Fair Weather (9 page)

Hunkering, Tip skulked across the rug and disappeared under the table. We were country people. We never let animals into the house, not unless they were ready to cook and eat. But we were miles from our world. Tip seemed to settle somewhere near Buster’s boots.

Aunt Euterpe’s plight had Granddad baffled. His gnarled old hand worked his clenched chin. Lottie looked across at me. This was no problem for a man to solve.

At length Granddad drew himself up and boomed, “You need to get out more, Terpie. This house is a tomb. It’s time we were off to the fair. These children need educating. They’s green as—”

“Papa, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Me and the boy will be lookin’ over the heavy machinery and the farm implements. We may drop by the Pennsylvania pavilion to see if the Liberty Bell’s still cracked. You can show these girls the womanly things, Terpie.”

“The cars will be so crowded at this time of day,” Aunt Euterpe sighed.

“Then have your man bring your carriage around,” said Granddad.

Aunt Euterpe quaked. “Flanagan was out yesterday, Papa. He won’t like—”

“You leave Flanagan to me,” said Granddad in a final way.

*  *  *

Midmorning found us swaying along in Aunt Euterpe’s closed carriage. Granddad and Buster rode on the box with Flanagan. We heard the low rumble of a conversation starting up. Aunt Euterpe had viewed Lottie and me with dismay when she saw us dressed again today in yesterday’s finery. She wore a different set of widow’s weeds and a hat like a heavily veiled coal scuttle.

As we rolled past number 1350 Lake Shore Drive, she pointed out once more the great palace of Mrs. Potter Palmer, the queen of Chicago society.

“There are no locks or knobs on her outer doors,” Aunt Euterpe breathed. “A visitor is admitted only by servants forever posted just inside.”

My land, I thought. Like jail.

“A visiting card left upon Mrs. Palmer passes through the gloved hands of twenty-seven servants and social secretaries before she sees it,” said Aunt Euterpe wanly, “. . . if she sees it.”

We turned at the water tower past the Farwells’ pair of mansions, then on down Michigan Avenue, over the bridge, and by the new art institute and the skeleton of the Auditorium Hotel rising out of the ground. After a time we were on Prairie Avenue, and Aunt Euterpe could tell you who lived in every mansion: the Armours, the Fields, the Pullmans, Kimball the piano maker. She knew them all from her distance. And my, how she admired them.

We clipped along past their mighty gates in a traffic of fine carriages and charabancs and five-glass landaus, drawn by high-stepping chestnut trotters, many in silver-mounted harness. The horses’ hooves were blackened like patent leather.

It seemed to comfort Aunt Euterpe to be in so fine a district. But then from above, Granddad and Flanagan, old friends now, burst into song to serenade the neighborhood:

Aunt Euterpe sank back against the buttoned upholstery and took refuge behind her veils. She huddled there like she was coming away from Lincoln’s funeral as onward we rolled, heading for the fair.

Part Two

U
nder the summer sun the exposition glittered like a city carved from crystal. The flags of all nations snapped in the china-blue sky. The doorway of the Transportation Building was a solid-gold sunburst. A mass of roses bloomed across the islands with the Japanese temples. And over the domes and spires of the fair the captive balloon looked for the curve of the earth.

We left Granddad and Buster at the Hall of Electricity. There, it was said, over a long-distance telephone you could hear music being played in New York.

Aunt Euterpe had seemed to rally. She shooed Lottie and me into the Horticultural Hall to pay a quick call on
the giant cactus in there. But she was in a rush to get us to the Woman’s Building, which was to her the beating heart of the fair. After all, Mrs. Potter Palmer ruled the Board of Lady Managers.

The Woman’s Building stood on the lip of the lagoon like a villa of ancient Pompeii blown up to gigantic size. The building itself had been designed by a young woman, Miss Hayden. It was fine, of course, by far the finest building we’d ever set foot in.

As quick as you came inside, you were in a vast hall like a cathedral. There on one wall was a tremendous mural by Mrs. MacMonnies. It depicted cavewomen of prehistoric times, seeming to discover fire.

“Bringing enlightenment to their menfolk,” Aunt Euterpe murmured behind her veil.

“Learning how to cook so they’ll never get out of the kitchen,” spoke Lottie into my other ear.

The pictures on the far wall showed modern women. To understand them took more education than I had. The women danced and played lutes across one panel. I comprehended them. In another, I thought they were flying a kite. But Aunt Euterpe said they were in the Pursuit of Knowledge. In the center scene three women and a girl picked apples off a tree. I thought I grasped that. But Aunt Euterpe said they were gathering the Fruits of the Arts and Sciences.

These pictures had been painted by Miss Mary Cassatt. Aunt Euterpe said she was the finest artist alive, and a great friend of Mrs. Palmer’s.

We roamed room after room. Aunt Euterpe trod more firmly in this world full of the achievements of women. I believe I did too. It showed what women could do. They could paint and explore and discover. We could.

We came upon an exhibition called “The Model Farm Kitchen,” though could there ever be such a wonder as we beheld? The range was fired by gas, so you’d never have to gather another stick of kindling. Water ran hot and cold straight into the sink. Electric lights hung down. A machine washed your clothes for you and wrung them out. Lottie and I couldn’t look at each other for fear of laughing out loud.

There on the wall of The Model Farm Kitchen was a verse I tried to learn by heart to repeat to Mama. It was called “The Hymn of the Farm Wife”:

But it didn’t ring true to Lottie. She suspected a man poet had thought it up.

