The Fall Of White City (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 1) (26 page)

She laughed bitterly. “Well, it’s sure a new one on me.”

“How much do you charge for your time?” Freddie tried to frame the question as delicately as possible.

“The house collects five bucks for a trick.”

“And,” Freddie cleared his throat self-consciously, “how would that translate into time?”

Rosa shrugged. “Depends on the trick. Anywhere from five minutes to an hour.”

“All right then. Say I double that and give you ten dollars for an hour of your time. Is that fair?”

The girl slipped her wrapper back on. “Well, it’ll give me a rest, and Sadie won’t care what goes on so long as you pay afterward.” She walked over to the dresser. “You want a drink?”

“No, thank you, nothing.” Freddie responded as primly if he had just been offered a cup of tea in Evangeline’s parlor.

He watched as
Rosa
selected a green bottle from her collection and poured herself a shot glass of absinthe—straight.

“Good God! I’m no temperance advocate but if you drink enough of that concoction, it could kill you!”

“The sooner the better. So long as I don’t feel it coming.” She downed the first shot in one gulp and poured a second.

Freddie watched the absinthe take effect. Her speech, which had been slurred before, became even thicker and slower. She sat down heavily on the bed. Rather than sit beside her in what he considered a compromising position, Freddie drew up the chair.

When he was seated, she began, “So you want to talk. What about?”

“Actually, it’s the man who sent me to you. He wanted me to show you this to see if you remember him.” Freddie began to dig in his coat pocket for the picture of
Blackthorne
that Evangeline had given him.

Rosa threw her head back and laughed scornfully. “To see if I remember him? I don’t even remember my own name most of the time, and it’s just as well I don’t, mister. If I did, I’d go crazy!”

By now Freddie had located the picture and he handed it to
Rosa
. First she glanced as it uncomprehendingly. Then, as the image registered in her brain, it seemed to send an electric shock through her body. Her face went white and she started to tremble. The picture fell to the floor as she put her face in her hands. She began to wail, rocking back and forth like a child in need of comfort.

Freddie didn’t know what to do. He stood up and paced around in front of the window, hoping her crying would subside if he ignored the situation. It didn’t. Finally, not knowing what other measure to take, he sat down on the bed and put his arm gingerly around her. She clung to him, burying her face against his shoulder, and sobbed for several minutes more. Freddie awkwardly patted her hair and murmured what he hoped were comforting sounds. Eventually, her emotional storm began to dissipate.

“He didn’t forget me,” she finally whispered through her tears. “After what I did to him, he still didn’t forget me.” When she looked up into Freddie’s eyes, her own were red and swollen from crying. “Oh, mister, you have to tell him for me how sorry I am! Tell him that for me, please!”

“Sorry?” Freddie repeated the inexplicable word. “Sorry for what?”

“Then he didn’t tell you about me?”

“No, not a word. Just gave me the picture to show you.” Freddie had no idea what turn the conversation had taken, but decided to follow wherever
Rosa
led.

The girl slumped down farther. Her head still rested dejectedly on his shoulder. She sniffled to clear her nose and wiped the tears away with the back of her sleeve. “Oh, it’s a long story, and it happened a long time ago. But seeing his picture. It brings it all back to me. I’ve never told a living soul except Mr. Sidley till now.”

At the mention of the name, Freddie’s spine stiffened but he said nothing.

“You say you’re a friend of his?” Her face had taken on the innocent expectancy of a child on Christmas morning. “How did you come to know him?”

Freddie fended off the question. “That’s not important right now. Let’s just say I’ve been commissioned to take a personal interest in this matter.”

“But you do know him well, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Freddie managed to force the word out between clenched teeth. “Yes, I know him very well. You can trust me. I’ll make sure that matters are put to rights.”

“Oh, if only they could be.” She sighed and sat up straighter. “But it’s a long, long story.

Chapter 25—Deja Vu

“I guess I first set eyes on Mr.
DeVille
—”

“Mr.
DeVille
?” Freddie interrupted.

“Yes, Mr. Jonathan
DeVille
… your friend…,”
Rosa
looked at him doubtfully, “the man in the picture?”

“Oh yes, how stupid of me.” Freddie laughed. “I always think of him by his nickname, and so it startles me when I hear him called something else.”

“Oh... ,”
Rosa
replied, without curiosity as to the specific alias and without noting the sigh of relief Freddie had just exhaled.

“Anyway, as I was saying, I guess I first met him at the union dance, and it was just by accident.”

Freddie returned to his chair so he could face
Rosa
while she spoke. “Go on. I’m listening. How was it by accident?”

“Well, of all things, I was supposed to be there with somebody else—Mr. Sidley, as a matter of fact.”
Rosa
pushed her hair back off her face. The shock of seeing
Blackthorne’s
picture had apparently sobered her up. She looked at Freddie in embarrassment. “Oh, I’m sorry. You probably don’t know who Mister Sidley is, do you?”

Without that lucky prompt, Freddie had almost put his neck in the noose again. “No. Never heard of him. Who is he?”

