The Harlot’s Pen (8 page)

She thought of Sam, now certainly in Argentina, where he hoped to make a real fortune, separate from the perfectly adequate maintenance his family’s wealth and his position at the Nathan-Dohrmann department stores provided. Stores that he maintained treated their workers as well as necessary, and no better than they needed. Stores that hired more apprentices than was legal, so they could pay less than the paltry minimum wage she had railed against last Christmas.

She tried to imagine Argentina. It would be hot there, she thought, perhaps as hot as Sonoma. Buenos Aires was said to be a boomtown, greatly resembling San Francisco with its glittering wealth, grinding poverty, and a world-class seaport that brought money, sailors, whores, and murderers together in a salty stew. She wondered how Sam would get on there, and for a moment she felt a pang of longing for him. Then she remembered his slaps, his disdain, his contempt. “You’re a dreamer, and have no concept of what the world is all about. Full of crazy ideas, but at least you’re too inconstant to do any real harm.” He had let those federal goons take her away without protest. She could not wish him well.

Before going to bed, she fingered the keys she had taken from the old jail, now talismanic in their importance. She closed her fingers around them, closed her eyes tight. This had to work.

* * * *

“As one of my constituents, I think I should tell you that there seems to be considerable unrest about pawnbrokers. I enclose a bill which is introduced in the house.” Henry Lyon to Abe Cohen.

Kate looked towards the door, but despite its many openings and closings that evening, Miss Strone did not appear. Kate knew an unescorted woman would never venture out in the evening, and certainly not to a salon, but there was something queer about that tall, dark-haired woman, something unsettling that made Kate leery of her and kept her wondering if she would arrive, inappropriately and unannounced, to press her suit for employment. No other petitioner had ever showed up at the front door clutching a poem.

“A little quiet tonight, my dear,” Henry Lyon said, running his fingers along the seam of her sleeve. Kate smiled at him. He was such a dear man, undemanding, kind, and generous. “That’s better. Don’t want to see my little Kitty sad.”

Kate metaphorically squared her shoulders. Undemanding or not, the gentlemen who came to her Resort came to be entertained, understood, and petted, not to look at a sour-faced, worried woman. Not that she was worried herself, of course, but those verses stayed in her mind. Miss Strone had written some very powerful words.

“Of course not, bear cub,” she replied. “Let me get you a cordial.” Kate turned to catch the eye of Samantha, who nodded and quickly poured Henry a crystal glass full of the amber liquid. The new laws prohibiting the sale of liquor were a running joke in Spanish Kitty’s Salon, and the machinations of the government, far away in Washington, had little effect on Kate’s private club. “The harvest was good this year with our boys home from the Great War,” she remarked, taking a glass of cordial for herself. Her own vineyards stretched over several acres, not a mile from her Resort, and her small distillery produced enough for her to entertain her exclusive company.

“And the cordial is remarkably good, if lacking in whiskey flavor,” Henry said teasingly. Though well placed in the government of the State himself, he had no interest in enforcing the Amendment or honoring the Volstead Act. “Did I tell you, Kitty, that I had the most remarkable letter today from Los Angeles? It appears that one Jew, a Mr. Cohen, has a fat finger in a larger pie, one of the most despicable pies in the state—a pawnbroker. I believe I mentioned this before?”

Kitty nodded, and made her
interested
face. She furrowed her black, arching brows slightly, parted her lips appealingly, and gazed at Henry Lyon as he spoke. He indeed had mentioned his hatred of pawnbrokers often, and his odd liberal views on Labor as well. She thought of Miss Strone. Here was someone that she would fancy, only to discover that he was far and away beyond her understanding. She shook her head, thinking of Miss Strone’s foolishness.

“No? You disagree, my lovely?”

Kate caught herself. She had not heard the last part of Henry’s discourse. “Oh heavens, Henry, not at all. I simply am amazed at the brazenness of some people!”

Henry Lyon smiled. “You are sharp, my dear. Brazenness is not a feature you would be unfamiliar with. Indeed, I was brazen in writing to Mr. Cohen, and even more so in encouraging the Committee to back the bills in the house that will clamp down on some of these pawnbrokers’ excesses.”