We drifted on and came to the auditorium just in time to hear Susan B. Anthony on the subject of women’s suffrage. Aunt Euterpe pulled us inside, and we were glad enough to sink into the velvet seats even if it meant being lectured to.

Miss Anthony’s favorite subject was giving the vote to women. It seemed a long shot to me. But she was an elderly lady, full of years and wisdom. She spoke at length, banging the pulpit, and Aunt Euterpe was rapt.

As we filed out, Aunty exclaimed, “If women voted, we would throw the rascals out. We would purify politics!”

“Will we get the vote?” Lottie wondered.

“Certainly not,” Aunt Euterpe said. “The men wouldn’t hear of it.”

We narrowly escaped another lecture. It was Miss Frances Willard and the temperance shouters, calling for the prohibition of all hard liquor. They planned to pray the country dry.

But Lottie put her foot down. First the model kitchen we’d never have. Then votes we’d never get. Lottie wasn’t ready to hear about pouring all the whiskey in the ditch, which nobody was going to do.

Besides, Aunt Euterpe admitted it was teatime, and we’d missed our noonday meal. She claimed the best people took their tea at the Turkish pavilion. We strolled in that direction.

Oh, it was nice inside Turkey—cool with all that tile work and a fountain splashing in the center. To our delight an orchestra played in the background—all the new songs we hadn’t heard: “In the Gloaming” and “Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?” and “Seeing Nellie Home.”

Ladies sat at small marble tables around the fountain. You never saw such hats. The elastic that held mine on cut into my chin. Aunt Euterpe cast veiled looks at our getups. A smudge had appeared from somewhere on my best gabardine skirt.

“Make note of their posture,” Aunt Euterpe murmured. “Pay attention to the way they hold their teacups.” They were grand ladies, no question about that. And their corsets were so binding, they had no choice but to sit as rigid as the cavalry on parade.

Men in turbans brought our tea: finger sandwiches tangled in parsley, little cakes like crescent moons. Nothing to stick to your ribs, but pretty on the plate. The teacups were gold-banded, and the brass teapot spout was the flaring hood of a cobra snake.

Aunty couldn’t very well drink tea through her veil. She threw it back. And froze.

Her gloved hand reaching for the teapot clasped her black bosom. “Girls, the table across the fountain,” she gasped. “Don’t look now.”

We looked at once. Three of the elegantest ladies you ever saw sat around a little table. Their hat brims all but
skimmed one another. Points of lace fell from their elbows. There were silk tassels on their reticules.

“Girls,” Aunt Euterpe breathed. “That is Mrs. Potter Palmer.”

We stared, and we weren’t the only ones. Everybody in the Turkish pavilion knew she was there. I suppose I thought she ought to be wearing a gold crown, as she was the queen of Chicago. But then, I’d never calculated to set eyes on her at all. She was speaking in tones so low and cultured, you couldn’t hear. Her friends leaned in to catch every word. I took them to be her ladies-in-waiting.

“Mrs. Charles Henrotin,” Aunt Euterpe whispered. “Mrs. William Borden.”

Mrs. Palmer was certainly something to see, though not a minute younger than Aunt Euterpe. The sun had never seen her skin. It was as perfect as the pearls that roped her neck. She looked to have an excellent set of teeth.

“Only think, girls,” Aunt Euterpe sighed. “She sleeps in Louis the Sixteenth’s bed.”

My land, I thought—though of course he’d be dead.

“Her underwear and stockings,” Aunt Euterpe said barely aloud, “are catalogued for opera, carriage, and reception, for morning and evening.”

Aunt Euterpe couldn’t touch a bite, though Lottie and I ate everything but the pattern on the plate. It was food and drink to Aunty just to breathe the same air as Mrs.
Potter Palmer. This was by far the high moment of her day, and I wished for her sake it could last.

They brought more hot water for our tea. The whole room was chained to their chairs, nobody leaving ahead of Mrs. Palmer.

At last her party rose. When they dipped to retrieve their reticules and their fair programs, their hats were circular flower beds. Mrs. Palmer led the way, regally, around the fountain.

And something terrible overcame me. Oh, I expect it had been coming on right along. I suppose it had been creeping up on me from the moment Mama had put me in long skirts to go to the fair. I reckon it had been stealing up on me from the time I realized how lonely Aunty was.

Still, I seemed to be some other girl entirely as I scraped back my chair on the screeching tile. This other girl I’d become was on her feet now. Lottie’s hand came out for me and missed. Now I was in Mrs. Palmer’s path, blocking her way.

I’d taken leave of my senses, though my blank mind noticed small things. The pearl dewdrops on the silk roses of Mrs. Palmer’s hat, things like that. Her eyes were surprised as her gaze fell upon me.

“Pardon me for butting in, Mrs. Palmer,” I heard myself say. By ill chance the orchestra was resting. My countrified voice rang through the room and bounced off the tile.

I drew back my smudged skirt and dropped her the
first curtsy of my life, and the last. “I only wanted to say what a grand city you have here.”

You could hear a pin drop. The room held its breath. There at my elbow rigor mortis had set in on Aunty. Lottie was poised for another grab at me.

The two ladies flanking Mrs. Palmer viewed me with alarm. But she nodded in her cultivated way. To me and the listening room she replied, “How pleased I am to hear you say so. Some of the Spanish nobility we have received have not been so favorably impressed.”

My mind whirled, but I was encouraged by her reply. Too encouraged. “Me and Lottie,” I blundered on, “are up here visiting with our aunt, Mrs. Fleischacker, over behind you on Schiller Street.”

I pointed Aunty out. She stared at nothing, framed in veils, despair written all over her. “I’d like to make you acquainted with her.”