“Truly, it isn’t Paul’s fault,” Fritzi said. “Manfred was ordering the delivery boy around as though he was dirt. Paul was brave. He spoke right up to Manfred.”
“I don’t doubt Manfred deserved it,” Uncle Joe said. “He’s an excellent servant, but sometimes he can be a miserable—” He broke off as Helga came in with a dessert tray; plump pears, small Meringetorten, newly baked Christmas Springerle. Uncle Joe shot warning looks around the table. No one spoke.
Paul almost broke a tooth when he bit the hard sweet anise-flavored Springerle impressed on top with a Christmas tree design. He wasn’t paying attention to the cookie; he was shooting appreciative glances at Fritzi. She gave him a huge, dreamy smile in return.
She does not know I have a girl …
Well, he would say nothing to Fritzi about Julie. She had stood up for him; how could he hurt someone so loving and loyal?
His sickness lingered. His temperature went up. Delirium gripped him for two days. Then the fever broke in a shivery burst of sweat. Aunt Ilsa changed his bed linen personally, and insisted he rest at least three more days.
Fritzi came in almost hourly. Did he want hot milk? Did he want her to sneak out and buy some Nick Carter novels? Did he want to read one of her many books of dream interpretation? Tennyson’s Idylls of the King? Her theatrical scrapbook? “I have wonderful new pictures of Richard Mansfield and James O’Neill.” Did he want to hear some imitations, and if so, who—?
“I’m fine, Fritzi, thank you, I don’t need anything. Thank you also for defending me.”
“Cousin Paul, I have to warn you about something.”
“What’s that?”
She leaned on the end of his bed, whispering. “This is dreadfully serious. Nicky Speers told me.” Fritzi loved theatrics; she could turn the most trivial conversation into melodrama.
“Told you what?”
“Manfred has it in for you. He told Nicky you shamed him. Usurped his authority.”
“You-what?”
“Usurped. It means to steal, take over. Manfred doesn’t forgive anyone who does him dirt. You’d better be careful.”
“I will.”
“I mean for a long time.”
“I’ll remember. What about you, though? You stood up for me.”
“He’d better not fool around with me! I’ll speak to Papa and Papa will fire him.”
Paul decided she wasn’t acting; she was a brave girl. No, a young woman. In January she’d celebrate her thirteenth birthday. She was growing up, though not filling out. Even though Aunt Ilsa said it was not a proper subject to discuss in front of boys, Fritzi often complained about her flat bosom. She didn’t seem to find any subject improper.
“Now before I go—” She dug her hand into her apron pocket. “I brought you this little hand bell. Ring it if you want anything. Even in the middle of the night, I’ll come in a trice.”
“Yes, thanks, I will ring.” The moment she went out he put the bell under the bed.
He yawned pleasurably, forgetting his cousin and her warning in favor of dreaming and scheming over Julie. How was he going to see her after skating season? See her alone? That was the challenge facing him now.
He’d think of something, he was determined. Just let her father try to stop him.
35
Joe Crown
ON THE SATURDAY NIGHT of the robbery, Joe Crown had telephoned Abraham Frankel at home.
Frankel was stunned, and outraged. No, Jimmy Daws had not come back at the end of the day. “Ach, I should have fired him weeks ago. I knew he was a dirty scum. “Oh, Herr Crown, I am so sorry. I will repay you for your loss.”
“Not necessary,” Joe said. “Ilsa is grieved, but things are just things, she’ll recover. This delivery boy—do you know where he lives?”
“In the slums, that is all I can tell you. He would never give an address. He bragged that he lived in a large flat, in a very fine block, but I knew it was a lie. Jimmy was always spouting lies to glorify himself and his background.”
Joe filed a police complaint, without result. It was impossible to find a thief who was determined to hide himself in the criminal warrens of Chicago.
36
Julie
NEW YEAR’S MORNING, NELL Vanderhoff was combing Julie’s hair.
The ritual was particularly important today. The first of January brought one of the city’s premier social events, which the Vanderhoffs always attended thanks to Nell. Her family, the Fishburnes of Lexington, were part of Chicago’s elite community of Kentuckians, and so was the hostess whose house they would visit this afternoon.
