Chapter Six

Celia was at her wits’ end. She had been looking forward to seeing Rose married, living in a home of her own, so she could put Hugh into Rose’s room and reclaim her sewing room for herself, so she could relax and take care of her own little girls, who were getting bigger and more interesting every day, and attend to her husband, who was getting older and more difficult; but instead Rose was moping around the house like a constant rebuke. Did Rose think she was the only one in the world who had suffered a loss? You went on, you kept busy, you kept up a brave front. Tom Sainsbury had been dead for three years now, and Rose was twenty-one, on her way to becoming a spinster.

Exciting things were happening all around them. Last year the women finally were given the vote, after the terrible ordeals of the brave suffragettes being force-fed in prison. It made Celia choke just to think about force-feeding, those tubes down their throats. As an adult, Rose would be able to vote for the first time this year, a historic occasion, but she didn’t even read the newspaper to see who and what she wanted to vote for. She needed either a husband or a job, but she was equipped for very little. Celia tried to keep her up to date, but their conversations at breakfast were more like a monologue.

“Rose,” Celia said today, rattling the newspaper like a gentle reproach. “Didn’t you have a playmate named Elsie, Tom’s younger sister, who died of diabetes? We used to call it the sugar disease, and we thought it came from having eaten too much sugar as a child. The doctors would make the parents starve their children, but it didn’t work. Well, it says here in the paper that a doctor named Banting has discovered the cause of diabetes, that it comes from not having enough of something called insulin, and he has found the cure too. It’s called Banting’s Extract, and it’s made from the ground-up pancreas of animals. They say it will be available in a few years. Isn’t that wonderful! So many people will be saved.”

“A miracle,” Rose said, but her look said that it was too late. Her look always said it was too late, whatever you told her. She was drowning in self-pity.

A few men had come to call on Rose, but she drove them all away. Even William was concerned, and Celia didn’t want him to get upset because he already had pains in his heart when he was agitated, and sometimes he couldn’t catch his breath. But today she was going to get Rose headed toward a life, whether Rose liked it or not.

“I’ve been thinking, Rose,” Celia went on firmly. “They’re looking for an intelligent woman to work in the office at the shipyard. You would just fit the bill. You were always good with sums. Why don’t you and I go down there today and talk to them?”

“That’s a good idea, Rose,” her father said. “You’ll certainly meet strong, healthy young men at the shipyard. I would like to see you go out. You’re alone too much.”

Rose looked at them blankly and went on serving the oatmeal, stirring big spoonfuls of butter and sugar into it the way her father liked it, and topping it with heavy cream. She handed it to him as he pushed aside his finished plate of bacon and fried eggs: bacon crisp, eggs over light, yolk slightly runny. “Don’t you need me here?” she said.

“We can manage,” Celia said brightly. She smiled at Daisy and Harriette. “These little hands are ready to help me now, aren’t they, girls?”

The girls nodded enthusiastically; they loved to help like big girls, playing house, playing their future lives.

“Rose, do you need a job?” Hugh asked.

“I didn’t know I did,” Rose said. She sipped her coffee. She hardly ate lately, and was too thin, Celia thought.

“I think you could be a teacher,” Hugh suggested. “You’re lovely with children.”

“She would need a teacher’s certificate,” Celia said. She looked at William. “You could send her to school for that.”

“Teaching is good,” William said. “A good career for a woman to fall back on when she’s older and everyone in her family is gone.”

Rose glared at him.

“I won’t be gone,” Hugh said cheerfully. “I’ll take care of you, Rose.”

“Oh, of course,” Celia said sarcastically. “Drawing sketches of ladies’ dresses and hats all day. What kind of living will you make?”

“He’ll be a designer,” Rose said, coming to Hugh’s defense, as she always did.

“A seamstress?” Celia asked, and laughed.

“No, a haberdasher,” William said, and laughed too. He always defended Hugh too, his only son, playing along with Celia because he wanted to keep peace in the house, but getting his own way in the end.

“Maybe I’ll be an artist and draw Gibson girls,” Hugh said.

“I don’t think you’ll replace Charles Dana Gibson,” Celia said. It was true, Hugh’s drawings were nothing special, and he really didn’t care.

“Of course I won’t. They’ll be called Smith girls,” Hugh said with a smile.

“Enough nonsense,” William said. “We all know Hugh is going to go to college in two years, to Brown University, and he won’t be in trade, or an artist; he’ll be a doctor or a lawyer or a banker. It’s important for a son to do better than his father.”

“You do perfectly well, Papa,” Hugh said.

“But I never went to college. Wouldn’t you like to learn how to be a secretary, Rose?”

“No.”

“Typing and shorthand?”

“No, thank you, Papa. If you want me out of the house I can get a job helping in a shop.”

“I think you’ll go to school and learn to be a teacher,” William said. “That’s settled. Celia will find out how to go about it.” He held out his cup. “More of your delicious coffee, please.” He lit a cigarette and leaned back, enjoying it, content that he had solved their problem.

So, despite her objections, Rose began to teach first grade. Actually, she liked it, and the children liked her. Celia felt Rose made an appealing picture there in the schoolroom, surrounded by nice little faces: an advertisement for a future wife and mother, should any young man care to look. Unfortunately, most female teachers didn’t marry, either unwanted or too independent, Celia didn’t know, but she still kept up hope for Rose. She was an attractive young woman—fresh-faced, well-groomed and neat despite her depression—and it was a shame, Celia thought, that Rose still believed she was living Romeo and Juliet.

