A Proper Pursuit (23 page)

He gently took my hand in his again on the long, slow ride to the top. “Isn’t this something?” he breathed.

“It sure is!” I gripped his hand tightly in return. In fact, our hands might have been glued together.

I risked looking down as we climbed and had the peculiar sensation that my stomach was sinking toward my toes. I had never been up this high before—and certainly had never dangled from such a spindly structure before. The sensation was dizzying. We were hanging over empty air, suspended from the slowly turning wheel. I tried to take it all in at once, watching the intricate steel supports drifting past, then gazing down at the ground, then at the distant view of the fairgrounds and the lake and the smoky city on the horizon.

“Wow! This is frightening—but fun!”

“I knew you would like it.”

“I wish I could fly!”

“I know what you mean. I want to go for a ride in a balloon someday. They have a tethered one here at the fair that you can go up in, but I doubt it’s as exciting as a real balloon ride.”

“Tell me about your family, Silas. Where did you grow up? Is your family as adventurous as you are?”

“I was raised on a farm in Ohio outside a town you probably never heard of. I’m the fourth of seven kids. I left home after high school for the excitement of the city and never looked back. I’d see the whole world if I could afford it.”

I hadn’t thought of Silas as a thief all morning, but I suddenly had an idea how I could find out if he was one.

“If you could choose, would you rather be the captain of a pirate ship or the captain of a warship?”

“A pirate ship. No question about it.” Somehow I knew that would be his choice.

“You have to tell me why.”

“Wars are so long and drawn out and pointless. Nobody really wins them, do they? I don’t hate anyone badly enough to fight them in a war. Besides, the captain of a warship has to follow orders. But the captain of a pirate ship, now he’s his own boss. That’s the life for me. Sailing the seas, seeking adventure. Finding buried treasure …”

“But pirates are outlaws.”

“I know,” he said with a grin. “And they get to hijack sailing vessels and carry off gold doubloons and beautiful maidens.”

“You must have read the same adventure stories that I did.”

“Which ship would you choose, Violet?”

He was gazing into my eyes, and it was so romantic to be climbing above the fairgrounds with an exciting, adventurous man that I lost my train of thought altogether. It took me a moment to remember the question.

“Well … I don’t think women get to be ship captains.”

“But what if you could be one?”

“If I could? … I guess I would want to be the captain a pirate ship too.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been taught to follow the rules all my life. It might be fun to see what it was like to break a few.”

“You’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever met.”

My heart was booming like a bass drum. I turned away to look at the view and to remind myself why I had agreed to come with him. Silas was going to help me find my mother on the way home. Winning his affections had not been part of my plan.

“I love your questions, Violet. Ask me another one.”

“All right …” It took me a moment to think of one. “If you had to choose between going blind and never seeing the face of your beloved again, or becoming permanently deaf, so that you could never hear music or a child’s voice, which would you choose?”

“I’d choose to be deaf. I think I would miss seeing beautiful things more than hearing them. Besides, people don’t really need to talk, do they? They can say so much more with their eyes … don’t you think?”

I made the mistake of looking up into his eyes, which were as blue as the distant lake. I felt breathless, as if I were treading water, trying not to drown. I quickly turned away and looked back out at the lake.

“Is that a boat out there?” I asked, pointing.

“It looks like one… . But tell me how you would answer that question, Violet. Would you rather be blind or deaf?”

“The same as you, I think. The world is much too beautiful to miss. Just look at that view.”

We had been stopping to let passengers on and off as we’d slowly ascended, but now the wheel paused at the very top, swaying slightly in the breeze. The sounds from the Midway had grown faint, and a hush seemed to fall over the other passengers in our car as we gazed down from the dizzying height. But the view was wasted on Silas McClure. He never took his eyes off me.

“We’ve stopped,” I murmured.

“To tell you the truth,” Silas said softly, “I hope we get stuck up here for a few days.”

“Me too.” I didn’t want the ride to end either. But a moment later I felt the sinking sensation in my stomach as our car started down again.

“Ask me one more question, Violet.”

I decided to ask the same one I’d asked Nelson Kent—the one neither of us had been able to answer.

“If you had to choose between being desperately poor but in love, or being enormously wealthy but alone, which would you choose?”

“I’d choose love. A thousand times over. Life wouldn’t be worth living without it.”

“But you would be poor, remember?”

“I don’t care. People get along fine without money all the time. But money can’t buy the happiness that love brings.”

I thought of how sad Nelson had seemed after Katya had disappeared through the servants’ door, and I wondered if Silas was right.

“You believe in love, then?” I asked.

“Absolutely! Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I was told that my parents married for love, yet somehow it died. I don’t know why. Now they’re divorced.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“My Aunt Birdie was madly in love with her husband, but as you’ve probably guessed, he died in the war. Now she’s so lost and lonely without him.”

“I know it seems very sad. But I’ll wager that if you asked her, she would gladly trade her house and all of her money to have him back.”

“You’re probably right.”

“But you haven’t answered the question, Violet. You and your grandmother and your aunts seem pretty well off. Would you give it all up for love?”

“I’m not sure. My grandmother does charity work among the immigrants, and she took me with her the other day. I saw the terrible living conditions in those tenements, and I’m afraid my love might wear thin if I had to live in a place like that and struggle every day just to get enough to eat.”

“But you said that the other choice was to be rich but alone, right?”

“I know. And I wouldn’t like that either.”

“Have you ever been in love, Violet?”

“No.”

“Then maybe it’s not fair to try to answer that question until you’ve experienced it.”

