In Need of a Good Wife (6 page)

Clara paused and read this last letter again, then heard her own sharp laugh cut through the room.
What woman in her
right mind would agree to
that
arrangement?
And that was when the true challenge of this endeavor dawned on her: A good portion of these men were bachelors for a reason. They had very little to offer a woman. Some of them knew it and some of them had deluded themselves with the notion that it was merely the paucity of women in town keeping them single. Clara saw that she could bring the horses to the water, so to speak, but she couldn’t make them marry men too foolish to make a good case for themselves.

If she was going to earn her money, she would have to do more than make travel arrangements. She would have to broker these marriages, take these men’s words and turn them into something a woman would respond to. It would be difficult, but it was work she could feel good about. Helping lonely people find each other seemed a much more laudable goal than serving men liquor in a tavern.

Clara’s thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock at her door. She pushed her chair back, its legs scraping the floor, and stood up. Standing in the hall was a tiny raven-haired woman in a finely made gown of blackberry-colored silk.

“Good afternoon, Miss Bixby,” she said. “I’ve come to return this.” She thrust an envelope across the doorway at Clara.

Clara looked the young woman over. “You could have left it with the proprietress downstairs,” Clara said irritably. She suspected that this applicant wanted to come in person so that Clara could lay eyes on her, so that she could show off this gown, her thick, dark hair. She knew of a certain Italian Jezebel named Lucia, with hair that color and the same penchant for fine clothes, and look what had come of that.

The woman nodded, but her attention was on Clara’s room. With her mouth twisted in a disdainful sneer, she took in the bare floor and undressed window, the wardrobe with a broken door handle. A moment ago the room had seemed respectable, a single woman’s tidy refuge from a world that no longer had use for her, but now Clara felt she was seeing it for what it was in this woman’s eyes: a shame, a mark of her poverty. Clara felt exposed, and angry for it. “We have many applicants, Miss …”

“Moore,” the woman said. “
Mrs.
Moore. I am a widow.”

Clara chewed her lip. Well. Probably this little thing had fleeced an old man for his money. “
Mrs.
Moore,” Clara said, then stopped. She meant to chastise the young woman for disturbing her at home but now hesitated. The silk dress was more tattered than it had seemed on first appearance. Clara’s eyes skimmed the hem, darker than the rest of the skirt, and she realized at once that Mrs. Moore had blackened it with boot polish to disguise its fading.

Mrs. Moore seemed to be making some observations of her own. Her gaze lingered on the hearth, and without turning back to follow it, Clara realized what she saw: George’s worn slippers on the shelf, a little dusty, truth be told. The blood rose in Clara’s cheeks.
That I should have to explain myself to this … child.

“Are
you
married?” the widow Moore asked. Her shoulders were square, her voice an impertinent taunt.

They stood eye to eye a moment. Clara felt she would wait all day for this woman to back down. A realization dawned: In brokering these marriages, Clara had stumbled on a kind of power she had never known. She was determining the path of these women’s lives. Their future happiness—or lack of it—depended on Clara. Finally Mrs. Moore’s gaze flicked to the floor and Clara smiled at her victory. She wouldn’t be made to drop her eyes in her own home, no matter that this young woman supposed she resided several rungs above Clara on the social ladder. “No, I am not.”

“Look,” Mrs. Moore said. “I will speak plainly. You know as well as I do that I am more beautiful than the other women who came to your meeting,
and
of higher standing. You seem like an intelligent woman, even if your sense of fashion leaves a great deal to be desired.” She cast a haughty look at Clara’s plain dress. “I would think you would understand that you
need
me.”

Clara narrowed her eyes. “I hardly think that is the case. Manhattan City is
full
of beautiful women.”

“Yes, but most of them don’t need
your
help to find a husband.”

“So why do you?”

Mrs. Moore laughed. “I don’t. I’m days away from a proposal and could get plenty of others if I tried.” She paused and pressed her lips together, as if she were considering her words carefully, wondering how much of herself to reveal. Finally she shrugged and waved her hand as if to dismiss everything around her. “But I am sick to death of this city.”

