The Pursuit of Lucy Banning (24 page)

 26 

I
do wish you would have agreed to a trip to Europe,” Flora whined on Monday morning. “If we had left in mid-February, we could have been back in plenty of time for the fair’s opening, and you would have had an adequate wardrobe for the spring and summer.”

“I’m hardly in danger of going without clothes.” Lucy’s mother had been pushing for weeks to go to Europe—even after she knew Lucy was enrolled in a class at the university. “Lenae can make me anything I need. Besides, there’s far too much to do for the women’s exhibit before opening day.”

“I suppose you’re meeting with that architect again,” Flora said.

Lucy’s heart lurched, then fell back into place with the realization that her mother meant not Will but the architect of the women’s exhibit.

“Her name is Sophia Hayden,” Lucy explained—for the umpteenth time. “She has been unwell lately. I’m not sure if she’ll attend today’s meeting.”

“The women’s exhibit seems to have become your Monday ritual.”

“The time suits everyone’s schedule.” Lucy checked the tilt of her hat in the foyer mirror. “There’s a small group of us charged with making sure all the details are in place. Mrs. Palmer is quite particular, and we have only seven weeks left.”

She smoothed her skirt one last time. The woolen cashmere suit, with matching blue skirt and jacket and a contrasting cream silk blouse, suited Lucy’s tastes while meeting her mother’s standards for quality of workmanship. Flora remained skeptical of the clothing of the “New Woman,” but Lucy appreciated the practicality and flexibility the styles offered. If she got overly warm in her work, she could simply remove her jacket and still be appropriately dressed, an alternative not available with conventional two-piece suits. Charlotte had gently waved her hair and drawn it back into a small, high chignon, a style that pleased Lucy.

Penard stood by to open the front door for Lucy, and Archie had already brought the carriage around. Lucy’s leather satchel contained her notes for the meeting. She kissed her mother’s cheek, walked through the open door, and allowed Archie to assist her into the carriage.

Of course Lucy did not want to leave Chicago in the middle of a university term. And of course she would not abandon her duties with the women’s exhibit and disappoint the Board of Lady Managers. She supposed those reasons were why her mother had not put her foot down and insisted Lucy go to Europe to have a wardrobe made. What Lucy would not say aloud to her mother, though, was that she would not leave Will behind—especially until she understood why he was being aloof.

Five hours later Lucy returned to Prairie Avenue, exited the carriage, and walked through the front door ready to toss her satchel on the foyer table and remove her hat. She had no sooner pulled out the first hat pin than Leo crashed through the door behind her.

“He’s gone,” he said.

“Who?” Lucy asked innocently enough, thinking perhaps Leo was looking for Daniel.

“Will. He’s gone. I can’t find him anywhere.”

Lucy spun around to search her brother’s face. “What do you mean, gone? Did he lose his position?”

Leo shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Did you telephone his office?”

“They only said Mr. Edwards was not available.”

“His rooms?”

“Empty. His landlady hasn’t seen him since early Saturday morning. No one has.”

“That means he’s been gone most of three days,” Lucy reasoned. “Surely somebody knows something.”

“I have been trying all day to track him down,” Leo said firmly. “We had plans this morning, and he didn’t show up. Will doesn’t know that many people in Chicago, so how many places could he be? No one has talked to him in days.”

“Did you see his rooms for yourself? Perhaps—”

Leo was shaking his head. “No clues, Lucy. Everything is as it should be, but his valise is gone.”

“So you really think he left the city.”

Leo nodded. “I do. But I don’t understand why, or where he would have gone.”

“New Jersey?”

“That’s a long trip to make without planning ahead. Why wouldn’t he have mentioned something to me?”

Or me
, Lucy thought.
Is this why he wouldn’t speak to me on Friday?

For three days, Lucy waited for word of Will, but Leo found nothing new. Lucy even inquired of Mr. Emmett if Will had happened to mention any upcoming plans. She went so far as to try to ferret something out of Benny.

No one knew where Will Edwards was.

By Thursday evening, Leo was fuming but resigned that he would have to wait for Will to contact him and explain himself. When Lucy walked into the parlor for the pre-dinner family gathering, she nearly turned around and walked out.

Although Daniel still used his room at the Banning house for the convenience of staying near his downtown office at the bank, his appearances at dinner had become sporadic. Lucy knew Oliver and Leo still saw Daniel from time to time for a tennis match or a party, and she did not begrudge them the lifelong friendship, but given his recent penchant for turning up at odd times and places, she was content not to have him at the dinner table. But there he was, smiling and making pleasant conversation with her parents, whose affection for him was unabated.

