What the Lady Wants (28 page)

1899

D
elia stood beneath the giant patina clock suspended overhead outside Marshall Field's. She turned up her collar to block the winter chill as she waited for Abby, who was meeting her for a day of shopping. Marsh had installed the giant clock just two years before and it had since become the meeting point for shoppers up and down State Street.

She heard the rivet guns down the street where the new Carson Pirie Scott building was under construction. Marsh told her that Sullivan, the architect who had criticized the latest renovations to the Marshall Field & Company building, was designing a dry goods store with nothing but glass along the first floor. She couldn't imagine it. But then again, she couldn't have imagined skyscrapers like the Reliance Building or the Masonic Temple, either. She never could have predicted half the changes that had taken place in the past few years. There were over a million people in Chicago now and the city had stretched to accommodate
them all with more el cars and cable cars that ran from the outskirts into the heart of the Loop. There were more homes and neighborhoods springing up in places people used to consider the countryside. Motorcars were increasingly replacing carriages on the roads. It was all progress, visible everywhere but Delia still longed for the familiar Chicago in which she had been raised.

She shaded her eyes from the sun and waved to her sister as her new driver helped her down from the coach and onto the sidewalk. After learning that Augustus had to let their old driver go, Delia had insisted on hiring a new coachman and paying his salary.

Delia and Abby hurried up to the doorman, who greeted them by name before letting them inside. Marsh had recently installed a newfangled circular doorway at the main entrance that revolved around and around. The doorman gave it a push, and with a magical whoosh, the glass doors rotated and there they were, standing in the main entrance, humming with busy shoppers and tempting displays. Delia and Abby rode the moving staircase—another new addition to Field's—up to the eighth floor and worked their way down. After several hours of shopping, Delia had several parcels and half a dozen others that would be delivered to her house. She had also purchased some items for Abby, including a black velvet reticule she'd been admiring, a tortoiseshell hair comb and an abalone spangled silk fan.

At the end of the day, Delia reached into her satchel, took out two twenty-dollar bills and handed them to her sister. “Please, treat yourself to something nice. Do it for me. Otherwise, I'll just have to go buy you something that you probably won't like.”

Abby made a halfhearted attempt to resist before she clutched the bills and said, “Thank you. Thank you. I'll pay you back every penny.” But of course they both knew she never would. What's more, they both knew it wouldn't matter.

When Delia arrived home after dropping off Abby, Williams lowered his voice and said, “I believe Mr. Caton could use your help.”

“Is he all right? Where is he?” she asked quickly, handing him her parcels, hat and gloves.

“I'm afraid he's upstairs.” Williams gestured with his eyes toward the grand staircase. “In the tub.”

Delia rushed the staircase and found Arthur shivering in a bath that had long since turned cold. He rocked back and forth as he hugged his arms around his shins, his knees pulled up close to his chest. Tears dripped down his cheeks.

“Arthur? What is it? What's wrong?” She reached for a towel and draped it over his shoulders.

“It's the judge.” He grabbed her hand, gripping it tight. “He's gone. He's dead. Mother said he was sitting in his chair, reading the newspaper, and that was it. She thought he was napping. But he never woke up.” His words came out like a burst of hiccups.

“Oh, Arthur. I'm so sorry.” She leaned in and helped him to his feet, wrapping the towel closer about his body.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked, weeping, stepping out of the tub, his fingertips pruned, his arms and legs covered in gooseflesh. “He died thinking I was nothing but a loser.”

“Shssh.”

“He thought I was lazy and weak.”

“Come on now, don't think like that.”

But he couldn't stop himself. “I never once stood up to that son of a bitch and now I never can. What am I supposed to do? I was supposed to prove something to him. I just needed a little more time. I was going to make him proud. I just needed time.” His legs began to buckle as he sobbed harder and sank to the floor.

Delia sat with him on the wet marble floor and held him while he cried.

Throughout the wake and the funeral, she never left his side.

•   •   •

A
rthur was haunted by all the unfinished, unresolved matters with the judge. Delia knew that, and as the weeks and months passed, he continued to grieve and struggle with a loss that was still as raw as the day he'd received the news. She feared for him, knowing that he could never win the approval he so desperately needed. He felt frustrated, angry and cheated out of the chance to set the record straight with his father.

