Compromise with Sin Read online

  It was another sultry night, and the canvas walls of the Chautauqua tent in Rapid City, South Dakota, had been rolled up for the health and comfort of the audience. Standing just outside the tent and as close to the stage as possible, Frank and Marie awaited the appearance of Marie’s idol who was to be the night’s much-anticipated final act. It would be the first appearance for Helen Keller on the Chautauqua stage, she and the former Annie Sullivan having joined the tour after the honeymoon of Annie and John Macy.

  Marie whispered. “Have you seen them? Where are they now?”

  “Be patient. She’s going to tell what it’s like to be blind and deaf, and then she’ll answer questions from the audience.”

  “But how can Miss Keller be a presenter if she can’t see or hear? Can she speak?”

  “Not so you can understand her,” Frank said. “Mrs. Macy can understand her, though. She’s her translator.”

  “Who is Mrs. Macy?”

  “Anne Sullivan Macy. She’s the one who taught Miss Keller how to . . . here they come.”

  The crowd rose applauding and waving white handkerchiefs in the Chautauqua salute.

  “Tell me what she looks like,” Marie said.

  “Serene and lovely, like an angel. Wearing a smart-looking blouse with a big lace collar, a red hat, and her hair—”

  “Tell me about her eyes.”

  The crowd sat down and grew silent.

  “Her eyes are blue,” Frank whispered.

  Mrs. Macy spoke first, describing her education of Miss Keller. Then she invited the mayor to help demonstrate how Miss Keller could “listen” to someone without an interpreter.

  “How are you enjoying your visit to our fair town?” the mayor asked.

  “Tell me,” Marie said.

  Frank whispered. “Miss Keller ‘listens’ by placing her fingers on the mayor’s throat, mouth, and the side of his nose.” He placed Marie’s hand in this manner on his face. “She feels the words instead of hearing them.”

  Then Miss Keller spoke. The sound emitted by the lovely young woman only vaguely resembled words. Absent were the vocal changes that give meaning and color to speech. Instead her pitch and volume meandered.

  Marie gasped. “I can’t understand her.”

  “Few people can,” Frank whispered. “Just listen, and Mrs. Macy will interpret.”

  In the days leading up to Marie’s birthday, Louise’s melancholy set in. She rattled around in the afternoon void and would have welcomed hearing the repetitive scales she used to find annoying. And she longed to hear certain musical phrases, especially her favorite in Pachelbel’s “Canon.”

  With her daughter hundreds of miles away, Louise brooded about life’s unfairness. Fueling her bitterness was an item in the Nonpareil’s social news about Doc having just returned from a European vacation. Knowing as she did that the late Mrs. Foster had suffered from gonorrhea, Louise was certain it was Doc, not Frank, who had caused Marie’s blindness. Yet he suffered no consequences. Often as she thought about him, she contemplated revenge. But she could never act on it, never risk hurting Frank and Marie. The telephone rang—the three short rings that identified it as a call for the Morrissey home. She accepted the collect call from Frank. “Hello.”

  “I’m putting Marie on. She wants to tell you all about her birthday celebration.”

  “Hello, Mother?”

  “Yes, Marie.” Already Louise had a lump in her throat.

  “We had a party at the ice cream shoppe, and you’ll never guess who came.” Without waiting for a reply, she went on. “Well, there was Father, of course, Mr. Science, Mr. And Mrs. Ryder—I knew they’d be there. But the big surprise was Miss Keller and Mrs. Macy. And guess what? Miss Keller’s birthday is just two weeks after mine, so we celebrated hers, too. She’s twenty-five, though, and I’m only ten. Father says we’ll notch the doorframe as soon as we get home. It won’t show exactly how tall I was on my birthday, but it will have to do. Do you know what else? Miss Keller and I got to fly kites together. And Father says to tell you my piano lessons are going splendidly.”

  “I’m so lonesome for you,” Louise said. “I’m going to buy you a new dress and embroider it for you to wear at the Riverbend Chautauqua.”

