Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions Page 21

  “Come on through!” she called.

  Fleurette followed her voice through the bedroom and into a bathroom as elegant as anything she’d ever seen. Never had she imagined that so much marble and brass could be rallied together in the service of hygiene, nor had she ever seen herself reflected in so many mirrors at once. There were two or three on every wall.

  But she wasn’t there to admire herself in the mirror. Mrs. Ward sat on the edge of the bathtub, with a bucket of ice next to her and something clear and pungent in a glass.

  Her eyes were red, her face flushed, her hair in wild disarray. “Oh, there you are. What’s the use of having a seamstress if I can never find her?”

  “I was only just —”

  “Never mind. Look, I stepped on this damned frock. Stitch it up, will you? There’s a motor car running downstairs and gasoline is dear.” She glided to her feet and twirled around. Fleurette gasped when she saw the damage. Mrs. Ward had, for some bewildering reason, already put on her costume for the opening number: a filmy gown meant to emulate a Greek goddess, with layer after layer of impossibly frail chiffon. It had been rent apart and sewn back together in three or four places. One of these ineffective patches had given way when Mrs. Ward stepped on the hem.

  From down on her knees behind the actress, Fleurette mumbled, “I didn’t bring my kit.”

  May spun around, tossing ice cubes as she did. “Didn’t bring your kit? Why’d you think I called you? Here, the hotel must have something awful you can use,” and she ransacked the drawers until she came up with a little wooden box holding needle and thread. Fleurette did what she could with it, but warned her that the entire piece should be replaced. “Or just let me take off this outer skirt, and switch it with one of the inner layers,” she offered.

  As soon as Fleurette snapped off the thread, May spun around in front of the mirror, gleeful. “Oh, that’s just fine. Anything can be mended, can’t it, Florine? Here, I want to see what you can do with this old thing.” She pulled a shimmering beaded gown of pale green and gold from a hook and tossed it at her. “I keep losing the damned beads. There’s a whole handful of them in a little dish on the dresser. I’ll send someone down to your room to pick it up when I’m back from the theater.”

  “Do you mean—tonight?” Fleurette saw hours of work ahead of her, and no hope of watching the show from backstage.

  May Ward turned around and laughed, still effervescent from her drink. “Yes, of course! Tonight! There’s some sort of affair in the ballroom with an undersea theme, and I must look the part. Won’t it be perfect?”

  The dress sat heavily in Fleurette’s arms. It weighed almost as much as a small child, owing to the hundreds of glass beads clinking merrily against each other. It was a beautiful piece of work, something she would’ve been thrilled to put a needle to, even a week ago.

  Why was she bothered over missing a single night at the theater? There would be another night, and another after that.

  “It certainly will be perfect,” she told May Ward, “after I finish with it.”

  39

  THREE WOMEN WERE BOOKED into the jail within a few hours of each other: a mother of four accused of drunkenness and neglect, a woman charged with poisoning her husband with mercury, and a domestic cook caught stealing her employer’s kitchen utensils. It took Constance an entire day to get the women booked into the jail, showered and de-loused, issued uniforms, and settled into their cells. She’d been neglectful about supervising chores and had to issue some stern words of warning when she saw that the other inmates hadn’t cleaned their cell blocks.

  At the end of the day, she realized that she hadn’t had a chance to look in on Edna Heustis and thought it best to call so that she could file her report. The sheriff’s office was unaccustomed to doing its business by telephone, but it was becoming more of a necessity, particularly lately, as the Freeholders scrutinized the cost of running two automobiles and insisted that the deputies find ways to get by without them.

  Cordelia Heath was once again occupying the sheriff’s office. She sat at his desk, paging through a city directory and addressing a stack of envelopes.

  “He’s out on a call,” Cordelia said, without looking up.

  “Pardon me, Mrs. Heath. I just needed to use the telephone. Sheriff’s business. I’m to report on a girl . . .”

