The Gamble (I) (2 page)

Starting trouble was exactly what Drusilla Wilson was doing there, and as she turned toward her “sister” in the mud, she vowed that Heustis Dyar and the owner of the Gilded Cage would be the first to feel its impact.

Agatha was having great difficulty getting up. Her hip again. At the best of times it was unreliable; at the worst, unusable. Mired in the cold, sucking muck, it ached and refused to pull her weight up. She rocked forward but failed to gain her feet. Falling back, her hands buried to their wrists, she wished she were a cursing woman.

A black-gloved hand was extended her way.

“May I help you, Miss Downing?”

Agatha looked up into cold gray eyes that somehow managed to look sympathetic.

“Drusilla Wilson,” the woman announced tersely, by way of introduction.

“Drus——?” Dumbstruck, Agatha stared up at the woman in awe.

“Come, let’s get you up.”

“But—”

“Take my hand.”

“Oh... why... why, thank you.”

Drusilla grasped Agatha’s hand and hauled her to her feet. Agatha winced and pressed one hand to her left hip.

“Are you hurt?”

“Not really. Only my pride.”

“But you’re limping,” Drusilla noted, helping her up the steps.

“It’s nothing. Please, you’ll soil your dress.”

“I’ve been soiled by worse than mud, Miss Downing, believe me. I’ve had everything from beer to horse dung flung at me. A little of God’s good clean mud will come as a welcome relief.”

Together they passed the door of the Gilded Cage. Already the piano had started up inside and loud laughter billowed out into the otherwise peaceful April morning. The two women made their way to the adjacent shop, whose window announced in bright, gilded letters: A
GATHA
N. D
OWNING
, M
ILLINER.

Inside, Agatha forgot her soiled condition and said emotionally, “Miss Wilson, I’m so honored to meet you. I... why... I... I can’t believe you’re actually here in my humble shop.”

“You know who I am, then?”

“Most certainly. Doesn’t everybody?”

Miss Wilson allowed a dry chuckle. “Hardly everybody.”

“Well, everyone across the state of Kansas, anyway—and I dare say across the United States—and most certainly everyone who’s heard the word
temperance
.” Agatha’s heart beat fast in excitement.

“I should like to talk with you awhile. Might I wait while you change clothes?”

“Oh, most certainly!” Agatha gestured toward a pair of chairs at the front of the shop. “Please, make yourself comfortable while I’m gone. I live upstairs, so it won’t be a minute. If you’ll excuse me...”

Agatha moved through the workroom and out a rear door. Crude, wooden steps slanted along the back wall of the building to the apartments above. She took the stairs as she
always did: two feet on each step, with a white-knuckled grip on the rail. Stairs were the worse. Standing and walking on a flat surface were tolerable, but hitching her left leg up each riser was awkward and painful. Her tie-back skirt made the going more difficult, severely restricting movement. Halfway up, she bent and reached beneath her hem to free the lowest set of ties. By the time she reached the landing at the top, she was slightly breathless. She paused, still gripping the rail. The common landing was shared by the residents of both apartments. She glanced at the door leading to Gandy’s lodgings.

Another woman might have allowed herself tears in the aftermath of an ordeal such as he’d put her through. Not Agatha. Agatha only puffed out her chest with justifiable anger and knew an immense zeal to see the man brought to heel. As she turned toward her own door, she smiled at the thought that help had arrived at last.

It took her some time to remove her dress. It had twenty-eight buttons running up the front, eight tape ties caught up inside to form the rear bustle, and half that number lashing the apron-style skirt around her legs. As each tape was freed, the dress lost shape. By the time the last was untied, the bustle had given up all its bulges and grown as flat as the Kansas prairie. She held it aloft and her heart sank.

That man! That wretched, infuriating man! He had no idea what this would cost her in time and money and inconvenience. All her thousands of hand stitches, coated with mud. And no place to wash it. She glanced at the dry sink and the water pail beside it. The water wagon had come early this morning to fill the barrel, but it was on its wooden cradle beneath those long, long stairs. Besides, the dry sink wasn’t large enough to accommodate a wash job like this. She should run it down to the Finn’s laundry immediately, but considering who was waiting downstairs, that was out of the question.