What if the boy had lived, for goodness’ sake? Did Rose think that life was so perfect they would never have fights, never lose their radiant good looks, not have money troubles, not get sick and old and fat, not lose children? Did she actually think they would still be holding hands and kissing when they were fifty? She could tell Rose a thing or two about the stupidity of love and the practicality of companionship, but what was the point? Celia had never thought Rose liked her very much. Oh, Rose was polite and did all the right things, never forgot a birthday, even gave her a card on Mother’s Day, but Celia felt that no matter how many of the right things she did to ensnare Rose’s affections, Rose’s dead mother was still there, keeping her ghostly hand on her possession, holding Rose back, even though Rose didn’t know it.

Well then, so be it. Celia had her own bank account.

A woman had to secure her independence in any way she could, even if she did it secretly. William was much older than she was, and not very well. When he was gone (of course she hoped that would not be for many years, but one had to be realistic), she would inherit some money; but he was not a rich man, and when she was a widow again she would have to take care of Daisy and Harriette until they found good husbands. Certainly none of William’s children would take care of her. Rose was useless, Hugh, unless college shaped him up, was on his way to becoming useless too, and the only one with money was Maude, but she had two children now, and the way things were going she and Walter would happily have a dozen. No, Maude couldn’t be depended upon either. Celia quietly took some of her household money each week and deposited it in her own account. No one asked, no one knew. Many shrewd women did that. It was not as if she were saving the money to run away, she simply wanted to be comfortable for the rest of her life.

Ben Carson had graduated from Yale and was now at Yale Law School. He came home for vacations, and whenever he did, he came to visit Rose. Celia couldn’t imagine why he continued to do that. Now that Rose was teaching, and surrounded by lively, living people, she seemed much less despondent, but she had no interest in being flirtatious or charming. Apparently they were friends. Celia knew it was only a matter of time before he met someone else, if he hadn’t already, and then Rose would have lost her best chance, if in fact Ben Carson was a chance at all anymore. I would have done it so much better than you, Celia thought, if it had been my life.

Now there was a psychic in town, and some of Celia’s friends had gone to see her and enjoyed it. Although Celia prided herself on being a rational modern woman, she was also superstitious and liked the occult. So one afternoon she went to see Madame Pauline, as the psychic was called, and took Rose with her, Rose of course protesting all the way about how silly it was.

Madame Pauline was dressed like a gypsy from a carnival—for all Celia knew, she was one—so Celia held tightly to the strap of her pocketbook while she sat down. The psychic had rented a storefront with two rooms, one of which was a small waiting room. The main room was draped in jewel-colored velvets and paisleys, and on the round table behind which she sat, there was a crystal ball, a deck of soft and rather filthy Tarot cards, and an equally unappealing deck of ordinary playing cards that had seen a great deal of use. Rose waited outside for her turn.

Madame Pauline asked Celia to shuffle the first deck and then laid out a hand. “Someone in your family is ill,” she said. “Your husband?”

“That’s true.”

“I wouldn’t worry though, he has many years yet.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Celia said.

“And someone dear to you has died, some years ago.”

Celia felt a lump in her throat. “Yes, my son.”

“He’s happy. You must let him go and attend to the present. You still have three daughters at home to guide to lives of their own.”

“Two,” Celia said.

“I see three. Two young ones and an older one. Is she a niece, perhaps?”

“My stepdaughter.”

“Ah . . .” Madame Pauline laid down some more cards. “What an extraordinary life she has before her!”

“Rose?” Celia said in surprise.

“Yes. Do you see this card?”

Celia nodded.

“Sometimes destiny has nothing to do with what we do or what we choose. It simply happens to us. Each event leads to something else. I don’t think you believe that.”

“I do, but I don’t really understand,” Celia said.

“There is nothing to understand. It is.”

Celia nodded. Madame Pauline asked her to shuffle and then laid out another hand. “There’s another boy in your house,” she said. “Still living. He needs you.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“No, I mean he needs your love and support. He’s very vulnerable. Very sensitive.”

“Oh, he is that,” Celia said.

“I don’t know why you don’t like him.”

Celia said nothing.

“And you yourself are in excellent health and will have a long life,” Madame Pauline said.

The session was over. Rose took Celia’s place. Celia sat in the waiting room, amazed. How could this woman know so many things? On the other hand, everyone had several children, and it would be a good guess that some were girls and others were boys, that one of them might have died, and that there was another one who didn’t fit in. Certainly she had given away enough clues about how she felt about all of them, if not actual information. And Madame Pauline had been wrong about Rose. Nothing would ever happen to Rose. I could be a fortune-teller myself, Celia thought, sorry she had spent the money. She tapped her foot, waiting impatiently for Rose to be finished.

“Oh, what fun!” Rose said cheerfully, stepping through the curtain. “Thank you for taking me.”

“You’re welcome. What did she tell you?”

“She did the cards and my horoscope!” Rose said. “Because she said I was interesting.” She read from a little piece of paper where she had taken notes. “I’m a Capricorn with the moon in Libra and Aquarius rising, and I’m well-balanced and thoughtful and extraordinarily adaptable. I have a dignified, humane, law-abiding nature, and a good disposition, and my combination of signs is favorable for marriage, partnership, and friendship.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell you,” Celia said. She was a little jealous that Madame Pauline hadn’t found her interesting enough to do her horoscope too. “And what else?”

“That I would be rich and have a surprising life,” Rose said.

“Well then,” Celia said, “you’d better get on with it.”

Rose laughed. “Not that I believed it, but it’s nice to hear,” she said. “What did she tell you?”

“Don’t I get to keep some secrets?” Celia said coyly. She supposed their adventure had not been such a waste after all. She smiled at Rose. It was nice to see her cheerful again; it had been a long time.