Lawless (77 page)

“Are reprehensible.” Samuel scowled. “Since when is it a crime to grow rich?” he asked rhetorically. Then he went on, “Nevertheless, the rail strike is nothing less than communism in its worst and most poisonous form—not only unlawful and revolutionary but anti-American. It is the dread Commune of 1871 reborn on our very soil!”

He ended the reading dramatically. Reaction ranged from ashen faces to a breathy “Amen.” Eleanor was about to ask a question when Mills tromped in, carrying more papers.

“The
Union’s
out.” His voice was strangely hoarse. “It contains Mr. Kent’s final dispatch from Pittsburgh.”

Eleanor rushed to his side. “What do you mean, final?”

He was careful to avoid her eyes. “During yesterday’s violence, he was shot.”

She could hardly believe it. But the black-bordered box on page one was indeed headed
OUR PUBLISHER INJURED.

Quickly she read the special bulletin copy. Her father had been shot during mob violence at the Twenty-eighth Street crossing of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He’d been taken to a hospital and, following removal of the bullet from his left side, his condition had stabilized.

Eleanor was conscious of the servants pressing in around her, as anxious as she was to learn what had happened. A part of her hated Gideon—and with justification, she believed—but at a time like this, he remained her father. Blood ties were stronger than any other, she was forced to admit.

“My Lord, they burned boxcars and rolled ’em into the depot where the Philly militia spent the night!” Bridgit exclaimed, pointing to the ten-deck headline of the main story. But Eleanor was scanning Theo Payne’s signed editorial statement below the boxed bulletin.

—and while the arson, bloodshed and looting in Pittsburgh cannot be condoned in the name of the struggle for workingmen’s rights, neither can we condone what is being done in other quarters. We refer to the widely published accusations against the strikers.

It is alleged that, to the last man, the participants in the strike are Marxists. Such statements are not only false and dishonorable; they are dangerous. Society must rigorously punish lawbreakers, but just as rigorously protect the right of legitimate protest. It is the opinion of this journal, and this writer, that a peaceful strike falls under the last heading.

We want no part of Communism in America. But neither do we want it used as an all too convenient tar brush with which the illiterate, the gullible and the unscrupulous alike may attempt to ruin reputations and eliminate honest dissent.

Reactions were quick and varied. Eleanor admired what Payne had written. But one of the other girls who’d been reading along with her exclaimed, “Why, he’s as much as standing up for them Communards.”

Eleanor frowned. “Surely you don’t get that out of it, Martha.”

“Indeed I do, ma’am.” Others nodded vigorously.

“But Payne says Communism isn’t wanted in America. Look—it’s right there.”

“I’m reading between the lines, ma’am. I won’t say any more.”

“Yes! Explain what you mean.”

“Well, ma’am—I beg your pardon, since your father is the publisher, and he’s just been hurt, but—the truth is, I trust other papers more than I trust the
Union.
Other papers are more patriotic. That one, for instance.”

She pointed to another edition Cook had picked up from the stack Mills had brought in. One of the main headlines was clearly visible:

COMMUNISTS LEAD PITTSBURGH RAMPAGE!

Eleanor realized what the young girl was saying. The
Union
had been misread, misjudged, and found guilty of standing for something other than the best interests of the country—at least as most of the people in the kitchen perceived them. She was appalled that anyone with half a brain could be taken in by sweeping allegations and at the same time distort or actually ignore the exact words Payne had used to explain the
Union’s
position. She didn’t know who was right or wrong in the debate over the strike, but she was learning some unpleasant lessons about human fear and fallibility.

The butler summed it up. “If this is an example of how trade unions work to improve the lot of their members, I say hang every man who belongs to one!”

No one in the kitchen disagreed, not even Eleanor—she was too stunned by the ferocity of Samuel’s statement.

Around dusk it began to drizzle. Margaret had stayed in her bedroom throughout most of the weekend. But she lurched to Eleanor’s room around nine o’clock.

Eleanor hadn’t told her mother about Gideon’s injury. She doubted Margaret would have understood what she was trying to say, and she knew the mere mention of her father would probably send her mother into a spell of incoherent fury. It always did.

