The Whispering Women

Chapter 1

Louisa

Louisa perched on the edge of a wooden chair in the outer office of Herbert Markham, Attorney at Law. His secretary, who also happened to be his mother, pecked at a typewriter on her desk and ignored Louisa. The feathers on her black hat bobbed as she typed. She had the wide, tight-lipped face of a New England-bred Yankee, the sort of face prevalent in meetings of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Louisa had never been to the attorney’s office before today. Usually, they received a notice at the end of every year that a deposit of approximately six hundred and fifty dollars had been made to their bank account. This year, instead, she received a letter asking her to come see him.

The door to the inner office opened, and Herbert Markham smiled warmly when he saw her. He had a clean-shaven face with a crease in the middle of his forehead. His graying hair, which had fled the top of his head, curled incongruously above his ears. He’d been overseeing her and her mother’s financial affairs for the dozen years since her father had died and hadn’t charged them a dime. A good thing, since they didn’t have any dimes to spare.

Come in, Louisa. Aren’t you a vision of young womanhood? he said, beckoning her inside. How is your dear mother? Well, I hope.

His office was tastefully decorated with a claw-footed Chippendale desk, heavy mahogany bookshelves with glass doors, a bust of Marcus Aurelius on top, and a framed colonial American flag between two tall windows looking out onto Wall Street. Outside the window, snow fell in silver drops as round and shiny as coins from the sky.

She sat down in a leather chair and folded her hands to exude an air of calm, but her knee vibrated under her long wool skirt. She felt Aurelius’ stone eyes glaring down at her.

Mother is fine, she said, which was not exactly true but she was in no mood for small talk. Mr. Markham, why did you ask me to come here? Has something happened to our yearly allotment?

He sighed. He was in his late fifties, about the same age her father would have been if he were still alive.

I’m afraid it’s all gone, my dear, he said in a gentle tone that might as well have been a slap across her face.

But... I don’t understand, she said, silently cursing herself for not having paid more attention to the accounts. Too busy with work, she had told herself, but the real reason was that she didn’t want to face the truth. She much preferred the illusion that their small well of money would magically refill itself the way it seemed to do in all the wealthy families. She should have been spared from any financial concerns, but there was no getting around the hard kernel of truth — the Delafields were poor now, and their family name meant nothing to the rest of the world.

We’ve been quite frugal, she said, clutching her purse.

Yes, you have been. I wouldn’t have thought that Anna would be a good money manager, but...

Louisa interrupted him.

The annuity covers our basic expenses. Now that I’m working, most of my salary goes to clothing and transportation to various events. Writing a society column seems to be the only work for which I’m suited, but unfortunately it doesn’t pay well. We’ve been relying on that yearly allotment, she said. How could it be gone already?

There wasn’t much to start with, he said, looking down at his desk and then up at her. I couldn’t invest it or you wouldn’t have had anything to live on. Besides, your mother absolutely forbade it, and I can’t say I blame her after your father made such regrettable mistakes. Then he leaned forward with a perplexed expression on his face and said, Frankly, Louisa, I assumed you’d be married by now.

I’m afraid the scandal of my father’s death has tarnished my glow, she said.

Certainly, you might have found someone, he said. My nephew is coming to visit us in a few weeks. He lives in Cincinnati and isn’t married. Why don’t you come over for dinner and meet him?

A tremor ran over Louisa’s shoulders but she stilled herself. The very last thing she wanted to do was marry, especially some relation from Cincinnati. She’d seen what could happen when a woman’s livelihood was dependent on marriage. Her once vibrant mother now lived like a hermit, sitting in her invalid chair all day, reminiscing about days long gone.

Louisa cleared her throat and said, I do not believe marriage is the answer for me. She paused and then asked, So, there’s nothing left at all?

I stretched it as far and as long as I could. I’m afraid you’ll need to tighten the purse strings. Perhaps you could let go of your servant?

He might as well ask her to cut off her right arm, she thought. Suzie had stopped even taking a salary, and Suzie was the reason they had survived as well as they had.

At least the townhouse is paid for, Louisa said.

The townhouse is yours free and clear, Mr. Markham said, as long as you’ve kept up with the property taxes.

Louisa froze. Property taxes? They had to pay property taxes?

I thought you were in charge of doing that... she said.