One evening, about six months after the judge's passing, Delia heard a commotion coming from the drawing room. Arthur was in there with Paxton, and as she drew closer to the door, she overheard the two of them arguing.

“You're fooling yourself, Paxton. It'll never work. I know it won't. No one knows that better than I.”

“But I have to try.”

“Why? Why, when you know it won't do any good? Why are you torturing yourself like this? Why are you torturing me?”

“Maybe I'm not like you. Did you ever think of that? I have a child now. He's getting older. I can't go on living two separate lives.”

Delia always feared that something like this would happen, that Paxton would leave Arthur for a more conventional, acceptable way to conduct himself. She drew a sharp breath and prayed that she was wrong. Given everything he was going through with the judge, she didn't think he could bear losing Paxton now, too.

“. . . It'll never work and you know it,” said Arthur.

Delia couldn't bring herself to interrupt them and instead she went to the sitting room down the hall and distracted herself with a book. One chapter in, she started to doze off. It was half
past ten when Williams appeared in the doorway and announced that Mr. Field had arrived.

Delia met him in the foyer. It had snowed quite a bit in the few hours since she'd been outside and Marsh stood in the foyer shaking the flakes off his coat and hat before Williams hung them up. The house smelled faintly of cigar smoke and they heard mumblings coming from the drawing room down the hall.

“Is Mr. Lowry still here?” she asked Williams with surprise.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“They were having an argument earlier,” she explained to Marsh. “They've been in there for hours.”

Delia and Marsh were starting down the hall to the sitting room when they heard a loud crash coming from the drawing room and raced down the hall.

Delia heard Paxton shouting at Arthur. “Just calm down! You're acting like a madman.”

“Maybe I am a madman!” Arthur shouted back. She could tell by the sound of their voices that they were drunk. “Did you ever think I just might be mad after all?”

A moment later the drawing room door flew open, and from the hallway, Delia saw the buffalo head once mounted above the fireplace lying on the floor.

“Arthur?” Delia called to him. “Arthur, what happened?”

He brushed past her, leaning on his cane.

Marsh reached for his arm. “Are you all right?”

Arthur shrugged him away and kept walking down the hall.

Delia and Marsh stepped inside the drawing room, where Paxton sat on the sofa, cradling his head in his hands. Next to the buffalo head, a table had been overturned and her Émile Gallé vase lay shattered on the carpet, flowers scattered everywhere.

“Talk some sense into him, would you, please?” When Paxton looked up at them, Delia saw a bright red welt on his cheek.

Delia excused Williams, and after he'd closed the door behind him, she turned to Paxton. “What on earth is going on?”

“He's got to understand. I have a child. He can't be jealous of a child. Penelope, yes, but of a child?”

“I'll talk to him. I'll—”

“Mr. Caton, sir—” They heard Williams cry out from the hallway. “Oh, my God, no!” Williams's voice turned sharp with panic. “Mr. Caton—”

Arthur burst back into the drawing room with a crazed look in his eye, swinging his cane in one hand and a revolver in the other. Paxton jumped up from the divan. Delia and Marsh froze in place. Arthur waved the gun in their direction and Delia shrieked, grabbing hold of Marsh.

“Arthur, please . . .” Marsh started toward him.

“Don't!” Arthur swerved on his cane, raising the revolver, aiming it at Marsh. “Don't. You. Move.”

Marsh raised his hands in surrender.

Delia's legs turned weak. Stars swam before her eyes as if she was about to faint. She could smell the scotch coming off Arthur and it made her almost vomit. He was swaying, turning on his heels, moving the gun from Marsh to Delia and then to Paxton, who was plastered up against the wall, his arms stretched out to his sides. He seemed unable to move.

“Arthur, be reasonable,” said Marsh. “This won't solve anything.”

Arthur staggered closer to Marsh, the gun steady in his hand. “Shut up! Shut up, goddammit!” He inched the barrel closer.

Delia's heart nearly stopped. “Arthur, please, I beg of you, put the gun down.”

Arthur shifted the revolver back on Delia. She was barely
able to breathe. Her whole body trembled. She could hear her heart beating up inside her head. She didn't recognize this man before her and she was terrified.