She’d shared the news only with Will. His face showed barely a glimmer of reaction. When she told him Gideon would pull through, he murmured, “Good,” and walked off. It was typical of his listless behavior of late.

A moment after Margaret entered their room, Eleanor thought her mother must have heard the bad news from one of the servants. She’d seldom seen the older woman so wild-eyed.

“The men are in the Park again. I opened the window and I could hear their voices.”

“Oh, Mama, please don’t start—” Eleanor bit her lip.

There was no point in arguing with someone so disturbed.

“Please don’t worry,” she resumed, as patiently as she could. “I’ll inspect the downstairs to make sure everything’s locked.”

Margaret’s pale hand quivered near her chin. “You’ve seen them too?”

“No, Mama. I’m just trying to set your mind at ease.”

“I tell you they’re watching this house!”

Gently, Eleanor patted her mother until she calmed a little. Then she took Margaret’s hand and led her back down the hall. “I’ll make certain we’re safe. Leave everything to me. Here’s your room—why don’t you lie down and rest if you can?”

Margaret peered at her in a vacant way, as if she didn’t recognize her daughter. The whiskey stench was stronger than ever. For a moment Eleanor understood why her father had found living with Margaret impossible.

It took the older woman almost a minute to fumble the bedroom key out of her pocket, then insert it in the lock. She seemed alarmed by Eleanor’s attempts to help, as though her daughter’s presence somehow threatened the sanctity of the room. Finally she got the door open and disappeared inside without a word.

Eleanor heard her relock the door. Wearily, she turned and walked down the front stairs. Because the evening was sultry, the window on the landing was open. As Eleanor walked by, she glanced outside. She stopped, her heart suddenly beating fast.

Was her mind playing tricks too? Against the darker background of the trees in Central Park, other shadows seemed to be stirring. Stirring and flowing across Fifth Avenue.

Then, distinctly, she heard a man’s voice. He was calling something—an order, a question—to someone else. The shadow figures flowed on, not fully visible or even clearly defined as yet, but unmistakably
there,
a tide flooding toward the mansion.

She glanced over her shoulder. Where was Will? Reading in his room. The servants? Mills had the evening off. That left Samuel, plus one footman and the women.

And she could think of no weapons in the house except for the antique sword hanging in the parlor.

Picking up her skirts, she raced down the last flight just as the unlocked front door burst open. The first of the shabbily dressed men lumbered in, a billy in his fist.

The man shouted to others crowding in behind him.

“There’s one!” He peered at Eleanor. “You be Kent’s daughter, girl? You’re too finely dressed for one of the kitchen sculls.”

She counted at least six in addition to the man with the billy. He was middle-aged, paunchy, and smelled of sweat and tobacco. A sore glistened on the stubble of his right cheek. Trembling but trying not to show it, she said to him, “Get out of this house.”

The leader snickered. “What? You’re givin’ orders to us? We’re the ones doin’ the dishin’ out, missy. We don’t care for your dirty Comminist father, his Comminist paper nor his Comminist family, either.”

He stuck the billy in his rope belt and reached behind him. One of the others handed him a bucket of red paint. He flung the contents over the wall to his left.

At the side of the house, glass broke. A dining room window. Footsteps pounded along Sixty-first Street.

Eleanor glanced anxiously at the staircase. The running footsteps faded, then they grew loud again. The men at the rear were inside the house. Cook screamed.

“Will, lock your door!” Eleanor cried. She spun and raced for the parlor. Laughing, the thug with the billy came after her. So did two of his companions.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a man with his pants open, and something white in his hand. The sight of it turned her cheeks scarlet. The man hummed and danced a clumsy jig as urine ran down the foyer wall.

“I don’t think she liked the looks of Sharkey’s machine,” said one of the men crowding the parlor door. Deep in the lightless room, she dashed for the mantel. She wrenched the French infantry sword from its pegs. Yanked the scabbard off and cast it aside. Shrieks and the sounds of breaking furniture and glass grew steadily louder at the back of the house.

Standing in darkness with her three pursuers silhouetted against the glow of gaslight in the foyer, Eleanor had a slight advantage. If only she had the nerve to use it.