Oh no, my dear. The bill for 1912 should have come to your mother by now, he said, rising. The meeting was over. Merry Christmas, Louisa, and please give your dear mother my regards.

Merry Christmas, she said, though her tone of voice was about as merry as a case of typhus. She forced her head high as she strode out the door.

As Louisa got on the elevator, a single tear trickled down her cheek. She brushed it away with an angry swipe of her hand. Property taxes. She didn’t remember a bill for taxes, and Suzie hadn’t mentioned it.

Are you all right, Miss? the elevator operator asked.

I’m fine, thank you, she answered. I must have gotten something in my eye. It’s gone now.

The elevator creaked down to the ground floor, and the operator opened the doors. Louisa stopped short in surprise. An elegant middle-aged woman in a dark-purple velvet dress and a felt hat with a large purple plume looked just as surprised to see her.

Louisa! Natasha Bloodgood said. What a surprise.

Louisa stepped out of the elevator, and Natasha held her hands and kissed her cheeks.

I’m on my way up to see Herbert about some property I’m buying, Natasha said with a smile. "What are you doing here, cherie?"

Checking on our annual annuity, Louisa said, unable to keep the squeak out of her voice. The precariousness of her situation gripped her, and she imagined she stood teetering on the edge of a cliff.

I see, Natasha said as she stepped onto the elevator. The operator was about to close the doors, but Natasha stopped him. Louisa, please come by the house soon. I have some lovely day dresses that no longer fit me. I wonder if you’d do me the favor of taking them off my hands.

Thank you, Natasha, Louisa said. If it had been anyone else, she would have been humiliated, but Natasha had looked out for her in so many ways since her father’s death.

The doors began to close, but once again Natasha stopped him.

"I hope you’re covering the Christmas ball this weekend, cherie, she said with a wink. There will be so many eligible bachelors."

The elevator doors closed.

Not you, too, Natasha, Louisa thought. At twenty-four years old, Louisa was past the age of interest to anyone but the desperate old widowers.

She headed out of the building and into the blustery winter day. Snow drifted down and dampened her cheeks. She pulled her coat tight, worried about the property tax and thinking she must find a way to make sure they could keep the house. It wasn’t impossible. Nixola Greeley-Smith wrote for The Evening World and she was doing well. She interviewed the most esteemed people in the world. Then there was Djuna Barnes who was making a name for herself as a writer and illustrator at The Daily Eagle. Unfortunately, The Ledger where Louisa worked was stodgy and set in its ways. Louisa didn’t know about anything other than society, and society writers earned next to nothing.

She turned the corner onto Broadway and nearly bumped into a beggar woman with a large, protruding belly. The beggar was young and dirty in a threadbare coat with a small boy clinging to her. She held out a cup and pleaded to the passersby, Please, help. Please.

Louisa was in no position to give money away, but she dug into her coin purse, pulled out a nickel, and dropped it in the cup. She’d intended to buy lunch with that nickel but she no longer had any appetite.

Thank ye, Miss, the young woman said, and Louisa made the mistake of glancing into her desperate eyes and seeing her own reflected fear.

She quickly turned away, but the panic which had been a burning ember bloomed into a flame. If they lost the house, would that woman be her, standing on a sidewalk, holding out a tin cup? She grimaced and shook her head. She must extinguish her fear, smother it, and figure out how to keep a roof over her head. She was a Delafield, after all. Her father may have besmirched the name with his ill-conceived investments and his ignoble death, but she would reclaim her place in society. She would restore their respectability. She simply had no idea how.

The snowfall thickened as she hurried along the sidewalk. In the middle of crossing the street to get to the subway station, she slipped on a patch of ice and fell forward, landing hard on her hands and ripping her dress at the knee. A motorcar swerved around her, and a man in a top hat stopped to help her up, but she waved him off, pushed herself up onto her feet, and continued numbly toward the subway.