Arthur turned to Paxton. “You're a coward. Nothing but a coward.” He slurred his words as sweat trickled down his face. Arthur began to shake as he took turns pointing the barrel at Paxton and then Marsh and Delia. His grip floundered as if the gun were suddenly too heavy for him. His eyes began filling with tears.

“It's okay,” said Marsh, again trying to reason with him. But that only seemed to agitate him more.

Arthur thrust the gun even closer to Marsh and put his finger on the trigger. Just when Delia thought he'd shoot, Arthur let out an agonizing cry and turned the gun on himself, aiming it at his temple.

“Arthur, no!” Delia shrieked as Marsh lunged toward him and wrestled him to the ground, knocking over a chair. Delia jumped out of the way just as she heard the gun go off.

•   •   •

N
o one was killed. Or even injured. The bookshelf took the brunt of the punishment that day in the drawing room, and then of course, so did Arthur. Poor Arthur.

Immediately after the gun went off, Marsh kept Arthur pinned to the floor while Paxton secured the gun. Delia stood in the corner, stunned by what she was seeing, what she was hearing. Arthur howled like a wild beast, kicking and clawing at Marsh's back, trying to get free. His face went red as the veins in his neck stood out, pulsing.

It seemed to go on endlessly. Arthur was tireless in his struggle, forcing Paxton to take over for Marsh and hold him down until, finally, Arthur began to tremble and cried out in one long agonizing growl that shattered into tears. Delia had never
seen him like that before. He was losing his mind right before their eyes. She was terrified of being near him. She couldn't bear to look at him that way. Paxton still had Arthur pinned down in the drawing room while Marsh led her out into the hall.

“We need to get him help. He can't stay here. It's not safe for you. Or him.”

Later on she would hardly remember making the telephone call, but within an hour, the ambulance arrived. By then the three of them had managed to calm Arthur down. He sat in a chair in the library, all the rage drained out of him and the glazed look gone from his eyes. Seeing him restored to the Arthur she knew made her think they'd all just overreacted. Yes, he'd brought a gun into the drawing room, but anyone who knew Arthur—sweet, gentle Arthur—knew he never would have used it. She told herself all this and more, fearing that she'd made a terrible mistake, especially when she saw the alarm take hold of his face when the men arrived in their hospital whites, carrying a stretcher.

“Who are these people? Who are you!” Arthur jumped out of his chair and began to back away from them, crying, “Don't let them take me away, Dell. Don't let them.”

When the one man reached for his arm, Arthur took a swing at him while the other attendant wrestled him to the ground. The first man pulled out a syringe and injected him straight through his trousers. Moments later all the muscles in Arthur's body seemed to soften and he became as docile as a baby. They moved him onto a stretcher and restrained his arms and legs in case the sedative wore
off.

1900–
1906

1900

A
rthur had been in the asylum in Batavia for three months, and during that time, Delia grappled with every possible emotion. After struggling through the sadness, the anger and the guilt, she emerged with a sense of fearlessness. She accepted that there was little she could do for Arthur, but the time had come to take charge of her own life. She had begun doing this at the world's fair when Marsh was her dance partner, but now she was about to take an even bolder step.

Abby and Augustus were hosting a party that Saturday evening at the Palmer House Hotel. It was in honor of nineteen-year-old Catherine's debut party and Delia decided she would arrive on the arm of Marshall Field. After all, she was paying for the party. She could damn well do as she pleased.

When they arrived, Delia saw Catherine posing for a photograph with her parents. She was a beautiful girl with her mother's blond coloring and large blue eyes. Abby and Augustus smiled as
they stood on either side of their daughter, looking proud and regal. For this Delia was grateful. While her father would have been sick over Abby's losing her inheritance, he would have been pleased to see that Delia had stood by her sister.

“Aunt Dell,” Spencer said, coming up to give her a hug and shake Marsh's hand. He had a girl on his arm. “I'd like you to meet Miss Lurline Spreckels.”

“Charmed,” said Delia. “I've heard so much about you.” And she had. This was the young lady that Spencer had been courting for the past few months. Abby didn't care for her, though Delia couldn't see why. She was extremely pretty with soft brown hair and wistful eyes. She came from a well-to-do family in San Francisco, the daughter of a sugarcane mogul, and she appeared just as sweet as the product her family produced. Delia suspected Abby wouldn't deem anyone good enough for her children. She'd already rejected several of Spencer's previous girlfriends and more than one of Catherine's suitors, too.