At least it was Thursday, so Aunt Violet would be there. Lucy missed Charlotte, though, gone for her day out. She imagined the maid sitting on Mrs. Given’s faded sofa with Henry on her lap, or throwing him in the air until he giggled, or taking him out in the buggy for fresh air, or rocking him to sleep before she returned to Prairie Avenue and a world where he was not welcomed.

“Hello, Lucy.” Daniel’s cheerful tone snapped Lucy back to the scene at hand.

“Daniel was just telling us about his new client,” Samuel supplied.

“Oh? The office building folks?” Lucy hoped she sounded casual.

“That’s right,” Daniel responded. “I think we’ve come to an agreeable business arrangement.”

Leo spoke up. “When Will got that commission, I thought Daniel could help seal the deal with a solid loan. And he could see what great work Will does and perhaps recommend him to others.”

“I’m sure Will would appreciate that.” Inwardly Lucy grimaced at Leo’s unfettered trust in Daniel.

“Your friend seems to have disappeared from the picture, though,” Daniel said. “My recent conversations about the funds required for the project have been with the owners of the architectural firm.” He chuckled. “It would seem Mr. Edwards was careless about some detail and will have to prove himself trustworthy once again.”

Lucy glanced at Leo, who tilted his head to consider Daniel’s remark.

“Daniel,” Leo said, “my intention was that a business arrangement between you and Will would benefit you both. I hope you did not misunderstand that.”

Good for you, Leo!

“In any event,” Daniel responded, “your friend seems to be unavailable to answer questions, and one of the partners has taken over the project. I don’t suppose you know where to reach Mr. Edwards?”

“No, I don’t,” Leo admitted, moving toward the window and gazing out.

“So the project is moving forward successfully?” Lucy queried in an even tone.

Daniel nodded. “It would seem so. Just without Mr. Edwards.”

“But he did the drawings,” Lucy protested. “Twice!”

“Ah, but having to do them twice was the result of his carelessness.”

Lucy clenched her fists against Daniel’s smugness.

Aunt Violet stood up at that moment and glared. “Daniel, you seem amused. Might I ask what you know about this alleged carelessness?”

Thank you, Aunt Violet!

Daniel waved a hand. “Very little, actually. The client expressed some rather strong opinions about what happened when it delayed the loan. That’s all.”

“Are you sure?” Violet prodded.

Daniel smiled blandly. “I don’t take your meaning, Violet. I’ve said all I know.”

Flora interrupted. “Must we have all this business conversation at dinner? I’m sure we can find something to talk about that is of more interest to everyone.”

Lucy had to call for Elsie to help undo the back of her satin gown. As soon as the dress was off, she dismissed the maid and sat down to brush out her own hair. Thursday evenings without Charlotte had become a peculiar time. After dinner she had managed a quick, hushed conversation with Aunt Violet in which the older woman made clear she thought Daniel knew more than he was saying. Lucy didn’t know what to think. Now she wished she could talk to the only real confidante she had. Charlotte would know what to say to calm her nerves.

Where are you, Will?

 27 

C
harlotte gave the rag a final twist and hung it over a hook at the back of the sink. Sunday luncheon was finally over, and the kitchen was scrubbed down. The rest of the day was hers, and Henry was waiting. He would probably still be napping when she arrived at Mrs. Given’s house, but Charlotte loved to stand over his crib and watch his chest rise and fall. He slept on his back with his arms flung over his head and his tiny lips twitching with his dreams. Mrs. Given would offer her tea, and Charlotte would hold a steaming mug while she watched her son sleep, waiting for that radiant moment when he opened his eyes and she was the first thing he saw. Perhaps she would take him out in the buggy for some air.

Thirty-five minutes later, Charlotte rapped on Mrs. Given’s door. No answer. She knocked again and called out.

Rather than the scrape of a chair or footsteps, Charlotte heard crying. Henry’s crying—louder than she had ever heard before. She pounded on the door.

“Mrs. Given, what’s going on? Open the door!”

Finally she heard fumbling on the other side of the locked door. Mary Given pulled the door open and greeted Charlotte with frantic exhaustion, her hair dropping from its pins and her eyes bloodshot.

Henry was not sleeping. He was screaming in Mary’s arms.

Charlotte reached for her son. “He’s burning up!”

