A Flickering Light by Jane Kirkpatrick
Now the two of them, she and Mr. Bauer, were in a discussion, though her mind wandered. “I thought it would be helpful.” Her husband spoke. Oh yes, about the girl he’s hired and my worry over the finances of that.
“I should be grateful you were thinking of me, is that it? How old is she?”
“Thirteen or so,” he said. “She’s been working. At Steffes’s, for two years already.”
“Surely not full-time. Isn’t she still in school?”
“Finished. Isn’t going on to the high school. Family. Needs money. Good people. You know that.”
“I guess that will be fine, not that I have much say in things. I worry about the money. I hope she’s strong. Is she a big girl?”
He shook his head. “But sturdy. I imagine like her sisters. Responsible.” Mr. Bauer took a deep breath. “I wanted to be helpful. I can pay the wages. Write the weekly—”
“I didn’t pay your shop girls!” Her hands flew to her face. “I forgot. I’m so sorry. I can’t do anything right.” She felt herself in that swamp of unworthiness, though the moment before she’d been irritated, frustrated that it had taken him so long to hire a girl. Why did she always argue, raise financial issues? They could obviously afford a hired girl since he had that splurge of a Ford vehicle in the shed. She supposed he’d start calling it his “garage” now and want one built on the property in St. Charles, where he’d invested in yet another cottage after the successful fall harvest. Last year someone had flown one of those aeroplanes across the English Channel. She supposed Mr. Bauer would want one of those next! She inhaled. Sometimes that stopped the racing of her mind, the fear that grabbed at her throat and threatened to suffocate her.
“I took care of it,” he told her. “The wages.”
“Did you mail them? I could take them tomorrow.” She turned to see if she could find envelopes on the foyer table where he placed outgoing mail that he took with him to work. There was nothing there. Of course not. He hasn’t gone to work for months.
“Miss Gaebele took them,” he said.
“Oh. Well, that was clever thinking then, to give them to her when she came to interview. I’m sure she’ll pass them along to her sister.”
He nodded. “I’m sure they’ll arrive safely.”
She thought it an odd characterization but let it go at that. “When will you have her start?”
“In a week. Plenty of time to help plan Winnie’s birthday next month.”
Winnie’s party. All the women at church were doing such things now. “I haven’t planned—”
“Selma will help. It will be. One less thing. To worry over.” He motioned to her to help him stand. She assisted her husband up the stairs, settled him into bed. “I imagine Russell will be chattering to you yet tomorrow about his auto ride.”
Mr. Bauer nodded. “I’ll hope to learn. When spring comes.” “He sits in that thing. In the shed. Is that safe?” Mr. Bauer nodded. He held her hand. “Not to worry, Mrs. Bauer,” he said. He looked at her then, held her gaze. “Thank you, Mrs. Bauer. I so appreciate. Your help.”
She grunted. She knew he might have liked a “You’re entirely welcome,” but she couldn’t muster it. She pulled away and patted his hand instead. She checked the chamber pot to be sure Russell had remembered to empty it earlier, then left her husband alone. Only later in her room did she think to wonder how her husband had managed to make it downstairs for the interview. No matter. Things were looking up. She’d have help, and soon it would be spring, and Mr. Bauer would be better. She could look forward to that.
Jessie wasn’t expecting to see Voe and Daniel Henderson at the studio before she arrived.
“Never you mind, then,” Voe told Jessie. “Daniel and I will tend to this. You’re not to be involved.”
Jessie put her hat, coat, and mittens on the hook in the kitchen. As wet as she got walking to work in this snow-blowing weather, they’d decided to let things drip there rather than form pools beneath the oak coat tree in the hall. She came back in, annoyed that Daniel Henderson was there at all. And they were boxing something up that she was not privileged to know about. Everyone seemed to be doing things to her, affecting her life. Did it even matter to the others that she was turning eighteen in a week and would be responsible for herself? Apparently not. Her mother continued to harangue her (a word she put into her list of memorable words) and tell her how disappointed she was that Jessie had taken such liberties at the Bauer home. How could they trust her? How could she make such decisions as to be in a man’s bedroom long enough to see the condition of his pillows? Could they ever count on her to be the young woman they’d raised her to be? Her morals were being questioned—and theirs too if she continued to do such risqué things.
“But if I had done anything wrong, I wouldn’t have told you,” Jessie said.
“What?”
“I mean, it was so innocent, my seeing his bedroom. I was just getting checks. If it had been something, you know, wrong, would I have mentioned it to you?”
That had silenced them, for the moment.
Jessie thought they were right about one thing: she’d made a terrible slip in commenting on the pillow. It was almost as if she wanted them to know about it, but what would be the point of that? It was an innocent moment of seeing, that’s all. Being a photographer, an artist, made her aware of things that most people weren’t. But her mouth had gotten her into trouble. She never should have described the pillow because to them it suggested something that slanted the truth when all the truth was there wide open for anyone to see. Nothing was happening that ought not to. Her parents had finished their harangue, and Jessie had gratefully gone up to bed.
Now, this next morning, here she was with Voe challenging her too.