Julie felt wonderful this morning. Since the start of the skating season, her health problems had disappeared. Vigorous exercise in the bracing winter air wasn’t the sole explanation.
Julie’s reflection in the glass triggered a familiar complaint from her mother. “Your cheeks are too red again. Much too red. I wish you wouldn’t spend every Sunday afternoon at the skating club. Some bad people congregate in Lincoln Park. When Strickland Welliver called last week, and you were still upstairs, he told me as much.” Julie’s gray eyes flickered with anger. “Young Joe Crown goes to that club, doesn’t he?”
“Oh—sometimes.” She let it trail away as if to suggest a mere acquaintance with Joe.
“You must not associate with him. The slightest hint of it would send your father into a fury.”
“I know, Mama. I’ve never understood why Papa despises the Crowns.”
“Many reasons. They’re foreigners. They speak with horrible accents.”
“Not Joe, he—”
“There is more to it, much more,” Nell interrupted. “Some years ago, your father overheard Joe Crown, Sr., making vile and insulting remarks about those in the meat-packing business. As if a mere brewer were somehow superior to Philip Armour, and Gus Swift, and your father.”
“I’ve heard this, Mama. But no one will ever tell me what Mr. Crown said. What remarks did he make?”
“Your father only gave me the gist of them, and I refuse to repeat even that much. You must accept my word that your father’s anger is fully justified.”
Nell reached down to grasp Julie’s shoulders with tiny veined hands. The older woman’s breath was faintly tainted, like air from a sickroom. “I’m quite serious, Juliette, you must have nothing to do with that family. If you love and respect your father, you will certainly—”
Julie jumped up. “Oh, Mama, why is everything always put that way? If I love you and Papa, I’ll do this, I’ll do that. I don’t know Mr. Crown, but young Joe is a fine person.”
“I don’t believe it. I’ve heard from reliable sources that he harbors radical ideas. That he’s practically a socialist, and torments his father with it.”
“It may be, but I like him.”
Nell stepped back, separating herself from her daughter.
“That is disappointing.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m sixteen, almost seventeen, I have ideas of my own. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you or Papa.”
“Disappointing,” Nell repeated. “What I’m saying, Juliette—if I must be so plain—it hurts me.”
Please, don’t do this again.
“Mama, you know I’d never—”
“I must go and lie down. My heart is beating too fast.”
Oh, don’t …
“I’ll send one of the girls to help you with your corset. We mustn’t be late to Bertha’s.”
“Mama,” she cried out, vainly. The door to the hall closed.
Julie sank down, lacing her hands together until they turned white. Why did Mama always have to use the weapon of her fragile health? It was the one weapon Julie could never turn aside, because part of her remained the dutiful daughter. Wanting to please; wanting to be loved …
She remembered the awful argument over education last year. Aunt Willis, her mother’s older sister, had attended Oberlin College for two years after the Civil War. On one of her visits, Aunt Willis s
ucceeded in persuading Julie that young women needed and indeed were entitled to the sort of higher education men received. As an example she cited a famous local woman, Miss Jane Addams of the Hull House settlement. Miss Addams and her female associates were successfully helping Chicago’s poor and creating a model for others to emulate, and Aunt Willis said they were able to do it only because they were educated. Enlightened, that was the exact word Willis used.
After several discussions of the subject with her aunt, Julie announced to her parents that she wanted to attend college. Julie’s father, a profane man, cursed his sister-in-law right at the dinner table. Nell Vanderhoff said she would consider her daughter’s request, although the statement was accompanied by a hurt look. Next day she locked herself in her bedroom, prostrated with one of her spells.
Willis left a day later. Nell was still in her room. Three more days passed; anguished days for Julie. On the fourth day she went to her father and said she’d reconsidered, she really didn’t want to go to college after all.
What had changed everything for her was the German boy.
She often thought of him that way, the German boy, because he was eighteen days younger. But he was hardly a boy. He was strong, and very nearly a mature man.