Her ire increased when she removed her cotton bustle and petticoats. At least the dress was gray; these were white—or had been. She feared not even the Finn’s homemade lye soap could remove mud stains as heavy as these.

Later. Worry about it later. Drusilla Wilson herself is waiting!

Downstairs, the visitor watched Miss Downing limp to the rear of the store and realized that limp had not been caused by her fall today. It appeared to be the sort of disability to which Agatha N. Downing had inured herself a long time ago.

As Agatha disappeared through a curtained doorway, Drusilla Wilson looked around. The shop was deep and narrow. Near the lace-curtained front window was a pair of oval-backed Victorian chairs tufted in pale orchid to match the curtains. The chairs flanked a tripod pie-crust table holding the latest issues of
Graham’s, Godey’s,
and
Peterson’s
magazines. Wilson disregarded these in favor of a tour of the premises.

An assortment of hats in both felt and leghorn straw were displayed on
papier mâché
forms. Some were trimmed, some plain. The walls were lined with tidy cubbyholes holding ribbons, buttons, lace, and jets. An assortment of folded gauzes and jaconets lay fanned across a mahogany tabletop, representing the full prism of colors. In a wicker basket a selection of paste fruit looked nearly real enough to eat. Finely crafted artificial silk daisies and roses lay upon a flat basket. Upon another counter was displayed a selection of fur tippets and pheasant feather fans. Ostrich plumes hung on a cord near the rear wall. One glass cabinet appeared to contain an entire aviary of birds, nests, and eggs. Butterflies, dragonflies, and even cockchafers added to the collection. Set off by a pair of stuffed fox heads, the case looked as much like a scientific exhibit as a ladies’ millinery display.

It took little more than two minutes for Drusilla Wilson to ascertain that Miss Downing ran a well-established business—
and,
she surmised, a line of communication with the women of Proffitt, Kansas.

She heard the shopkeeper’s irregular footsteps and turned just as Agatha parted the lavender velvet curtains.

“Ah, a wonderful shop, wonderful.”

“Thank you.”

“How long have you been a milliner?”

“I learned the trade from my mother. When I was a girl I helped her do seamwork in our home. Then later, when she became a milliner and moved here to Proffitt, I came along with her. When she died, I stayed on.”

Miss Wilson scanned Agatha’s clean clothing. She found the periwinkle-blue a little too colorful for her taste and slightly too modern, with its fussy tie-ups at the rear and row upon row of tucks down the front. And she didn’t hold with those tight apron skirts that showed the shape of a woman’s hips all too clearly, nor with the form-fitting bodice that displayed the breadth of a woman’s chest too specifically. Miss Downing didn’t seem in the least concerned that she showed off both sets of contours with shocking clarity. But at least the tight, cleric collar was modest, though its lace edging was sinful, and the sleeves were wrist-length.

“So, Miss Downing, feeling better?”

“Much.”

“One gets used to it when fighting for our cause. Whatever you do, don’t discard the soiled dress. If the mud stains don’t come out, you may want to wear it when standing up to the enemy in the next battle.” Without warning, Miss Wilson briskly crossed the room and captured both of Agatha’s hands. “My dear, I was so proud of you. So utterly proud.” She squeezed Agatha’s fingers very firmly. “I said to myself:
There
is a woman of stalwart mores.
There
is a woman who backs down at nothing.
There
is a woman I want fighting on my side!”

“Oh, nonsense. I only did what any woman would do in the same situation. Why, those two children—”

“But no other woman did it, did she? You were the only one who stood up for virtue.” Again she gave Agatha’s hands an emphatic squeeze, then released them and stepped back.

Agatha became flushed with pleasure at such high praise from a woman of Drusilla Wilson’s renown. “Miss Wilson,” she declared honestly, “I mean it when I say it’s an honor to have you here. I’ve read so much about you in the newspapers. My goodness, they are calling you the most powerful scepter ever wielded for the temperance cause.”

“What they say about me matters little. What matters most is that we’re making headway.”

“So I’ve been reading.”

“Twenty-six locals of the national Women’s Christian Temperance Union formed, statewide, in ‘78 alone. More last year. But we’re not through yet!” She raised one fist, then dropped it as her lips formed a thin smile. “That’s why I’m here, of course. News of your town has reached me. I’m told it’s getting out of hand.”

