Scandal on Rincon Hill (19 page)

Robert looked at me questioningly.

I shook my head. “No, she was too far away to make out their words.”

It was Brielle's turn to sigh. “As I say, it is hopeless. I have no choice but to accede to your wishes, Madam Valentine.”

The older woman reached out a hand to the distraught girl, and I detected true compassion in her dark eyes. “My dear, I have no desire to force you into a life which repulses you.”

“I know you don't,” Brielle said, forcing a smile she obviously didn't feel. “But I cannot impose on your hospitality any longer. I am taking up a bed which should be occupied by a girl who is earning her keep. I am no longer an inexperienced child. The past two years have taught me a great deal about the art of love. I am determined to repay you for all the kindness you have shown me.”

Robert, who was still standing, had been following this dialogue closely. “Do you mean to say, Miss Bouchard, that you intend to join those other girls as a—as a—”

“Painted lady?” Brielle said with an ironic smile. “Madam Valentine told me You'd used that epithet to describe me earlier. I am well aware I will be called that and a good deal worse, Mr. Campbell. While I would not have chosen this life if another had been open to me, neither do I disparage it. As you can see for yourself, our lady of the house is more like a mother hen than a tyrant, and we are all treated with respect, provided with the latest fashions, clean linen, and access to a most capable and respected doctor. It may surprise you to learn that although many girls desire to work in this parlor house, few are accepted. Madam Valentine's standards are considerably higher than most.”

“I don't care how much you try to beautify this business, it is still prostitution!” Robert protested. “Surely there must be something else you can do to support yourself and your child, Miss Bouchard.”

“Don't you think I have tried, Mr. Campbell?” Brielle's blue eyes flashed. Frustration and a sense of helplessness were clearly causing her to lose her temper. “Ever since my parents died when I was fourteen, I have attempted to live up to the standards they set for me throughout my childhood.”

“What happened to your parents, Brielle?” I asked.

A look of pain crossed her lovely face. “They—” She glanced helplessly at Madam Valentine.

“Go on, Brielle,” the madam told her. “Miss Woolson and Mr. Campbell are here to help you. I believe they have a right to know about your past.”

That this was a distressing subject could be clearly read on the girl's pale face. With a force of will, she explained, “My parents migrated to the East Coast from Sweden several years before my birth. Father worked for a prominent accounting firm who, unbeknownst to him, was embezzling from their clients. When the crime was discovered, the major partners responsible for the fraud fled the country, leaving my father as one of the primary suspects. Shortly before his trial, my mother and father were—” She swallowed hard, attempting, I was sure, to keep from crying. “They were killed in a carriage accident. My father's name was never cleared.”

“What did you do?” asked Robert, regarding the girl with genuine sympathy.

She sighed. “The authorities took our home and all the money my parents had saved to repay those who had been swindled. I was left with nothing.” She paused as if gathering her thoughts, as well as her emotions. “For two years after my parents' deaths, I worked as a governess. When my pupils' father became rather too friendly toward me, I was forced to leave that employment. After that, I attempted to work as a seamstress, a laundress, a cook, and even a shopgirl. Unhappily, I lacked the skills necessary to succeed in those occupations. While providing me with an excellent education for a girl, my poor parents did not foresee a time when I might be in need of such training.”

Brielle paused. I spied the glimmer of repressed tears in her eyes. “It was only when I was no longer able to buy food, and had been evicted from my modest lodging, that a friend suggested I visit Madam Valentine.” She smiled at her benefactor. “This dear lady was good enough to take me in that very day.”

Robert harrumphed. “You are a beautiful young woman, Miss Bouchard. I don't imagine it posed any great hardship for Madam Valentine to accept you into her, ah, establishment.”

Before the lady in question could voice the retort I saw forming
on her lips, I asked Brielle, “Have you no other family then? No aunts, or cousins, perhaps, who might take you and little Emma in?”

“Except for my daughter, I have no living relations, Miss Woolson,” the girl replied, once again in command of her emotions. “I am quite alone in the world. I regret if I have offended your sensibilities, Mr. Campbell, but my first responsibility is to support my little girl, and see that she receives the best upbringing I can manage.”

