A Proper Pursuit (31 page)

“That sounds so … so devious—to marry someone for money.”

“Women do it all the time,” Nelson said with a shrug. “So do men.”

“Men do? What do you mean?” We started walking again.

“Well, if a man who is without financial means marries a woman from a wealthy family, all of her property and assets become his. It works in a man’s favor to marry well, just as it does for women.”

I understood what Nelson meant, but it didn’t seem right. “Aunt Agnes told me that your father won’t let you get ahead in his business until you settle down and get married. Is that true?”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“May I ask you a question … ? Is that why you’re courting me?”

“Would you think less of me if I told you it was? I mean, aren’t you and the other young ladies—Haughty and Naughty and all the rest—doing exactly the same thing? Isn’t it your goal to marry the richest man?”

“I suppose so. I just don’t like the sound of it.”

“Hey, we were having fun until the subject of money came up. Can’t we simply enjoy this evening?”

We stopped in a clearing and watched the colored floodlights sweep across the sky, lighting up the distant buildings and domes and fountains. I felt as though I had stepped into a storybook.

“This is a beautiful place, Nelson. Thank you for bringing me here at night.” He took my chin in his hand and lifted my face toward his. He was about to kiss me. And I was about to let him— until I remembered Katya. I quickly turned away.

“We should probably get back.”

“Violet, wait.” He captured my arm. “I understand that you have other suitors, but tell me—how can I win you away from them?”

I knew that I couldn’t explain the true reason for my hesitation, because it had been wrong to spy on him and Katya. I decided to tell a story instead.

“Years ago, Gilbert Casey fell madly in love with my great-aunt Bertha. He easily obtained her father’s permission to marry her, but that wasn’t enough for Gilbert. He wanted Bertha to fall in love with him—really and truly in love. And so he set about to win her heart.”

“You’re quite the romantic, Violet Hayes. Always bringing up the subject of love.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. “But at least I know, now, what it will take.”

“We’d better get back,” I said again. And quickly too—before my curiosity won the battle with my good sense and I allowed him to take me into his arms and kiss me the way he had kissed Katya.

When we finally got back to the Choral Hall, all of Nelson’s friends were standing around outside. “There you are,” one of the pea pods said. “We wondered what happened to you two.”

“I can guess what you’ve been doing,” Haughty said.

“You would be wrong,” Nelson told her. “Our excursion has been entirely aboveboard, I assure you. Miss Hayes is a very proper lady.” He offered me his arm and we started walking, along with the whole group, away from the music hall.

“Is the concert over? Where are we going?”

“We’ve been invited to a private party in one of the other pavilions.”

I never did learn the name of the building. The party took place in a rented hall, away from the exhibits and displays. The lavishly decorated room resembled a European casino, complete with a roulette wheel, dice games, playing cards, and other games of chance. I thought they were merely elaborate props until I saw the stacks of real money being exchanged for multi-colored chips. Waiters circulated with trays of appetizers and drinks. Judging by the raucous laughter and loud voices, the drinks were alcoholic.

Nelson took a wad of bills from his wallet and exchanged them for a little tray of chips. He chose a game of dice, and I could see right away that he wasn’t gambling for fun. His intent was to win. But the longer he played, the more money he lost, and as his pile of chips dwindled away, he began to grow angry.

“Let’s leave, Nelson. This isn’t fun anymore.” I rubbed his arm to soothe him, but he shrugged me away.

“Not until I win my money back.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea? You might lose even more.”

He turned on me with surprising anger. “You know, women aren’t the only ones who lack the freedom to make their own decisions. But if I can accumulate enough money on my own, I’ll be able to do whatever I want with it. I’m going to be a self-made man, Violet, like Turlington Harvey and Marshall Field and all the rest of them.”

“By gambling? Didn’t you tell me that the lumber baron, what’s-his- name, worked his way to the top through hard work? Mr. McCormick invented his machine and Mr. Field built his store, and—” “What difference does it make how I get it?” He turned back to his dice game.

“That looks like a lot of money,” I said as he placed his last few chips on the board. “Why risk it all? Why not just work for your father?”

“It will take too long.”

“Too long for what?” But I thought I knew. He could break free from his father’s control and marry Katya if he had his own money.

“Too long for my father to trust me,” he said. “I want to make my own investments and get in on some of the new inventions from Mr. Edison and the others. New modes of transportation. Father won’t try any of them.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about investments, but it’s hardly a good idea to win your father’s trust by gambling away all your money.”

Nelson seemed to have a moment of sudden clarity. “I suppose you’re right. I’m sorry for yelling, Violet.”

I sighed with relief. Surely Nelson would scoop up his remaining chips and leave—but he didn’t.

“One more throw. Kiss the dice for me, would you, Violet?” He held them up to my lips and I reluctantly gave them a peck. I held my breath as he rolled the dice—and won!

“We can’t leave now,” Nelson said. He was back in the game with all of the fervor and excitement of Louis Decker and his friends at an evangelistic rally. Every time he made me kiss the dice, he won.

“You’re my good-luck charm!” He grinned and gave me a quick hug.

I had to admit that winning was exciting. The Grant sisters and all of the pea pods gathered around to cheer us on. With each roll of the dice, my heart pounded a little faster, and the tension and excitement grew greater and greater—along with the risk. I couldn’t help jumping up and down each time Nelson won. We cheered louder as the pile of chips in front of Nelson grew into a large mound. We were on a winning streak! I hadn’t felt this alive since Ruth Schultz and I decided to sneak out of the dormitory after curfew.

An hour after I had first kissed his dice, Nelson had won all of his money back along with a little more. He would have continued to play, but the fairgrounds were closing down for the night.

“Too bad we have to go,” he said. “Just when we were winning too.”

