First, I need to apologize to all my awesome followers. It's been very hard lately to write. I'm now working a job that has 0% downtime and when I get home, I'm very tired. Sucks.
When I do have time, I spend it on Netflix. A tool of the devil! I'm also reading more. Right now, I just finished reading "The Shining Girls" pretty good book. I will try harder to write everyday again. I'm also reworking some of my old stuff.
Warning! Erotica! Sequel to "PROTEST!"
PUNISHED!
1.
~ 1907 ~
~ Arthur was fond of the exclusive social club near his office he belonged to. It was a fine set of rooms that were filled with comfortable arm chairs, tables for playing cards at, and a full bar with an experienced tender to pour drinks. The rooms were all given dark wallpaper, all the better to display photographs of hunting trips on, and the air stank of cigar smoke and dry talks of business and politics. Nothing about the club lent itself to the female persuasion. Indeed, a woman wasn't allowed to set foot here, not even to clean.
As Arthur was among the younger, more successful business men in the group, he had to suffer with the overly ambitious of his generation for talk. He was still in the category of 'New Money' and those with more connections had little to do with him.
"I tell you that these unions are a travesty. A bunch of thugs wanting to destroy the country. I took out a large loan to bring in new equipment, now I'm in danger of losing all my workers? It's only going to to hurt these greedy people." one of his contemporaries were saying.
"I agree it will hurt growth." said another.
Arthur said nothing. He was too young, too newly accepted in this world to speak his mind. No one would listen to him anyway.
"Mr. Brandon is it?" came an amused voice from another table.
Arthur turned in his seat to see an older gentleman smiling at him.
"Mr. Clark." Arthur said and stood to shake his hand.
"Won't you join us?" Mr. Clark asked and waved to an empty chair in a tightly formed group of older men. These were the city's most wealthy and influential. Men who owned department stores and who made fortunes in coal and shipping. More accurately, their grandfathers had made money doing these things.
"Thank you, sir." Arthur said happily and sat down next to Mr. Clark.
"Do you play at all?" Mr. Harper, vice president of the city's largest bank, asked. He was dealing cards and asking if Arthur wanted to be dealt in.
"Certainly." Arthur nodded. He was very gifted at gambling, although it was a vice like anything else. His mother had always taught him he was just as apt to lose as to win.
But he kept his mouth tightly shut and let the older men speak.
"I understand your wife just had a baby. Congratulations are in order. I trust the pair of them are well?" Mr. Clark said.
"Very well." Arthur said happily. "We've a son named Charles. He'll be three months old tomorrow."
"A son!" cried one of the men. "Splendid. Will he take over for you one day? Running the accounts and all?"
"I hope so." Arthur said shyly. He wasn't sure how to relate to these men.
"Thank goodness it wasn't a girl, Mr. Brandon." another man laughed.
Arthur paused. He felt like a trap was being set up for him.
"Oh?" was all he said.
"Well yes." the man, a shipping magnate, went on. "With your wife behaving as she does. Arrested and all last year. What was it? Oh yes, wanting the vote. Obscene."
Arthur felt his face burn as he looked at his cards. He pulled free a five dollar bill and placed it one the table.
"Mrs. Brandon believes in many fashionable things." he said at last.
"Oh, it's trendy to have the wife of a respectable man protesting in the streets?" huffed another player as the second round of cards was dealt. Arthur had a good hand and he tried not to show emotion to their harsh words.
"I think I saw your wife last year, sir." another man said. "Small thing. She had rotted fruit thrown at her? Terrible to see. I would hate to have my dear Penelope treated that way. Still, if you're indifferent to her actions simply because they are fashionable."
The older men chuckled and Arthur said nothing.
"I wouldn't care how fashionable this silly women's movement is. You'll never catch my wife or daughters on the street like that. It would be the day they would leave my house forever." Declared another man.
"Now, now." Mr. Clark said as Arthur counted forty dollars had been added to the center table. "Mrs. Brandon was younger then, and foolish. We must not forget that motherhood must have quieted her down."
"I should hope so." said a sever old man who raised the stakes to twenty dollars a hand. Arthur didn't flinch as he fished out the larger bill.
The older man preached on.
"Because I can't see how you would be welcome in any respectable club if you're wife was to shame her own husband so publicly again."
Arthur recognized the older man as Mr. Horn. He owned several factories in the city and was at the center of his own controversy.
"I call." Arthur said darkly and laid out his hand.