He was quiet. Never assertive over trivial matters. Some might mistake that for slowness, or timidity. An error. In their Sundays together, Julie had come to understand that Paul was quiet in order to listen; observe; learn.
Not that he lacked spirit, or ambition. He had plenty of both. He’d talked several times of the excitement of a career in the new field of photography.
He had a kind way about him; an essential decency. Kindness, intelligence, strength—it was a wonderful combination of traits, she thought as she dressed. In her eyes the German boy had no flaws. She was in love with him.
And he probably didn’t even suspect her feelings. How she melted at his touch; almost swooned every time he circled her waist with his strong arm as they skated.
Because of him, she constantly dreamed of an idyllic future. Yet there was an element of dread in the daydreams. What would happen if it came to a choice between Paul and her family? She didn’t want to hurt her mother. But she couldn’t give up the German boy …
In this state of confusion, Julie left in the family carriage, with her parents, at half past one o’clock. Their destination was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer, 1350 Lake Shore Drive, called by friend and enemy alike the Palmer Castle.
In the depression of 1893, some sixteen thousand firms had already gone bankrupt. Over fifty had capital of more than a million dollars. Great industrial complexes such as the Pullman Works had laid off large numbers of men, reduced the hours of those remaining, and slashed wages 30, 40, 50 percent. It was said that in the tenements and hovels of the unemployed, children stayed in bed all day because it was the only way to keep warm and survive the winter.
That hard world never intruded at Palmer Castle; even its doors symbolized its impregnability. There was not a single outside knob or handle. There were no keyholes or visible locks.
With its eighty-foot tower and sawtooth battlements, the Palmer residence did resemble an English castle. Potter Palmer and his wife had personally designed the house, and they were presumed to be responsible for the odd, rather displeasing choice of exterior materials—Wisconsin granite with contrasting inlays of Ohio sandstone.
When the Vanderhoffs arrived, the porte-cochere was crowded with vehicles driven by men in an array of liveries, all of them ostentatious. The Vanderhoff carriage was sizable and expensive, yet insignificant compared to the huge victoria just ahead in the line. Nell pointed to it. “The Pullmans are here!”
Mason Putnam Vanderhoff III grunted. If Nell was an elf, Pork Vanderhoff was a giant; a great round-shouldered hulk of a man, six feet six inches tall. His weight was always somewhere between 270 and 280 pounds, a considerable part of it on deposit in an impressive paunch.
Pork had dewlaps and small gray eyes that never seemed to rest. Despite middle age, his hair was still black as an Indian’s. He wore it combed straight back and sleekly oiled. People said he was much the handsomer of the two brothers who controlled Vanderhoff’s and its various products distributed under the “Big V” label. Israel Washington Vanderhoff—I.W., he was called—was the guiding financial genius, while Pork directed production and distribution. I.W. lived in New York. Three times divorced, he relentlessly pursued young actresses and took the pledge and a water cure at least once a year.
Pork’s size was a constant burden. He had to stoop to enter rooms or sit comfortably in carriages. Like their afternoon host, Potter Palmer, he was a shy, silent man when he was among people he didn’t know, although in other circumstances, to Nell’s embarrassment, he could be loud and extremely profane. Many of Chicago’s industrialists were retiring men. Some, like Marshall Field, whom Pork knew from the exclusive Commercial Club, refused to come to social functions at all. Field’s wife Nannie always attended in his stead.
“By the bye, Mason,” Nell said, nervously adjusting her hat, “I received a letter from Willis yesterday. She will be here in the spring for her usual visit.”
“Oh, God damn it to hell and back, why can’t she ever get sick? I despise that woman. She’s the next thing to a harlot. She’d kiss a nigger if given half a chance.”
Julie winced because she loved her wild and undisciplined aunt. The father of the Fishburne sisters had passionately hoped for a male child. When fate denied his wish, he insisted that his firstborn be named after him. Thus Willis. It was a fine Southern tradition, the bestowing of honored family names on girls. But the girls then had to cope with the resulting confusion for the rest of their lives.