He traded in his chips and stood counting his money as the casino lights dimmed. One of the blackjack dealers offered to escort Nelson and me to the ship for our protection. I thought of Silas’ thieving friends roaming the fairgrounds and told Nelson he should accept.

“I would feel much safer,” I told him. “People have been robbed here at the fair, you know.”

“You’re my lucky charm,” he told me again as we boarded the ship. “We make a great team, don’t we?”

Chapter

20

Friday, June 30, 1893

I
managed to forget all about Louis Decker and Folk Night at the settlement house until Friday afternoon. By then, my grandmother was so excited about our evening out that I didn’t have the heart to hurt her feelings by staying home. I decided to douse a handkerchief with perfume and carry it in my pocket so I would have a way to defend myself against the putrid smells. I also wore my least favorite dress and oldest pair of shoes.

Louis looked thoroughly bathed, combed, tucked, and spitshined when he arrived at the house to escort Grandmother and me. Only his spectacles remained smudged, as usual. He really was a nice-looking man when he was all cleaned up. Not as classically handsome as Nelson, perhaps—and certainly not as well dressed— but attractive, nonetheless.

The evening began with a dinner held in the dining room where we had served the soup. Thankfully, the delicious aroma of roasting meat overwhelmed the stench of the neighborhood, and I could relax and tuck my perfumed handkerchief into my pocket. Scores of Bohemian people crowded inside the room, some in their colorful, traditional clothes, but most in much humbler attire. I felt a pang of guilt for enjoying the finer things in life that Nelson could offer. I should like Louis Decker. I should gladly choose him and a life of meaning and purpose and good values. Nelson enjoyed gambling— and I had helped him win. I had joined in. First I’d helped a thief and now a gambler. What was wrong with me?

Grandmother sat with a group of her friends, leaving Louis and me alone—if you can call sitting with hundreds of other people alone. Louis was a very quiet man when he wasn’t preaching, and he didn’t seem to know how to begin a conversation or keep it going. I did all the work of keeping the tennis ball in the air as plates of roast pork, potatoes, vegetables, and several other things I didn’t recognize circulated around our table.

“Have you been to the World’s Fair, Louis?”

“Not yet. I’ve been too busy working with our evangelism team.”

“Are you planning to go this summer?”

“Only if the Lord leads me, and if it fits His purposes.”

“You wouldn’t consider going just for fun?” He looked up at me as if he had never heard of the word. At least I think he was looking at me. His glasses were so smudged I didn’t understand how he could see anything at all, including the plate in front of him.

One of the platters that circulated around our table was piled with slices of a mysterious-looking meat. It had a strange, gelatinous consistency and resembled what you might get if you made a gelatin dessert out of random pieces of leftover meat.

“What is this?” I asked.

“I can’t pronounce the Bohemian name, but it’s similar to what we call head cheese.”

“I’ve never heard of head cheese. What’s in it besides cheese?”

“It isn’t really cheese. They take the animal’s head with all of the unused parts such as the brain, the tongue, and so forth, and boil it together to make a sort of sausage out of it. It’s quite delicious.”

I quickly passed the plate to the next person. As much as I longed to be as adventurous as Silas McClure, who had eaten rattlesnake, I lacked the stomach for it. And I did not care to sample any body parts from an animal’s head. I nibbled a bit of the roast pork and dumplings but was afraid to fill up, remembering the smelly ride home. What I did eat, however, was delicious. Louis had a voracious appetite and devoured everything in sight.

“What is the most adventuresome thing you’ve ever eaten?” I asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“I once met a person who’d eaten rattlesnake meat. Would you try it?”

“Only if I had a very good reason to.” I had hoped to make him laugh, but I was beginning to realize that Louis Decker didn’t laugh much. He wasn’t as gloomy and boring as Herman was—Louis would become quite animated when he preached or sang. But I had the feeling that he would never laugh unless God instructed him to.

“Suppose you became a missionary and the natives you were trying to convert served you something disgusting, like alligator eyeballs. Would you eat them?”

“That’s different. I would do anything for the sake of the Gospel.”

Yes, I was quite certain he would. I watched him swipe his bread across his plate to sop up the gravy and asked, “Have you always lived in Chicago?”

“No. Like Mr. Moody, I came to Chicago to get rich. Mr. Moody was a shoe salesman at one time, and his goal in life was to make a lot of money. But then the Lord changed his life and he gave up chasing wealth to serve God. That’s basically my story too.”

“Where do you see yourself living and working after you finish school?”

“Wherever God sends me.”

For dessert we had little cookies with fruit in the middle of them, and there was something about the sight of them, or maybe the flavor, that seemed familiar to me. The Bohemian women pronounced them “ko-latch-key.”

“I’ve eaten cookies like these before,” I told Louis. “I can’t recall when or where.”

Everyone relaxed while we waited for the folk dancing to begin, and some of the smaller children chased each other around the tables, giggling. The sound of their laughter was as lovely as the music I had heard with Nelson Kent. I remembered Herman Beckett saying that he wanted a family, and Grandmother had told me that Louis was wonderful with the children. Yet I suspected that if I asked Louis if he envisioned children in his future, his reply would be something like, “Whatever God plans for me.”

“Tell me about your family, Louis.”

“My father owns a bakery in Milwaukee. We’re just an ordinary family—three sisters, two brothers. I came to Chicago to make my mark in life, and I was doing very well in the business world until I saw the light of Christ. I’m like the man Jesus healed: I once was blind, but now I see.” Louis always managed to talk more about God than about himself. I decided to change my tactics.

“If you had to choose between being struck blind and never being able to see the face of your beloved again, or becoming permanently deaf and being denied the sound of music and of a child’s laughter, which would you choose?”