Rosa looked down at the floor and surprisingly, given her occupation, began to blush. “Well, I think he was sweet on me at one time. I wasn’t always the way I am now.” She sighed and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at the ceiling to blink them back before continuing. “I used to work in a book bindery. I even wanted to join the trade union, and I took classes at Mast House. You’ve heard of that place, haven’t you?”

“Oh yes.” Freddie assumed his clerk-on-holiday persona in time. “Even in
Peoria
we get the news from the big city. I hear Mast House has helped many people.”

“Yes, it has. Miss Jane is a living, breathing saint if ever there was one. Well, anyway, Mr. Sidley volunteered his time there as the bookkeeper. We became friends, and one day he said someone had given him tickets to the Printers’ Union Dance, and he asked if I’d like to come with him, seeing as I was interested in joining the union.”

“I see.” Freddie was beginning to trace an unfortunate pattern.
Rosa
’s next words came as no surprise.

“But the funniest thing happened. Mr. Sidley and I arranged to meet at the dance because he said he had to stay late at Mast House and couldn’t escort me there himself. So he gave me my ticket ahead of time. What a funny man he was.” For the first time, Freddie saw
Rosa
indulge herself in a brief smile.

“How so?”

“Well, he was very particular to know what I was going to wear. He even asked me to pin a red rose to my hat so he could be sure to spot me in the crowd. Doesn’t that beat everything?” She shook her head. “But he was like that. Always wanted to plan things out in advance.”

“He sounds like a very careful planner indeed. And did he manage to find you in the crowd with your red rose?”

Rosa frowned. “That’s the odd part. He never came. I found out afterward that he was called in by Miss Ellen because she wanted some bills paid right away, so he couldn’t be there at all.”

“And, I take it, that’s when you met
Mr
… uh…
   
Mr.
DeVille
?”

“Yes.”
Rosa
nodded. “That was the first time I ever laid eyes on him. I think maybe I even fell in love with him right then and there.”

Freddie stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “He had such an immediate effect on you?” He tried to keep from sounding too skeptical.

“Oh, yes. He did.”
Rosa
smiled wistfully at the memory. “He wasn’t like any of the other fellows I knew. He was a gentleman. He knew how to talk to a girl and make her feel like she was a queen.”

She stood up and walked over to the window. Unexpectedly, she pulled up the shade and let in a burst of afternoon light. “It’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?” She turned to Freddie for confirmation before lifting the sash and letting in a cool lake breeze. The threadbare lace curtains began to float delicately on the air current.
Rosa
resumed her seat on the bed.

“So anyway, there I was in the dancehall, standing in the corner and looking for Mr. Sidley to come in. I must have been standing there half an hour and I’d just about decided to go back home, when he walked up to me.”

“He, being Mr.
DeVille
?”

“Yes. He was so polite. ‘Excuse me, miss,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you were looking for someone. Is there anything I can do to assist you in locating your companion?’ That was just how he said it... so genteel. I knew right then that he wasn’t one of those fellows you have to watch out for.”

“I’m sure he always acted the part of the gentleman.”

Rosa took his observation at face value. “Oh, yes. Always. So he asked me to describe Mr. Sidley and told me that he’d go around and look for him and that I should wait right there. But before he left, he found me a chair and fetched me a glass of punch, too. ‘So you’ll be comfortable while you wait’ was what he said. After about fifteen minutes, he came back looking very down-in-the-mouth. ‘I’m sorry, dear lady’—you can be sure nobody ever called me that before. Anyway, he says, ‘I’m sorry, dear lady, but your gentleman friend seems to have deserted you. I’ve made several inquiries, and no one matching that description has arrived.’”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, I was about to get my wrap and go home when Mr.
DeVille
says, ‘May I escort you, miss? It may not be entirely safe for you to go home alone. I wouldn’t feel right about abandoning you.’ He was so very kind to me. So very kind, and to think the way I repaid that kindness.” She looked as if she were about to burst into tears again.

Freddie tried to forestall another crisis by distracting her. “Well, did he walk you home?”

Rosa caught herself and focused again. “As it turned out, we had just about gone out the door when an idea occurred to him.”

“Just like that, on the spur of the moment...”

“Yes, he says to me, ‘But, dear lady, perhaps I’m rushing you home without consulting your wishes in the matter.’ Wasn’t that a nice way of putting it?”
Rosa
’s eyes sparkled at the memory. “I can’t remember anybody ever consulting my wishes about anything at all before that night.”

“Oh yes, that was most thoughtful of him.”

“Anyway, he asked if I wanted to stay at the dance, and he offered to be my escort.”

“And I take it you decided to stay?”

“Oh, my yes. It was still early and everyone was so jolly, I didn’t want to miss the fun. We had such a time.” She smiled in disbelief that there could be that much pleasure in the world. “Such a time.”

“And afterward?” Freddie saw that
Rosa
had become tangled in the memory and was unwilling to return to the present.

“Well, afterward, he escorted me home and asked if he might see me again sometime.”

“And you said, ‘yes’?”

“I did,”
Rosa
confirmed with a smile.

“And what about Mr. Sidley? He mustn’t have liked the way things turned out.”

