The Hope Chest — Chapter 4 - Henry Street

Henry Street

THE HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT HOUSE had stone steps with wrought-iron railings. At the bottom of the steps sat a group of girls playing jacks and a woman rocking a baby in a baby carriage with her foot. Violet followed Myrtle up the steps to a heavy wooden door.

“I think we just go in,” said Myrtle.

Violet had a lifelong training in good manners, and it did not include going into other people's houses without knocking. She hesitated, but Myrtle pushed the door open and went in. Violet followed her with some trepidation. The house had an ordinary hall, with a carpet and an umbrella stand.

Upstairs, some people were singing. Violet couldn't understand the words. They were in a foreign language.

Violet looked questioningly at Myrtle. Myrtle shrugged. “I've never been inside here before,” she said.

Violet went over to one of the doors and tentatively pushed it open.

It was a parlor, rather like the one back home had been before it was turned into Stephen's recuperation room. There were some bookshelves, a mahogany table, and a sofa and some armchairs covered in red velvet.

A man was sitting in one of the chairs, absorbed in a book. He had a thin, harried look, as if he hadn't gotten enough sleep in several years. Violet stepped hesitantly into the room. She could feel Myrtle following just behind her. “Excuse me …,” she began.

The man started, although Violet noticed he closed the book on his hand to keep from losing his place, just as she would have done.

“Good evening, ladies.” The man stood up, as if Violet and Myrtle were in fact ladies. “How do you do?”

“Very well, thank you.” Violet curtsied, and Myrtle did the same.

All this politeness was such a waste of time—she just wanted to see her sister! “I was wondering if you might know where I can nd Miss Chloe Mayhew.”

As soon as she said Chloe's name, the man dropped the book.

He bent to pick it up, examining it carefully for damage. Violet wondered if he was going to answer her. She studied him while he wasn't looking. He was about as tall as Father, nearly six feet, but much thinner, and was wearing a ready-made brown suit and a soft- collared shirt that Father wouldn't have been caught dead in. In fact, Violet wasn't sure she had ever seen a man out in public in a soft- collared shirt. He had light brown hair that was just a little longer than it should have been, but the strangest thing about his face was an angry white scar that ran from the corner of his left eye down into his bushy mustache. Violet found it dicult to keep her eyes o it, though of course she knew that good manners required her to do so.

Finally he decided the book wasn't damaged. “I hope you ladies won't think me discourteous if I express some curiosity as to who might be inquiring for Miss Mayhew,” he said. “Won't you please be seated?”

Violet sat down on the edge of the sofa that the man indicated.

The cushion creaked as Myrtle sat down beside her. Violet wanted him to hurry up and go nd Chloe for her. But of course it wouldn't be polite to say so, and Violet could see that this man was very polite. He spoke in the polite way that the boys had to talk to the

girls at the dancing school that Mother made Violet go to, but unlike the boys at dancing school, he seemed quite comfortable doing it.

Violet glanced at Myrtle, wondering what she was making of the stranger. Myrtle raised her eyebrows in a sort of facial shrug.

“I'm Miss Violet Mayhew,” said Violet to the man. “I'm Miss Mayhew's sister. And this is Myrtle, um …” She had forgotten

Myrtle's last name.

“Davies,” said Myrtle.

“And I am Theo Martin,” said the man, sitting down. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” He clasped his book between his thumb and forenger, and Violet realized with surprise that those were the only two ngers he had on his right hand. She looked quickly away and saw Myrtle trying not to notice the missing ngers as well.

“I'm afraid Miss Mayhew isn't here,” said Mr. Martin. “She isn't in New York, actually.”

Violet felt as if she'd just been punched in the stomach. That Chloe wouldn't be in New York was a possibility that hadn't occurred to her.

“But I have letters,” she protested, starting to reach for them and then remembering that they were in her bloomers, not really a place you could reach for in a public parlor. “I thought she lived here.”

She could feel tears starting in her eyes and fought valiantly to keep them from spilling out. A lady never cried in public. She felt someone touch her and looked with surprise to see Myrtle's hand resting on her arm.

Mr. Martin leaned forward, looking concerned. “I'm sure your sister is in excellent health, Miss Mayhew; she's simply not in New York. Please don't worry.”

Violet tried to smile to reassure him and accidentally jarred one of the tears loose. It trickled down beside her nose.

