Belle Cora: A Novel Page 31

  “Why don’t you order for me?” I said. “And then you can read the letter, and we’ll have something to talk about.”

  “You’re here in the flesh. Why don’t you just tell me what’s in it?”

  “I labored over its composition. I don’t want it to go to waste.”

  “All right. Do you like veal?”

  “I’m happy to try it,” I said.

  “Wine?”

  “Yes, and quickly.”

  He laughed. I was amusing him already. He ordered with the expected fluency. When I drank the wine I felt its power immediately, as abstemious people do, and was less nervous about the future. What would be would be. The rich man would decide.

  He read my letter without a change of expression and put it into his waistcoat. He took a sip from his glass as the waiter came forward to refill mine.

  “The Sixth Ward is certainly badly governed. I did not know it was governed out of a grocery, but I can believe it.” My letter had mentioned Con Donoho and his wife. “How did you come to meet that woman?”

  Sipping more slowly on my second glass of wine, I told him of my experiences in New York, starting with my encounter with the bad man with the poet’s hair and the cane, and how, while escaping him, I had come to my old house; and Mrs. Shea, who had given me the name of Mrs. Donoho. “Will you be able to help me?”

  “I’m sure I can do something,” he said. “What a life of adventure you lead.”

  The waiter was bringing the dishes now.

  “It only seems that way when I tell it quickly. It has been mostly drudgery.”

  “I hope you’ll let me change that.”

  If that was a question, I was not ready to answer it, so I just smiled at him.

  “Do you like the theater?” he asked me.

  “Probably.”

  “We could go to the theater tonight, you and I. Of course I’ll help your brother. You can rest easy, knowing that, and in the meantime, we can enjoy ourselves.”

  “All right,” I said, smiling at him.

  I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen tonight, and if I must take this fearful step, I preferred to do it in an atmosphere of music and wine and oysters and such amusements as he had described to me on the Israel Putnam. Luxury was supposed to be the thing that tempted weak-willed girls from the path of virtue, and it was a terrible mistake and a bad bargain; I had always heard that, and I believed it. But if I had to be bad, I might as well have the pleasant things that came along with it, and I welcomed distraction as someone undergoing a surgical operation would welcome ether.

  The food came to us. Together, Eric Gordon and I discovered that I did like veal, that I had a great talent for liking viands well cooked in the French mode, and that my mouth looked pretty when I was attempting to pronounce their names.

  Since it was early for the theater, we first walked arm in arm to the fountain at City Hall, and from there to a great gaudy five-story building with flags on the roof, oval paintings of its attractions between the windows, and the name BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM running under the fourth-story windows along Anne Street. In the company of visitors from the world over, we went from floor to floor, looking at dioramas, panoramas, models of Dublin, Paris, Niagara Falls (with flowing water); mechanical figures, industrious fleas, educated dogs, jugglers, automatons, ventriloquists, living statues; American Indians doing rain dances in full ceremonial dress, the very club with which Captain Cook was killed in the Sandwich Islands.

  We then walked to the Park Theatre, which burned down a few years later. It was evening. Lamps were on. The streets were full of hacks and carriages and elegantly dressed strollers. Men tipped their hats to me. It was a worldly throng, friendly and at ease with each other; the preachers and the deep thinkers were at home, eating their dinners and rebuking their children, and we were safe from their disapproval.

  The Park was small by today’s standards, but beautiful, with gaslight chandeliers, well-upholstered chairs, and attendants; and Eric had a subscription to a box. We saw a musical number, with a singer, followed by a play featuring Edwin Forrest, Bridget’s favorite actor. The play was Spartacus, which allowed Forrest—whose figure was much admired, though he struck me as too stout—to stand half naked, waving a sword, while lecturing ancient Romans on modern American notions. The mechanics, who adored Forrest, sat in the pit, eating peanuts and sandwiches, insulting the actors they disliked, and whooping and whistling at each entrance of their hero. In those days, clergymen considered theaters to be cesspools of immorality, and they knew whereof they spoke: one could see the men in the lower tiers leaving their boxes to visit the prostitutes in the third tier, a section reserved for such people back then, as even I who had never been in a theater before knew. After Spartacus there was a minstrel show.

