Page 11 of Mrs. Victoria Buys A Brothel

C hapter 11

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They reached Salt Lake City in the middle of the afternoon. It was busy, noisy, and dirty. Natane scrunched her nose.

“You lived here?”

“For most of my married life, yes. Every now and then I miss it.”

Someone emptied a bucket from the second story of a house, and putrid smelling water fell not far from them. She scooted closer to Natane. “Not all of it.”

At Victoria’s instructions, they navigated to avoid the upper-class neighbourhoods and reached a part of town that she had only visited once. Yet, the address was still burned in her mind. 27 Hooper Street .

“I need to see Martha, tell her I’m alright. And thank her.”

“She’s the one who helped you leave, right? Then I need to thank her, too.”

Martha opened the door and laughed in relief when she recognized Victoria. “Oh, thank God.” She pulled her into a crushing hug.

Victoria embraced her back, feeling a sob come up. “Hello, Martha,” she breathed.

Martha grabbed her by the shoulders. “You look better! And that’s an interesting new look,” she eyed the Stetson.

“Oh, haha, no, this isn’t mine. Err, Martha, meet my friend, Natane.”

Martha evaluated her at a glance, and seemed to approve of what she saw. They shook hands. “Glad to meet you. Please, come in, I’ll put the kettle on.”

There was already someone at the table. David, halfway through a meal, jumped out of his chair when he saw Natane.

“Ah! Mrs.Díaz! What are you doing here ?”

Martha smacked him with an oven mitt. “Don’t be rude.”

Fearing the wrath of his cousin more than Natane, he slowly sat back.

“And finish your meal!”

He started eating, never leaving Natane out of his sight. They sat in front of him.

“Hello, David,” said Victoria, trying to break the awkwardness.

“Hi Mrs.V. Hi Mrs.Díaz. I’m sorry, for the… You surprised me, is all.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s disrespectful, that’s what it was,” said Martha, placing mugs of steaming tea in front of them. “He should know better. Now, drink, and tell me everything that has happened since I saw you last.”

They talked for a while. David eventually got used to Natane’s presence and stopped glancing at her between each bite.

“A brothel?” frowned Martha. “That’s … unexpected.”

“It was the least I could do for the girls after they took me under their wing.”

David coughed, awkward. “And, huh, how’s Miss Lisette?”

“She’s doing well—” started Victoria, but was interrupted by Martha, who stood up suddenly, slamming both hands on the table.

“David, is that an English woman?”

“French, actually,” he mumbled.

Martha smacked him again with the oven mitt. “David! A white woman? Are you insane ?”

“Nothing happened!”

“And nothing will!”

“I just— I just like looking at her, alright? She’s pretty!”

“Stronger men have been hanged for looking, you idiot!” She turned to Victoria. “Tell me exactly what’s going on.”

She blinked. “Nothing,” she said, truthfully. “I have never seen them interact.”

“He visits your brothel?”

“Not at all. Simone does not allow him on our side of the street.”

“Glad to hear it. Can you promise me you won’t ever let that boy enter your building?”

“Martha!” he yelped. “I’m a grown man!”

“You’re a grown idiot, that’s what you are. Fixating on a white woman. So, Mrs.Stanton?”

“I promise,” she said, not looking at David.

He seemed to deflate and went back to eating silently.

“Good,” said Martha. “We didn’t carry your diapered ass through three states and two territories so you could risk it for a white girl.”

She huffed and turned to Victoria. “Speaking about idiocy, I’m guessing you’re going to go back to the manor?”

Victoria felt small under her gaze. “I have to try, at the very least,” she sighed. “If there is the slightest chance my Henry wrote while I was gone…”

“That boy hasn’t sent a word in more than a decade and you think there’s going to be a letter, now, waiting for you? Mrs.Stanton, I thought you were a smarter woman than this.”

“If you were in my place, what would you do?”

Martha frowned, then pointed at Natane’s rifle, leaning on the wall. “I’d make sure this was charged and ready.”

“It is,” said Natane.

They exchanged a look and Martha nodded. “If it ever comes to that, put a hole in that bastard’s head for me, would ya?”

“I will.”

