“Thank you.” Lorna’s response was coolly polite and nothing more.
“You must be getting married,” Pearl guessed as she was joined by her two compatriots.
“Yes, I am,” Lorna admitted, and caught a hint of envy in the woman’s look. She experienced a small twinge of compassion because no decent man would ever marry women of their profession.
“You’ll make a lovely bride,” she declared, and turned to her friends. “Won’t she, girls?”
“Indeed,” agreed the black-haired girl.
The third, named Jenny, didn’t look any older than Lorna, even with the rouge and painted mouth. “Who’s the lucky man? Maybe we know him,” she suggested with an arching smile.
Lorna almost didn’t tell them, but she changed her mind. “Benteen Calder.” Part of her said she shouldn’t be talking to these women at all.
“Benteen Calder,” the black-haired girl repeated with a quick glance at Pearl. “I think I have seen him around.”
Lorna stiffened, but the red-haired Pearl quickly explained the blurted comment. “Don’t worry about it, honey. Dixie just means that she’s seen him in one of the saloons, having a beer. Girls like us don’t forget when we meet a man like Benteen Calder.”
It sounded like a compliment. Despite Pearl’s assurance that she had no cause for concern, Lorna couldn’t help wondering if they didn’t know Benteen better than she did.
“Let me give you some advice, honey,” Pearl said with a melancholy smile. “If you don’t want your man slippin’ away to see our kind on the sly, you’d better be wilder in bed than he is.”
Such talk first drained the color from her face, then sent it flooding back. Lorna wanted to shut her ears, but she couldn’t. Somewhere she lost her voice, too.
“I’ve learned a lot about men over the years.” The woman made it sound like a long time, yet she didn’t look any older than her mid-twenties. “They may want a lady on their arm, but they want a whore in bed. I know that shocks you, but, honey, there’s a helluva lot of truth in what I’m sayin’. If wives took that advice, we wouldn’t have so many married men for customers.”
“Miss Rogers!” The shocked voice of Liza Mae Brown, Sue Ellen’s mother, brought a quick end to the conversation. What was worse, Lorna realized the shopkeeper as well as her mother had overheard the last bit of Pearl Rogers’ advice.
But the bold woman wasn’t intimidated by the outraged look. “Don’t waste your breath lecturing to me, Mrs. Brown.” She turned away from Lorna, completely unabashed. “I wasn’t corrupting the child. In fact, I might have saved her a lot of heartache in the future.” Her attitude became strictly business. “What about the hat I ordered?”
“It hasn’t arrived as yet,” Mrs. Brown began.
“Then we’ll come back in a few days,” Pearl replied, and with her two companions, made a dignified exit from the shop.
“Sue Ellen, why did you leave Lorna here by herself?” Mrs. Brown rebuked her daughter, and quickly apologized to Mrs. Pearce. “I am sorry this happened, Clara. I feel dreadful that Lorna was exposed to such indecent talk. I probably shouldn’t even allow those women in my shop, but unfortunately I can’t afford to refuse their business.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Liza.” Her mother magnanimously removed all blame from the woman. “I know my daughter well enough to be reassured that she wouldn’t pay any attention to what was said. They were only trying to justify their loose morals by putting the blame on respectable women.”
“How true,” Mrs. Brown agreed fully.
“Let’s put the veil away, Lorna.” Her mother came over to help her remove it. “We still have to go by the church.”
The conversation was skillfully turned to other subjects. Lorna thought the matter was going to be dropped, but her mother brought it up again after they had left the shop.
“I know you have never had any contact before with that element of our society,” she began. “Perhaps it’s just as well that this happened. Instead of always turning a blind eye, we should take a stand against that element and convince the town fathers they must be abolished. It will be a problem wherever you may live, so it’s best that you
see it now.”
“Yes, Mother.” But Lorna’s mind was still lingering on that shocking advice she’d been given. “What kind of … men seek their company? It wouldn’t be someone like … Daddy or Benteen?”
“Of course not.” The answer was quick, followed by an attempted qualification. “That isn’t to say that men don’t sometimes sow wild oats before they settle down with a wife and a family. And there could be circumstances that would prompt a man to seek out that kind of woman to supply his needs.”
“What kind of circumstances?” Lorna asked.
“If a wife isn’t capable of occupying the marriage bed, because of illness or”—her mother hesitated—“when it wouldn’t be wise for her to become in the family way. A man has to understand that there comes a time when a woman might not want any more children.”
“Then you and Daddy …” Lorna didn’t finish the thought. It seemed too much an invasion into her parents’ private relationship.
“That’s right,” her mother admitted. “And your father understands it’s the only way a woman can prevent such things.”