  Then came the reckoning. Eric said that he knew a place where we could get a nice little supper. Outside the theater, he hailed a hack; once we were in it, he told the driver to circle the park until further orders; he put his arms around me and kissed me; I let him. He said I was a fascinating creature; I had bewitched him, he was under my spell, he was mine to command, I could do what I wanted with him. He said it as a sort of absentminded amorous patter while his expert fingers busied themselves with my clothes, like an Italian barber simultaneously telling a joke and administering a shave. Or like a man who is good with a nervous horse: it would be given a carrot, spoken to softly—it didn’t matter what was said—and mounted. He kept moving past barriers, some tangible, some abstract, each a cue for me to protest if I cared to, but I did not, for he was bound to discover eventually that I was not a virgin. Without virginity to bargain with, I must please him enough for him to want to have me more than once. Anyway, that’s how I thought. At last his hands found the door to my womb. His fingers stroked me not unpleasantly, delving farther as my responses lubricated the passage. Discovering no barrier, he said, “It is as I hoped.” He slipped my undergarments aside and lifted me so that I straddled his lap, with my skirts around us both. As he pulled me closer, the tip of his manhood, which I had not even realized had been exposed, penetrated my depths. I gasped. He drew me closer. I shut my eyes and pulled Eric’s head against my bosom.

  Without a doubt, the answer of my flesh to his attentions pleased Eric. It was real, and he knew the difference. Otherwise, he would have spared himself the trouble and expense of seduction and been content with prostitutes.

  He lifted me up as he was about to have his crisis, and spent his seed in a handkerchief; then, with a consideration rare among men who fancy themselves great lovers, he stroked me with his fingers until I had my own satisfaction. He gave new instructions to the driver.

  So at last it had happened; I had given myself to a man, voluntarily, without a wedding. I thought, like countless other girls, that after all it had been easy. The ground had not opened beneath me. Everything was just the same as before, except for a mild physical satiety, as though I had eaten an apple. I felt a bit more warmly toward Eric and wondered what he thought about me now. I was still worried about my brother, and I wondered where all this would lead. Though I felt that I had taken a step down a slippery slope, I realized that I had been on that slope a while.

  Supper was at an oyster saloon, near enough to the Park Theatre for us to have walked. We ate in a private room. His manner was altered. There was a frankness, almost as if I were another man rather than a woman, a lack of deference compensated for by an easygoing friendliness.

  He said that he wouldn’t speak of it if I minded, but it seemed to him that I had a little experience with men, though not enough to spoil my delightful freshness. I told him about Matthew, how he had forced me, how I had had to get rid of the child, and how it had ruined my chance of marrying the man I loved, how Matthew had confessed to his crime the day we all believed the world was about to end, and how my brother had repaid him for his foul deed.

  Eric’s reactions were different for each stage of my story. He commis
erated with me for the untimely loss of my virginity and the ruin of my marital prospects. He made no comment regarding my self-induced miscarriage. The circumstances of Matthew’s confession amused him; he told me a few secondhand tales of Millerites in New York City who had stood on rooftops in their white ascension robes. When I told him that, so far as I knew, Matthew was still unable to walk, he said, “It seems a little hard.”

  “Not to me,” I said.

  “It’s all nonsense,” he said, “left over from the Dark Ages, this store that people set on virginity and chastity.”

  He did not think he was changing the subject. Perhaps, with girls less cooperative than I, Eric himself had used a bit of force to complete his conquest, and thought of it as only natural.

  From the oyster saloon we went to bed—to my disappointment, not at the Astor, but at a clean, well-furnished house of assignation, where they were careful not to greet him like the steady customer he probably was. With the lamps still on, he undressed me; he had me turn and show myself to him, every part. He disrobed and showed me his staff, its rigid state “a tribute to your charms,” he said. He asked me if I dared to touch it, and when my finger circled it he said, “Brave girl, oh, what a brave girl you are.” By morning, it seemed to me that—as they say in books—nothing remained hidden from me.