The other man huffed at the flush he had. All of them looking at the younger man with the crazed wife with deep content.
"Very nice game." Arthur sighed and neatly stacked his winnings in front of them. He was quick to pocket their money and leave. His jaw setting so hard, he thought he might break a tooth.
~ There were never enough hours in the day for Ariadne.
"Now, Charlie, we mustn't play with mother's books." she scolded her son gently as he batted at her reading. She had a to prepare a argument for class tomorrow on the labor crisis as well as pen a letter to that ghastly Mr. Horn.
Ariadne sympathized with the strike leaders. It was too much to ask of entire families working in mills. Of children not getting an education, of workers getting sick from bad conditions. Why, it was little better than slave wages what some of them made.
She kept a weather eye on little Charlie as he crawled across his large quilt to his other toys. Since he had become more mobile, the whole world was open to him now.
As a result, Ariadne kept the front room as baby friendly as possible. Gone was the marble table top, glass objects, Arthur's secretary and fire place pokers. All that was left was the sofa and Arthur's reading chair. Things Charlie couldn't hurt himself with. Ariadne flicked her eyes to her son, realized she couldn't study and watch him at the same time, and closed her book.
"Charlie Brandon." she called to the infant who ignored her. "When are we going to stand up? Mother is very excited to see that."
Her son ignored her, found the stuffed bear his father had given him and promptly started to chew on it's nose.
"I take it you're hungry." Ariadne laughed to herself. "Not to worry. As soon and papa comes home, we may all eat dinner together."
"Madam?" came a scared little voice from the hallway.
Ariadne looked up to see Anne, the young nanny look in.
"Would you like me to take him now? It's almost time for him to eat." the younger woman asked. Anne was not even twenty, but had been care taking children since she was a child herself. Ariadne couldn't find fault with the very young girl, but she disliked having to rely on someone else to care for her son. Still, her own mother employed a nanny, and it was the civil thing to do.
"I want Mr. Brandon to see him before dinner." she said to the nanny who bobbed a little curtsy and left.
Almost as if she had summoned him, Ariadne heard Arthur's footfalls on the steps outside of their town home. Her husband wasted no time in letting himself in and shaking off his coat.
"We're in here!" Ariadne called to racket he always made when coming home. Mrs. Marsh, his housekeeper for many years, rushed to meet him in the hallway, and helped him put away his coat properly. Ariadne accepted she was Arthur's maid and never really hers. She really only took orders from the man of the house.
But all that was forgotten as soon as she saw her handsome husband appear. He was dressed nicely as always, and looked relieved to be safely home.
"I wanted Charlie to see you before dinner." Ariadne said contently as she watched Arthur pick their son up.
Charlie wasn't as impressed with Arthur as his mother was. He took it for granted the things and people in his world. He knew his mother and father doted on him and that it was his right to be spoiled and adored.
"How was the club?" she asked him after Charlie, resigned to being held contented himself on his father's lap, playing with his large hands and trying to chew them.
"Boring." Arthur admitted. "Nothing but strike talk."
"It's that Mr. Horn." Ariadne hissed. "I've read about him in the papers. He hires children as young as five and pays them less than a dollar a week. He takes their rent out of their pay and gives them no choice about where to live. It's not capitalism and he needs to be arrested."
She was about to go on when her husband let out a long sigh.
"Something wrong?" she asked.
"No. Just hungry." he said.
She could always tell when he was lying.
"Mrs. Marsh will be serving dinner soon." she offered.
"Well, Charles is going to be fed by nanny tonight. Last night you barely ate a thing trying to feed him and yourself at the table." he said.
"I like having Charlie at the dinner table. His highchair wasn't in the way." Ariadne smiled as she noticed for the thousandth time her son had his father's odd little ears.
"No. We've hired the nanny to take him so we can have a civilized meal." Arthur said coldly. "I won't have you feeding a baby, making a mess, while we eat. It's not how things are done for people of our society."
Ariadne almost laughed, but realized he was serious.
"Arthur, what is it? What wrong?" she whispered.
Arthur ignored her and let Charlie gnaw on his fingers some more.
"I think we should turn the sitting room back. What if we have company? The furnishings are not suitable for company." he said at last.
"Charlie could knock something over-"
"Charles has his nursery for playing. The sitting room is for adults." he interrupted.
Ariadne opened her mouth to argue when Mrs. Marsh came in followed closely by nanny Anne.
"Dinner is ready, sir." she said and Ariadne could only watch as her husband handed Charlie over to the young nanny and leave.