Beside me on the sofa, I felt Robert bristle, but thankfully he managed to keep his thoughts to himself, perhaps realizing for the first time the difficulty women face if there is no one else to provide for them.

Although Brielle appeared resigned to her fate, and was doing her utmost to depict her circumstances in the most advantageous light, her sensitive face could not mask the hopelessness she was obviously feeling inside.

“You have been through a great deal in your young life, my dear,” I told Brielle. “And I understand that this is one of the better houses of its kind in the city. I mean no offense, Madam Valentine, but once a girl has chosen this life, she carries the stigma with her for the rest of her days. And you must agree that a brothel, even one of this quality, is no place to raise a child.”

Madam Valentine, who continued to dart angry looks at Robert, had puffed out her ample chest and seemed about ready to take umbrage with this comment, when Brielle broke in, her angelic face set in resolute lines of determination.

“Your concern is understandable, Miss Woolson. However, needs must. Unless you can find a way to persuade Mr. Knight to honor our contract and support his daughter then, as I say, I am left with no choice but to accept Madam Valentine's generous offer. If I am frugal, it may be possible for me to eventually set off on my own and settle my daughter in more traditional surroundings. There are a great many young women in this city who would be delighted to face such a hopeful future.”

Before I could respond to this, Madam Valentine cleared her throat and said, “I appreciate your kind words, Brielle, but it wouldn't do for Miss Woolson and Mr. Campbell to leave here with the wrong impression. All this talk about mothering my girls is all well and good, but I am first and foremost a businesswoman.”

She gazed from one of us to the other, obviously determined that we should take her meaning. “My sole reason for running this house is to provide my clients with a pleasurable and discreet experience. In return, I expect to turn a good profit, for myself as well as my young ladies. they're treated well because it's in my best interest to keep them healthy and content. This is a transient business, and as you can see I put a great deal of time and effort into training my girls. If I can keep them happy, I find that they tend to stay here longer before moving on.

“Moreover, I run a respectable house. Drunkenness, profanity, and violence are not permitted inside these premises, either from my gentlemen or from my girls. Other than these few rules, however, my clients are free to do pretty much as they please. I'm a long way from being a puritan, and I know what men like. And what they like, they get. I'm proud to boast that Madam Valentine's Parlor House enjoys the finest reputation in the city of San Francisco.”

Robert shifted in his seat and said, “Yes, but surely that sort of reputation is not—”

“I have not yet finished,” she interrupted, darting my befuddled colleague a look which could have halted a herd of stampeding elephants. “It is because of this reputation that my girls may, if they're careful with their earnings and guard their looks, retire after six or seven years. Very few continue in the business beyond the age of thirty. You'd be surprised how many of them marry, often with respectable gentlemen, and go on to raise families.” She looked steadily at Robert. “As Brielle pointed out, Mr. Campbell, there are far worse situations a girl might find herself in than my parlor house.”

As Madam Valentine spoke, Robert had sunk back onto the sofa beside me. His earlier anger was turning into unease as she presented
arguments in favor of a house of pleasure, her own house in particular. From the dazed expression on his craggy face, I was beginning to think that he was as much a neophyte when it came to these establishments as was I.

“That may be, Madam Valentine,” he said when she seemed to have come to the end of her discourse. “But not all your ladies enjoy such a happy ending, do they? Once their youth and beauty is gone, some of the lasses end up in—” His face reddened and his voice trailed off as he searched for an inoffensive way to describe the fate of girls reduced to these tragic circumstances.

“They end up in the cribs or cowyards of the Barbary Coast?” Madam Valentine smiled as Robert could manage only a brief nod of his head. “Yes, Mr. Campbell, I am all too aware that some girls are reduced to that unhappy state. My young ladies, however, are advised to set aside a portion of their earnings each week. In fact, several of them request that I perform this service for them. By exercising a bit of frugality, they often find a tidy nest egg awaiting them when they make the decision to move on with their lives.”