Delia was still talking with Spencer and Lurline when she noticed Paxton and Penelope entering the ballroom. Delia couldn't look at the two of them without thinking about Arthur. Poor Arthur.

Marsh must have known this, for he came up to her and whispered, “Don't think about it. You know he's best off where he is right now.”

Delia looked up and nodded.

“Come,” he said, holding out his hand. “Dance with me.”

Without another word, he led her onto the dance floor. As the music took hold, they waltzed together in the way that lovers did, knowing each other's bodies, anticipating each other's moves. Delia was very much aware of Malvina Armour and Frances Glessner standing off to the side watching her. They weren't snickering, though. They weren't pointing and whispering, either. She feared
that everyone would think,
How dare she abandon her sick husband and shamelessly step out in public with another man whose wife just died!
But instead Delia sensed that they were on her side. Ever since her work on the Board of Lady Managers, she had managed to rise above the gossip and the scandal. And so, Delia danced with her man for all to see.
To hell with everyone,
she said to herself.
I'm Marshall Field's mistress and at last I'm going to own it.

•   •   •

T
hree days later Delia tried to distract herself, still thinking about Catherine's party as she stood in the hallway of the asylum. The glaring electric lights and an antiseptic smell permeated the corridor. The atmosphere of the place was something she'd never get used to. She drew a deep breath and braced herself for her weekly visit with Arthur.

She found him sitting in the main room staring out a window covered in chicken wire. He'd lost weight, and the hollows of his cheeks were sunk in. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she bent down to kiss his cheek.

He looked at her and smiled weakly. “Say, it's good to see you. Thanks for coming by.”

Delia reached for a nearby chair and pulled it up close to him. “How are you feeling?”

“I'm fine.” He forced a smile. “Is Paxton here with you?”

This was the question she dreaded the most. The question he always asked. A stab of pity pinched her heart as she shook her head.

“Will you tell him I asked about him? He hasn't returned any of my letters.”

She couldn't bring herself to tell Arthur that Paxton destroyed them all. “I can't have his letters lying around,” Paxton had said. “What if Penelope saw them? I can't be part of his life anymore. Not after what happened that night.”

Delia understood. She couldn't exactly blame Paxton. But still, she knew how much Arthur needed him now. “Marsh is going to come by and see you this weekend,” she said, hoping to change the subject.

“When you see him—Paxton, that is—tell him to come see me.”

Delia tried again to change the subject and asked about his mother and sisters. “Did they come by this week?”

Arthur nodded and turned quiet for a moment and lowered his head. “Have they said anything to you about Paxton?”

Delia shook her head. No matter how hard she tried, Arthur kept driving the conversation back to Paxton, as he always did when she visited him. She knew Arthur was fixated on him and that it was a sign of his illness. She sat with Arthur for another hour, but it felt more like three. For two people who'd never run out of conversation, it seemed now there was nothing for them to talk about other than Paxton. Before she left him, Delia leaned over to kiss his forehead and hugged him close.

She left him in the sitting room and hurried toward the train depot, reminding herself that Arthur could have killed Paxton that day in the drawing room. He could have killed her and Marsh, too. And possibly himself. He needed to be in that asylum, as god-awful as it was.

Later that evening Abby stopped by to see Delia. She was instantly alarmed when her sister stepped into the parlor. Abby looked tired, her skin pale and her eyes shadowed by the dark circles underneath them.

“Abby, darling, what's wrong? Come.” She rang for Williams, asking for tea.

“I'm sorry to be calling on you so late,” she said. “I'm sure you must be exhausted from seeing Arthur.”

“You know my door is always open to you. Day or night.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, that's exactly what I wanted to talk
to you about. You know the neighborhood where we are has taken a turn lately. There's just so much crime these days. Even Augustus is concerned.” Abby chewed on her lower lip. “I just don't think it's safe for us there anymore. Especially not for Catherine . . .”

Abby was going on and on and Delia hated to see her sister like this. Yes, the neighborhood at Sixteenth and Michigan had waned in recent years, but they both knew it wasn't the crime that was the problem. It was that Augustus was in danger of losing the house.

