In 1897 a short story appeared in a Welsh newspaper written by Clara J Denton (1842-1927) an American writer, the daughter of David Melick Fort and Glorvinia Maloney, and wife of Lemi Bradley Denton whom she married 1865, in Detroit, Michigan. Clara wrote several children’s books as well becoming the first president of the Grand Rapids Women’s Club, and the first postmaster of Prudenville, Michigan.
Most of the entries regarding Clara in Welsh Newspapers Online, are advertisements for two of her stories serialised in the Evening Express, ‘A Race for a Wife’ (1897) and ‘The Widow’s Decision’ (1904), but a third appeared in The Cardiff Times, entitled, ‘Francis or Frances’ (1897). As Clara was a minor writer, most of her story titles do not appear in general internet searches and the same is true of the last story which currently cannot be found outside the one appearance in a Welsh newspaper.
The first two stories are typical of female-lead narratives that keep firmly within the accepted tradition of women’s roles, but ‘Francis or Frances’ steps outside that tradition and tackles a subject that in 1897 would have been controversial and may explain why it cannot be found elsewhere.
And it ties in with the LGBTQ+ History Month theme of 2024 – Medicine – #UnderTheScope
CHAPTER 1
A dreadful thing had happened in Spruce-street. A beardless youth had tripped down the white marble steps of an imposing brick mansion and boldly nailed a doctor’s tin sign on the lower front window shutter.
Oh, the sacrilege! A tin sign, not only in Spruce-street, but also on the house that had reared its stately head for three generations in that most aristocratic quarter of old Philadelphia.
From one of the windows of the brick house on the opposite corner Dr. Phillip Connor watched the adjustment of the glistening novelty, and as his quick eyes discerned the long row of “office hours” he groaned aloud.
A young woman who was sitting at the further end of the long room arose at this sound and came towards him.
“What is it, papa? she said, anxiously.
“Look there, Kate!” he exclaimed; “a doctor’s tin sign, and with office hours.”
“But you know, papa,” Kate soothingly, “the very best physicians have office hours now.”
“Humph!” he returned scornfully. “A lot of quacks. Shades of my ancestors! What would my great grandfather, the first Dr. Phillip, have thought of a tin sign and office hours? Well, we are living in queer times.”
The young man, still holding his iconoclastic hammer, surveyed his work from the edge of the sidewalk, rocking himself to and fro on his heels and toes.
Presently the door opened and two women came down the steps and joined the young man in his survey of the tin sign.
“Ugh!” exclaimed Dr. Connor. “How they all seem to admire that hideous disgrace to Spruce-street.”
“But that younger woman, probably the doctor’s sister, is handsome, and really looks worth knowing.”
Dr. Connor turned upon his only and motherless child as though in uttering this sentence she had committed a crime.
With an impatient stride he left the room, but Kate remained gazing from the window until the handsome woman, who was in street dress, walked away. She then left the window with a sigh.
A few hours later Dr. Connor and his daughter met at the tea-table, for he clung to all colonial custom, and especially berated the fashionable seven o’clock dinners.
Almost as soon as they were seated the doctor said apologetically— “On my way out this afternoon I crossed the street to read the name on the new tin sign. I was glad I did so, for I find the name is Francis Estherford.”
“I wish you could as easily have found out the name of the handsome sister,” said Kate.
“I am not interested in her,” retorted the doctor, frowning, “but don’t you remember that I received a letter some months ago from Dr. Worcester, of New York, asking for information concerning a missing Dr. Francis Estherford Hallam?’’
“I do remember it dimly, now that you speak of it, but what of it? This name lacks the ‘Hallam’?”
“Of course, hiding, don’t you see!”
“But why is he hiding, and why shouldn’t he be allowed to hide if he wants to?”
“There is a large fortune awaiting him.”
“But if he really has dropped his patronymic, he no doubt would not wish to be unearthed even to possess the awaiting fortune.”