  Cordelia pushed the telephone to the edge of the desk. “Go ahead. You don’t have to tell me about it.”

  As Constance spoke to the operator, she glanced down at the sheriff’s desk and saw that Mrs. Heath had opened a folder containing a campaign advertisement for his 1912 campaign for sheriff. Next to a formal portrait was a description of his platform: “Honesty—Efficiency—Economy—Social and Spiritual Betterment of Prisoners.”

  “That’s a fine platform,” Constance said, while she waited for the operator to put her call through.

  Mrs. Heath looked up and said, “It was good enough for sheriff, but it won’t do for Congress. We’re going to need a new picture and a new platform.”“Congress? But I thought he was running against John Courter.”

  She gave a polite little laugh. “A sheriff can’t succeed himself in office. Didn’t you know that? My husband’s running for Congress. I’ll leave you to your call.”

  She gathered up her letters and bustled out. Constance found herself alone in the office, staring out the open door into an empty hallway.

  Congress?

  The possibility—no, the certainty—that someone else would occupy Sheriff Heath’s office come November settled over her in one awful moment. How had she not realized that the sheriff was leaving?

  Cordelia had always wanted to go to Washington. She had ideas about a particular kind of genteel life as a congressman’s wife that had something to do with silver teapots, bone china, and a husband who didn’t spend quite so much time in the company of criminals. Sheriff Heath had said so himself. Constance just didn’t think he’d ever agree to it. What was she to do, once he was gone? Sheriff Heath had given her a life beyond anything she could’ve imagined. She had a position, a title, and a place of authority. But there was no reason to think that the next sheriff would let her keep any of that.

  Mrs. Turnbull came on the line, and Constance gathered herself together to make her inquiry. She was assured that there had been no trouble from Edna. But when Constance asked to speak to her, Edna couldn’t be found.

  “I didn’t see her go out,” Mrs. Turnbull said. “One of the girls thinks she went to church.”

  “On a Tuesday night?”

  “It seems peculiar to me, too,” Mrs. Turnbull said. “She comes home by curfew. That’s all I know.”

  “And she won’t tell you what she’s doing?”

  “She’s been very secretive about it, to tell the truth,” Mrs. Turnbull said, “but it’s no concern of mine, as long as she behaves herself.”

  “Well, I’m obligated to report on her welfare. I believe I ought to come up and speak to her.”

  “You’re welcome to try. She won’t tell me a thing,” Mrs. Turnbull said, and rang off.

  Constance sat alone in Sheriff Heath’s office and tried to picture another man behind that desk.

  And what was this about Congress? She couldn’t imagine Sheriff Heath without his badge.

  Perhaps it was best that telephoning hadn’t worked. A trip out of town didn’t sound so bad at the moment.

  SHE WENT THE very next day. Before she left, Constance was pleased to receive a reassuring letter from Miss Pittman at the reformatory: the results of the Wassermann test were in, and Minnie Davis was free of disease. Miss Pittman added that Minnie was settling in well, and that she seemed to be a good worker. Minnie herself would not be permitted to write letters for the first month, she explained. Constance very much hoped that there wouldn’t be a second month.

  She went first to Catskill to speak to Minnie’s parents, and sat once again in the grimy sitting room, among the odor of strangers’ clothing in need of me
nding. The Davises did not make their home a pleasant place to be, and it was easy for Constance to sympathize with Minnie’s opinion on that point.

  The New Jersey papers were not circulated in Catskill, but Edith Davis had managed to get her hands on them regardless, and had a stack of clippings sitting on a little side-table under a darning egg. She lifted the egg and pushed the papers toward Constance with one fingernail, as if they were too filthy to touch.“I knew from the time she was a little girl that she would come to this,” Mrs. Davis hollered.

  Goldie hadn’t said a word since Constance had come in, and even then she spoke quietly from her chair in the corner, without looking up. “You didn’t know her when she was a little girl.”