The carriage moved forward. Palmer footmen jumped to open the door. In a moment the Vanderhoffs were disposing of their wraps in the immense octagonal entrance hall. The hall soared up three stories, its walls hung with Gobelin tapestries, its mosaic floor of Italian marble hard and noisy underfoot.
Christmas greens perfumed the mansion. Distantly, a string orchestra played above the babble. There was an enormous crowd. All aflutter, Nell said, “I must locate Bertha. Come with me, please, Juliette.”
“I’ll try to find some of the fellows,” Pork said. By fellows he meant his approximate equals in commerce and social standing. “God damn hot in here already.” Nell rolled her eyes. Pork lumbered off and was soon jawing at the owner of the Tribune, Joe Medill, a former mayor. He and Pork were staunch Republicans.
Medill, over seventy now, was acknowledged as a founder of the party. Some said he had named it. A Canadian by birth, he had arrived in Chicago from Ohio in the 1850s, and bought a small interest in the Tribune. He’d become a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and promoted his nomination when the Republicans held their I860 convention at the Wigwam in Chicago. Nell Vanderhoff was deferential to Joe Medill only because he was important. As a Kentuckian from a conservative family, she never forgot that Medill had been not only a fiery abolitionist but a confiscationist, wanting Southerners stripped of their property after the war. On that score, happily, Mr. Medill was defeated by the gentler policies of his friend, the murdered President.
Nell nodded to Medill as she passed him. She gave a wave and smile to his wife Katharine, for whom she had greater tolerance. Katharine was just slipping away from her husband to join a group that included Samuel Insull, the British-born president of the Chicago Edison Power Company. Mr. Insull was an austere, even prissy man, balding, with pince-nez glasses. He was about thirty-five and one of the town’s most eligible bachelors. Nell had idly mentioned this to Juliette once, and had terrified her.
There was an aura of celebrity about Mr. Insull because he had been closely associated with Thomas Edison for a time. In England, he had helped organize the highly successful Edison subsidiary, thereby earning a promotion to the post of confidential secretary to the great man, in America. Pork Vanderhoff, himself an aggressive businessman, had spoken of Insull
in awed tones more than once. “One God damn smart limey. The fellows say he’s got a few pints of Jew blood in him. A real self-promoter.”
Eventually Edison’s partners, and even his family, found Insull just too precocious and ambitious, and forced his demotion. Edison personally helped his protégé find another situation. The inventor saw the Midwest as a good market for electricity, so Insull was presented as the ideal man to head the new Chicago Edison Company.
Many electric companies served the city at the time. Available generators could only deliver electricity to an area of about four square blocks. As equipment improved, Insull quietly and steadily absorbed other companies and expanded his own power lines. “That man has put out the candles and lamps all over Chicago,” Pork said. “He’ll do it all over the county, you watch.”
Nell was alert to Mr. Insull’s reaction to the arrival of Katharine Medill. He gave her a formal bow but didn’t accept the hand she held out to him. “He doesn’t like newspaper people, he thinks they’re busybodies,” Nell whispered to Julie. “I’m surprised Bertha got him here at all. He never takes a drink and goes to very few parties.” Observing Insull’s haughty airs, Julie thought that hostesses probably didn’t want to invite him, unless they had unmarried daughters.
“Shall we look for Bertha in the drawing room?” Nell said. Julie followed obediently, and as they moved on, she saw several McCormick children, grown now, as well as Nettie McCormick, the fragile but reputedly tough widow of the poorly educated Virginian who had built a commercial empire with the reaping machine he first tinkered into existence in the 1830s.
Cyrus McCormick had moved to Chicago in 1847, opening a small plant to centralize manufacturing of his reaper. The reaper revolutionized farming from the Kansas plains to the Russian steppes. It was the foundation of the enormous McCormick fortune, but McCormick invented many other farm machines; during his later years, he or his deputies had been in court constantly, prosecuting or defending patent infringement suits. Lincoln had once won a case against him. There was spilled blood in his history, too: the strike at his plant that led to the Haymarket riot.