“Nonsense, he probably dropped the name from some freak that has worn away before this. I remembered the doctor said he left England five years ago.”
“Five years!” exclaimed Kate; “that young man was in school five years ago.”
“Don’t be so sure. Remember you have only seen him at a distance.”
“But the mother and the sister – when men hide they we not encumbered with women.”
“Mother and sister, indeed! How you do jump at conclusions. The young woman is no doubt his wife, and the older one her mother.”
Kate leaned back in her chair and laughed.
“How ingenious you are, papa!” she said. “You ought to have been either a detective or novelist – I hardly know which.
Dr. Connor frowned, and stirred his tea in angry silence.
“But really I can’t see, papa,” said Kate after a while in a mollifying tone, “why you should interest yourself in the matter.”
“The solicitor who has charge of the case is to receive a large bonus if Hallam is found. Dr. Worcester is under great obligations in some way to this solicitor, and I, you know, to complete the chain, owe a great deal to Worcester, in many ways, as my lifelong friend and college chum. I shall write to him in my first leisure moments, and tell him how nearly his man is run to cover.”
“But how do you propose to confirm your conjectures? It seems to me it would be better to be a little more sure before you write to Dr. Worcester.”
“We must cultivate them.”
Kate uttered an exclamation of amazement, and dropped her fork on the plate before her.
The doctor looked annoyed, but continued: “Of course, it is a great sacrifice for me to notice these people, with their tin sign and office hours, but if, after some acquaintance with them, my theory fails me, we can easily drop them, while, if it proves true, the young doctor, as an offshoot of one of England’s oldest and wealthiest families, will be, after all, a very desirable person to know. Therefore, my dear, without any more ado, I wish you to call on the women of the household at your earliest convenience.”
A gleam of joy shot over Kate’s countenance, but she only answered quietly, “Very well, papa, your wishes shall be obeyed”
The following day Kate, arrayed in her most becoming visiting costume, rang the Estherford doorbell.
“At last,” she said to herself, “I am to know some new people. Someone with whose pedigree I am not as familiar as with my own. Someone who is not of pure and undefiled Philadelphia ancestry, but whose grandfather may have been a shoemaker or a blacksmith. Oh, how I hope it will turn out that the Estherford granddaddy kept a ‘truck farm’[i] down on the ‘Neck,’[ii] and used to come to market himself every Wednesday and Saturday to sell his ‘smear-case,’[iii] his vegetables, and his ‘curds and whey.[iv]’ Estherford, after all, sounds more German than English, to me.”
She turned at this thought, and glanced at the tin sign.
A cold chill-swept from the roots of her black hair to the end of her dainty toes, as her eyas were riveted upon the name staring at her so brazenly. It was Frances not Francis — a woman’s name, not a man’s.
CHAPTER II.
Kate’s first impulse was, it must be confessed, to rush down the steps, but as she whirled away from the door it opened behind her, and in her bewilderment she faced the house again, and seeing a neat-looking maid standing there she stammered forth the question—
“Is Miss Estherford in?”
“Dr. Estherford is in,” corrected the maid courteously. “Please walk in.”
Kate obeyed mechanically.
“A woman doctor,” she said to herself, as she took a seat in the daintily-furnished parlour. The being that I have been reared to look upon with scorn. What will papa say? I believe I’ll run away, even now.”
She half rose, but remembering that she had given her card to the maid she resumed her seat with a helpless sigh.
A moment after, however, when the “woman doctor” entered the room the impulse to run away became a desire to remain indefinitely, and it is therefore needless to say that the call was a long one.
Despite their Irish ancestry, the Connors prided themselves on their ability to keep their tempers; but when Kate made known the result of her afternoon call, for the first time in several generations, a Connor was violently, furiously angry.
Her father would accept no excuses, and admitted no reason for an entrance into the house after a discovery of the true situation.
Kate, however, met the storm with an outward indifference, born of the inward feeling that she had known at least one hour of perfect happiness in the companionship of the “woman doctor.”