“He took sick on Friday,” Mary explained. “I thought it was just a runny nose, but by evening he had a fever.”

“That’s two days!” Panic surged up in Charlotte. “How long has he been this bad?” She put her face against her son’s hot cheek. Henry continued to scream.

“He’s been inconsolable since yesterday afternoon. The fever rose suddenly and he’s hardly slept at all.”

“Does he scream all the time?” Henry was an easy-natured baby who never had been sick before. He fussed very little when his needs were attended to. Charlotte trembled as she held him.

“He screams some of the time and then the coughing sets in and I’m afraid he’s going to stop breathing.”

Charlotte turned Henry in her arms to look at his face, purplish and distended. “Has he actually stopped breathing?” She put her ear to his tiny chest to listen to his rasping breath.

“Only for a few seconds at a time,” Mary answered quickly, “but I can’t seem to comfort him, and of course I have the twins to look after. I knew you would want to come, but I had no way to get word to you. No one in this neighborhood has a telephone, and I don’t have any spare coins to send a driver with a message.”

Charlotte’s heart pounded. She had seen babies sick before—she had three younger brothers, after all, and one of them had nearly died when he was not much older than Henry. But the thought of her own child in such distress without her knowledge was almost more than she could make sense of. It was one thing to leave him in the care of another woman when he was well and happy, and quite another to be so far away that she did not even know he was ill.

“I’m not leaving,” she declared, plopping onto the sofa and arranging Henry in her arms. “I can’t leave him like this.”

“What about your position?” Mary asked.

“I can’t think about that now. Henry is the only thing that matters. Can I have a cool cloth, please? I have to get his temperature down.”

“Mar-mar,” a little voice whined.

Charlotte looked over at both the bedraggled twins as one of them tugged on Mary’s skirts.

“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “They’re hungry and tired. I couldn’t keep the baby quiet last night, so no one slept. It’s long past lunchtime, and they haven’t had a proper nap, either. I didn’t dare leave the baby in case—”

“Don’t say it,” Charlotte said. “I’m here now. I’m going to take care of my son and he’s going to get better. Feed the twins.”

The week had been protracted torture. On Monday, Lucy attended the meeting on the women’s exhibit and pressed through the papers she brought home from the gathering to review again the list of countries that would be represented in the exhibit. She attended her class on Tuesday and Thursday and completed the assigned reading on the nature of philosophical arguments. She spent Friday at St. Andrew’s, updating records and overseeing the rearrangement of classrooms. The dining hall was half painted because Will had not come back to supervise the continuing endeavor. At church Pamela Troutman sat beside Oliver in the Banning pew, prompting speculation about their future. Over Sunday luncheon, Aunt Violet promised to stir up the ladies auxiliary to make quilts for the orphanage. Throughout the week, Lucy cocked her head, listening for Leo’s step, his voice, his accounting of what he had discovered about Will. But the accounting never came, because Leo did not turn up any new information, despite diligent effort.

No one knew where Will was. By now he had been missing for a week. Lucy could hardly think straight.

Archie served the soup at dinner, and Bessie cleared dishes between courses, the routine of the Banning house undisturbed. Penard stood as always in the corner of the dining room, his watchful eye vigilant of every detail of the table service.

“I hear a good report of the Board of Lady Managers,” Samuel remarked over the duck. “Yours may be the only building fully ready for opening day.”

“Mrs. Palmer refuses to take no for an answer,” Lucy joked. “Once she makes up her mind that something might be possible, she insists we bring it to reality.”

“It’s a shame about the lady architect,” Leo said. “Imagine being the first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, being chosen to design a building for the world’s fair, and then have such a bout of melancholy that she must withdraw from the preparations.”

“Sophia Hayden did a wonderful job with the designs,” Lucy said. “The building is a breath of Grecian beauty.”

“Bertha Palmer can be a bit of a pill,” Aunt Violet said in her usual get-to-the-point manner. “It would not surprise me one bit to find that she drove that poor girl to distraction.”

“Violet, you are exaggerating as usual,” Flora said.

“Just telling the truth. If you’ve ever met the woman, you know I am. I hear that the Board of Lady Managers is objecting to half the plans for the fair on moral grounds, and it’s all Mrs. Palmer’s doing.”

Lucy controlled a smile as she glanced at Leo.

“The wheel Mr. Ferris is building looks more enticing every time I see it,” Leo said, changing the subject. “It’s sure to be an attraction.”

“I’m not at all sure I can bring myself to get on it,” Flora said.