  It was already the afternoon of the next day when I awoke and looked at him. He lay with his head back and his neck exposed, his arm over his brow, one leg hidden by the covers, another out. I thought: It will be all right, he will love me.

  Perhaps he loved me already. He was attached to the delights of the bedroom, and I had pleased him. He had said over and over that he had never been with a woman who was so perfectly proportioned; that I looked better with each shred of clothing removed; no part of me had disappointed him. I was happy to accept his invitation to forget the old rules, under which I was irreparably destroyed, and accept a new set of rules, under which I was beginning life with great advantages. He had said I was wonderful. I knew it did not always mean love when men said things like that. But maybe it would mean that this time. He would love me. I would love him—I could feel it already, though it was not so easy at the moment to separate the love from need. He would leave his wife (who could not have been very good to him or he would not have looked elsewhere for affection!). We would defy convention, like Byron and Shelley and their lady friends. We would go to Switzerland and Italy.

  I reached across the bed and touched his cheek with my finger. His eyes opened, his gaze settled on me, and he smiled. “Look at you,” he said.

  I kissed him on the eyes. He pulled me to him and had me again, sweetly at first, but then not so sweetly. It turned out that I had not in fact learned everything the night before, and I received the impression that much of what we had done then had been merely a preparation and that he was now doing what he had really wanted to do all along. When he was finished I had a changed opinion of myself, and I believed, with a dismay that I was not quite ready to acknowledge, that this had been an important part of his purpose; that it figured largely in his pleasure.

  My face was in the pillow as his body uncovered mine. I lay like that awhile. Then I turned on my back, pulled the sheet up to cover my nakedness, and looked at a bumpy patch of plaster on the ceiling. “Take me away somewhere,” I said after a while, and he replied promptly with a list of possible amusements for the day. “No,” I pressed him. “I mean far away. After my brother is freed. Let’s go to Italy. Take me to Italy. I want to see Florence. I want to see Venice.”

  There was a pause, and he said, “Italy. Well, it would be a little awkward, this time of year. As I think you know, I have other demands on my time, people who depend upon me.”

  “Do you love her? Your wife?”

  “I must ask you not to speak of my wife,” he said quietly. “I alluded to her just now when I saw something had to be explained, something a smart girl like you ought to have understood, but I must insist that you not mention her again.” Then, in a be-sensible tone, he said, “When you said your brother was in trouble, I believed you. Is he really in the Tombs for assaulting a policeman?”

  I was trembling. “Yes. And robbery. But he didn’t do it. Only the assault, and it was less than the bastard deserved.”

  “I have no way of knowing that, but let’s say he didn’t. Were you really told that a bribe handled by an Irish grocer would resolve the problem?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you see, I find that hard to credit. In my experience, grocers sell salt meat and potatoes and coffee and maybe a glass of whiskey; they don’t dispose of criminal-law cases. I can’t help wondering if you are being deceived.”

  “Constantine Donoho is the Sixth Ward street inspector,” I said, and then I was silent for a while, gathering my thoughts. “In Five Points, that makes him important, because he has jobs to give out that don’t involve any work. He happens also to own a grocery, and does his business out of it. He’s a politician, really. He knows the other politicians. They do each other favors. For example, he knows Alderman O’Daniel.”

  I had more, but he stopped me. He didn’t really care, and—though I didn’t realize this until much later—he still didn’t believe me. Girls like me always had an imaginary friend in dire straits. “How much do you need?”

  I told him.

  He laughed. “You might as well ask me for a trip to Venice again. It wouldn’t cost any more. Oh no, don’t do that.” I was weeping. “Don’t. I can help you out. I can help solve your problem. I just can’t be the whole solution. I can give you twenty dollars. All right. Twenty-five. That is my limit, and believe me, it is high praise. I give it to you out of gratitude and admiration, out of my very high regard for you.”

  “But I’ve given you everything!”

  “Now, don’t exaggerate,” said Eric dryly. “You had parted with some before we met. And you’ll find now, if you do an inventory, that you have stock enough to last you many years. And twenty-five dollars isn’t chicken feed. But if you really need more …”

  “There’s no if about it.”