Now Clara laughed.
Only beautiful women have the luxury
of boredom
, she thought, as she opened the envelope and unfolded the application.
Rowena
was her Christian name.
Pretty
, Clara thought. Rowena had included a tintype. Clara glanced between it and its inspiration. A lovely likeness, but in person the girl was stunning. Of course, everyone knew it was quite unnecessary for a pretty woman to be clever.

“I see you play piano,” she said.

Rowena nodded.

“You play it well?”

“Quite,”
Rowena shot back. She had begun to tap her foot. “I’d be happy to demonstrate my abilities on the piano downstairs.”

Clara held up her hand. “That won’t be necessary.” Where had this pert little thing come from? Clara was surprised at how much venom she felt for Rowena. This girl was just what was wrong with the world, another of the dozens of frivolous girls streaming into the city on a lark, another Lucia, with no purpose, no responsibility, not a thought for the damage done by their little adventures. They all felt entitled to a certain kind of life, but they didn’t want to earn it by making an honest match. Instead they felt perfectly justified in taking things that didn’t belong to them, things they didn’t deserve.

“I do not think,” Clara said, handing the papers back to Rowena “that your disposition is suited for this endeavor. I’m sorry. These men need dutiful wives to bring peace and comfort to their homes.”

Rowena raised one eyebrow and leaned close to Clara, clearly unaccustomed to being denied what she wanted. “And were
you
a dutiful wife? To George Bixby? Is
that
why he ran off?”

Clara felt her jaw go slack.

“Yes,” Rowena said with a cruel smile. “I know about him. Everyone does.” She seemed to be taking a great deal of pleasure in turning the conversation around on Clara.

Clara stood paralyzed for a moment, her anger bubbling up. As she regained her composure, she saw a pathway opening that would serve to put this girl in her place much better than rejecting her application outright.
Much more beautiful in
person
, Clara thought, knowing she would write the line in her letter to the bachelor.

“Perhaps I was a bit hasty,” Clara said, her tone suddenly sweet. “Now that I think on it a bit more, I believe I
do
have a gentleman for you.” She picked up the butcher’s letter. “Mr. Daniel Gibson. A businessman.”

Rowena’s eyebrows lifted and she held out her hand. “May I read it?”

Clara pressed it against her bosom and shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s confidential. But I can tell you that he writes well. He is an educated man looking for a beautiful wife. I will tell him
all
about you—you have my word.”

Rowena nodded, her eyes shining with satisfaction.

Savor it, girl
, Clara thought.
Savor that smug feeling while it
lasts.

“You can expect a letter from him sometime in the next few weeks.”

After Rowena left, Clara turned back to her work. She read through each man’s letter, then leafed through the stack of applications from the women. She set aside several of them right away. Two girls listed their ages as eighteen, seemingly oblivious to Clara’s instruction that all applicants must be at least twenty-one. Another seemed too frail, given that she mentioned that it was her “dying wish” to see the Missouri River. A few seemed illiterate and a few more were clearly too lazy or strange or dim-witted to be considered.

Hannah Darby, for instance, seemed wholly preoccupied with the presence and abilities of Indians.

Dear Miss Bixby,
Is Nebraska the place where they have the Soo injuns or is it
the Comanchey? My sister Lizzie says she read that the braves
are stronger than three white men put together and that they
ride horses but without saddles because their legs are so strong
and they can do black magic. Lizzie says every single one of
them is handsome and because they are godless heathens they
can take as many wives as they please. Is it true, miss? She
also says that every white man is afraid of them. Do you think
the white men in Nebraska are afraid of them? If I were well-protected I should very much like to see one of these braves
riding his horse and see his long hair in the wind. Lizzie says
they can talk to animals too. Tell me, miss, is any of this true?

Sincerely,
Hannah Darby

Clara rolled her eyes as she tossed Hannah’s letter into the bin. She was beginning to wonder if any of these applicants would make fit matches.

