Galveston (10 page)

“Yes. Twice since the first of the year.”

“Has he been able to help you? Is he a specialist?”

“He is a specialist—first one I've ever been to—but not much help beyond prescribing pain medicine for cramps. He cited only one other alternative and I declined to consider that.”

“What?”

“An operation to remove my ovaries. Seems that's all the rage nowadays. Even if a woman has no dangerous growths, which I haven't, many doctors are removing one or both ovaries just as a safety precaution. Dr. Hutchisson wasn't highly in favor of it because he isn't convinced it's really the answer. Almost half the women who have such surgery die from it.”

“Gad, what a frightening thought—surgery.”

“Well, I suppose it can't be too much more difficult than giving birth to a child … seems funny to think back on it now, but in Grady there are three doctors, all just plain ordinary medicine men. When you think you might be expecting, you simply go to one of them and find out. If he confirms it, you go home and wait out your time, and a midwife comes over and helps you with the birth, and takes care of you afterwards.

“As far out as we lived when I was carrying Charlie, it's a lucky thing we had Helga when my time came round, for, as you might have known, he came a month early, and rather quickly, too.”

“Oh yes, your housekeeper … I think you mentioned her before. Pity she couldn't come to Galveston with you, that way if you and Charles ever again—”

“Yes,” I interrupted, “but Charles didn't care for Helga. He had some foolish idea that she made a mistake during the delivery of the baby that brought on my bleeding spells, because I began having them shortly after Charlie came into the world. Nonsense, of course. She's the best midwife I've ever seen, and a good friend too. I still keep in touch with her, though I don't mention it to Charles.”

“Where is she now?”

“In San Antonio, living with her brother.”

“I see.” She sat still for a few moments, stirring her tea. Then she said, “Claire, can this doctor of yours help other problems in women?”

“I suppose so. Are you having any?”

“Not any pain. Nothing like that.” She paused, as if uncertain what to say next, and began to open and close the hand which held the wadded-up handkerchief.

“What is it, Janet? Anything wrong?”

She rose from her chair. “It's children. I don't believe Rubin and I'll ever have any. No, I'm sure we won't.”

Determined as I had been lately to get Rubin Garret off my mind, and as well as I had succeeded so far, I would not deny the twinge of satisfaction her statement gave me. Yet I said, “Well, if you think a specialist could help, I'll give you Dr. Hutchisson's address.”

“Yes … maybe sometime. I'd better go now. Rubin ought to be home soon.”

I followed her to the door and out onto the front porch. “It has stopped raining,” I said, obliquely, for this was an obvious fact. One says ridiculous things when there is nothing else to say. “Just let me know, if you want to see Dr. Hutchisson. He's one of the best specialists in this area,” I added.

“Oh, I don't know … I rather doubt he could help at that,” she said. “I do thank you for the tea and companionship, though. Good night.”

As she slowly retraced her steps between our house and hers, bundled in her shawl, I was struck again by what an odd pair she and Rubin were. Something obviously was wrong between them that neither of them had so far discussed with us, but what? Could it be I was right the first time about Rubin's interest in me, I wondered? Then I shook my head, thinking of the night I caught them by surprise, embracing in the kitchen.

I went back into the house. It was almost ten o'clock, yet I wasn't sleepy, and I had a sudden curiosity as to where Rubin had gone. There was no church meeting that I knew of that night. I turned off the lights in the front room and sat down on the sofa against the window, and looked out into the night. I sat there till nearly midnight, watching the rain start and stop from time to time, and finally the big moon push its way through the clouds. I never saw Rubin come home.

I went up to bed then and lay awake for a while, still puzzling over the Garrets with a kind of detachment. Shortly after the clock struck one, I heard Charles come in, and I turned up the bedside lamp, eager to hear how the evening went for him.

“You still awake?” he said, his voice slurred, his eyes bloodshot and glazed.

“More awake than you appear to be. How was it? Did you win?”

“Won two frames, but I also drank too much beer and ate too much German sausage.” He loosened his tie and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Where's your coat?”