Victoria stared at them both, alarmed. “We are not killing my husband.”

“Correction, we are not planning on killing your husband,” said Martha, raising an eyebrow. “Things can happen so fast.”

Victoria put her cup down. “I am serious. Natane, don’t even think about it.”

She glared back. “I won’t go out of my way to shoot him, but I won’t let him near you either.”

Martha made an approving sound, and David nodded behind his cup.

Victoria huffed. “This is a moot point, anyway, since he won’t be there. He goes to the club on Fridays; the manor will be empty. Even the butler has the day off. Happy?”

“Hm,” was Natane’s only answer.

Martha and David did not look confident, either.

*

On Thursday, Victoria and Natane left the inn at dawn. David was scheduled to depart for Swainsburg on Saturday, which left them little time to find what they needed if they wanted to join him on the road.

Their first stop was the R.H. Macy and Co warehouse in the industrial district. The enormous brick building was already full of workers. Natane hailed a foreman, let him inspect the Shoshone merchandise, haggled with him and got paid, all in less than ten minutes. The cart was quickly unloaded and reloaded with what Victoria initially thought was a war machine.

The mechanical plow chosen by the tribe elders was an iron monster, with huge wheels and two sharp blades that looked like ferocious claws. It took four men to haul it on the wagon.

“The elders better be happy with it,” grumbled Natane when they left the industrial district. “Because I’m not coming back to exchange it.”

Victoria led them to the main commercial avenue, where they parked in the shade of a row of tall buildings. The street was packed.

“I still can’t understand how people live like this,” whispered Natane, shouldering her rifle.

“I used to love it,” said Victoria, lowering the black Stetson over her eyes, “but after the silence of Swainsburg, this feels a tad much. Come on, my dear, stay close!”

Victoria nervously surveyed the people in nicer clothes. None of them looked familiar, but it meant little when Earl had made a point to befriend the entire Salt Lake City upper crust, Victoria on his arm. She walked fast, shoulders hunched, and entered the first general store on their way. Natane followed, visibly frazzled by the crowd. Her expression was closed off, back to that neutral face that everyone mistook for a glare.

“Alright, my dear?”

Natane grimaced. “Someone bumped into me.” She rubbed her arm with a shiver.

They managed to find most of the items on Victoria’s list: new sheets, undergarments, button-up blouses, long skirts, and stockings. She threw in creams, perfumed soaps, makeup powders, rouges, and ribbons in many colours. There was a pretty purple hat that she just had to get for Mrs.Jackson, and then felt she also had to bring a gift to Mrs.Zhao. She found a nice case for her sewing spectacles.

Natane trailed after her, fingertips brushing all the different fabrics. Victoria caught her absently stroking the sleeve of a very soft woolen sweater and added it to the pile without hesitation.

Bringing all this to the wagon was an ordeal, but they managed to fit everything under and around the plow.

“This was exhausting,” commented Natane through her teeth.

“Oh, dear one, we are far from done.”

She led them to a minuscule shop squished between two bigger buildings. There was nothing on the facade to indicate what kind of wares it sold, but Victoria stepped in with ease. The man hunched over the counter glared at them. He was working on a violin.

“Are you lost?”

“I do not think so,” said Victoria, eyeing the violin. “I need to tune a piano.”

“The waiting list is two months long.”

“Ah, there’s a misunderstanding. I have to do it myself, since the piano is at a five days travel,” she gestured towards Swainsburg. “I need tools and mechanical sheet music, if you have some.”

He grumbled, disappeared through a door in the back, and made them wait for a while. When he finally came back, he dropped a wooden crate on the table.

“Here you go. A toolkit, ten rolls of perforated paper for automatic pianos and a book of classical sheet music.”

“I did not request that last one.”

“Are you going to take it, or not?”

“…Yes, I will.”

The price was a bit steep, but Victoria considered it more like an investment. They brought the crate to the wagon and secured it with everything else. Once that was done, Victoria had to pull on Natane’s sleeve to get her moving again.

“There’s just so many people,” she gritted through her teeth. “It’s exhausting.”

“We’re almost done, darling. We only need to visit the bookshop and it’s over.”