Rosa grew embarrassed. “Well, you have to understand. Mr. Sidley and I were just friends. I never cared for him that way. He was clumsy and awkward and he stuttered whenever he got nervous, which was most of the time. A very nice man but... ,” she trailed off, leaving the rest of Sidley’s oddities unspoken.

“But didn’t he care for you?”

“Oh, I suppose. But when I explained things to him, he understood. We remained friends. Sometimes I think after all that happened, he was my only real friend.”

Freddie decided to let that remark pass for the moment. He focused back on
Blackthorne
instead. “So, in any case, you continued to meet with Mr... Bl... that is,
DeVille
?”

“Yes, but there was a complication.”
Rosa
grew hesitant. “You see, Mama always watched me like a hawk. She was scared that I’d turn out to be... to be... ,” she stopped and her face contorted with bitterness.

“It’s all right. I understand.” Freddie intercepted the explanation, fearing that it might upset her to continue.

Rosa laughed unpleasantly. “All my friends who went out in the evening with young men, she called them whores. But they weren’t doing anything wrong—just innocent fun. I don’t know what she wanted from me—to stay home and pray the rosary with her, I suppose. Maybe she thought there would be an arranged marriage for me someday, like there was for her and Papa in the old country. But things are different here. Girls don’t get shut up in houses until they’re married. They work in factories, and they go out in the evening. When I’d come home late, even from Mast House, she’d call me a slut. She’d say if I didn’t go to confession and tell the priest all the wicked things I’d done, then I’d burn in hell. Isn’t that funny? What she was most afraid of, that’s just what happened.” The twisted smile remained on her face.

Freddie tried to distract her once again. “So, you agreed to meet Mr.
DeVille
somewhere other than your own front porch?”

Rosa drew her wrapper more closely around her shoulders. “It had to be that way. Mama would have beat me half to death if she knew I had a gentleman friend. So we’d meet at different places in the city. Places where I was sure no one would tattle on me.”

“Such as?”

“Well, we’d go to different beer gardens on the North Side. They were respectable places and families would go there. There would be orchestras so it was noisy, with plenty of people so you wouldn’t get noticed. And he didn’t want to get noticed either.”

“Oh, why was that?”

“Well, from what he told me, he came from a rich family. And the turn things took between us…”

Freddie was confused. “I don’t understand.”

Rosa smiled wistfully. “Well, we got more and more attached to each other, so one evening, he said he wanted to marry me.”

“Really? That’s a surprise!” Freddie tried to fit the pieces together.

“Yes, it would have been quite a shock to his family. He said he was afraid they would disinherit him if they found out about it in the wrong way. I told him I didn’t care if he didn’t have a penny, as long as we could be together. But he just smiled and said, ‘No, my darling, I want to be able to treat you like a queen.’”

Rosa was luminous at the memory. “Can you imagine? I never expected anybody to say that to me my whole life, yet there he was saying something that wonderful. ‘I want to dress you in silks and I want to have enough money to give you servants and a fine house, and you’ll never have to lift a finger to work, ever again.’ That was what he wanted for me.”

“Quite a generous man. There seems to be no limit to what he’s capable of.”

“It was wonderful! Like a beautiful dream, and I was floating on a pink cloud somewhere up in the sky. He gave me a china rose pendant to wear around my neck. He said that it was a pledge of true love, that I should wear it until he made good on his promise, and that on our wedding day he would exchange it for a gold ring. He said that if I ever parted with it, he’d know I didn’t love him.”

Dreading the answer to his next question, Freddie asked anyway. “And what happened then?”

Rosa shook her head as if she couldn’t reconcile the contradiction. “It all went wrong. Terrible things began to happen—terrible. One night, when we parted, he said he was going to break the news to his family about me. We arranged to meet the following Thursday at a beer garden we used to go to. But when I went there, he didn’t come.”

“Oh?” Freddie was puzzled. “Did he try to get a message to you?”

“No.”
Rosa
’s face grew troubled. “I waited and waited, but there was still no word. So I went back there every night for a week, hoping I could see him.”

“But didn’t you try to contact him?”

“I never knew where he lived. It was somewhere north of the city. I’d never known anyone in high society before. I didn’t know where to start. I got more and more downhearted. I still kept up with my classes but my blue mood must have shown through, because one night Mr. Sidley came by as I was leaving and asked me what was wrong.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“We went to his office, and I just blurted out the whole awful story—how I couldn’t reach Jonathan, how I didn’t know if he’d forgotten me. I even showed Mr. Sidley the rose pendant.”

Rosa stood up and walked to the window. She leaned out for a breath of fresh air. Freddie got up and came to stand beside her. “I’m sorry this is so painful for you to tell me.” He felt genuinely concerned.

She looked up at him and smiled slightly. “The way I recollect things, it’s so strange. After two years, you’d think it wouldn’t matter to me at all, wouldn’t you?”

Freddie regarded her sadly. “I think memory can have a way of making you feel as if the past is happening right now. All the misery... it feels just the same.”

“You’re a very kind man, mister.”
Rosa
looked at him pensively. “But you asked, and I won’t quit until I’ve told you the whole story.” She took a deep breath of fresh air and returned to her seat on the bed.