“Abby,” she said with a compassionate smile, “would you like to all stay here?”

“Oh, Dell,” she gasped as if she'd been holding her breath. “Could we? It would just be until we find a suitable—”

Delia raised her hand to stop her. “It's me, remember? I know. You're all welcome to stay. You can tell people whatever you like, but you don't have to pretend with me.”

Abby began to cry. “But I can't let Catherine know. Or Spencer. Even though he doesn't live at home anymore, he still can't know.”

“I understand.” Catherine and Spencer had both been so protected, so sheltered from their parents' realities. Especially Catherine. Though she was an Eddy, Abby and Delia had raised her like a Spencer girl. She had no knowledge of her father's financial problems. She moved through society with the entitled edge of a socialite and Delia wasn't about to shatter that illusion. Catherine was their only hope, according to Abby. She had told Delia how she feared Spencer would marry Lurline, and despite her father's money, Abby didn't feel Lurline had the proper breeding. “She may be rich, but she's lacking the grace and elegance that Spencer deserves,” Abby had said on many occasions. That placed all the Eddys' expectations on Catherine marrying well and preserving the family name.

Though preserving the family name had now fallen on Delia's shoulders and the next day she instructed her staff to make room for the Eddys, Delia truly didn't mind. Aside from the fact that her home was plenty large enough for them all, she was, for all intents and purposes, living at the Field mansion with Marsh.

That evening, when the Eddys arrived, Delia had dinner with them and stayed until Marsh picked her up on his way home from work. After she said her good-nights to her sister, brother-in-law and niece, she and Marsh went around the corner to Prairie Avenue.

As Delia stepped inside the Field mansion, she was greeted as if she'd entered her own home. The servants regarded her as the lady of the house. Therese would now be traveling between both houses, since she would be tending to Abby as well as Delia.

Delia went upstairs to the master bedroom, which she now shared with Marsh. After changing into her wrapper, she sat at the dressing table and unpinned her hair, letting it spill onto her shoulders and fall down to the center of her back. In the mirror she looked at her reflection, and except for a few soft lines around her eyes and a strand or two of gray hair, her appearance hadn't changed much through the years. But oh, on the inside, she felt very different from the young girl who met Marsh the night of the Great Fire. All the hardships, the struggles and loss had forged her, making her tougher, stronger, able to withstand more. She brought a hand to her cheek and dragged her fingertips over her jaw and down her neck, grateful that the hardness didn't show on her face.

She sat back and gazed around the bedroom. It was a deeply masculine room with a four-poster mahogany bed, a marble-topped commode, heavy red velvet drapes and a thick Persian carpet. Delia had added her own touches, insisting on a vase of fresh flowers, decorative pillows and a picture of the two of them
taken years ago at the Columbian Exposition ball. For her, the room was theirs now.

She got up and gazed out the window. Instead of facing her own house on Calumet, she saw the lot next door, already under construction. Marsh had purchased it for Junior and Albertine and the boys. They had two sons, Marshall III and Henry, and now that Nannie was gone, they had decided to return to Chicago.

Delia knew, despite trying to tell him otherwise, that Marsh expected Junior to come work with him at the store. She could almost hear the arguments now. She also worried about what this move would do to Marsh's relationship with Ethel. Ethel had divorced Arthur Tree and then just three months later married her lover, David Beatty, the Royal Navy officer whom Marsh had taken to calling Jack the Sailor. Marsh hadn't spoken to her since. Why Marsh disapproved of David was a mystery to Delia. Perhaps he feared that Ethel was leaving one bad marriage and entering impulsively into another. Delia did know, however, that Ethel would be infuriated when she found out her father had built a home for Junior. She felt he played favorites as it was.

Delia removed her wrapper and climbed into bed, waiting for Marsh to finish working downstairs in the library. He had such hopes for his children and yet he couldn't see his own hand in their failures. He'd spoiled them, made their lives too easy, robbing them of a sense of appreciation or accomplishment. Marsh had tried to give them everything, and in doing so he had taken something from them that was far more valuable. He was so bright and yet Marsh couldn't see that he had become the very reason that his children were destined to fall short of his expectations.