But, when her father’s anger was exhausted, and be relapsed into a stubborn silence, Kate said, with her most charming naïveté:
“Shall you write to Dr. Worcester to-night, Papa?”
For answer Dr. Connor stamped out of the room, in advance of the violently slamming door.
The vexed subject was not again resumed; but a few evenings afterward the servant, in answer to the front door bell, ushered in presence of Dr. Connor and his daughter the graceful and charming Dr. Estherford.
As Dr. Connor heard the now hated name he rose to leave the room, but Kate skilfully intercepted him by introducing him to her near friend.
He looked up as the graceful figure came towards him, and one glance at the bright, mobile face, caused a re-consideration of his intention to leave the room, and, in five minutes, against his judgment against his theories, he was chatting with Dr. Frances Estherford as though she in no way differed from his other lady guests, except in being a thousand times more charming.
The acquaintance thus begun so propitiously, rapidly advanced to an intimacy.
At first Dr. Connor looked upon the new friendship with many secret qualms; but after a time be not only regarded it with more favour, but to his great chagrin found himself listening for the “woman doctor’s” footsteps, and mentally framing excuses for being present during her frequent visits.
One day, when she had gone away after an unusually long call, he said to his daughter: “Kate, has it ever impressed you that there is a faint air of masculinity about Miss Estherford? (he could not be induced to give her her lawful title).
“O, papa,” said Kate, laughing, “if you did not know that she has taken a degree you would never think of such a foolish thing. Behold, now, what prejudice can do.”
“No,” persisted her father, “it is neither my fancy nor my prejudice, but something which if I were a woman I suppose I should call instinct, and I do think this peculiarity in her accounts for her fascination for you. You know I have always said you have a masculine mind, and I think it is the hint of this in her that attracts you.”
But although Kate shook her head and laughed at her father’s fancy, she was forced to admit to herself that after all there was a mystery about her friend.
From the beginning of their intimacy a strange and unpassable barrier seemed fixed between them, and never had she given or received from Kate the slightest caress, or allowed her hand to rest upon her ever so slightly.
Thus the autumn and winter passed, and one wild spring day Kate and her friend stood at the Connor door exchanging a few parting words.
Suddenly Kate said, half playfully, “You are so cold to me, dear; see how you shrink from the touch of my hand upon your shoulder.”
“Cold,” repeated Frances, moving away it was true, but at the same time turning her dark blue eyes bright with love upon her friend.
“Ah!” exclaimed Kate, “look at me always like that,” and bending toward Frances she sought to impress a kiss upon the fair cheek so near to her.
But, as if alarmed at the close approach, Frances dashed down the high marble steps, not even pausing for a backward glance at the astonished Kate until she was half-way across the street.
The following day the two friends did not meet — a most unusual event — for in answer to Kate’s calls she was told the doctor had gone out and left no word as to her return.
But next morning Frances appeared early at the Connor home.
She looked worn and pale, but in answer to Kate’s queries replied coldly that she was quite well, but suffering a little from loss of sleep.
“Your patients will kill you at this rate,” said Kate, anxiously.
“What, matter if they do?” was the weary reply. I am like Hamlet to-day, and do not hold my life at a pin’s fee.”
Kate stared at her friend in amazement. She had never before heard a despondent word from her lips.
Suddenly Frances bounded from her chair.
“A truce to melancholy,” she exclaimed, with a light laugh. “Let us have some music. Shall I sing for you!”
“Sing,” exclaimed Kate, gazing with astonishment at her friend, as she dashed across the room to the piano. You have always said that you do not sing.”
“But I have never said, have I, that I cannot sing?”
She seated herself at the piano, thus turning her back toward Kate, who was impressed as she had never been before with the unfeminine poise of the head and carriage of the shoulders.
“Listen,” she said.
She struck a few minor chords, and then broke into a love-song of passionate, but futile, pleading.