Thankfully, the store was deserted. It was cramped and stuffed with high shelves, and blissfully silent. Natane relaxed immediately.

“They wanted books, but I have no idea what to bring them,” muttered Victoria. “I’m not really a book person.”

Natane brushed a row of spines, lost in thought. “Probably stories.”

“Well, there’s Shakespeare, I know that name,” said Victoria, pulling a thick tome. “Oh, beautiful, an anthology! And oh!” she grabbed another one nearby, “Andersen’s tales! I used to love them, as a little girl!”

Natane spotted a book with a cover embossed with flowers. “Poetry. Do you like that sort of thing?”

Victoria took it delicately. “I’d like to be the sort of person who likes that sort of thing,” she chuckled. She opened it at a random page. “ Sweet mother, I cannot weave. Slender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for—”

A cough interrupted her. The tiny shop owner, behind the counter, glared at them over his novel.

“My apologies,” she whispered. She added the poetry collection to the pile. “Oh, look at this! Advanced arithmetic! I’m sure Siobhan can make sense of it all.” She raised her head to find Natane reading something attentively. “What do you have there?”

“Woodworking,” she mumbled. “There’s diagrams.” It appeared to be instructions on how to build a simple, plain dresser, but Natane was immediately engrossed.

Victoria left her to the manual and kept browsing. Her foot hit a box on the floor. It was full of thin booklets of cheap paper, the covers stamped with engraved illustrations. She grabbed one and smirked.

“Darling, come see. I think we found what we were searching for.”

Natane stretched her neck. “Heart of a sailor? Is this about boats?”

“It’s about love,” she grinned. “Well, we’re far from poetry. They’re the kind of book a lady is not supposed to know about.” She opened at a random page and nodded. “Oh, raunchy. They’re going to love this.”

She grabbed a dozen dime novels and piled everything on the counter. The clerk rang up their purchases distractedly and returned to his reading the moment they left.

“Now, are we done?” sighed Natane.

“Yes, we can head back to the inn. Thank you for your patience, my dear.”

Despite her exhaustion, Natane smiled back.

They made their way through the emptying streets, leaving the commercial district for the northern, poorer, part of town. The further they went from the rich centre, the more Victoria felt like she could breathe. She sighed, letting her shoulders drop. Natane squeezed her hand.

They passed a narrow avenue full of people, where every sign was written in Chinese.

“Oh, Plum Alley. Darling, could you stop? I’m sorry to delay us again, but I’d like to get something for Mei.”

“How are you going to find anything, in there?”

“I’ll ask nicely, of course. If you want, you can wait in the wagon, I’ll only be a moment.”

Natane scoffed and followed her.

Stepping into the Chinatown was like travelling to another country. The architecture was different, the storefronts sold strange objects, the markets had some peculiar fruit. It was full of people, but there was not a single woman in sight.

They obviously stood out. Victoria swallowed the wave of anxiety that always came with being stared at, and walked up the street. No one stopped them, but no one greeted them either.

Victoria had luck on her side. A man was sitting in front of a house with several knickknacks displayed on a blanket. There was a crate of books next to him.

“Hi!” said Victoria with her best smile. “I’m searching for books in Chinese?”

The man did not speak English. They eventually understood each other and he let Victoria peruse through the crate.

“Are you looking for something specific?” asked Natane, crouching next to her.

“No… To be quite honest, I may be way over my head. Hualing was not very generous with details, I just know Mei likes to read. Maybe we can pick the one with the prettiest cover?”

They found a book, old and yellowed, with a beautiful rendering of a tree. There were more inked illustrations among the text, inside. “Oh, she will love this!” said Victoria, paying the man.

They finally returned to the inn. They tended to the horses in silence, Natane exhausted after the busy day. After a good meal, they retired to their room.

Once again, Victoria had requested two beds. It was expensive, but the thought of sharing one made her nervous. It was probably because she was still haunted by her husband.

She laid under the cover and watched Natane brush her hair, then braid it.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” asked Natane, gently.

“Yes,” muttered Victoria. “Very much so.”

Natane reached across the gap and squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right there with you.”

“I know.”