Sister Noon

Sister Noon Read Free Page A

Book: Sister Noon Read Free
Author: Karen Joy Fowler
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then Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Radford were alone in their carriage. The ride to the country was a long one. Mrs. Radford’s feelings were too tender to bear examination. It seemed as though Mrs. Smith had deliberately humiliated her. “Is it true?” Mrs. Radford asked.
    “Everything I’ve told you is true.”
    “Why pick that moment to say it?”
    “It was time. I’ve been a white woman for so many years. And I didn’t want what that was bringing me. It wasn’t aimed at you. Or your ideas about love and beauty.”
    The horse hooves clapped. The carriage rocked. “You don’t want to be the same person your whole life, do you?” Mrs. Smith asked. The carriage wheel hit a stone. It threw Mrs. Radford against Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith caught her by the arm. She was wearing gloves, so they didn’t actually touch.
    This was the last party Mrs. Radford would attend in San Francisco. One month later she left on a boat filled with missionaries going to Hawaii. One year later she was one of only seven white women in Edo, Japan. From there she sailed to Russia; from there she made her way to Peking. She died somewhere near Chungking at the age of seventy-four.
    In 1883, many years after her death, Selim Woodworth received a message from her. It was a bedraggled note, crumpled, carried in a pocket, trod upon, lost, left out in the rain. Even the stamps were indecipherable. “The mountains here!” was the only legible bit, and it wasn’t even clear where, exactly, Mrs. Radford had been when she wrote those words. It didn’t matter. Selim Woodworth had been dead himself for more than thirteen years.



ONE
    B y the 1890s, San Francisco was an entirely different city from the one Mrs. Radford had left behind. The streets were paved. The sand was landscaped. Cable cars ran up and down Nob Hill. The Railroad Kings were old or dead, and also the Bonanza Kings, and also the Lawyer Kings. Society had arrived and settled, its standards strictly maintained by Ned “I would rather see my sister dead than waltzing” Greenway. Fashionable women belonged to the Conservative Set, the Fast Set, the Smart Set, the Serious Set, the Very Late at Night Set, or the highly respectable Dead Slow Set.
    There were still many more men than women in the city. This imbalance resulted in a high percentage of unrequited passions. Afflicted men consoled themselves withhorse racing, graft, and most frequently, liquor. Any woman whose nerves did not compel her to depend on Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound (alcohol, dandelion, chamomile, and licorice) or Jayne’s Carminative Balm (alcohol and opium) or Dover’s Powder (opium and ipecac) could count on the advantage of sobriety in her dealings with men. The destabilizing effects of widespread heartache combined with widespread drunkenness were somewhat alleviated by the rigging of local elections.
    The city was propelled in equal parts by drunken abuse and sober recompense. In those days every steamer that docked in San Francisco Bay was fitted with a large box. Each box was the same—pinewood, a sizable slot edged with brass, and the words “Give to the Ladies’ Relief and Protection Society Home” burned in a circle about it. After the wreck of the SS
Rio de Janeiro,
one of these boxes was found floating past Alcatraz Island, and miraculously, the money was still inside. When levered open, the box contained rubles and yen, lire and pesos, all shuffled together like cards.
    Successive treasurers for the Society counted out coins stamped with the profiles of queens they couldn’t name and birds they’d never seen. Some of the coins were worn so thin there was no picture at all, just a polished disk with no clue remaining as to its history or origin. Occasionally during rough seas someone would donate a holy medallion, usually Saint Christopher. One box held a single amethyst earring with a small drop pearl.
    It was still charity, it was still begging, but it bore the semblance of adventure.
    Lizzie

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