As the first note fell on the air Kate half-rose from her chair. Then, throwing herself back in its depths, she gave herself up to the delicious dreaming that the voice, the tune, and the words awoke in her.
She was no longer sitting within four walls, but was floating deliciously down some sun-decked stream, white an unseen lover poured out to her his longing soul.
Suddenly the piano and the voice were hushed.
There was a swish of woman’s garments, the rattling of the rings of the portere, followed by the slamming of the front door, and Kate threw her hands over her face, and burst into passionate sobbing.
“Oh, what was it? What does it mean?” was her unavailing and bitter cry.
Several hours later Katie and Dr. Connor were seated beneath the gaslight, a quiet picture of domestic comfort. He held the open evening paper before him, apparently absorbed in its contents. She, with her fingers between the leaves of a closed book, wistfully studied the tire.
Suddenly the doctor dropped the paper on the floor.
“Kate,” he said softly, with an affectionate, half-pleading cadence. She looked up quickly, a surprised expression on her face.
“Kate,” he said again, and then waited in evident embarrassment.
She threw out her hand and laid it caressingly on her father’s arm.
“What is it, papa?” she asked, gently.
His voice trembled as be answered “I am going over to Miss Estherford’s.”
“Yes?” said Kate, tentatively.
Her father had never gone alone to call on Dr. Estherford, and her face showed that she felt surprised.
“And before I return,” he added slowly, “I shall ask her to become my wife.”
Kate sprang from her chair with a low cry.
“What is the matter?” demanded her father sternly.
She dropped into the chair and covered her face with her hands.
“I thought you would be pleased, you seem so fond of her,’ continued the doctor, his voice shaking again.
“l am, l am,” she murmured. “O papa,” she exclaimed vehemently, “what does it mean? What is it? Ah, if you could have heard her sing to me.”
“Sing to you,” he repeated. “Kate, are you mocking me? Do you think I shall choose a wife for her vocal accomplishments.” And he frowned upon her blackly.
Kate burst into a hysterical laugh.
It seem so queer, papa. Why you don’t even know who her father was, let alone her grand-father and-her great grandfather and she’s a woman doctor, too,” the last words ending in a high, nervous shriek.
“Kate,” said the Doctor, sternly, as he rose and laid a hand on her shoulder, “if you don’t control yourself I shall send for your maid to put you to bed, just as if you were five years old. Come, be quiet,” for she was shaking from head to foot, and sobbing violently.
“But, papa,” she began again.
“O, no matter,” he said impatiently; “you needn’t go over the ground again. I understand all you would say. We will let all those things take care of themselves, however. The greatest obstacle, after all, is the hint of masculinity about her which comes, of course, from her profession.”
“Yes, yes,” said Kate, suddenly lifting her head and gaining her self-control, “that is it, of course. The study of medicine would make any woman mannish, wouldn’t it, papa?”
“Of course,” responded the Doctor, “but I trust that will wear off in time, for you understand if she accepts me she must give op her profession.”
“Yes, yes,” said Kate, “she will understand that, and now, papa, I will cease to behave, like an idiot. Go at once to see her, and I do hope you will be successful.”
He looked at her now smiling face, and then shaking his head as if her moods were too deep a problem for him to solve, he strode out of the room.
“How will it end?” said Kate to herself, as she caught the closing of the front door, and then she fell to gazing into the fire again.
Dr. Conner was not a man given to skirmishing. Therefore, in ten minutes after he had entered Dr. Estherford’s parlour, he had, in his usual succinct phraseology, made her an offer of his heart, and, and fortune.
He had expected a prompt and decisive reply, whether favourable or not.
But, no sooner did the beautiful woman before him hear his question than she darted from her chair and walked to the farther end of the-long room.
For several-seconds she stood there with bowed head and shaking shoulders. Dr. Connor, meanwhile, watching her in speechless surprise.
Presently she turned and came towards him, her long white hands clasped before her.