Chapter 2

Ellen

Ellen slipped off her shoes and curled up in the big overstuffed armchair by the fire in Miss Hattie’s bedroom. The servants had been allowed to welcome the New Year at midnight with a single glass of champagne while outside, New Yorkers of every stripe thronged the streets, making an awful din as they celebrated the arrival of 1913. Since coming to New York six months earlier, Ellen had discovered that the city’s denizens lived in an endless blitz of revelry and noise. Not the servants like her and the others, of course. They rose at dawn to do a thousand little chores and could be beckoned at a second’s notice. As a lady’s maid, she often stayed up until the wee hours when the family returned home because her poor unfortunate mistress couldn’t undress herself. She wondered how the ruling class had ever garnered so much wealth when they seemed unable to perform the most mundane tasks.

Ellen relished the few hours of peace when Miss Hattie, her mother, and brother were off celebrating with their own kind. She flipped through the pages of the latest McClure’s Magazine and landed on a poem by someone named Willa Cather. The poem was about the prairies of America, but it reminded her of home, of Ireland:

"The toiling horses, the tired men;

The long, empty roads,

The sullen fires of sunset fading,

The eternal unresponsive sky."

She rested her head against the soft back of the chintz-covered chair. She’d been a maid at the Salt Hill Resort back home for the past few years and thought she understood what it meant to be in service, but if she were honest with herself she’d had no idea what she was getting herself into. She’d only known she had to get out of Ireland and the stranglehold of the priests and the nuns who claimed she was on the sure path to Hell. Confessing her sins had been a mistake. She thought there’d be opportunity in America, opportunity to be herself. Now, she was not so sure.

She gazed around the room. The surroundings were certainly pleasant. Hattie Garrett had recently turned 18, and Ellen got on with the girl well enough. The only problem was the sheer dullness — the sewing, laundering, tending to the girl’s wardrobe, brushing her shoes, fixing her hair, and most importantly praising and admiring her. If Ellen wanted a life, she had to live it through Hattie, and the life of a debutante wasn’t all that stimulating, at least not from the outside. Silly parties and tea dances and such.

She sighed and opened the magazine again. Reading provided an escape from the monotony of service — that and the weekly trip she took to the Nickelodeon with Silvia. Aside from the occasional poem, there were illustrated stories of all sorts. Her favorites were the detective stories. Such adventures. Women in those stories were not always the most upstanding creatures, but their lives were never dull.

The Seth Thomas clock on the mantel chimed twice. Ellen’s head lolled and her eyelids slid down.

Happy New Year, Ellen! Miss Hattie hooted as she burst into the room.

Ellen jerked awake and stood, the magazine falling from her lap and spilling onto the floor.

Happy New Year, Miss, Ellen said. She picked up the magazine and placed it on the table. Did you have a nice time?

I did, and you can read all about it in Louisa Delafield’s column tomorrow, Hattie said and plopped down on the chair in front of her vanity. I believe that 1913 is off to a most auspicious start. Mother says we can go to London in the spring. You might even come with us. Mother takes Smith everywhere.

Ellen helped the girl un-jewel, un-coif, and un-dress herself. London might be interesting, but how much of the city would she actually get to see? She knew little enough of New York and she’d been here for months. As she tucked Hattie into the big, soft, canopy bed, she noticed a whiff of champagne on the girl’s breath.

Ellen was expected to do this for the rest of her life, she realized, as she put the clothes away. She saw no way out. A portion of her salary was still being kept back to pay for her passage from Galway, and it was near impossible for an Irish girl to get work other than as a domestic. She was lucky enough to be a lady’s maid. It wasn’t like she had any other skills. Best to keep her sights low.

She turned out the light and went upstairs to the servants’ floor. She entered the room quietly so as not to wake Silvia. A bright winter moon slid westward, spilling a beam like an afterthought on the floor. Ellen had gotten into her flannel nightgown and crawled into bed when she looked across the room. Immediately, she sat up and stared. Silvia was not there.

Ellen wondered for a moment where the girl could possibly be, but then she knew. That older brother of Hattie’s had a dangerous cock in his eye. It was the same everywhere. The rich took what they wanted, and the poor lived in the abyss. She slowly lowered herself down onto the bed, a fist clamped ‘round her heart, squeezing it tight.

Chapter 3

Louisa

Two burly men wearing tweed flat caps, workmen’s clothes, and thick-soled muddy boots hefted the large crate between themselves and carried it out of the parlor, through the hallway, out the open door, down the stoop and onto the street where a truck waited. Louisa stood in the doorway of her West Harlem townhouse and watched as they carefully lifted it into the back of the truck and trundled off.

