The Pursuit of Lucy Banning (9 page)

Upstairs, Charlotte changed the baby, fed him, and hoped for a nap herself. As she dozed off, with her baby in the crook of her arm, she had the sensation that the scene in the kitchen had been a dream. Perhaps she had been napping all along. Was it truly possible she was not alone? That someone like Lucy Banning wanted to help her? That Henry could be safe and loved?

 10 

L
ucy squirmed in the pew, and her mother glared at her as if she were a squirrelly six-year-old. She stilled her knees and transferred motion to her eyes. Arches and buttresses and high curved ceilings annoyed Lucy more every week, not to mention the elaborate casing around hundreds of organ pipes across the front of the church. Such impracticality.
What was so sacred about the Middle Ages that architects are still trying to re-create it?
she wondered. Prairie Avenue was full of homes built on a Gothic premise, and nearby Second Presbyterian Church fit right in. The twentieth century was less than ten years away. Perhaps the current Arts and Crafts movement in which Flora Banning dabbled would take hold and move architecture in a forward direction.

The Bannings’ pew, for which Lucy’s father duly gave a generous donation each year to the church, was situated toward the front to the right of the center aisle. Lucy had sat in this pew since she was a small child, when the current building opened in 1874. The Bannings had not yet moved to Prairie Avenue, but they joined the church as soon as it opened in a neighborhood that seemed to attract wealthy families. The Jules family had the pew behind them for many years, before they moved to Riverside and transferred their membership.

As Lucy blossomed and Daniel began to regard her more seriously as his future wife, he started sitting with the Bannings. Now on the weekends when he stayed in the city rather than take the eleven-mile Burlington-Northern train ride to Riverside, Daniel positioned himself at Lucy’s left elbow in the Banning pew.

The balconies on three sides of the eight-hundred-seat sanctuary were full, even though there were plenty of available seats below. A quick scan revealed that, as usual, the seats above were filled with servants and working families who would never afford the donation required for the privilege of sitting on the main floor. The injustice made Lucy want to squirm again.

Lucy blinked twice to return her focus to the words coming from the man in the pulpit. The sermon text was from James, one of Lucy’s favorite portions of the Bible. Her mind’s eye could see the words of James 2 on the page of her own Bible on the cherrywood table next to her bed: “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” She loved the confrontation to action that threaded its way through the entire book of James. In her mind, it was inescapable. Nevertheless the preacher seemed to be finding his way out of James’s demands for compassion.
Does he even see the people in the balconies?
she wondered.

She glanced at Daniel, who caught her eye and leaned his head to whisper, “Wonderful sermon, don’t you think?”

Lucy wanted to sigh. No, she wanted to get up and stomp out of church.

Of course Daniel would find the sermon wholly acceptable because it asked nothing of him. Was he even listening? Or was his mind already on the business deals of the week ahead? They were planning to spend the day together: dinner with her family—which Charlotte would have to help serve while her baby slept upstairs—followed by a long walk if the fine weather held, a private supper in the parlor, and a carriage ride.

It was going to be a long day.

Charlotte used to look forward to Sunday mornings. Brightness emblazoned her grandmother’s face on Sunday mornings, and Charlotte wanted her face to know that brilliance someday. But then her grandmother had passed away, and no one cared whether Charlotte went to church. She had not been in years. Now no one there would understand what had become of her life.

But what would it be like to go to church in Chicago?
Charlotte wondered. She had served the Bannings their eggs Benedict breakfast and watched them arrange themselves in the most spacious carriage for Archie, the footman and assistant coachman, to drive them to Second Presbyterian Church. No one coming to this part of town could miss the church. Even Charlotte had seen its Gothic tower before she found her way to the Banning house a few blocks away. It was the landmark everyone used to give directions to Prairie Avenue. The building could hold ten times as many people as filled the church of her childhood. Perhaps the voice would be different there. Perhaps someone would understand what had become of her life.

Of course Charlotte couldn’t go to church. Even if Sunday morning responsibilities offered respite—which they did not—she could not be seen with Henry by anyone who might follow her trail back to the Banning home. She learned the hard way in a farming community, where the nearest neighbors were two miles away and nevertheless everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. And if she boarded Henry with a woman and ever had a Sunday morning off, she would use it to go see Henry, not God. She was pretty sure her grandmother had been wrong about God always being with her, and the truth was she was not inclined to go looking for him now. Her rare prayers were more like wishing hard than thinking anyone was listening.