“Dr. Connor,” she said, “I must tell you a story. Many years ago there lived in England a wealthy country squire, father of four robust boys. There was also in the family an orphan and penniless nephew, who was small and delicate— his cousins said, effeminate. At home, at school, at college, he was despised for this peculiarity. After graduation, when he attempted, by faithfulness and skill, to rise in his chosen profession of medicine, he still found himself handicapped by his fair, smooth face, and his lack of size and muscle. After a time he decided to come to America. He had not yet engaged his passage, but had bidden his friends good-bye, when, in an unlucky moment of idle waiting for the train, had read in a London paper of the success attending women physicians to America. A dreadful temptation seized him; he yielded, and when the steamer sailed Francis Estherford Hallam was lost to the world, and Frances Estherford was among the list of passengers.
There was a moment’s dead silence; then the wretched masquerader again walked to the remotest corner of the room.
Dr. Connor was for a few moments nonplussed by this unexpected turn of affairs.
But his wits soon returned to him, and he followed the other, laying his hand on his shoulder, with all the familiarity of newly-formed brotherhood.
“Well, my poor fellow,” he said, “you’re an out and out honest man for owning up; but don’t take the thing to heart so; there’s no harm done.”
The other turned upon him for an instant, a face of deadly pallor as he groaned.
“You don’t know what you say; pity me. O, pity me, for I love your daughter”—and dropping into a chair he covered his face with his hands.
Dr. Connor gave, a low whistle, and thrust his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets.
“Do not be alarmed,” said the poor, fellow, misinterpreting the whistle, and looking up. “I will never see her again. I am to leave Philadelphia in the early morning, and no one is to know my destination.”
“Nonsense,” said Dr. Connor, exultantly, for there had suddenly came to him a remembrance of the fine old English estate awaiting the claiming of this poor, shaking figure. “You’ll proceed to don some proper garments within five minutes, and go with me to Kate.”
“Never, never,” was the swift answer. “I cannot bear her scorn.”
“Scorn fiddlesticks!” ejaculated the Doctor. “By the way, what sort of a singing voice have you?”
“It is my one gift. I sing a clear, strong tenor.”
“Ah, that explains Kate’s perplexity. You sang to her to-day, and she is hopelessly in love with a man in that voice. Come, you must let her see him in flesh and blood.”
A faint spark of courage shone in the blue eyes at this suggestion, but it required many arguments before Francis Hallam consented to assume a suit of clothes belonging to his hired man (he of the iconoclastic hummer), who was away for the night.
“In the morning,” said the elder doctor, “I will send a tailor to you; dismiss your servants and close up your house.”
So love and Dr. Conner finally prevailed, and Kate as she still sat gazing wearily in the fire, heard the front door open, and the next moment her father entered the room, but not alone.
The new-comer seemed a stranger, yet was bewildering familiar to her in the beautiful mouth and chin, the dark blue eye, the golden curls, and the long, white hands.
She rose and stood by her chair, her eyes dilating.
“Oh Kate!” exclaimed the stranger, darting forward. can you ever forgive me?”
“Oh,” said Kate, “I thought no woman could sing like that.”
The following day, Dr. Connor, with a proud light in his eye, handed a letter to Dr. Francis Estherford Hallam, saying as he did so. “I think, Kate, I shall write to Dr. Worcester this morning.
Dr. Hallam read the letter through slowly.
“When the tin sign is taken down, we shall not need to put up another,” he said.
Thus, in spite of his moral cowardice, his lack of size and strength, love had brought him to his own at last.
[The END]
[i] A farm dedicated to growing vegetables
[ii] A low-lying, highly polluted swamp on the east bank of the Schuylkill River below Oregon Avenue that curved like a goose’s neck around to the Delaware River at the city’s southeastern edge.
[iii] Any soft cheese suitable for spreading or eating with a spoon, especially a sour cottage cheese.
[iv] Cottage cheese