The Dolphin Lady

In spite of the absence of Julia Gideon, Ingeborg Biddle’s conversaziones were a social triumph. But their success was partly due to the presence in her house of a distinguished secret. Its name was “the Dolphin.”

Ingeborg’s Dolphin was not one of the appointments of her sitting room, so elegantly furnished with a Kidderminster carpet, a landscape of the Roman campagna, Raphael’s Madonna of the Chair, an Eastlake sofa, and a stereopticon with views of the Pyramid of Cheops.

The Dolphin was sequestered upstairs behind a closed door. It was not the only ornament of that hygienic domain, because Ingeborg was the daughter of the vice president of the J. L. Mott Iron Works of New York City, and therefore she had been privileged to choose freely from their sumptuous catalog.

All of the fixtures had names. The tub was “the Elizabethan” and the lavatory “the Nonpareil.” But the glory of all glories was the front-outlet washout ventilating water closet, called “the Dolphin” because the bowl was supported by a porcelain fish tinted with turquoise and gold.

One did not speak of bathroom fixtures in polite company, but Ingeborg could not help smiling when every lady in attendance at one of her conversational tea parties excused herself and disappeared, returning wide-eyed a moment later.

Thus, it was neither the death of Socrates nor the essays of Emerson that were chattered about at home; it was the Dolphin.

If people snickered at Ingeborg behind her back, referring to her as “the Dolphin lady,” they were envious just the same. Indoor plumbing was still a rarity in Nashoba. Outhouses were attached to some of the houses, but the usual Nashoba privy stood at the end of a well-worn path.

One afternoon, Ingeborg’s Dolphin provided her with a plan. As she pulled the chain, hauled up her drawers, and smoothed down her skirt, she was struck by an idea, and laughed with delight.

It was clear that the house of Julia and Josiah Gideon was not blessed with indoor waterworks, because the pump in the front yard was clearly visible from the road. Undoubtedly, there was an outhouse in the back. An outhouse! If Josiah Gideon, his wife, Julia, and daughter, Isabelle, found it necessary to retire to the backyard privy from time to time, so also would the other occupant of the residence, the disfigured veteran who refused to show his face. It was a law of nature that could not be denied.