A Proper Pursuit (22 page)

It was apparent that Josephine had never been to charm school.

“Did I exaggerate when I told you how pretty Violet is?” Silas asked, nudging Josephine in the ribs.

“She’s lovely,” Josephine said. “Let’s get going.” Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she had a cold. Perhaps she needed a dose of Dr. Dean’s Blood Builder.

I couldn’t get a very good look at Robert—he wore his hat down so low it nearly covered his eyes, and the rest of his face was hidden behind a bushy brown beard and exuberant mustache. But Josephine was very homely, and apparently quite hirsute—poor thing. I saw a fringe of dark hair poking out between her long sleeves and her gloves. She seemed very self-conscious about her appearance—and I would be too if I were as unpleasant looking as she was. Both chaperones kept their faces averted and their eyes lowered.

“Do you mind taking a streetcar?” Silas asked. “I can hail a cab if you want, but it might take a while to find one.”

“I don’t mind the streetcar if the others don’t.”

“They’re fine with it.”

I glanced over my shoulder. The two stayed several paces behind us as we walked to the streetcar stop. I wanted to be polite and include them in our conversation, but it was almost as if they were avoiding me. Maybe they had never played the role of chaperones before.

“It seems rude not to include them in our conversation, Mr. McClure. Should we slow down for them?”

“They’re fine,” Silas said. “They’re as excited about going to the fair as I am.”

I would have to take his word on faith because their grim expressions revealed little excitement. When they turned their backs on me and began whispering to each other as we waited for the streetcar, I saw no sense in worrying about being polite.

“By the way, will we be passing anywhere near LaSalle Street?” I asked Silas. This time I had remembered to bring my mother’s address with me.

“LaSalle Street? Not really. Why?”

“There’s someone I’ve been hoping to visit while I’m here in Chicago. Her address is on LaSalle Street.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. You showed it to me the day we arrived in town.”

“Might it be possible to stop there on our way home?”

“Yeah, sure. We can arrange that.” My heart leaped with excitement at the prospect. At last!

We rode the streetcar for several blocks—Silas and I sharing a seat, our chaperones sitting in the rear of the car—until we reached the south side elevated train station. The tracks were the oddest things I’d ever seen, suspended in the air above our heads on trestlelike bridges. We would have to climb a set of stairs in order to board them. I instinctively ducked as a train rumbled into the station and screeched to a halt overhead, blocking out the sun.

“What do you think?” Silas shouted, pointing up.

“Quite impressive,” I shouted back. “I had heard that the city was building a set of train tracks up in the air, but I couldn’t imagine such a thing.”

“These are specially built to carry the crowds to the fair.”

Another locomotive roared into the station as we climbed the stairs, and I had to grip my hat to keep it from blowing away in the wind. I felt the metal scaffolding shake beneath my feet.

“I hear they’re planning to extend these elevated trains until they make a loop all around the city,” Silas said. “Aren’t they something?”

I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I thought the steel framework was quite ugly. The trains did little to beautify the city and might better have been buried underground, as they were in other cities.

“It seems a little scary, doesn’t it?” I shouted above the noise. “I mean, it’s not every day that you see trains up in the air, above our heads.”

“I think they’re great! I get all pepped up, don’t you? All that power and energy—it’s contagious!”

“Yes.” It must have been the excitement of the trains because my heart was banging like a factory in full swing. Our train arrived, and once again Josephine and Robert took seats well away from us when we boarded. “Have they ever chaperoned anyone before?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Well, I suppose it’s nice of them to give us privacy, but I feel rude for not including them in our conversation.”

“They aren’t very talkative.”

I looked down at the streets below as the train propelled us through the air at breakneck speed, squealing into stations to pick up more passengers, then racing out again. In no time at all I caught my first glimpse of the fair up ahead. The day was magnificent without a cloud in the sky, and the white buildings and silvery water seemed to glow in the sunlight.

“Oh, it’s wonderful!” I breathed.

“It’s like a little piece of heaven just floated down to earth,” Silas said when he saw my reaction. “You can see why they call it the White City.”

“Beautiful doesn’t seem descriptive enough.”

“You should see it at night, all lit up with electric lights.” I recalled Nelson Kent saying the same thing.