“Coat? Oh, I guess I left it in the buggy. Hell with it. I'll get it tomorrow.”

“Sounds like the end of a perfect evening.”

“The four of us had a pretty good time, at that. Pete has apparently decided to go easy on me.”

“Four went? I thought there were three.”

“Oh, yeah. You r'member when we were at Marlowe's party on New Year's, and you thought you saw someone you knew?”

“Yes, just as we walked in. The man in the gray derby.”

“That was Lucien Carter. He owns a shipping company based here. Goes to St. Christopher's. That's where you saw him, just as you thought.” He yawned, and pulled off one shoe then the other, uttering a grunt for each, then rubbed his feet. “Oh, yeah, I'll never r'member this tomorrow so I'll tell you now. There is to be a dinner dance at the Garten next month. Pete wants you and me to go. He's gonna invite some other people, too. He said to ask Janet and Rubin along, since Carter said how much he likes Rubin. Take care of it, will you?”

“Of course. But what are we supposed to wear?”

He did not answer, instead lay back half-dressed, and after one loud garlic-flavored belch, fell asleep.

I turned down the lamp and lay awake, my detachment toward the Garrets dissolving moment by moment. My thoughts fled to party dress fabric and candlelight, and moonlit gardens, and dancing in circles of splendor with Rubin (how perfect we'd look!), and of poor, mixed-up Janet, who did not belong with him at all.

Early summer: sunset under a blue and pink mackerel sky.

We boarded the rig with an air of importance, Janet and Rubin, Charles and I, and headed for our meeting with Charles's destiny.

On the lantern-lit terrace projecting from the clubhouse of the Garten Verein, we greeted Pete and Faye, Lucien and Isobel Carter at Pete's table: the best available table, of course. Horace Turner hadn't come. A bachelor, he had realized the awkwardness his presence would bring and was not known to keep company with women. Gilbert Parks's wife was ill and he wouldn't leave her alone, so the party was honed down to eight people.

“Your dress is exquisite,” said Isobel Carter, a foreigner with dark hair pulled back severely, and large, dark eyes.

“Didn't I tell you?” Faye said to me, then looked at Isobel. “Madame LaRoche, from Louisiana. Best seamstress in Galveston.”

“Yes, Faye referred me to her,” I explained.

“Poor old thing's got a lame leg and her apartment looks like a troop of Yankee soldiers just looted it, but she can work magic with a piece of material.”

“Oh yes, her shop's down on Market, isn't it?”

“That's right, and she don't sew for just anybody,” said Faye, patting my arm.

Lucien Carter, a slight man with impeccable moustache and handsome features, was nursing a gin when we arrived. He continued to drink steadily throughout the evening in measured sips, and smoked cigarettes as well, lighting each from the candle between us and often looking across at me as he did. I shifted my eyes, smarting from his penetrating gaze.

It wasn't long before the pleasant dinner conversation turned to business, and as Lucien was Pete's client, attention centered on him. “What do you think can be done about the high wharfage at our port? Surely your business must be hurt by it,” Faye said. I wondered then whether Pete usually briefed her on what to say in front of specific clients, to shift the focus on them.

“That's true, Mrs. Marlowe, but at present the Wharf Company might just be the lesser of two evils plaguing the shipping down here,” Lucien answered. He spoke in the fine, clipped tones of someone reared and educated in the East.

I asked him what the other would be.

“Commodore Morgan, who's making matters equally rough for Houston,” he said.

“Why would that matter to you?” Janet asked.

“Houston is where I might go, if I'm ever forced from here by the high wharfages,” he said, and went on to explain that Morgan owned a steamship company based in Louisiana, and until about four years ago had received huge discounts on wharfage at Galveston. Many locals thought no better of him than they did of the Wharf Company.

Then Pete interrupted, “And his freight rates were about ten times as high as those charged by other shippers, such as Lucien here.”

“Then one day the Wharf Company cut him off flat,” said Lucien. “At the same time, they raised the wharfage rates again.”

“And laughed in his face when he put up a fuss,” said Charles.