“And so, shall Mr. Cohen and his brethren desist from pawn-brokering?”

Henry Lyon leaned back and laughed. “For heaven’s sake! Not at all! Kitty, what is it with you tonight? Have you lost your intelligence to some affair of the heart?”

“Heaven forbid, Henry, my bear cub. You have my heart, my soul, and my mind—at least tonight!” She raised her glass to him and drank. “I was only worried because without pawnbrokers, where will the hard up go for loans? No bank would credit them, nor indeed would I!”

“Naturally, Kitty. Have no fear. I will apprise you of the results of my brazenness, as you call it. I am headed to Los Angeles tomorrow and will call on friend Cohen myself. I will say, though, that I personally have guaranteed many a grocery bill for the hard up, as you call them, those struggling families, especially in war time, and have yet to have to pay a bill myself. They have always risen to their word.” Henry Lyon was indeed known for his generosity and would hand a scullery maid a dollar as quickly as most would pinch her bottom. Though he indulged in that as well. It was fortunate, thought Kate, that he did enjoy both a round bottom and a generous purse. It was men like Henry that kept her Resort booming.

* * * *

The sun was well up the following morning when Violetta made her way to the inn’s dining room. A Mexican woman with a long braid served her coffee and a sweet roll crisscrossed in a checkerboard pattern with brown and white sugars. She had spent an uneasy night, neither awake nor asleep, reliving her foolishness.

Sam was right. She was impractical and foolish. It must run in the family, she thought. Her father, who had so bravely ruled for a poor piece-work seamstress, had never expected to die for his opinion. And his decision was overturned two years later on appeal. What permanent change could she bring? She felt empty, abandoned, unmarried, unloved, and a fool to boot. The tears started, wetting her pillow, leaving her puffy-eyed and headachy in the morning.

Why was it that darkness allowed all of one’s failings to materialize before one’s sleepless eyes, she wondered, and every detail of every mishap could replay with faultless accuracy before the cringing and unwilling memory? Memories fresh enough or virulent enough to make her squirm with shame or cry with frustration.

She was not at her best, then, when a boy of twelve or so stopped her in the foyer of the inn with an impudent little whistle.

“Hey, miss!” he said, almost blocking her way. “You Miss Strone?”

Violetta blinked at him a second, then nodded.

“Well, here’s a note from Mrs. Kate for you,” he said and winked. He waited. She realized he was waiting for a coin, but having none on her person, and not wanting to go up to her room and back down again, she nodded and with a murmured thanks turned away. “Cheap-fisted tart,” the boy said and dashed from the room before the old man at the desk could rise from his rocker to chastise him.

With shaking hands, Violetta opened the letter. “You may call on me at your pleasure. Kate Lombard.” She folded it in pieces and clutched it tightly as she remounted the steps. Success was more terrifying than failure.

* * * *

Miss Strone is late. A very undesirable sign, likely the result of a soft life.
Kate smiled grimly. She was unused to a petitioner for employment who lacked the immediate, grinding need to work. A soft life some had. But her reply note had been unambiguous. “Thank you. I am grateful and will call on you this afternoon at half past three.” The clock had chimed the hour and had now rung the half.

It had proven an unexpectedly interesting night. Henry Lyon was always a treat, and she enjoyed the high regard he had for her intelligence, but more than that, he had, of his own accord, started the topic of women factory workers himself. Of course, labor disputes were all the rage again, with the men back from the war and eager to keep the advancements they had reaped before leaving. Unless one was dead, Kate thought, one would have heard of the unions, their struggles, and influence. Some men, like Mr. Hearst, who often stopped in for a visit on his way back from the Grove, were often angered by the demands of the workers. Others, Mr. Older, for example, championed the workers in their newspapers. But Henry Lyon, now he was an enigma, and though he worked in what some might think was an underhanded way, he seemed genuine in his interest in working women. And by that, she quipped, he meant factory women, not women in her line of work.

“I love women in your kind of work, Kitty,” he’d replied, “but you haven’t unionized yet, and I pray you never do, for you earn far above the minimum wage!”

“So you believe the factory women are abused?” Kate had asked.

“If giving women the vote isn’t abusing them, then giving them work isn’t either. But to pay them to steal work from men is a crime.”

