Chapter VI - Dark Clouds
New Year’s Eve, 1933, Mason City
Sisters Alice and Laura are home from their out of town colleges. “Home” for the Harrisons these days is a series of comfortable inter-connected rooms in the Hotel Hanford. Merrill says it is handy for his city center work commitments. His weekday commute is just a brisk walk down the street. Alice does not mind: the Hanford is the place to be seen. All the visiting socialites passing through Mason stay over at the Hanford.
However, today, the girls are horrified when a smirking bell-boy delivers the morning papers to their hotel suite. Alice scans the front pages, knowing intuitively that something is up. It does not take her long to find the offending article. Someone called “Sabrina O'Hara” has had a baby with their father. Sabrina is not quite Alice’s age. Just turned twenty, Alice puts her arm around her younger sister sat on the couch. They can no longer look at the Mason City Globe tossed on to the coffee table before them.
Merrill arrives home, looking hung-over. The end of year holiday season dictates that Merrill must attend a non-stop tour of private parties and company celebrations. Most nights he never finds his own bed. A blazing row erupts as soon as both of Merrill‘s feet have crossed the threshold. After the screaming insults die down, Merrill insists that his daughters listen to his side of the story, however much they might wish there was no story to tell.
“Yes, yes, it’s a mess, I know. But this girl was a one-time thing.”
Alice takes the lead on behalf of the dumbfounded offspring, “Oh, a one-night stand. That’s alright then. No shame there.” Her sarcasm is biting.
Merrill decides to plead with the older Alice about grown-up sexual matters. She is now in full womanhood, and Merrill suspects that Alice is probably in the experimentation stage as far as intimacy with boyfriends is concerned. His seventeen-year-old daughter Laura will just have to listen and learn.
“Look, I am only human. A grown man has needs, and an unattached grown man can do what he likes, within reason.”
“With a teenager? Is that reasonable?” Alice makes the obvious point.
“Yes. I mean no. Come on, you know the divorce upset us all. I had to take criticism and keep going. I’ve been fixed up with lots of younger ladies since then, but I turned them all down because of you two. I didn’t think it was right to enter another relationship—not until you girls have settled down with your own fellows, anyway.”
“So you went to a prostitute for your kicks, did you dad?” Alice spits out her words with total disgust.
“No, no. Sabrina was not that type of girl. She was a trainee at one of our stationer’s shops, a bright girl. And then I bumped into her again when she was doing waitressing at night for extra cash. She sort of had a crush on me.”
“How romantic, Pop.”
“I know, Alice. I made a big mistake, and you are both absolutely right to hate me.”
By now, teenager Laura remains the more genuinely distraught, whilst Alice is concerned about other side-effects. She pompously complains that she will “simply die of shame” when her high society friends find out the news.
“Please hear me out. My secret’s out. I tried to protect you, and failed. Now I’ve got to take care of this matter quickly - for you, for Velo, for everyone, and I am working on that already.” Merrill says that the court case will not be contested, so his embarrassing transgression will not be reported again. He can make sure of that after a word in the ear of the Globe‘s chief editor. “I’m going to send this silly country girl Sabrina packing with the few dollars she probably needs. The legal guys say that any more than that is extortion, or even blackmail, and the local judge doesn’t take kindly to that sort of carrying-on.”
Alice is somewhat relieved to hear that her father has taken the situation seriously. She respects him as a businessman, but for not much more since the divorce. Laura just wonders what happened to her daddy. She is beginning to hate growing up.
If nothing else, Merrill picks his moments to humiliate his family with great aplomb. Tonight is the night of Mason City’s biggest party of all – and it is to be held as always at the Hotel Hanford. It is the Globe Gazette-sponsored Mason City New Year’s Celebration Ball.
By 11:00 pm, Merrill is a little way beyond half-drunk again. At the youngsters’ table, Alice has attempted to defend her father’s honor, time and again. She is almost pitying him to her best friend, “I blame this economic depression. It has hit Daddy hard. He’s been totally stressed-out and fighting single-handedly to keep Velo afloat.”
This is far from the truth because Robert Corsair, the major Velo shareholder, is lecturing Merrill at another table about his “uselessness.” Corsair warns that Merrill might have to be “sent off to a subsidiary office until this Sabrina affair storm passes over.”
Bleary-eyed Merrill can only appeal for a Time-Out. “Can we discuss this next week? It’s New Year’s, Bob. Let me buy you a drink. Even the cops are having a slurp over there tonight.” Merrill is relieved to get to the safety of the drinks counter.