Agatha sighed, limped toward her rolltop desk set against the rear right wall, and sank to a chair before it. “You saw firsthand exactly how much. And you can hear for yourself what’s going on next door.” She nodded toward the common wall between her shop and the saloon. Through it came the muffled strains of “Fallen Angel, Fall into My Arms.”

Miss Wilson pursed her lips and cracks appeared around them as upon a two-day-old pudding. “It must be trying.”

Agatha touched her temples briefly. “To say the least.” She shook her head woefully. “Ever since that man came a month ago, it’s gotten worse and worse. I have a confession to make, Miss Wilson, I...”

“Please, call me Drusilla.”

“Drusilla... yes. Well, as I began to say, my motives in confronting Mr. Gandy were not strictly altruistic. I fear you praised me a little too precipitously. You see, since that saloon opened next door, my business has begun to suffer. The ladies are reluctant to walk the boardwalk for fear of being accosted by some inebriate before they reach my door.” Agatha’s brow furrowed. “It’s most distressing. There are horrible fights at all hours of the day and night, and since that man Gandy won’t allow fisticuffs on the premises, his bartender throws the fighters out into the street.”

“I’m not surprised, given the price of mirrors and glassware out here. But, go on.”

“The fights aren’t the only thing. The language. Oh, Miss Wilson, it’s shocking. Absolutely shocking. And with those half doors the sound drifts out into the street so that there’s no telling what my ladies might hear as they pass by. I...
I really can’t say I blame them for hesitating to patronize my shop. Why, I might feel the same, were I in their place.” Agatha knit her fingers and studied her lap. “And, of course, there’s the most humiliating reason of all for them to avoid the general area.” She looked up with genuine regret in her eyes. “There are those of my customers whose husbands frequent the saloon more than they do their own homes. Several of the women are so abashed at the idea of running into their husbands on the street—in
that
condition—that they shy away at the mere thought.”

“Unfortunate, yet your shop looks prosperous.”

“I make a fairly decent living, but—”

“No.” Miss Wilson presented her gloved palms. “I didn’t mean to inquire as to your financial status. I only meant it as an observation that you’re well established here and undoubtedly have most of the women in town on your list of clientele.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true—or was, until a month ago.”

“Tell me, Miss Downing, are there any other millinery shops in Proffitt?”

“Why, no. Mine is the only one. Mr. Halorhan, down at the Mercantile, and Mr. McDonnell, at the Longhorn Store, sell the ready-mades now. But,” she added with a touch of superiority, “of course they’re not trimmed to match.”

“And if I may be so forward, might I inquire if you’re a churchgoing woman?”

Agatha scarcely managed to keep from bristling. “Why, most certainly!”

“I thought as much. Methodist?”

“Presbyterian.”

“Ah, Presbyterian.” Miss Wilson cocked her head toward the saloon. “And Presbyterians do love their music, don’t they?” Nothing could bring tears to a drunken man’s eyes like a chorus of voices raised in heavenly praise.

Agatha gave the wall a malevolent glance.
“Most
music,” she replied. The song had changed to “Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight?”

“How many saloons are currently—shall we say—
prospering
in Proffitt?”

“Eleven.”

“Eleven! Ach!” Drusilla threw back her head in vexation. She marched around with both hands on her hips. “They chased them out of Abilene years ago. But they just kept moving farther down the line, didn’t they? Ellsworth, Wichita, Newton, Hays, and now Proffitt.”

“This was such a peaceful little town before they came here.”

Wilson whipped around, jabbed a finger into the air. “And it can be again.” She strode to the desk, her face purposeful. “I’ll come straight to the point, Agatha. I may call you Agatha, may I not?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “When I saw you stand up to that man, I not only thought: There’s a woman who’ll stand up to a man. I also thought: There’s a woman worthy of being a general in the army against the Devil’s Brew.”

Agatha touched her chest, surprised. “A general? Me?” She would have arisen from her chair, but Drusilla blocked the way. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Miss Wi——”

“I’m not wrong. You’re perfect!” She braced herself against the desktop and leaned close. “You know every woman in this town. You’re a practicing Christian. You have additional incentive to fight for temperance, since your business is being threatened. And, furthermore, you have the advantage of juxtaposition to one of the corrupted. Close him down and the others will follow, I assure you. It happened in Abilene; it can happen here. Now what do you say?”