  “Oh, I knew about her, and that mother of hers!” Mrs. Davis shrieked, and offered no further explanation.

  Constance had hoped to win over Mr. Davis, who was sitting in his dusty overalls examining a bandage on his left hand. She leaned forward and said, “Please understand that the prosecutor has no evidence. These accusations of your daughter entertaining men—you’ve every right to be outraged to see such a thing in the papers, but Mr. Courter said those things against Minnie without first bothering to find out if they were true. I can assure you that no such charges will be filed.”

  “He must’ve had a reason,” Mr. Davis said. “Anyhow, it’s no concern of ours. She don’t live here no more.”

  “That’s why I’ve come to speak to you. Minnie needs a good home. The prosecutor has sent her to the girls’ reformatory in Trenton. If she doesn’t have a respectable place to go, she could be sentenced there for several years, and I know you wouldn’t —”

  “A reformatory!” Mr. Davis said. “It’s worse than we thought.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Constance said hastily. “If the judge had a word from you, she might be able to come home.”

  “No, no. If it’s as bad as all that, the reformatory is the only place for her. We should’ve sent her years ago,” said Mrs. Davis.

  “But it’s meant to be a punishment for a crime, and I don’t think —”

  “If there wasn’t a crime, she wouldn’t be in jail,” Mr. Davis said. “Go on back to New Jersey and tell that girl I said to repent.”

  Constance looked to Goldie for help. For a long-limbed girl, she’d managed to make herself very small. She sat with her legs crossed, her arms folded over her chest, and her chin down. As soon as she realized Constance was about to speak to her, she bolted out the front door and down the street.

  “You heard me,” Mr. Davis said. “Go on, now.”

  Constance stood and looked down at the two of them, as gray and miserable as the dingy furnishings and piles of mending that surrounded them, and understood that she was outmatched. If a case could be made to the Davises to take their daughter in again, she clearly wasn’t the one to make it.

  “I’ve never seen parents so hardened against their own child before,” she said. “You’ve put your principles above your family, and you’ll be the poorer for it.”

  “It isn’t for you to judge,” Edith said. “Go on, like he said.”

  She left Catskill in a downtrodden frame of mind. She hated to hear a father speak so approvingly of putting his own daughter away. It was becoming all too easy for parents to turn their unruly children over to the state. Some of them regretted it once their tempers cooled, but by then it was too late: once a child was sent to a reformatory, a remorseful parent couldn’t do a thing about it. Constance had heard of mothers who pleaded to have their daughters back, because they needed the help at home, or even because they were moving away and didn’t want to leave anyone behind. None of that mattered. Every sentence was served in full.

  But it didn’t seem that the Davises would ever want Minnie back.

  SHE STOPPED NEXT in Pompton Lakes to see about Edna Heus­tis, arriving at Mrs. Turnbull’s boarding-house just as the girls were sitting down to supper. A maid brought her into the dining room, where five boarders looked up at her with expressions of friendly curiosity.

  “Did they make you take a test to become a lady officer?” asked Fannie, a freckle-faced girl with hair the color of butter.

  “Do they only let you arrest other girls, or could you arrest a man?” said Delia. “I might nominate a man for the honor.”

  Just then Mrs. Turnbull walked in with a covered dish. “If you’re here to see Edna, she works a split shift tonight, so she gets home a little later than the other girls. She isn’t in any trouble, is she?”

  “Not at all. I said I would look in on her, that’s all.”

  “Then you might as well wait for her, and let me fix you a plate.”

  The only other supper on offer would have been something cold from the jail kitchen a few hours later, so Constance accepted and sat down with the girls. She took the opportunity to ask each of them in turn if their mothers and fathers were bothered by the fact that they’d gone to work and lived on their own. Two of the girls said they hadn’t any parents and had been under the care of an aunt or some other relation, who had been all too happy to see them grown and looking after themselves. One of them said that her father was “no good” and her mother “not much better” and that she left home as soon as the factory would hire her on. She hadn’t heard a word from her parents and hoped not to. The other two were a bit vague in their answers, but gave her to understand that they had reached some accord with their families and lived in a state of uneasy truce, sending more money home than they would like, and less than their families wished to receive.