Fortunately Kathleen Connolly’s application surfaced next. She was Irish and Catholic, which limited the options, but Amos Riddle had said nothing about religion, only that he needed a sturdy woman who could do her share of the work on his land. Kathleen seemed to fit that description. Her application went into great detail about her experience with carpentry and livestock.

Molly Zalinski and Deborah Peale had fastened their applications together in the top left corner and begged to be chosen “both or neither,” for they did nothing in this world but what they could do together. Their bond charmed Clara, and both of them seemed earnest and bright, ready to take on the challenge these marriages posed. The porter, Stuart Moran, had asked for a “refined” lady, and Deborah promised that she could bring along a silver tea service. Molly seemed to come from humbler circumstances, and her expectations would be fittingly realistic for the wife of a farmhand like Nit LeBlanc. He would have to work hard to earn her trust, however. Molly explained that she planned to write to him under a nom de plume until she was sure his intentions were pure.

Anna Ludlow might very well become the minister’s wife, for she could weave and he kept sheep, and they both stated that “reading the Scripture” was a pastime. Clara felt a little satisfaction on behalf of the town that it had proved that mole of a man Reverend Potter wrong—Destination
did
have a church after all. Two, in fact.

The bashful brewery worker Walther Luft would appreciate Bethany Mint’s claim that she “didn’t care a thing about her husband’s looks.” Cynthia Ruley seemed to fit the curt list of requirements given by another brewer, Bill Albright, since her tintype showed her to be slender and, according to her description, she was a talented violinist. Lucretia Blackstone might do for Jeremiah Drake, the brewery’s owner and the only man who seemed entirely fixated on hair color. She was a blonde.

By morning, Clara had written a short reply to each man’s letter, introducing her suggested companion. It was nothing to Clara to stay up all night long. She preferred short, intermittent dozing to the danger of submitting to true, deep sleep. In sleep, Clara’s dreams were full of the memories she spent her waking life trying to evade.

All the time she worked, she waited to feel remorse for concealing from Rowena the tiny fact of Daniel Gibson’s five children, but the remorse never came. The bachelors, not the brides, were Clara’s customers, and it was the bachelors’ happiness she had been hired to tend. If a presuming creature like Rowena learned a little humility in the process, well, so be it. Clara couldn’t lose sight of the purpose of all her hard work; on the backside of one of the discarded applications, she sketched the outline of the little white cottage in the center of a meadow, not a single tavern or glass of ale in sight.

The maids’ quarters of the Channing mansion occupied the east side of the garden level of the house, which was partly underground with small, high windows looking up toward the daylight. There were ten narrow rooms, each containing a cot and a row of hooks on the wall. The Channings were considered the most generous of all the wealthy Manhattan families. It was a lavish thing to give the maids their own rooms. At the west end of the floor was a large open room lined with laundry tubs and wringers. One long table for folding, ironing, mending, and knitting occupied the center of the room.

Half the maids worked upstairs serving in the dining room, bringing weak tea to Mrs. Channing in her bedroom late at night and whisking the silver tray away a half hour later without waking her up, opening the drapes each morning and washing the glass with vinegar water, pulling the drapes closed at night. The other half spent their days in the laundry room. Elsa was one of them.

Each week the laundresses washed linens for twelve bedrooms upstairs and tablecloths and napkins for three meals a day, along with the family’s underclothes, towels, and Mr. Channing’s numerous shirt collars. They lived in a cloud of lye-tinged steam, and it was for the good of their lungs that the doors and windows remained opened to the back garden all day long, whatever the weather. In winter, a laundress could be at once flushed in the face from the heat and numb in her fingers and toes from the cold.

In the garden was a bench where Elsa liked to take her midmorning break to rest her swollen feet. Today, she pulled a letter out of her boot—it was no use keeping paper in her apron pocket when it was, perpetually, damp, along with the front of her heavy linen dress, and, beneath that, her shift, and, beneath that, the skin of her abdomen, rubbed red and always covered in rash. Now the paper felt wonderfully crisp against her fingertips. She had picked it up first thing in the morning at the post office and savored her anticipation of reading it.