  “I hope it will have lots of flowers. Miss Keller likes to brush my hair. And guess what? She taught me to make little yarn dolls. First you wrap yarn around a piece of cardboard to make the doll’s body, then you wrap another piece of yarn the other way for the arms, then you make yarn braids. The hardest part is cutting out a circle of felt for a skirt. Miss Keller showed me how to fold a felt square two times, then cut off the tip to make a hole for the doll’s waist and cut an arc through the four layers of fabric to make a circle for the hem. Yesterday I made one without any help. Her name is Sunny because she’s yellow, like the sun. She’s for you.”

  Louise wondered if Marie still had the adorable habit of moving her mouth when she cut with scissors. She barely managed to speak without sobbing. “I’m counting the days until I get to see you . . . and Sunny.”

  Frank’s voice could be heard in the background. “Hey, Junior, make it snappy. This call costs money.”

  “Frank, don’t hang up yet.” Louise choked back the tears.

  “Here’s Father.”

  “Louise?”

  “Frank?” Louise wasn’t sure when she’d have another chance to talk to Frank about the Inn and hoped that turning the conversation to practical matters would stop the tears.

  “Yes, go on.”

  “There have been some staffing problems that I didn’t want to bother you with, but they’re resolved now. I had to let Mrs. Jelinek go because she was pilfering food from the kitchen, but I hired a new baker.”

  “Does she make kolaches?”

  “Yes. She’s learning Mrs. Jelinek’s recipe, and I think she’ll get along just fine.”

  “What else?”

  “Buster quit.”

  “Why? He was a good worker.”

  “He said he couldn’t take orders from a woman. The new man’s name is Harley. He just came north from Tennessee.”

  “How’s he working out?”

  “He’s good, but slow. If you saw him you’d say you have to drive a stake next to him to tell if he’s moving. And we need to talk about making some sanitary improvements. Some of our regular guests are starting to complain about germs. Mrs. Hyde says New York passed a law requiring hotels to use nine-foot long sheets.”

  “What for?” Frank asked. “Nine-foot long beds?”

  “Of course not. The top sheet gets folded over the blanket to prevent guests’ faces from coming into contact with germs on the blanket.”

  “That’s New York for you,” Frank said. “I guarantee you that nonsense won’t catch on in Nebraska.”

  “And that’s not all. Up-to-date hotels install window screens in the summer to keep out flies and mosquitoes because of the germs they carry. And wood is no longer acceptable in water closets.”

  “I suppose it’s a haven for germs,” Frank said.

  “That’s right. Mrs. Hyde says she can’t stomach a water closet with wood floors.”

  “Well, Mrs. Hyde would be hard-pressed to find fancy tile in hotels in Nebraska. You know what that would cost? Riverview Inn was fine enough for the King of Prussia, it’s fine enough for Mrs. Hyde. You know what I think? You have too much time on your hands without me and Marie to fuss over. One good thing about this ‘sanitary revolution,’ though─housewives will stand in line to buy the Whirlwind Maid.”

  Frank was so predictable. He would complain to Bernard about how germ talk had gone too far when lawmakers could tell hotel owners what kind of sheets they could use. Then Bernard would impress upon him the ease with which dreaded diseases are communicated. Frank would ruminate on the matter, and before long he would tell her to make sanitary improvements to the hotel and think it was his own idea.

  After the call, Louise went to the kitchen and fingered each of the nine notch
es on the doorframe. She remembered Marie on her first birthday, wiggling as Frank tried to make the first notch. On her sixth birthday, she tried to trick him by standing on her tiptoes. And on her ninth birthday─the pony cart accident overtook Louise’s reminiscence.

  She went to the breakfast room and collapsed into a chair, her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. Missing the ritual stirred up the deepest longing for her daughter and something more. It was grief for the baby and child Marie had once been and the ache of not knowing the child she was becoming.

  Ten days after Marie’s birthday, Louise picked up her mail at the Inn’s desk, and on top of the stack was an envelope addressed in a childish hand. The shape of the letters, flattened at the bottom, suggested the writer had used a ruler as a guide. The envelope was postmarked Valentine, Nebraska. Louise opened it and began to read, “Dear Mother . . .” There must be some mistake.

