't spoken since. I've no other family to speak of.”

Bea sounded so dismal, Susan longed to comfort her, but she didn't know how.

“You're fortunate,” Bea said, “to have fond memories of your dad. When I was little, I had to imagine mine. Oh, did I come up with some doozies. My favorite was the one where my dad and I had tea at Buckingham Palace. The queen herself poured, as I recall. Tell me your favorite memory.”

“It's hard to choose just one,” said Susan. “But I really liked going with Dad to Slocum's for egg creams.” Susan told Bea how much fun she and Helen had had going with Dad to the candy store on 30th Street and sipping the rich, chocolaty drinks that were called egg creams. They'd each have two glasses, even Dad.

“Do you ever go there anymore, you and Helen?”

Susan shrugged. “Nah. Egg creams are a nickel each. Besides, half the fun was being there with Dad.”

Bea nodded. “I know. That was the best thing about tea at the palace, too. At least your dad, though, was real.”

“Yeah, but it hurts when I think of him, so I try not to.”

“It hurts because you loved him so much. The best you can do with pain, love, is to make something good come out of it. Remember the kind of man your dad was, and try your best to live in a way that would make him proud.”

Bea's words turned a light on in Susan's brain. For the first time she saw her memories of Dad as something to be treasured and enjoyed rather than avoided as too painful. She felt the heaviness in her chest begin to lift a little. As it did, a warm feeling toward Bea replaced the heaviness. Bea understood Susan in a way that no one else ever had. Susan thought she'd never had so special a friendship.

For a while both Susan and Bea were silent. Finally Susan asked, “Do you still care for your grandfather, Bea?”

“I suppose I do. Since my mother died, he's all I have.”

“Do you think he still cares for you?”

“I … don't know. I imagine he does. In his own way. Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking that if you and your grandfather cared for each other … well, you're still family, aren't you? No matter what's passed between you. Couldn't you just put it behind you?”

Bea didn't reply. The moonlight was too dim to read her face. Susan rushed on. “Maybe if you spoke to him first … if you wrote him or something.” She hesitated, not knowing what to say next.

Susan was relieved when Bea spoke. “I don't think it would do any good to write him. My grandfather's a stubborn man.”

“Wouldn't it be worth a try? Maybe he's forgotten what you disagreed about.”

“Oh, no,” Bea said fiercely, “he hasn't forgotten. I should have to buckle under to his way of thinking to make peace with him. And there's no way I'll do that.” Susan could feel Bea's whole body shaking.

Her reaction startled Susan. “I didn't mean to upset you, Bea. I was just wondering … well, I was trying to help …”

“I know you were, love.” Bea's voice now was calm and warm. “What were you wondering?”

“I was wondering what you disagreed about.”

Bea stiffened just a little. “It's hard to explain, Susan.” She paused. “Let's simply say he wants me to be something that I can't be.” Then she put her arm around Susan. “I say, it's getting colder. We'd better get you back to bed.”

C
HAPTER
6

T
HE
S
UFFRAGE
P
ROBLEM

The next afternoon the barbershop was busier than usual. It was a Friday, and men were getting spruced up for the weekend. Susan had been hustling from one customer to another, but for some reason no one was paying much in tips today.

The customer she'd just finished with was a Tammany man, she was sure. Tammany men were always well dressed. This fellow had been wearing a stylish waistcoat, as well as leather boots that he wanted spit-shined. Susan took extra care, even using special polish that cost her a dime a bottle. When he reached in his pocket to get a coin for her tip, she saw he had a large, expensive watch chain, and she expected a tip of at least a nickel. But when she opened her hand to look at the coin, she saw he had given her only a penny, not even enough to cover the cost of the special polish she'd used! And half of that would go to Delaney! She couldn't believe she'd wasted so much time on the man. All she could do was try to hustle even more to make up her loss.

Still fuming over the man's stinginess, Susan scurried toward a group of men in lounge suits talking in the back of the shop.

“Shine, anyone?” she asked.

“Aye, lad, right here, and be quick with you,” a man barked from the back of the group.

The voice was familiar. Susan struggled to place it.

“Hurry up, lad—I'm a busy man. Move aside, Bigelow, so the boy can get through.” He shoved at the fat man in front of him. When Bigelow moved, Susan saw too late the face of her customer. It was Lester Barrow!

Susan knelt and set to work on Lester's oxfords. She pulled the shine cloth furiously back and forth while her heart pounded. What if Lester recognized her? What would he do to a girl who made a fool of him by posing as his shoe-shine boy?

Susan yanked her cap down almost over her eyes, but she needn't have worried about it, for Lester was too involved in his conversation with the other men to notice her. She soon realized he wasn't paying her any more attention than he was the flies on the wall, and she relaxed a little. She pricked up her ears, however, when she heard Bigelow mention “the suffrage problem.”

“Those biddies are going to kill our system,” Bigelow was saying. “They're already soapboxing on what they're going to do when they get the vote, how they ain't going to tolerate no corruption in their government. They're going to clean up city hall, they say. Why, that's us!
We're
city hall, and we've got to do something before they sweep us right out of our livelihood!”

“Bigelow's right,” said a tall man with a hook nose. “We were so sure that the men of New York would never give women the vote, we've allowed these frantic females—I won't call 'em ladies—to pick up more and more support every year. There are states west of the Mississippi, gentlemen, where women are already voting! It's high time we admitted it could happen here—to our ruin. We must act now,
decisively
, to crush their movement before it's too late!”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the group.

Then Lester spoke. “Ah, my friends, is that all the faith you have in your district leader? Haven't I steered the party in the right direction these last ten years? Have I ever once failed to move with the speed of a striking adder when the situation called for action?”

How fitting,
Susan thought,
that Lester would compare himself to a snake
. He was as cold-blooded as a reptile, that was for sure.

Lester's shoes were as shiny as they were going to get, but Susan continued to shine, hoping that Lester would say more about his plans to defeat the suffragists.

And what snaky plans they turned out to be! Lester had already arranged, he said, for “a little ruckus” at the rally the suffragists had scheduled for Saturday. “As you know,” he chuckled, “the police force, the mayor, and half the judges in town are in Tammany's hip pocket. Those biddies will think twice before they stir up discontent again in my town!”

All the men laughed heartily, apparently convinced that the “suffrage problem” would soon be solved. Their laughter was scornful, and it made Susan angry. Lester and his friends were no different from those boys who threw tomatoes at the suffragist in Chelsea. Why should women wanting to vote make people act so hateful?