What have you done, you wicked girl? Anna Delafield cried after Louisa went back into the parlor to stare at the empty space above the mantel. That painting was the last vestige of our former life. And now you’ve sold it!

Mother, we were out of money and if we didn’t pay our property tax we would lose the roof over our heads, Louisa explained once again. She put a log on the fire to try to heat up the room. The Metropolitan Museum will take good care of it. It’s an Emil Fuchs, after all.

The fact that Fuchs also painted Queen Victoria had made her offer to the Metropolitan Museum especially enticing, and the money they had given her would mean they could pay the taxes on the townhouse and put some coal in the coal bin. Suzie had explained she usually paid the tax out of the annuity each year, but this year there was no annuity.

They will put our misfortune on display for the whole world to see, Anna said, her voice choked with humiliation.

Not right away, Louisa said. She refused to feel the loss of the painting even though every morning she’d looked into her father’s eyes and felt him encouraging her to go forth and restore the family name. He was a good man and had never intended to put them through such shame.

The portrait of the three of them had been painted in London by John Singer Sargent’s protégée, an acclaimed society portrait artist, when she was eight years old. She remembered that trip with fondness — seeing Big Ben and the Tower of London, walking along the Thames, even standing for hours while the painter stared at them had been rather fun.

Suzie came in with a rag to wipe up the muddy bootprints.

I’m sure they’ll let Louisa buy the painting back when she’s got some money, Suzie said.

What makes you think Louisa’s ever going to have money? Anna asked, bitterly. She’s too old for someone to marry.

Louisa glanced at Suzie with a raised eyebrow.

We didn’t scrimp and save all those years for Louisa to go to college so she could depend on a man for her bread and butter, Suzie said, hands on her wide hips. Louisa will make money all on her own. You mark my words.

Suzie almost never spoke harshly to Anna, but the drama over the painting must have worn her nerves. Louisa looked up at the blank space again. Was Suzie right, she wondered. Could she ever make the money to buy it back? Suzie’s belief in her defied reason, but it was all she had to go on.

***

A week later, Louisa bent over her cherry wood writing desk — the same desk her grandmother had used to write letters in support of abolition — and composed her column for the evening edition.

She put down her fountain pen and flexed her stiff fingers. She reached a hand toward the heat of the radiator, grateful for the warmth that emanated. Before she sold the painting, they’d had no coal and the meager fire in the fireplace had little effect.

Look what I found in the back of your mother’s wardrobe.

Louisa turned and saw Suzie holding up a red velvet dress with puffy sleeves, a lace bodice, full skirt, and a high collar. Louisa had been complaining for a week that she had nothing to wear tonight to the opening of Grand Central Terminal. Suzie’s bronze eyes gleamed. Her hair was gray, and over the years, worry wrinkles had formed between her eyebrows like a set of train tracks.

It was lovely thirty years ago when Mother wore it to Alva Vanderbilt’s first ball, Louisa said. But I can’t wear that to the opening. I wasn’t even born when that dress was made. Look at that ridiculous bustle.

I can alter it. If I open the sleeves here, cut the neckline down like this, add some lace around the collar, — Suzie used her finger to indicate a V-shape — and take out the bustle so it makes a nice straight line, nobody’ll be the wiser. High quality fabric like this lasts forever.

Can you finish it by tonight? Louisa was skeptical.

It might not be perfect, but it’ll pass for one night.

Suzie shooed the little ginger cat off the sofa and laid down the dress. Louisa came over to inspect it. She imagined her mother purchasing it from some Parisian vendeuse when she was young and had everything she wanted at her fingertips. Louisa wondered what it would be like to be so carefree. Then she noticed a faint mothball smell.

"The Ledger should at least provide me with a clothing allowance if they expect me to do my job properly," Louisa muttered.

Are you destroying another of my dresses? Louisa’s mother had woken up and wheeled herself over to the sofa in her invalid chair. Louisa and Suzie exchanged a look. The trick to mollifying Anna was to send her on a trip down memory lane.

Mother, do you know who will be at the Grand Central Opening tonight? William Vanderbilt, Louisa said. He’s come all the way from Paris to witness this triumph. She may not be able to afford a new dress, she thought, but she would be rubbing elbows with the men who ran the world.