Something about the way he was smiling made me wonder. “Have you been in love, Mr. McClure?”

“Yes, Miss Hayes. I have felt myself falling in love—just once. That’s why I know I’d give up everything else for it.”

He was gazing at me as if I was the one! I couldn’t breathe. He was like a magician, dangling a shining object in front of me—back and forth—until I was hypnotized by him.

Suddenly the car lurched as it came to a halt at the bottom. This time I stumbled backward, away from him instead of into his arms, and my good sense returned. Silas McClure was a snake charmer, a salesman, and he’d been performing his trade on me. That’s what thieves and con artists like him did, feeding their phony lines to weak-willed women and spinning their charms. He was obviously a master at this trade and I had nearly fallen for it. Fortunately the ride ended so I could come to reality.

“Wasn’t that wonderful?” Silas asked. “I could ride all day.”

“Yes, me too.” I needed to let go of his hand and break the spell completely, so I slowly slid my hand from his and took his elbow again. I kept a safe distance between us as we walked.

“What shall we see now?” Silas asked. “You want to see the Street in Cairo, or the African dancers, or—”

“I think we had better find Josephine and Robert first.”

“They’re okay.”

“I’m sure they are, Silas, but if someone were to see us walking together without a chaperone, it might ruin my reputation.” I felt scared, not of him but of the way I had reacted to him. I was being drawn to him—and he was thoroughly unsuitable!

“Okay. Sure. We can go look for them.” At least he was cheerful about it.

As we neared the main steps to the Woman’s Pavilion, Josephine suddenly materialized out of the shadows. One moment no one had been there, and the next—there she stood, as if she had been hiding in the bushes, watching for us. She glanced all around nervously as we approached, then hurried forward and took Silas’ other arm, steering us away from the building.

“We gotta go,” she said.

“Wait, wait. What’s the hurry?” Silas asked.

“I can’t say in front of …” Josephine nodded toward me.

“Will you excuse us for a moment, Violet?” He pulled Josephine aside to talk. Their voices were so soft I could hear only snatches of their conversation.

“What happened?”

I heard Josephine say the words
caught
and
money
. My stomach began to sink as it had when riding the wheel.

“Can’t you take care of things?” Silas asked. His voice rose in anger and so did Josephine’s.

“Don’t be stupid. I gotta leave right now and you gotta come with me.”

Silas exhaled, then turned back toward me and linked my arm through his. “I’m sorry to end our day in a rush, Violet, but I’m afraid we have to go.”

All three of us started walking briskly back toward the elevated train station. It was the first time I’d ever seen Silas without a smile on his face.

“But we just got here. And what about Robert? We’re not going to leave him here, are we?”

They answered simultaneously: “He got tied up,” from Silas. “He has business to take care of,” from Josephine. They couldn’t leave the fair quickly enough. Could what I suspected really be true? Were Silas and his friends truly thieves?

When we reached the station, Josephine scanned the platform as if searching for someone while Silas purchased our tickets. He offered me a seat on the bench while we waited for the next train to arrive, but he didn’t sit. He paced in front of me, and Josephine paced a short distance away. Their eyes roved the station like searchlights.

Silas barely spoke on the ride home except to say, “I’m sorry, Violet.” He had forgotten all about taking me to the address on LaSalle Street, and when I saw his worried expression, I didn’t dare bring it up. Once again, I’d been thwarted in my search for my mother.

“This wasn’t at all how I wanted our day to end,” he said when we finally reached my front door. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“Of course. I enjoyed riding the wheel… .”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“But I don’t understand why—” “I’m so sorry, Violet. I have to run.”

He left me standing at the door and jogged down the block to the streetcar stop where we’d left Josephine. He didn’t look back. I felt as though I’d been tossed from a train like a sack of mail. I was fighting tears of disappointment and frustration when Aunt Birdie greeted me in the front hallway with a hug.

“Back so soon? Did you have a nice time, dear? Why didn’t you invite him in?”

I couldn’t reply. How could I explain something that I didn’t understand myself?

“You’re crying, Violet. What happened?”

“Nothing. Our chaperones were … were called away. So we had to come home.”

“Oh, what a shame. I would be disappointed too if I couldn’t spend the day with my beau.”

I started to protest that Silas wasn’t my beau, then stopped. The real reason I was upset, I told myself, was because I still hadn’t found my mother.

Wasn’t it?

Chapter

15

Wednesday, June 21, 1893

W
ould you like to come with me to the settlement house?” my grandmother asked the following morning. “I think Louis Decker will be there. And we won’t be cooking this time.”

“Maybe another day. I’m supposed to play the piano for Louis tomorrow, and I really need to practice.” I also needed a break from all of my would-be suitors after my unsettling day with Silas McClure.

I sat down at the keyboard and was warming up with a few scales when I remembered Aunt Agnes. If she found me at home today, she would want me to go calling with her. Maybe I should feign illness. Aunt Agnes was determined to find me a husband, and she was firing her Cupid’s arrows at Nelson Kent.

I couldn’t erase the image of him and Katya kissing. It had been like a scene from a romance novel.What would it be like to be kissed with such passion? Nelson had told her,
“Violet is just a friend … I’m
doing this for us… .”
Doing what? Was Nelson using me?

I pounded out another set of scales on the piano. When I looked up, Aunt Matt stood in the parlor doorway with her hat, gloves, and parasol.

“I’m leaving now to work at the Suffrage Association.”

I swiveled around on the piano stool and stood. Aunt Matt was the one person who wouldn’t pressure me to find a husband.

“May I come with you?” I asked.