“Yes. He was angry about other things, too. The Board of Health here imposed quarantine against Louisiana ports every year during peak business season, so Morgan's ships had to lay over a month whenever they pulled into the Galveston harbor. Of course there was no real danger of disease … the Board concocted the quarantines so Galveston merchants could sell off their old merchandise before accepting the new cargo he brought.”

“Quarantined against which disease?” I asked.

“Yellow fever,” Charles said.

For a few moments yellow jack seemed almost a joke, rather than a dread disease, until I thought of Anna McBride and wondered whether her body had retched near the end with black vomit.…

“So Morgan turned on his heel and took his business to Houston,” Lucien continued, “and in exchange for stock in their ship channel building company, he signed a contract to build a twelve-foot-deep, hundred-and-twenty-foot-wide channel from Galveston Bay to Houston. He also bought a couple of railroads leading to the city from inland, so you can imagine he gathered quite a bit of power—from both ends.”

“And all because of being snubbed by Galveston,” Janet said.

“But then, Morgan became greedy about the waterway he'd dredged out,” said Pete. “He collected heavy tolls, and to keep ships from passin' it without payin' the tolls, he connected a big chain across it. It's still there.”

It seemed logical to me that as long as Morgan was in control of Houston's port we'd have nothing to worry about, but then Charles was saying, “Don't think Morgan won't eventually strangle on his own chain. I've seen those Houston people turn the most confounded situations to their favor, and they'll do it again.

“We can't become a major seaport by default—it's too risky, especially when there are positive steps we can take. We've got to deepen our own channel and dredge the inner and outer bars. And we've got to get rid of those wharfage fees! Once the bigger ships have emptied their cargo onto barges, that cargo can just as easily go further in to Houston as stop here and pay wharfage.”

Something happened then: a glance exchanged between Lucien Carter and Pete Marlowe. I knew instantly they had spoken of Charles outside his presence, and would do so again in the light of what he said tonight. I took a sip of wine. All was going well.

There was an announcement then that dancing would begin within a quarter of an hour. Tables had been cleared around us, and Pete rose from his chair. “We'd better git out of here before they move us along with the table.”

We danced to the music of a sixteen-piece orchestra that night and Pete, good man, did insist right after the first waltz that we change partners. No one could have known how I waited that night for the moment to come when Rubin would look across at Charles and say, “You must permit me this next waltz with Claire.”

Then, giddy as a schoolgirl, I chattered incessantly about Madame LaRoche while we twirled around the floor, when all he had done was to compliment me on the lovely dress I wore, and to say that red was definitely my color.

Chapter 10

The sea is a constant threat to our existence here. Even during the months when the Gulf is lapping peacefully at the shore, and one need not fear a hurricane is forming somewhere, gathering energy to strike like a coiled snake, the salt air and humidity are busy attacking our homes and buildings so that repairs of one form or another are a continuous source of expense and bother.

At the beginning of our second summer in Galveston, Charles took upon himself the task of painting the exterior of our house on Avenue L. He felt after I'd worked so hard getting the grass to grow and the flowers to bloom that the house was beginning to look shabby. Things had slacked off a bit at the office, and we both agreed he could use the sunshine and exercise.

Midmorning on the Monday he began, the postman brought a letter from Betsey. She was too busy minding the store and caring for Ruth to waste time on unnecessary sentiment, so she wrote letters only when she had something to tell, or to ask.

As a result, when her letters arrived they were generally lengthy, bulging from their envelopes, and because her handwriting was almost indecipherable it sometimes took me a couple of days to satisfy myself I'd read each word correctly.

Today her letter concerned Ruth, and before reading too far I stopped to fix ham sandwiches and lemonade for lunch. I took the tray of food and the letter out to the verandah and called to Charles to come down from the ladder and eat.

Charles was fond of Betsey and Ruth, and always glad to hear their news, so I read aloud as we ate. “‘Do you think they might be able to use one slightly shopworn store owner down there? It's so hot up here my clothes are sticking to me like gauze to a bleeding sore.