“She went to Washington, D.C., over a year ago to work with the National Woman's Party on the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. She drove o in that alarming machine of hers.” He smiled fondly. “Chlo

—Miss Mayhew said that she loved nursing but that winning the vote for women was more important right now.”

Violet had managed to get control of her tears. “Chloe's been a suragist ever since she was in high school,” she said. “Even then she worked on petitions and things.”

“Well, it's a very worthwhile cause,” said Mr. Martin.

Violet looked at him, surprised. “You think so?”

“Of course. Denying equal surage to women is a terrible injustice.”

Violet was astonished. She had heard people say this before— Chloe chief among them—but she'd never heard a man say it. She hadn't really thought a man could want votes for women. Father certainly didn't. And none of the men from the bank that he invited for dinner, Mr. Russell and Mr. Rice and Mr. All-the-rest-of-them, did. As for Stephen—she hadn't really known Stephen that well; he'd been away since she was little, rst at Cornell University and then at the War. For the last three years he hadn't voiced any opinions, even though Father had made Mother dress him up so he could take him to the polls to vote on Election Day just the same.

“My father says woman surage is a damn-fool crazy idea,” Violet blurted, then clapped her hand to her mouth. “I beg your pardon.”

Mr. Martin smiled. “Every great advance in human society started out as a damn-fool crazy idea.”

“Er, yes,” said Violet, feeling the conversation was getting o track.

Myrtle apparently thought so too, because she said, “Do you have an address for Miss Mayhew in Washington, sir?”

“An address? Now wait a minute.…” Mr. Martin put his book down. “Are you in New York with your parents, Miss Mayhew? And what about you, Miss Davies? Where have you sprung from, and don't they miss you there?”

Violet and Myrtle glanced at each other, alarmed. Mr. Martin had been speaking so normally that Violet, at least, had forgotten that he

was an adult and likely to be interested in these sorts of details. She was trying to think of an evasive answer to this while still not looking at Mr. Martin's missing ngers or his scar when Myrtle said, “She just wants an address to write to, I think, Mr. Martin.”

Mr. Martin still looked suspicious, so Violet hastily agreed. “Yes, just to write to. My father and mother don't … That is, they and Chloe had an argument.…”

Mr. Martin frowned. “And you, Miss Davies?”

The door opened inward halfway and a woman's voice called, “Theo! Come help me get these boys out of the chimney.”

“Excuse me,” said Mr. Martin, standing up again. “I'll just be a minute. Please wait right here.”

As soon as he had left the room, Violet said, “We'd better go,” at exactly the same moment that Myrtle whispered, “Let's get out of here.”

Violet smiled in spite of her anxiety. She and Flossie used to say the same thing at the same time too. She looked out into the hallway. There was no sign of Mr. Martin or anyone else. They rushed out the front door, careful not to slam it behind them.

When they were out in the street again, Myrtle said, “That Mr.

Martin was going to trot me over to the institute, and then put you on the rst train back to Pennsylvania. What are you gonna do now? Should we go to Washington to nd your sister?”

Violet had been thinking just that, though she had no idea how to get there. “Don't you have to go back to your training institute?”

“I told you. I try not to spend too much time there.”

“But don't they want you there?” Violet still wasn't sure exactly what a girls' training institute was, but if it was anything like a school, they would.

“Yes,” said Myrtle unconcernedly. “Do you have enough money for the train to D.C.?”

“I don't think so,” said Violet. “How far is it?”

“A long way,” said Myrtle. “More than two hundred miles.”

Violet didn't have to do the math. At two cents a mile, she did not have enough money. “How will I get there?”

“We'll nd a way,” said Myrtle. “Let's go to the train station and see what we can gure out.”

“But what about your school?” Violet persisted. She couldn't believe Myrtle was just going to wander away.

“It isn't a school,” said Myrtle testily. “It's a training institute. A school would be a place where you learned stu from books so that you could do something important in the world. My mama sent me to a school when she was alive. She didn't want me to go to someplace where we study ironing and dusting and knowing our place. Mama didn't mean for me to know my place.”

Myrtle had started out this speech sounding cranky, but at the end there was a dangerous squeak in her voice, and Violet was afraid she was going to start crying. She never knew what to do when people started crying. Fortunately, Myrtle didn't.

“Come on,” Myrtle said. “Let's go to the train station.”