Silas paid my admission fee of fifty cents, but I thought it odd that our chaperones paid their own fare. As soon as we entered the gates, Josephine and Robert took the lead, walking briskly ahead of us as if they had an appointment to keep. Silas and I hurried to stay apace.

“That’s the Transportation Building,” he said, pointing to our left. “And that enormous one across the water is Manufactures and Liberal Arts. It has a walkway up on top, if you want to go up for a good view later on. And look—we can ride around the lagoon in a gondola.”

“Oh, I would love to go for a gondola ride!” It was like a scene from a travel book with the gondolier in his brightly colored costume, propelling his passengers across the tranquil waters. The pristine white buildings in the background had arches and pillars and graceful statues. “This is amazing, Silas! It’s like another world. I’ve always wanted to travel to faraway places.”

“You name any country or state you want and they have a pavilion or a display here. You can see the world for only two bits—Japan, Egypt, Africa … They even have an Eskimo village with reindeer.”

Silas’ childlike excitement was contagious. I didn’t know which way to look or where I wanted to go first. I wanted to see it all, but Josephine and Robert had raced so far ahead of us that Silas and I had to hurry down the path or risk losing them.

“Why are they in such a hurry?” I panted.

“Josephine wants to see the Woman’s Pavilion.”

“I do too. My Aunt Matilda has been singing its praises.”

Silas and I finally paused to rest once we arrived in front of the stately pavilion. “That’s the Wooded Isle in the middle of the lagoon,” he told me. “And that’s the Swedish Pavilion on the other side with the thatched towers. That castlelike one is the Fisheries Building. They have the most amazing aquariums inside, with the strangest and most beautiful underwater creatures you could ever imagine.”

“Where did our chaperones go?” I asked, glancing around.

“I think they went inside already.”

“Without us? Shouldn’t we go in with them?”

“You don’t really want to see the Woman’s Pavilion, do you? It’s boring, Violet. The Midway is a lot more fun.”

“I don’t know … um … I guess—” “We can meet up with them later. Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the big wheel, of course! You said you wanted to ride Mr.

Ferris’ wonderful wheel, remember? I thought we’d go there first.”

“Alone?”

“Look—there it is.” He took my shoulders and swung me around, pointing into the distance.

“Wow!” The moment I saw the huge mechanical wheel poking into the sky I no longer cared about Josephine and Robert. We hurried toward the broad Midway Plaisance and plunged into the buzzing crowd of people.

“I guess we really don’t need chaperones in a crowd this big,” I said.

“I don’t understand why you need them at all. It’s almost the twentieth century, you know? All this fuss over manners and things— that’s from the olden days, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t seem to compose a reply. “I … um … I guess the assumption is that women should be protected.”

“From what? People say women are helpless, but I don’t buy it. You strike me as a sensible, intelligent woman. I’ll wager you’re quite capable of taking care of yourself. In fact, you’ve been gripping that parasol like it’s a weapon ever since we left home. I’d sure hate to come between you and that thing.” I had to laugh at his words. I also eased my grip on the umbrella handle.

The wild, chaotic Midway seemed like an entirely different world from the symmetry and beauty of the White City. Even the crowds seemed different. These were boisterous, commonplace folk, unlike the more genteel crowd I’d seen strolling past the lagoons.

Here was another example of the many contrasts I’d encountered since coming to Chicago: Nelson Kent’s luxurious life compared to Irina’s desolate one. Louis Decker’s passion for God versus the religious indifference I’d grown up with. The narrow roles I had assumed all women must play contrasted with the opportunities that Aunt Matt and her friends foresaw for women. And the strict manners and rules I’d learned from Madame Beauchamps, which couldn’t compare with the delicious freedom I felt walking down the Midway with Silas McClure—without a chaperone.

Silas stood a head taller than me, and it was hard to hold on to his arm in the crowded streets. I lost my grip momentarily when someone jostled us, and Silas reached for my hand as naturally as if we were children. Once again, the moment his strong, warm palm touched mine, the sensation was like gripping the wrong end of a flat iron.

“I would hate to lose you in this mob,” he said when he saw my reaction. He lifted our entwined hands slightly and said, “This is so we don’t get separated.”