  “Be that as it may, you can easily get more.” Because I was silent then, he added, “There are other men like me.” I remained silent, and he misinterpreted me again, this time by overestimating the amount of my knowledge. “I even know some, but I’m afraid I cannot introduce you to them. If I did that, I would quickly find myself in a new line of business, and the dry-goods business keeps me busy enough. Now, don’t sulk.”

  In those days, I thought I was pretty good at giving people my opinion of them. I wanted to do that with Eric Gordon then. It would have made me feel better for a while. Something held me back. Maybe I realized that whatever I said I couldn’t hurt him very much, or that it was better not to burn my bridges before I understood the terms of this new life. Perhaps it was just that I didn’t want to show this man my feelings. I had surrendered too much to him already.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was weak for a moment.”

  “Yes, and bless you for it,” he said. To show he wasn’t angry, he began speaking again of the day’s possible amusements. I told him that I was tired, perhaps another time, and that when I moved I would leave him my address so that he could write me letters or send me messages if he cared to. He said, “Before I forget,” and gave me twenty-five dollars in silver.

  I DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT. I had to decide. I went back to the house of the elderly sisters, who docked me a full day’s wages for having missed half a day of work. For two days I swept out fireplaces, trimmed wicks, and scrubbed floors. On the third day, when they sent me with a shopping list out to the Washington Market, I went instead to the house where Jocelyn now worked. The colored girl who opened the door for me told me that Mrs. Bower was in bed with ague in her home on Lafayette Street. I walked there and announced myself to another servant, who came back saying, “She’ll see you.”

  As I sat by Mrs. Bower’s bed, we discussed my future. We agreed
that she would advance me the money I needed for my brother, and also some money for new clothes. In return, I would become the new girl at her best house, the finest in this great city, patronized by the city’s leading men and important visitors from other states, who were all on their best behavior when they were there—so Mrs. Bower assured me. If I did not like the life, once I had earned the money I owed her I could leave and there would be no hard feelings. Or perhaps I would stay on until I had earned enough to open up a little shop. There were girls who did that. Not many, but such things happened. I thanked her, promising that I would not disappoint her. I was lying, however, for I planned that as soon as Lewis was free I would kill myself.

  XXXII

  IF THIS WERE A PLAY, AN INTERMISSION would come here. The next act would take place “two years later,” and when the curtain rose again I’d be stepping out of a carriage, entering a drawing room looking respectable, or in a bed dying gracefully and repentantly, and all the degrading actions that had intervened would be delicately alluded to in subsequent dialogue. If only life could be like that! In our actual lives, the humiliations authors turn away from must be endured second by second, with only drink or a bad memory to provide a respite.

  If, in Mrs. Bower’s house, a bit of illusion remained, this was not to make things easier for the girls, but because it was part of our service. Before we went upstairs, there was conversation downstairs, and glasses were filled and sipped and refilled. It wasn’t the raucous carousing of a bordello, but an imitation of polite society as the men in society secretly wished it to be. There would be flirting, gallant compliments, and giggling rejoinders. We went to bed under the pretense that a forbidden romance was moving forward at an impossible speed.

  How delightful it would be, for the wealthy man about town, if the pretty girl he met in her family’s drawing room could, for the right payment to her father, be whisked upstairs and rogered on the spot! How refreshing for the young man who has to worry that a few incautious words might turn him into a husband tied to some dreary job, if he could have the girl right now, then hitch up his trousers and walk away! How pleasant if the fiftyish fellow who plays the avuncular friend of the family, and gives sage advice to his friend’s pretty daughter, could do what he really wants to do with her, instead of just imagining it on his widower’s bed a few hours later, grimacing, his furious red manhood in his fist! Well, Mrs. Bower’s parlor house was the enchanted realm where these things could happen; and I was a crucial element, for, thanks to my unusual life history and natural gifts, I did an uncanny imitation of a girl of good family. I was a girl of good family, to whom a series of accidents had occurred which made me available to these men.