That old scoundrel? He cheated on Alva. Everybody except her knew about it. They all thought it was such a scandal when she divorced him. Not I. I told her to go right ahead, Anna said.

That gossip is a million years old. Alva is doing quite well these days. She’s a suffragist, you know, Louisa said.

Then she’s come down in the world, Anna grumbled and rolled the chair to the window to stare outside at the snow-dusted sidewalk. Anna was able to walk, but she preferred not to, claiming that her heart was too weak for the exertion.

Louisa gazed at her, sitting in the stream of light from the window, bundled up in a wool shawl. The cat leaped onto her lap, and her mother stroked it absently.

She turned to look at the blank wall over the mantel, which Suzie was dusting.

How much is left? she asked Suzie in a low voice.

Suzie shook her head. Very little, she said.

I have an idea about how I might make more money, Louisa said. We have a new editor at the newspaper. I haven’t met him yet, but I’ve heard he intends to make some changes. I’m going to suggest that we expand the women’s page. I’d like to add a home decor section and maybe an advice column for all those parvenues who need to learn the rules of old society. Of course, I wouldn’t word it like that. But, honestly, some of them walk about in the middle of the day, dripping with diamonds.

Abominable! Anna piped up from her spot by the window. Diamonds during the day are the height of poor taste.

Exactly, Louisa said and then continued, "We could have the best women’s page in the whole city, and I’d be in charge of it. They’d have to give me a raise."

Then what are you waiting for? Suzie asked.

***

On the way to The Ledger, Louisa hung onto a leather strap in a crowded train car on the 6th Avenue elevated train as it barreled through the air, ignoring the press of humanity around her. She felt a nervous fluttering in her stomach. Asking for money went against everything she’d been raised to believe. Women of the upper class didn’t even acknowledge money. It was beneath them. The fact she was no longer in the exalted upper class and hadn’t been since she was twelve didn’t seem to matter. Standards of ladylike behavior had been ingrained into every fiber of her being, and generations of breeding didn’t evaporate overnight. Fortunately, the one skill she possessed, writing about society, kept her among respectable people. If one had to work, there was no better path as far as she could tell. She was able to enjoy the glittering entertainments and yet still have a sense of purpose. Society writing kept her foot in the door of the world to which she’d been born.

The train jerked to a stop, and she wormed her way out of the car and onto the platform. She’d worn her wool maroon skirt and jacket with a silk blouse, and a large hat with a black ostrich plume in an effort to impress the new editor, but she looked incongruous in this crowd of working men and women, and the unwieldy hat was not made for public transportation. A few of her fellow travelers looked up at it as if she were wearing a camel on her head. She held onto the brim with one hand as she hustled down the stairs and headed past Macy’s toward 34th Street, clutching her coat against the wind with the other, striding past clumps of dirty snow and the occasional pile of horse manure.

She pushed through the revolving door, took the elevator to the third floor, and with great determination wound through the maze of desks as phones rang, typewriters clattered, and the copy boy dashed past her carrying fresh stories for the typesetter. The odor of tobacco and newsprint perfumed the air.

The Ledger was not a large paper like The Times or The Herald, but it was prestigious, catering to wealthy men who wanted to keep up-to-date on stocks and bonds and other business matters and their wives who cared about one thing and one thing only: society. Louisa told herself that an expanded women’s page was vital for the health of the newspaper. Readership had declined in recent years — hence, a new editor.

***

After she typed up her column and dropped it into the basket for the copy boy, she sat at her desk and combed through the stack of letters and invitations. She glanced over some publicity material from B. Altman’s and sharpened her pencils. She made a note of upcoming weddings. When she’d finally run out of things to fiddle with, she looked over at the editor’s office. A workman had just finished stenciling the letters Virgil Thorn, Editor-in-Chief on the door. He stood back to admire his handiwork. As soon as the workman left, she pulled her shoulders back, marched across the room, and knocked.

Enter! a voice called.

The office was filled with heavy oak furniture and cluttered with papers, books, and boxes not yet emptied. The new editor stood over his desk, blue pencil in hand, marking up the layout of the front page of tomorrow’s paper. She waited for him to acknowledge her. He finally straightened to his full height and gazed at her with gray eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles. A crisp mustache adorned his upper lip like two