“Mr. B. asked us to do this,” Voe defended when Jessie stood with pursed lips, refusing to leave so they couldn’t continue whatever secretive thing they were doing.
“I don’t see how,” Jessie said. “He’s ill and can barely speak. It was all I could do to get the wages taken care of without him collapsing. Why would he tell you to box up a portrait and keep me from knowing about it?
“Well, he did.”
“It’s a kindness, Miss Gaebele,” Mr. Henderson said. “Don’t spoil the surprise, then. Maybe you can fix us coffee. Do you do that?”
Jessie bristled. “I do whatever has to be done.” She turned and headed to the kitchen. Maybe he was going to give her the double exposure, but why wouldn’t he tell her to just take it with her when she went home? There didn’t have to be all this secrecy.
After her parents’ remonstrating her (another word she’d read in a Woman’s Home Companion story) she had made up her mind: she would go with Roy for his appointment, and then she would begin saving, not for a camera but for enough money to leave. She’d get a room, like the girls who worked at the hospital or who came in from the country to serve at the restaurants and cafés did. They had all kinds of free time when they finished their work, and they didn’t have to account to anyone but themselves. She’d get by with her little old camera. She would.
She’d miss Roy and Selma and even Lilly. And yes, she’d miss her parents too. But the time had come. She needed to make a change, and she would do that even it meant sacrificing her own camera. She’d work for Mr. Bauer forever if she had to, but she wouldn’t have everything she did be constantly held against her as though she had barely turned ten.
She scanned the red lines of the ledger page to pick up from where she’d left off the day before. She decided maybe she should go down to the train station and pick up the supplies. It would keep her from feeling excluded by the goings-on in the other room.
“I’m going to the train station,” she shouted as she pulled her hat on. “The shipment is due, and our first sitting isn’t until eleven. I’ll be back by then.” She added to herself, And maybe Mr. Henderson will be gone by then. It simply wasn’t right that Voe had her beau right beside her while she was supposed to be working.
Now Jessie straightened her small shoulders to stand to her full height. Daniel had no right to do work that she and Voe were responsible for. Not that she minded tending to the shipments. She always checked off what was there against the invoice to be sure nothing was shorted. That happened sometimes. But to have someone not even associated with the studio signing for things, well, she’d have to speak to the railroad about that. Besides, how did Daniel even know there was a shipment? Voe rarely paid attention to things like that.
“How did you know to pick it up?” Jessie asked Voe.
“Mr. B. told me. And he said he’d call the station to be sure Daniel could do it.”
So Mr. Bauer had strength enough for that. If people were going to keep surprising her, she’d just become all the more determined to make her own way. After all she did to make this studio work too. She might have to continue working until Mr. Bauer returned, but if she moved out of her parents’ home, at least she wouldn’t be surprised there.
The visit to Rochester a few days before Jessie’s eighteenth birthday took all of them from Winona. The appointment had been moved up from the original March date. The night before, Jessie had wondered out loud why the girls couldn’t remain at home. She would take Roy to Rochester on her own if they’d like. All three girls and her father would be losing wages for the overnight journey, and it just seemed a waste of finances. But her mother said it was important for them all to go. The doctors had said so. It was one of the things the Mayo brothers did, involving everyone who might have information to help them decide what to do about a patient.
“That’s different,” Jessie conceded. “We can all help Roy. We’re not taking up space on the train.”
Old-timers said there was only one drift that winter, but it was twenty miles long and twenty feet high. Men earned extra money keeping the tracks of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway clear. Daniel Henderson had been doing such work, hoping to get into the good graces of the freight company so he could hire on a permanent railroad crew. He cut ice on the off days, and Voe proudly talked about how he always kept busy. Jessie supposed he’d be “helping” her at the studio while the Gaebeles made their way to Rochester.
She was a little worried about Voe’s taking care of things alone at the studio, but she’d have to trust that Voe could do the job. They’d not scheduled any sittings, so Voe would be making prints most of the time Jessie was gone.
Roy, though, acted delighted to have everyone together and going on what he called an a-a-advent-t-t-ture, when he could get the whole word out. Jessie decided to make it so. She’d contributed to this journey and prayed that they would find a way to help Roy speak better. Her mother had noted that whatever the outcome, it wasn’t in their hands. Maybe the wisdom of the Mayo brothers would do what Jessie’s family could not. Maybe there’d be a way to transform Jessie’s regret.
Jessie put the final hatpin into the felt to hold it tight against her hair. She listened carefully to sounds down the hall coming from her brother’s room. He hadn’t left yet to go down the stairs. She could hear him making drum sounds with his hands on the footboard of the bed. Jessie swirled out of the door, pushing her hat onto her head, her carpetbag in her other hand. She knocked on Roy’s door to see if he was ready to go. Her sisters were already downstairs.
“B-b-better g-g-go?” he asked, putting his hat on.
Jessie hugged him and then held him at arm’s length and straightened his cap. “We’re ready for your adventure.”
