Someone Like You
Authors: Elaine Coffman
Someone Like You
Elaine Coffman
Love and understand the Italians,
for the people are more marvelous
than the land.
E. M. Forster,
Where Angels Fear to Tread
For Filiberto Signore
Contents:
Beacon Hill, Boston
Winter, 1871
The crystal goblet had shattered in his hand. Unaccountably. Suddenly. The first thought that had flown through Reed Garrett’s mind was that his reflexes had been too fast, because he’d closed his fingers quickly and tightly over the sparkling shards and blood had spewed onto the pristine kitchen tiles.
He wasn’t really worried. The cut hurt like blazes, but it didn’t seem too deep and he was sure the tendon hadn’t been severed. His mother was worried, though. More than worried. When one of the maids had howled at the sight of his blood, his mother had come running—and almost swooned. Quickly, however, she’d gone into action and sent the butler, then the cook, then, alternately, two housemaids to fetch the doctor, a close friend of the family who lived next door in a nearly identical Palladian mansion.
While all the commotion was going on, Reed calmly collected a pan, water, and chunks of ice, and placed them on a chopping table. He’d just thrust his hand into the pan when Dr. John Joseph Ledbetter was ushered into the kitchen, his medical bag in one hand, smelling salts in the other.
“I remember what the sight of blood does to you, my dear,” he said as he winked at Reed, then wafted the salts beneath Leonora’s aquiline nose.
“It’s not the sight of blood, it’s the sight of my
son’s
blood,” Leonora said, pushing his hand away and placing her fingers on Reed’s inky hair. “Now, see to my boy’s cut before he bleeds to death and I have to explain to his father how his best friend let it happen.”
John smiled. “There’s a lot of blood in that water, Leonora, but I doubt your son’s going to bleed to death.” He gently withdrew Reed’s hand and carefully checked it. “It’s a nasty wound, but nothing too serious.”
Over his mother’s heavy sigh, Reed asked, his gray eyes merry, “About three stitches, sir?”
“Precisely.” John looked over the top of his glasses. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
Reed merely shrugged his broad shoulders. And John turned to his bag, removing first a linen towel to place a number of items on it. Gently, he swabbed the cut, then began to sew.
Leonora, dabbing at her eyes, flinched when the needle punctured the skin of her precious son, but Reed watched, fascinated, as if the procedure were being done to another. The servants had been rapt at first, all eyes on the drama involving their tall and handsome “Master Reed”, but now they were all turning back to their duties.
And duties there were, a score of them, because in just a little over an hour a procession of Boston’s finest was due for one of the elegant dinner parties for which Leonora Garrett was hailed. There would be salmon mayonnaise au Gridoni, braised pate, pigeons and mushrooms, lobster salad, racks of lamb and standing rib, turbot and sole. Many courses. All accompanied by side dishes and wines and topped off with trifles aux cupidons, fruits, nuts, and raisins. A feast fit for kings, as Cook reminded them on every occasion of this kind.
“There,” John pronounced. “Sewn up to a fare thee well, and bandaged quite nicely, if I say so myself. Usually I leave that last bit to one of the nurses. They’re all much better at it, you know.” He chuckled. “Well, I’d better be off, if I’m to be dressed in time for your dinner party.” He gave an openly admiring glance to Leonora, who was wearing a splendid yellow silk gown. “Especially if I’m to rise at all to your standard, my dear.”
Leonora smiled warmly. “Reed will be all right?” she asked as if her almost grown son weren’t there. “No permanent damage?”
“None to worry about.” He looked at Reed. “Take care to keep the wound clean and free from infection, son, and you’ll be right as can be within two weeks.”
Reed rose and thanked him, then watched his mother escort the doctor out through the huge dining room with its massive mahogany table already set for dinner for twenty-four. He sighed. His clothes were splattered with blood and it would be awkward changing into his dinner clothes without help, so he’d best hurry.
His mother, her necklace of yellow and white diamonds seeming to catch and hold and return every ray of light from the foyer’s crystal chandelier, stopped him as he reached the staircase.
“Are you really all right, darling?” she asked as she rose on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
He grinned. “I’m really all right, Mother.” Then his expression sobered. “Have you told Father that I’ve decided against law?”
“No. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to…hoping that you would change your mind.”
“I won’t change my mind.” He smiled tenderly to soften his words.
“You can’t save the world, Reed, no matter how badly you want to.”
He looked her in the eye. “I must try. You know I must. It’s all that matters to me, Mother.”
Basin Street, New Orleans Autumn, 1871
The city was growing dark. Reflections of yellow lamplight hugged the gutters of the wet street as the carriage made its way slowly through thick, patchy fog. Inside the carriage, Violette Wakefield was finding it difficult to read the newspaper in the dim light, but she was well into an interesting story and wasn’t about to give up. A determined woman, Violette shifted her position and held the paper up to the window. Across from Violette, her sister Dahlia sat far forward on the smooth leather seat, the
Daily Picayune
spread over her lap.