It was highly improper—wasn’t it? But hadn’t I held Nelson Kent’s hand when we’d danced together? What was the difference?

I quickly forgot about propriety as we passed all sorts of fascinating displays—the Libby Glass Works, a Colorado gold mine, a rustic log cabin, the Hagenbeck Animal Show, an Irish village, a Japanese bazaar. The accompanying smells of woodsmoke and animals and exotic spices entranced me.

“What are those drums?” I asked. I hoped it wasn’t the sound of my heart pounding for all to hear.

“There’s a Javanese village on the right. We can go there later, if you want.” The comfortable way he said “we” both frightened and thrilled me.

“I wish I had the freedom to go places on my own and make my own decisions,” I said. “I’ve had my father hovering over me all my life when I wasn’t in school. And my school was very strict. They told us that rules and chaperones were there to protect women. But you’re right—who says I need to be protected?”

“I’ll wager those rules will be out-of-date in a few years.”

“Do you think so? That’s what my Aunt Matt thinks too. She’s a suffragette. What do you think of women voting?”

“I don’t know. Why do they want to vote?”

I tried to recall what Aunt Matt had told me. “They want to be able to elect people who will represent their interests—women’s interests.”

“That makes sense to me.” Silas McClure seemed to have very modern views as far as women were concerned. I decided to probe further as we walked past a genuine Bedouin Arab with his camel.

“What if you were ill and the only physician available was a woman. Would you let her care for you?”

“Sure, why not? But I can’t say as I’ve ever met a woman doctor. I’ll wager there aren’t too many of them, are there?”

“My aunt spoke as if there were at least a few.”

We arrived at the base of the wheel, and it was even more amazing up close than from a distance. The intricate spokes were enormous and graceful—but they looked quite insufficient to bear the weight of dozens of passenger carriages the size of streetcars. I had to look up and up to see the very top of the wheel—as high as the clouds, or so it seemed to me. My knees trembled as Silas paid our fares and we joined the line of waiting passengers.

“That’s the Algerian Village over there,” he said. “Maybe we can come back and get something to eat there later. They have amazing food with flavors like you’ve never tasted before.”

“I hear that people in foreign countries eat all manner of interesting things.”

“Yeah, like monkey meat and alligator and water buffalo,” he said excitedly.

“What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever eaten?”

“Rattlesnake.”

“You didn’t!Where?Were you stranded in the desert for days and days with nothing to eat after bandits attacked your train, and you had to kill the snake with your bare hands and eat it raw?”

“No,” Silas laughed, “but I think I’ll tell your version of the story from now on. It was in a saloon in Texas cattle country. They served pretty decent food for a saloon, so when I saw rattlesnake on the menu I figured I had to try it.”

“You’re very adventurous, Silas. What did it taste like?”

“A little bit like chicken. Only chewier.” The line moved forward as the group in front of us boarded the wheel. We would board next. I wondered if Silas could feel my hand trembling as he held it in his.

“I read somewhere that the wheel is 265 feet high and can carry a total of 2,160 passengers at a time,” he said.

“How can you remember all that?”

“I’m pretty good with numbers and things.”

Finally it was our turn to step into the enormous car. Silas quickly pulled me over to the front window. “So we’ll have the best view,” he said.

The wheel operator closed the door and bolted it shut.

“Hang on!” Silas said.

His warning came too late. The car lurched as it began to ascend, and I fell forward against him. His arms encircled me, and he held me against his chest for a moment until I adjusted to the motion and regained my balance. He smelled good, like the barbershop in Lockport that I used to visit with my father on Saturday mornings. Silas had strong arms and a rock-hard chest.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you.” I pulled away reluctantly. “I lost my footing for a moment.”

I had danced with Nelson and other gentlemen, but never before had I been held so closely by any of them. Hugging a man felt wonderfully different from hugging a woman’s pillow-soft body. The only man I could recall embracing was my father, who had an ample bellycushion in front. I envied Aunt Birdie’s simple freedom of embracing everyone. Madame B. would wag her finger at me, but I began to hope that the car would lurch again so I could fall back into Silas’ arms.