“But Henry, darling, what woman would work long hours on her feet, in the heat of a cannery, just for the pleasure of it? Surely she would only do it if she needed to feed her children, and if she needed to feed the children it was because either she had no man, or he couldn’t make enough to support the family.”

“You sound like Valeska, Kitty! Next I will find you working on my committees!”

Kate had heard the name Valeska before, but had never paid it any mind, except, of course, to remember it. A good companion remembered all the names the gentlemen dropped—and not just to make better conversation. Sometimes a remembered name gave early warning to trouble.

Kate looked around her parlor. The lateness of the hour ensured that it was tidier than when Miss Strone had appeared yesterday. By four, Spanish Kitty and her kittens were ready to receive the earliest callers, although it was generally quiet until the evening. In June, with the late sunset, revelers would enjoy entertainment of the lighter sort on her wide verandah and move into the parlor when the stars began to shine. Musicians could play on the porch well into the night, and cards and dice could be thrown by lamplight. Only upstairs, where the lovers partook of the most heated forms of enchantment, was off-limits until eight.

Kate had figured out long ago, when she opened her first house in San Francisco, that unlike a common harlot, a real courtesan was only available for loving at chosen times. Convenience was for those in less demand. That thought struck her again now, as she waited for Miss Strone. Kate was not the one who was usually kept waiting. Her potential welcome began to chill.

The clock chimed the three quarters when Kate saw Miss Strone hurrying up the walk. She was dressed more fashionably today, with a black and white barrel dress caught low at the waist, a wide neckline, and the hem ending several inches above her ankles. She sported the same wide straw hat with the gray ribbon, and shoes with a heel that, as she reached Kate’s door, made her even taller than Kate herself.
That won’t do,
Kate caught herself thinking.
I tower over men as it is. I couldn’t have a kitten who dwarfed even me.
Kate had but a moment to realize that the thought was the opposite of her plan before Miss Strone was speaking.

“I am so glad that you will receive me, Miss Lombard. I hurried, but I was delayed in my progress by a letter, and so am less punctual than I would always like to be. I assure you that I would be timely to my work.” She spoke breathlessly, and her cheeks were flushed with the heat of the day and her quick walk from the inn.

“You get ahead of yourself, Miss Strone.” Kate stood aside and let her guest enter. “Sit down. I will bring you a lemonade.” Kate rang the small silver bell on the table, and Samantha hurried in. “A glass of lemonade for Miss Strone, if you would, Samantha. And tell Sharon and Lily to finish dressing and come sit on the porch. I do not wish to be disturbed for the next half an hour.”

Miss Strone sat fanning herself with her hand. “After so many years in San Francisco I have become unused to this weather,” she said.

“Yes, I too had to re-acclimate to Sonoma’s warmth when I left San Francisco,” Kate replied, taking a sweating glass of lemonade from Samantha. Once the parlor door was closed, she turned to Miss Strone. “I found your poem very moving.”

Miss Strone gazed at her, gratified. “Thank you. It has given me no end of grief since the
Argus
published it. Thank heavens Mr. Older did not accept it, as San Francisco might have been even more violent in its reaction. Though word has spread even there of my publication. Which is why I have to be here.”

Kate smiled slightly. “And your husband, Miss Strone? For though you call yourself
Miss,
there is often a Mister.”

Miss Strone’s eyes widened. “How… but there isn’t a Mister Strone,” she concluded strongly.

“Indeed not. No wedding bells for a girl like you?”

Miss Strone stayed silent.

“Come now, Miss Strone. If you are going to importune me with employment, you are going to have to come clean with me about your past.” Again, Kate wondered where this speech came from. It had certainly not been her intent to discuss the lunatic possibility of hiring Miss Strone. She had been toying with offering an exclusive interview designed to enhance her own position, and this only after she knew a good deal more about Miss Violetta Strone. But she dangled the possibility nonetheless.

“So you’ll consider hiring me?” Hope, mingled with something else, terror perhaps, showed on the high brow and dark eyes of the petitioner.

It was Kate’s turn to keep quiet. She watched as Miss Strone came to the realization that the next move in this silly chess game was hers. Finally, with a deep breath, Miss Strone began her story.