“Even so,” Robert said, unwilling to give up the argument, “they're still engaging in, er, that is, you can hardly describe their activities as, well, respectable.”

The older woman met his eyes without flinching. “That depends on your definition of ‘respectable,’ Mr. Campbell. If longevity is any measure, then we have the edge on most occupations. After all, many would agree that we are engaged in one of the world's oldest professions.”

Robert sputtered, but seemed unable to find words to dispute this statement. I was growing weary of this discussion; no matter how long they argued, neither Robert nor Madam Valentine were likely to change the other's opinion on the matter. Moreover, I had come here to find Brielle Bouchard and ascertain that she was unharmed. Now that I had successfully completed that duty, it was time to discuss her lawsuit.

“Miss Bouchard,” I said matter-of-factly. “Let us proceed to the
matter at hand. Have you any further interest in pursuing your lawsuit against Mr. Knight?”

Brielle hesitated, then said, “I would like nothing better than to compel Gerald to honor his responsibility toward our daughter. But as you said yourself, it is impossible to prove that he is Emma's father.”

“That's true,” I admitted. “However, I still have one or two ideas I'd like to try before we give up on the matter entirely.”

The sudden blaze of hope that lit her eyes nearly prompted me to take back these words. What right did I have, I thought, to suggest there was the smallest chance Gerald Knight might change his mind and accept Emma as his child? Still, I could not bring myself to allow the man to win so easily.

I was well aware of the time constraints faced by my client. If we were to succeed in helping her, we must do it soon, before Brielle committed both herself and her tiny daughter to years of life inside a brothel—even one as grand as Madam Valentine's!

W
hen we exited the house some few minutes later, we could find no sign of Eddie. The brougham remained standing in front of the parlor house where we had left it, and the dappled-gray horse stood contentedly munching a bag of oats.

“I thought you told the boy to stay with the carriage?” muttered Robert, opening the brougham door to peer inside. “He's not in here. Where do you suppose he's run off to?”

Just then, Eddie came scampering around the house and onto the street. “Sorry, miss,” he said, slightly out of breath, and stuffing the piece of bread he was carrying into his mouth.

Endeavoring to chew with his mouth closed as I had taught him, he opened the carriage door and reached out a hand to assist me onto the step. I paused to instruct him to drop Robert off first at Joseph Shepard's law firm, then gathered up my skirts and stepped inside.

“So where did you take yourself off to?” Robert asked the lad before ascending into the cab behind me.

The lad swallowed his bread, then explained, “Annie Watkins—you know, my friend what's a maid here?—she gave me some fresh bread Cook just took outta the oven. And a cuppa hot coffee. It's almighty cold out today, ain't it?”

“Eddie, I swear you could find three square meals a day if you were stranded on a cement island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” Robert said, not bothering to correct the boy's grammar. Stepping into the extended brougham, he settled himself in the seat across from me. “Judging by the amount of food that boy puts away every day, he should be as round as a pork barrel. Instead, he's thin as a matchstick.”

“He works hard, Robert, and rarely sits still longer than five minutes at any given time. I'm convinced that he no sooner ingests food, than it transforms into the energy required to keep him going all day. Food acts as a fuel to run his internal engine.”

As Eddie clicked the dappled-gray forward, I happened to glimpse a man crossing Montgomery Street, heading in the direction of Madam Valentine's parlor house. My heart skipped a beat as I noted that he was short, overweight, and wore a brown cap pulled low over his eyes. Good Lord, I thought. The man looked for all the world like Samuel's nemesis, Ozzie Foldger. Had he seen us coming out of the brothel? Was I to be tomorrow's lead story in some disgusting gossip tabloid?

We were jostled in our seats when Eddie pulled in front of a carriage as he joined afternoon traffic. Looking back, I strained to see where the man was going, but he was no longer in sight. Had he entered the brothel? I wondered, heart pounding in my throat. If he had, would Brielle and Madam Valentine keep my secret? I silently prayed that the discretion the madam afforded her customers would extend equally to a female attorney whose reputation might well be ruined if it were known she was visiting brothels!