Both sisters wore dark, perfectly fitted kidskin gloves to keep their fingers free of ink, and both were utterly absorbed in their reading.
“‘Public calamity…sin…depravity,’” Violette read, and then quickly turned the page of the
Daily Southern Star
to continue, “‘a vile den of infamy at No. 135 Rampart Street…evil consequences…disgusting debauchery…’” Suddenly, she let out a horrified gasp.
Dahlia glanced up, giving her sister a stern look to show just how irked she was at being interrupted.
That Dahlia was irritated would not have surprised anyone who knew her and Violette. It was common knowledge back home in Texas that the sisters did not agree on much of anything, and tweaked each other’s nerves constantly. Now, though, Dahlia’s interest was aroused, so she folded her paper, placed it neatly beside her, and did not bother to hide her curiosity. “What is it?” she asked.
“Listen to this.” Violette began to read:
An Inhuman Mother Who Allows Her Daughters to Lead Lives of Shame
It seems incredible that any mother should be a party to the sale of her own flesh and blood, yet to the shame of the human race, such unnatural mothers do exist. At 91 Conti Street, upon the second floor, Mrs. Harris and her two daughters reside. One daughter, named Hattie, is aged twelve; the other, Lucy, is a child of ten. For some months past, Hattie has led an immoral life of dissipation, her mother being her aide and abettor therein… Two days ago, Lucy joined her sister in sin.
Several people saw the two girls through the window in nature’s garb misbehaving themselves with four young men similarly attired… If they are not taken away from their mother and placed in a reformatory, they will be ruined forever, body and soul.
It is obvious that the sordid life witnessed by young children living in a bordello leads to their corruption and eventual ruin. Steps must be taken to put a stop to the practice of keeping minors in houses of ill fame.
“Indeed,” Violette said, and closed the paper with a sickened sigh.
Dahlia unfurled her fan and began to use it furiously, as if to blow away the sordid words her sister had read. “It may not take much to sow the seeds of lustful desire, but I daresay that in this city, sin appears to be in full bloom—and the people seem to sanction it!”
“So it seems.”
“I blame it on the heat and humidity. It’s a breeding place for more than cockroaches, if you ask me.” Dahlia’s fan was whirring like the wings of a hummingbird. “I don’t know about you, Sister, but I, for one, will be happy to leave this wicked city.”
“Sin will always have a large and loyal following, but New Orleans does appear to have one that is larger and more loyal than most. I’ve been praying since the very second we got here that our stay will be short.”
“I think we should make Rachel come with us the moment we find her. She has no business living in such a horrible place. And to think she’s raising her daughter here! It’s enough to make a body shudder.” Dahlia looked out the window. “Oh, I do wish the driver would hurry up. I’m anxious to turn my back on this town before some of its depravity rubs off on me.”
“I believe you are sufficiently starched to prevent that,” Violette said, amusement in her voice.
“I have a strong constitution, certainly, but I do not like to tempt fate.”
Violette and Dahlia had arrived only that afternoon. However, the sisters had not been in the city more than five minutes when they decided it was appropriate that New Orleans had been named for the corrupt regent of France, the Duke d’Orleans. As Dahlia had said, “It most decidedly deserves its reputation for decadence, corruption, and sin. Can you believe the amount of vice here? And prostitution is legal! Did you know that?”
In answer, Violette had given a vigorous nod. She’d never imagined such extravagant wickedness and lapsed morals as she saw on public display in the streets. What had her niece been thinking when she came to reside in this place of gambling, dueling, voodoo, and bawdy houses?
The carriage slowed to a stop and the driver called out, “Twenty-one Basin Street. Are you ladies certain this is the address you want?”
Twenty-one Basin Street was better known as Madame Broussard’s Parisian Club. It was not the sort of place that ever enjoyed visits from respectable women, but the sisters couldn’t know such a thing, of course. What they did know was that the place—indeed, the entire block—looked thoroughly disreputable.
Violette opened her purse and checked the address on the letter she had tucked away there. “Yes, it’s the correct address.” She turned to Dahlia and let out a long sigh. “Come, Sister. Let us proceed with haste to see how Rachel is faring.”
Dahlia hesitated, looking through the carriage window at the men loitering on the ill-kept sidewalk. She shuddered. “Perhaps Rachel can enlighten us as to the reason she chose this Sodom and Gomorrah. It is little wonder to me that she has fallen so desperately ill. I pray she will listen to reason and quickly return to Texas with us.”
From the third-floor window of Twenty-one Basin Street, a young girl watched through parted lace curtains as two women dressed in gray bombazine alighted from a carriage on the street below. The girl’s name was Susannah. Her mother, Rachel, had been lying waxen and pale in a vault in St. Louis Cemetery for three days. Susannah Jane Dowell was nine years old. She knew no world but sin.