“I will, without reservation,” Violet said.

Lucy laughed now. “I’ll go with you, Aunt Violet.”
You are so refreshing!

“It won’t be operating on opening day,” Samuel advised. “I suppose the board of directors waited too long to approve the exhibit, and now it won’t be finished by May 1, like a lot of other things. But it should be working for most of the summer.”

Lucy couldn’t help but remember the first time Will came to dinner and said he’d love to see the drawings for Mr. Ferris’s wheel. She didn’t recall he ever got that chance.

Dinner conversation drifted into other dimensions of fair preparation. Samuel was looking after fair business on an almost daily basis and reported that arrangements for the opening ceremonies in the Court of Honor were nearly final. At last dessert was served—Mrs. Fletcher’s lemon raspberry pie was incomparable—and Flora and Samuel decided to take their coffee in the parlor. Lucy moseyed with them through the foyer. Just as they arrived at the parlor’s arched doorway, she realized she must have dropped her embroidered handkerchief in the dining room and turned around to retrieve it.

She did not mean to overhear Penard’s conversation with Mrs. Fletcher. Lucy was not in the habit of listening in on such exchanges. However, their voices seemed slightly raised, and in a room without the family present, words easily rang across the empty space.

“That girl knows she is to be back in the house by nine o’clock on Sunday evenings,” Penard insisted. “It’s well past nine-thirty, and she’s not here to help with clearing and washing.”

“She’s never been late getting back before,” Mrs. Fletcher responded. “Perhaps she was delayed, or the streetcar broke down.”

“We don’t even know where she goes. We never hear a report of her friends or excursions. She’s keeping a secret, I tell you. We have no way to tell what kind of shenanigans a girl her age is getting into.”

Lucy cleared her throat and made her presence known. “I seem to have dropped my handkerchief.”

Penard glanced at Lucy’s chair at the table. “Yes, miss, here it is.” He stepped over and picked it up and handed it to her. “Will there be anything else, miss?”

Lucy said evenly, “Please tell Charlotte I’d like to see her as soon as she comes in.”

“Yes, miss. We expect her at any moment.”

“I’ll be in my suite. Please send her right up.”

Lucy turned and ambled back across the foyer. She stuck her head in the parlor. “I’ve changed my mind about coffee,” she told her parents. “I think I’ll turn in early tonight.”

“Are you feeling unwell?” Flora asked.

“I’m fine. I’d just like to do some reading before I go to sleep.”

“I’ll be on my way as well.” Aunt Violet set down her coffee cup. “I’ve already been here far longer than I intended to stay.”

Lucy kissed her aunt’s cheek.

“Come for tea this week,” Violet urged. “We’ll have a catch-up.”

“I’d love that,” Lucy said.

Violet leaned in to kiss Lucy’s cheek. “He’ll be all right,” she whispered.

Lucy left her parents in the parlor and went upstairs to her suite. It was not like Charlotte to do anything to put her position at risk. Lucy sat in the armchair with a book in her lap, but she did not read a word. Instead, she watched the clock. Nine-forty-five. Nine-fifty. At ten she heard the gong of the grandfather clock in the foyer. Ten-fifteen. Ten-twenty-five. She got up and went to her vanity table to push the annunciator button.

“Yes, miss?”

“Has Charlotte come in yet?”

“No, miss.”

She snapped the button off. Something was wrong. Lucy knew exactly where Charlotte was.

Ten-thirty. Ten-forty.

Lucy opened her door and stepped out into the hall. Richard and Leo’s doors were closed, and she saw no light creeping out. Oliver’s door was open, but his room was dark. He was still out with Pamela. Stilling the rustle of her skirt as best as she could, Lucy walked softly down the hall to the top of the stairs. A dim light was on in the foyer, probably for Oliver’s sake, but the parlor appeared vacant.

Lucy returned to her room. Ten-fifty. Eleven. Eleven-ten.

Lucy’s mind was made up. She rose from her chair, crossed to her closet, and retrieved her hooded cloak and a small pouch of coins. She couldn’t risk calling for a carriage. The whole household would be up in arms at the suggestion that she should go out unaccompanied at that hour of the night, and she could not risk leading anyone to Charlotte. Yet she had to go.

Wrapped in her cloak, Lucy skulked down the stairs, slowly, alert for any sound of movement in the lower rooms. Satisfied there was none, she crossed the foyer and unlatched the front door. Even at this hour she would be able to find a cab on Michigan Avenue.