  Surprise. Mrs. Macy is teaching me how to write. She taught Miss Keller. I miss you. We are in Valentine. The park has a statue and Father lets me climb on it. It is fun.

  Love,

  Marie

  Louise clutched the letter to her breast and wept with joy and with longing to wrap her arms around her daughter. Staring at the page with its cockeyed lettering, she could picture Marie biting her lip as she labored over each pencil stroke. It was her nature to practice until she became proficient. Her mother’s daughter. Louise’s melancholy lifted. Marie had a most promising future.

  Frank was on a salesman’s high. Not the fleeting high that comes with a big order; that kind of high carries the knowledge that next month you’d have to go out and do it all over again. Not the high that comes from trouncing the competition; that kind of high means some poor sap like yourself is hurting. Not the high that comes when making the big sale rescues you from the brink, the point at which you were about to sell your wife’s almost new electric icebox to make ends meet. No, Frank’s high was the mountain climber’s exhilaration upon nearing the summit, the drowning man’s relief upon seeing a rescuer’s rope, and getting rip-roaring drunk, all rolled into one.

  Frank Morrissey had a salesman’s high from being onto a sure thing. Two sure things, in fact. The first was that orders for the Whirlwind Maid exceeded his projections such that Tom even had to hire back two laid-off bicycle mechanics to meet demand.

  Marie was his other sure thing. Audiences adored her. She could be the child elocutionist for two, possibly three, years before she would become too mature for the role. By then he would be able to convince Ryder to keep her on as a piano soloist. Her piano teacher, in his broken English, had already called her a “prodigy,” and said her beauty, stage presence, and blindness would ensure her future popularity.

  In Frank’s blueprint the Chautauqua served as the springboard to the concert stage. When Marie became a young woman, he would hire a companion for her, and he would stop traveling. She would have a satisfying life after he and Louise were gone. Louise might scoff at his grandiose plan, but he knew what he was doing.

  19

  June 1905

  It being Friday, Louise totaled the week’s receipts, prepared the bank deposit, and placed it in her satchel. She joined Yonder at his table in the Inn’s dining room, and when he finished breakfast she picked up the satchel, and they left the Inn by the side door to the porte cochère.

  A light breeze carried the fragrance of honeysuckle from the bushes that lined the drive. As they approached the carriage house, it began to sprinkle. Fat drops pelted Louise’s face, and she stopped abruptly. “Umbrellas. I’ll get them, and you can bring the car around for me.”

  Yonder continued on to the carriage house, and Louise turned back. As she neared the porte cochère, she glimpsed a flash of movement through the honeysuckle bushes. A man leaped out. She froze, clutched the satchel to her chest. Lars. The glint of a blade, hatred in his eyes.

  She ran for the door. “Stop! Thief!”

  From behind came the foul breath she remembered, then a hand on her arm. His other hand jerked the bag, but she held it tight and wrenched it away, generating forward momentum that caused her to stumble. Her ankle twisted. Holding the bag close to her body, she braced her fall with a hand and landed with the satchel beneath her, striking her forehead on the brick paving. Unable to move, she stiffened, expecting a knife blade in her back, wishing she’d surrendered the satchel. But there was only stillness and no sign of the work boots and pant legs she’d glimpsed when she went down.

  Hearing footsteps, she rolled over to one side and raised herself to her elbow. “Don’t let him get away,” she called to Yonder who was running toward her. “I’m all right.”

  Yonder spun around and dashed into the woods.

  Louise sucked in air, clenched her teeth, and held her breath as though that might stop the pain. Her heart pounding, she clutched the satchel and scooted over to the building and sat with her back to the wall.

  Yonder returned minutes later shaking his head. “He must not have followed the path or I’d have seen him.”

  By now a crowd of Inn guests and staff had gathered.

  Yonder, his wrinkled brow expressing his concern, knelt next to Louise. “You’re trembling.”

  “I’m scared. Think what could have happened.”

  “You’re safe now. Don’t try to stand. Do you think anything is broken?”

  Louise shook her throbbing head. “I think my ankle is just sprained.” She noticed the brief shower had passed; there’d have been no need for umbrellas.