On this particular morning, Charlotte wasn’t seeing either Henry or God. Her baby was sleeping soundly upstairs.

After forming the chilled rice into small mounds for Mrs. Fletcher to fry into croquettes, Charlotte snatched twenty minutes to check on him. Her heart nearly stopped when she found him awake and thrashing against the side of the carpetbag. If he cried out, no one would hear him two floors below amid the kitchen clatter, but she hated to think he would feel for a moment that she was not attentive to his distress. Only repeated heavy exhaling had allowed her to leave him again and prepare to serve Sunday midday dinner.

The meal boasted cream of mushroom soup, baked halibut, roast duck, rice croquettes, stewed peas, Parisian salad, and baked apricot pudding. Mr. Penard selected gold-rimmed white china and instructed the maids to set the table with the gold linens to match. To Charlotte’s mind, the family hardly noticed the preparations, which was no doubt Penard’s goal. If someone commented on the table setting or the food, it would have meant something was amiss. While Penard served, she held her position at attention in the butler’s pantry, peeking through the narrowest of cracks where the tall door was almost imperceptibly ajar. When she saw Penard’s subtle signal for her assistance, she entered the dining room, then disappeared again as soon as she dispatched her task.

Charlotte could see Lucy’s face, how she smiled politely at her fiance’s chatter and caught the eye of Mr. Leo across the table in an unspoken secret language. She saw how Lucy tilted her head to listen deferentially to her father’s analysis of the morning church service and reached to squeeze her mother’s hand with affection that seemed genuine to Charlotte. And she saw how Lucy’s gaze rose periodically to the door behind which Charlotte stood, subtly but expectantly, as if hoping Charlotte would appear. Charlotte, however, kept her eyes down whenever Penard summoned her. Only that morning, he had admonished her.

“Never look directly at any family members while serving.”

“No, sir, of course not,” Charlotte replied.

“And never speak unless spoken to.”

“No, sir.”

“Never offer an opinion. Answer questions as briefly as possible.”

“I know my place, sir.”

“See that you don’t forget.”

Charlotte would put her own composure at risk along with her employment if she allowed herself to look into the face of this woman who had held Henry twenty-four hours ago and promised to help.

As the meal came to an end with the pudding and coffee, family members gradually excused themselves for Sunday afternoon leisure in the parlor, leaving only Daniel and Lucy lingering at the table. When Daniel looked momentarily vexed at the presence of soiled dishes in front of him, Penard crooked a gloved finger at Charlotte. She stepped once again into the dining room and as unobtrusively as possible cleared space in front of Daniel and Lucy.

“My dear Lucy,” Daniel was saying, “your hesitancy to talk about our wedding befuddles me. You may make every arrangement you wish. I only ask that you agree to a date so that we don’t find ourselves without an appropriate venue.”

“Venue?” Lucy asked. “Are we not to marry at Second Presbyterian?”

“Of course the ceremony will be there. We must reserve the sanctuary and be sure the pastor is not planning to be on leave. After the church ceremony we can adjourn to a hall elsewhere for the wedding meal and dancing.”

Charlotte reached for Lucy’s empty goblet.

“Thank you, Charlotte,” Lucy said.

Charlotte’s face burned with Lucy’s glance as she picked up Daniel’s goblet as well. Fortunately Penard had stepped into his pantry.

“Lucy!” Daniel said sharply. “I’m trying to have an important discussion with you and you’re chitchatting with the kitchen maid.”

Charlotte pressed her back to the wall and turned her eyes down, demure. Too late. Penard had heard Daniel’s outburst and appeared in the dining room to glare.

Lucy idly fingered the beaded cuff of her dress, a garment Charlotte knew Lucy would give away without second thought if doing so would not distress Flora Banning.

“I was rather hoping for a simple affair. Perhaps we’ll have the reception here at the house. Mother will have redone the place in anticipation. She might as well have an opportunity to show it off.”

Daniel leaned back in his chair, amused, and chuckled. “You can imagine how our mothers would respond to that suggestion.”

“It’s not their wedding—it’s our wedding.” Daniel laughed easily, which could be endearing and could diffuse tension in a business meeting, but at moments like this it made Lucy feel as if he saw her as a young, naïve child.

“I’m afraid I would have to side with the mothers.” The smile was gone. “Our families are prominent, Lucy. You know as well as I do how important social connections are to business arrangements. We can’t afford to offend people with a small wedding or a reception to which they are not invited.”