  “After we pay the rent, there’s hardly nothing left,” Pearl said.

  “You get all your meals and your laundry,” Mrs. Turnbull shot back. “Nothing’s stopping you from living with your mother.”

  “Then she’ll take all my wages.”

  “Did you expect to make your fortune at the powder works? Clear these plates.”

  Constance jumped up and helped the girls with the dishes. Just as she finished, the door opened and Edna Heustis walked in wearing her factory apron and cap. When she saw Constance, she stepped back uneasily, wrapping the corner of her apron around her fingers.

  “I’ve only come to check on you,” Constance said. “Can we go upstairs?” Edna scampered up the stairs ahead of her and opened the door to her room.

  “Is something the matter?” she said, when they were alone.

  “I only wanted to see you, and to know that things have worked out for you. The judge asked me to check on your welfare, remember?”

  “Oh.” She sat down heavily on the bed. “I’m fine. I took a split shift, because it pays a little more, and in the middle of the day I come back here and help with the cleaning, for a reduction in my rent. I haven’t the time to get into any trouble.”

  “You look exhausted,” Constance said.

  “I’m not,” she insisted. “I’m only trying to earn a little extra.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing! It’s not illegal to work a few extra shifts, is it?”

  “Of course not,” Constance said, “but you sound a little desperate. If something’s the matter, you ought to tell me.”

  “I’m just—I want to raise money for the war.” That was as much as Edna could bring herself to say. She was afraid that if she told the deputy what she intended to do, she might be prevented or her parents might be told.

  “That’s good of you, Edna, but I don’t want you to wear yourself out. Are you sure there’s nothing else? Sometimes when a girl is desperate for money, there’s another reason for it.”

  “What do you mean?” She looked alarmed.

  “No trouble with a man?”

  She laughed. It was an unexpected sound in the room. “Of course not!”

  “It’s not so outrageous as that.”

  “I suppose not, in your line of work.”

  Constance looked around the room and saw the pamphlets on relief efforts and the Red Cross leaflets. “Are you going t
o learn some nursing?”

  “I might,” Edna said.

  Constance looked her over appraisingly. “You’d do well. You’re sturdy enough.”

  You’re sturdy enough. After Constance left, Edna sat alone in her room, fingering the Red Cross’s list of nursing courses. She was exhausted from the longer shifts, and so far, the rewards had been so meager as to hardly be worth it. She might manage to save fifty cents here, and a dollar there, but it would never put a hundred dollars in her pocket for the voyage over, much less the monthly sum required for her room and board.

  To make matters worse, Ruby and her friends on the Preparedness Committee seemed to be faltering in their desire to rush off to France. They were fretting over family obligations and social affairs they couldn’t miss. Their mothers disapproved, a few of them said, and their fathers weren’t so sure they’d put up the money after all.

  It was such a game to them. They made an entertainment of holding teas to solicit donations, and of fashioning wool flowers into corsages that their friends might buy to fund their wild plans. Meanwhile, Edna, having no friends with money to spare, worked every shift she could, taking time off only when the Preparedness Committee held its meetings. The Red Cross courses were about to begin, and when they started, she’d have to choose between the extra earnings and the coursework required of every volunteer. It was an impossible choice—she couldn’t do without either.

  But to give up would be worse. Her job at the factory, her room at the boarding-house—it had seemed so exciting at first, so liberating, but now she saw how it might go on forever, if she couldn’t find another course for herself. Any girl her age would be thinking of marriage. She couldn’t bear the idea of marrying a man who stayed home from the war, and she wasn’t particularly interested in marrying one if he was only going to run off to fight and might never return.