  A man came towards them. “Can I help?”

  “You can hold the door for us.” With that, Yonder picked her up. Giving a nod to the man, he carried Louise inside and through the hallway that led to the lobby and stairs.

  The people who were gathered in the lobby stopped talking and stared. Mrs. Monfort, working at the front desk, gave a loud gasp.

  Louise gave them a wave. “It’s nothing serious.”

  As they went up the stairs, Louise felt the rise and fall of Yonder’s chest and found comfort in the warmth of his body and his familiar Ivory-soap scent.

  When he got to her front door, he said, “Can you open it?”

  She turned the handle, gave the door a shove, and wondered if it occurred to him that one day he would carry Giovanna across a threshold in similar fashion.

  When they reached the back parlor, he seated her in her favorite chair. He took the satchel from her and placed it on another chair.

  Henryetta rushed to them. “Mercy sakes, what happened to you? Look at that goose egg, will you?”

  Louise touched the bump, which felt enormous. “That man who was here looking for work about a couple of weeks ago, he tried to get the satchel, and I fell.”

  “He’d been here before?” Yonder’s concerned look turned to one of surprise. “I only got a glimpse of him when he ran into the woods, but I’m almost sure he was the man sitting on the loafers bench when we went to the bank last week.”

  Henryetta lifted Louise’s feet onto the ottoman, and Louise raised her skirt to expose the swollen ankle.

  “I’ll get an old sheet,” Henryetta said. “Yonder, fetch something nice and cold from the icebox she can hold on her head, maybe the package of bacon.”

  Yonder left and returned with the bacon, which Louise held to her temple.

  Louise smiled. “I’m going to smell like bacon all day.”

  “Louise, I’m so sorry,” Yonder said. “I should never have left your side.”

  “It’s my fault. I wasn’t thinking when I told you to go get the car. I should have kept you close.”

  Henryetta came back with a sheet, which she began tearing into strips. A knock at the front door interrupted her bandage-making. When she returned from answering the door, she was shaking her head. “Sheriff has the manners of a billy goat. He would have come right on in here except I told him to wait in the front parlor until I wrapped your foot.”

  Louise pointed to an afghan on another chair. “
Cover me up and have him come in. Let’s not keep him from going after Lars. You can wrap my ankle later.”

  While Henryetta went to get Sheriff Andy Maguire, Yonder draped the afghan over Louise’s lap and legs. She noted that, being a gentleman, he had averted his eyes from her exposed ankles.

  Henryetta escorted the sheriff into the room. The tall, lanky man may have lacked manners, but he never forgot the people he owed favors, and Frank had helped him get elected in a close race. “I’d have gotten here sooner, but I been talking to the folks downstairs who give me a description of the thief. My men been suspicious of him ever since he showed up in town. Probably rides the rails from one place to another, commits a few petty crimes, and moves on. Henryetta here says he come to the Inn about a month ago?”

  “He claimed he was looking for work,” Louise said. “His name is Lars. I wish I’d learned his last name, but he frightened me. I was so eager to get rid of him I didn’t so much as offer him a sandwich.”

  The sheriff cracked his knuckles, first one hand, then the other. “How’d he know you’d have a satchel full of deposits?”

  “Yonder remembered seeing him when we left the bank last week. He must have seen us and figured it was our regular time to make deposits. But he’d have seen Yonder, too. Why would he risk coming after me if he thought Yonder would be with me?”

  The sheriff looked at Yonder. “Where were you when he attacked?”

  “I was bringing the car around while Mrs. Morrissey waited under the porte cochère.”

  The sheriff cracked his knuckles again. “Some things are beyond explaining. Your typical criminal isn’t very smart. He might could’ve thought Mrs. Morrissey would be alone.” He turned to Louise with a sympathetic look. “Now, don’t you worry. If he’s still in the vicinity, we’ll get him. But I have a hunch he’s moved on.”

  That night Louise’s body and mind conspired against sleep. Her temple throbbed as much as her sprained ankle. Ordinary night sounds—beams creaking, a shutter rattling—jarred her from a light slumber to skin-tingling wakefulness.