The man who’d spoken touched his crotch. “Maybe she’ll like mine a little bet—”

Eleanor ran at him. The sword would have pierced his groin if he hadn’t pivoted to the left, taking the blade in his right thigh. His trousers tore. He yelled but he didn’t fall. He pulled a shot-loaded stocking from his rear pocket and whipped it against her temple.

The blow drove her all the way back to the mantel. She struck her head, grew momentarily dizzy. A second man leaped at her.

Hard, rough nails dug the inside of her wrist. Try as she would, she couldn’t hold on to the sword. The man grabbed it.

“I got the sticker, Freddie.” The man’s labored breathing slowed as he spoke to the leader. “Hubble didn’t tell us the gal was a looker.”

Hubble? Who was that?

The man yanked her arm. “Let’s get them clothes off, gal. We’re going to give you what for—”

“I’m first.” The leader shoved the other man aside. The wounded one had collapsed into a chair, his stabbed leg stuck out in front of him. The foyer gaslight gleamed on the blood staining his pants.

“First,” the leader repeated. “Come on, dear. Come on, you Comminist bitch. Don’t be shy. Show Freddie your tits an’ your other treasures—what d’you say?”

And then two of them were all over her with strong hands she couldn’t turn aside.

They pressed her against the mantel. Her bodice tore. She writhed, kicked, bit at the hands groping over her body. Her struggle only seemed to excite them further. They got through to her undergarments, ripped them and flung her down on the uncarpeted hearth.

Her ruined dress bunched into a hard, hurtful knot beneath her. The hearthstone was unbearably cold on the backs of her thighs. Freddie knelt and worked a finger, then a thumb between her legs.

Pushing.

Twisting.

Hurting
—

Her heart began to pound in her bare breast. She felt sick at her stomach as Freddie touched her—thrust at her—but not with his hand any longer. She bit down on her lower lip while he grunted.

God, it was painful.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t move beneath Freddie’s heaving body. The second man was behind her, holding her wrists up over her head. There was no appeal. No reprieve. And nothing but her will to prevent them from knowing how much they were hurting and humiliating her.

I will not scream.

She said it over and over, in silence, her eyes closed, her cheeks wet with tears, as Freddie jerked and gasped.

I will not let such animals hear me scream.

Animals.

Men.

The same thing.

All the same thing.

Leo Goldman might never have existed.

When the sounds of the destruction reached the second floor, Margaret Kent dropped the bottle from which she’d been sipping, unbolted her door and stumbled out of her room.

She brushed away the loose hair that blurred her vision like a veil. Two men—two strangers—appeared at the head of the stairs. One of them emptied a bucket of red paint on a wall. Then they saw her.

There was danger here.
Danger.
All at once she was lucid, and in charge of herself. She calmly locked her door from the outside. Then she glanced across the hall, to where she thought she’d heard a whisper.

Sure enough, she saw part of Will’s white face—half a nose, a frightened eye—beyond the narrow opening of his door. Behind her, she heard the men advancing. She knew who they were, of course. She wanted to howl with fright. But she fought the impulse long enough to say, “Will, bolt your door and pile furniture in front of it. Don’t open the door unless you’re told to do so by Eleanor or cook or Samuel or someone else whose voice you recognize.”

She heard one of the men say, “Must be old lady Kent.”

“Will,
do it!”

He obeyed, shutting the door. Then she turned to confront them.

Her mind gave way.

They’ve come for me. Come to punish me, just as I knew they would.

Eleanor had secretly laughed at her fears. Margaret had sensed the disbelief a dozen times. But the men were real. They’d been biding their time in the Park. Waiting all through the autumn. The winter. The spring.

Now they’d come. Now Eleanor would
believe.

Screaming in a wild way that made the two roughly clad men exchange hesitant looks, Margaret ran from them. She couldn’t flee past them, so it was logical to flee in the other direction.
Punish,
the pumping of her heart seemed to murmur in her ear.
Punish
for hurting Gideon.
Punish
for deceiving Gideon.
Punish
for alienating Gideon’s children.