They descended, his feet taking one step at a time, her being careful not to rush him. She had a moment of insight. Maybe their mother finished his words for him because she couldn’t bear the pain of loss that waiting carried with it. Maybe Jessie endured the ache of his effort and waited for the very same reason.
The morning air crisped their noses as the Gaebele family stepped up into the streetcar, rode it to within a few blocks of the train station, then walked the rest of the way, serenaded by the crunch of their boots on the packed snow. Jessie’s face felt frozen by the time they boarded the cars and found two rows of leather seats facing each other near the back, by the stove. Mrs. Gaebele and Lilly took one side; Selma and Jessie faced them. Across the aisle sat Roy and his father, facing strangers. They moved their bags into various places beneath their feet, and Jessie thought they looked liked hens settling into nests. Selma put the lunch basket beneath her feet. Jessie set her Kodak in a bag beneath hers. She’d grabbed it at the last minute, hoping she could catch some shots of the snows. She didn’t think there were any lakes around Rochester, but if there were, she might get some interesting views of the windswept snow rippling on the frozen surface or catch some of the Scandinavians fishing through holes in the ice.
Roy leaned out from the other side of her father when the train began its rumble forward, his face filled with a dimpled grin. He must have belched because his cheeks puffed, but Jessie couldn’t hear it, for the whistle blew and steam billowed down around the car like fog and then lifted as the wind brushed it away. Roy grinned and waved. Whatever else happened, he would enjoy the journey. She’d do her best to do the same. She took out her Kodak and snapped a picture of him. It would be a good way to remember the day.
Settled in and bundled up, they headed west to Rochester. The fifty-mile trip would consume several hours.
Jessie snapped a few other pictures but realized that the train’s movement would make them fuzzy. The cold would affect the camera too, so she stuffed it in her tapestry bag and just took pictures with her eyes. On either side of the tracks, snow piled up like the creamy clay bricks of the Winona library.
“I think it’s nice,” Selma told her, moving closer so they could talk more easily without shouting.
“Looking up the valleys as we pass, seeing the trees covered with snow? I think you’re right, Selma.”
“No,” Selma said. She eyed Lilly and their mother across the way. Both had nodded off, stitching in their laps. “Working for the Bauers is nice. Oh, there’s lots to do, but the house is a fine place, Jessie. It’s a lot cleaner than Mr. Steffes’s shop.”
Jessie hadn’t asked Selma about her work for the Bauer family. She wanted nothing to fuel “unnatural affections,” as her mother might call them. But Selma’s conversation drew her like the Ouija board game Voe had brought into the studio. Jessie had played it only once. She felt a kind of anticipation that she liked but then dreaded the outcome too. If her mother knew she’d indulged even once in such a thing, she’d have kept her from work for a week and made her read the Bible for hours just to remind her that the future wasn’t in some Gypsy’s board.
“They have English dishes with roses on them all along the plate rail, and Mrs. Bauer has paper on her bedroom walls, but just around the top, not all over. And—” Jessie interrupted her by putting her hand on Selma’s knee. “What?” Selma asked, but when Jessie couldn’t tell her why she shouldn’t talk of her work at the Bauers, Selma continued. “They have enough rooms for everyone to have their own and a day nursery too. Winnie and I can play in there. Well, I’m there cleaning the checkered floor, but she shows me her toys. I see why you like her,” Selma said.
“I do like the children.” Jessie looked out the window, then turned back. “What about…Mrs. Bauer?”
“Oh, she’s all right. She’s all nervous about Winnie’s party, but I told her that cake and a few games will be enough to make a five-year-old happy. I offered to sing if she wished.”
“Did she want you to do that?”
Selma shook her head. “No. I think she worries so much about Mr. Bauer and the children. She’s always asking if Russell is home yet or if Robert awoke and maybe she didn’t hear him. I think she must sleep really sound. Maybe that worries her. She does forget things, and she naps a lot.”
Selma went on to talk of other things she liked about the Bauer home, but Jessie’s thoughts moved back to the day she’d been there herself, to the gentleness of Mr. Bauer. After he gave her their wages, they finished their tea and he spoke to her like her uncle August might, though in his illness-halted way. She felt like an adult sitting with him, hearing him speak of what he’d read in the paper, of Bugatti, an Italian who had founded a company to compete with Ford, only Bugatti’s cars were for racing. He was a man who noticed the world and wasn’t just stuck on Winona, like the boys she encountered at the sleigh ride last week, the one sponsored by the Ladies of Foresters.
She shook her head. These thoughts weren’t good for her.
“You’re not interested, are you?” Selma said. She crossed her arms in a pout.
“Maybe later,” Jessie told her. Selma shrugged her shoulders, took a book from her satchel, and was soon sound asleep, leaning onto Jessie’s shoulder, a soft snore lifting a tendril of her curls. Jessie didn’t need to hear about the Bauers. She wouldn’t think of anything but Roy now. The scenery zipped by the window so quickly she could just make out the white world broken by dark tree trunks and branches, an occasional red barn and log house. She’d see what they could do for Roy, go home, and before the year was out, she’d save enough to move on. She’d be an adult and on her own, working somewhere besides the Bauer Studio, away from temptations of shadow and light.