Young Laura looks resplendent in her best ball gown. With her hair professionally styled, followed by a loan of Alice’s cosmetics bag, Laura has blossomed into an attractive young lady, far removed from the red-eyed child who sobbed for hours earlier in the day. It is a brave performance, but her younger class-mates are not as forgiving as Alice’s clique. They giggle and point their fingers when whispering to each other. Laura feels very lonely in a heaving, noisy ballroom. She is being blatantly shunned. Once again, her former friends all jump up in unison and skip off to dance to the Swing Band that has started to play another school favorite. No one asks Laura to dance.
2011, Sligo
Jed looks perplexed, and is almost chain-smoking. He has found a newspaper headline declaring that Mrs. M. E. Harrison’s son will be visiting the Clear Lake cottage for the Fourth of July celebrations in 1929. “Huh? They’re still married and Madeline had a son?”
More confusion follows as Jed digests the contents of the short article when suitably magnified to make it legible. He reads the summary out to Sue whose jaw has dropped. She listens with great interest, “The son is called ‘Vic Conway.’ He’s from Florida and he has a wife and children. What’s going on? Conway? Something is not right.”
A frenetic speedy search into vital records featuring the name “Victor Conway” of an appropriate age results in Jed’s discovery of Conway’s birth record: “My God, Sue! Vic’s father was ‘Steve Conway, Newspaperman.’ I think he was the founder of the Mason City Globe Gazette, the very newspaper we’ve been reading all morning. Steve Conway’s name is all over the paper in the early editions. Vic’s mother was ‘Victoria Reiskoff.’ ” Jed furrows his brow then lowers his eyebrows. He studies his desk in silence, not looking at anything in particular. His thoughts are all over the place.
“Spell that name, ‘Reiskoff.’ ” As she speaks, Sue transfers the 1920’s Iowa newspapers CD into her own spare lap-top.
Jed does as he is requested, and Sue inputs the mother’s name into the newspaper text search engine. Instantly, one tiny article flashes up, lost in a column of Mason City social chatter headlined with one word: “Divorce.”
Without needing a prompt, Sue reads the lines under the heading: “Victoria Reiskoff Conway has been granted a divorce from Merrill E. Harrison in the district court Thursday. Mr. Harrison was cited for treating Mrs. Harrison cruelly and inhumanely. Victoria Reiskoff is the widow of Mason City’s former wealthiest man, Steve Conway, the former proprietor of the Globe-Gazette.”
“What’s the date?”
Sue scrolls up to the top of the broadsheet: “September 1929.”
October 1928, Clear Lake, Iowa
Merrill and Victoria are having a violent row. Merrill is very drunk, spilling whiskey from his crystal glass as he berates his frumpy-looking middle-aged wife. Victoria has refused to sign some legal paperwork that has been thrown on to her bedside dressing table. It had been a while now since Victoria moved into the guest bedroom, “Just sign your name – Mrs. Victoria Harrison,” slurs Merrill. “Couldn’t be easier.”
“No, I will not. I’m taking these papers into town. My attorney will want to consult with Vic. My son has an interest in the disposal of these assets.”
Staggering away, Merrill kicks the door, threatening that she had better have the authorization document signed off by the time he gets back from the World Series or else, “You’ll be hurt some more!”
Victoria tearfully runs to the bedroom door when Merrill eventually exits. She is grateful that Merrill fitted internal locks when he re-furbished the cottage after their honeymoon.
2011, Sligo.
The light bulb in Jed’s head erupts into maximum brightness. For once, it took a while, “Merrill must’ve married Victoria sometime around 1925. Remember, he was a married man on the 1925 census - but I never saw a wedding report in the Globe Gazette.”
Sue pipes up, “Well, they must have had the wedding out of town somewhere. Perhaps they wanted no publicity. They were both married before.”
“Ha! Merrill would have just loved to be front page news, I reckon. I’m beginning to suss him out, a bit. No, Victoria must have insisted on a quiet ceremony, and then instructed the Globe editor not to publish any details. After Steve Conway’s demise, Victoria would have been the major stakeholder in all the Iowa newspapers.”
Sue is the first to state the obvious, “But, hang on—where’s his first wife Madeline gone?”
Jed takes control, “You do a quick scan of Iowa deaths in 1923 and 1924; I’ll check the pre-1925 newspapers.”