A Song Across the Sea (40 page)

“Say, who’s that man standing outside your door there? He didn’t want to let me and Delores in to see you. Checked to see if our names were on some list first.”

Hap’s indignation faded when he learned that Celia Rutherford had arranged for the “doorman.”

“Mrs. Rutherford believes in taking no chances. She has a man drive me to and from the theater every night as well.”

Tara took Hap and Delores out to a swanky restaurant for a late supper, though it took more than a little persuading before they agreed to her picking up the tab. It was grand to be able to repay them, if only a little, for the kindness they’d shown her.

The Schoeners came to see the show, too.

“Look,” Mr. Schoener proclaimed proudly. “Look at our friend Tara, the star.”

Tara found an opportunity to speak to Lotte about an idea she had.

Lotte looked confused at first. “A job? I don’t understand. You want me to…work for you?”

“I need someone to help me with things. Answerin’ all this mail, for instance.” She showed Lotte a pile of envelopes lying unopened on her dressing-room table. “All sorts of people are writin’ to me. People I don’t even know. Some just to tell me they liked the show. Some want me to give to charity, or be interviewed for a magazine. I’ve even gotten several proposals of marriage! I can’t keep track of it all. You could write back to them for me. And there’s more. Me schedule is not simple, like it used to be. There are costume fittins’, matinees, rehearsals. D’ya think you could help me, Lotte? I’d pay you more than you’re makin’ now. Unless, of course, you’d feel funny about it. Us bein’ friends and all.”

Lotte couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “Not at all!”

“But Lotte, I don’t know…how much security there’d be for you. Things are grand for me now, but the next show might be a flop. And I shouldn’t even assume there’ll be a next show. It’s bad luck to think that way in the theater. Anything at all can happen, and if it all ends for me tomorrow, I’m afraid I’ll be goin’ back to the dress factory myself.”

“You’re so silly, Tara. I read all your reviews and know how good you are. There will be another show after this. And another. And I will come and work for you, my famous friend Tara.” So it was settled.

The first time someone stopped her on the street and asked for her autograph, Tara thought there must be some mistake. Then it began happening with some regularity. She tried to be gracious even though she usually felt a little foolish. Once someone asked her how it felt to be an “overnight success.” Tara thought of her start in vaudeville and all the trials and disappointments since and laughed to herself. Overnight? Hardly. Nonetheless, she answered “Grand.” It was easier than explaining.

Mary was a delight, although she could be a tiny terror when she wanted to. No longer content with being held and fussed over, Mary usually struggled mightily and charmingly for her freedom. Set down on one of Celia’s richly-carpeted floors, she scooted and squirmed with amazing speed, usually in the direction of Celia’s golden retriever, Lady. She often used Lady as a sort of leaning-post, gripping the poor animal while she tried to pull herself up and stand on her sturdy little legs. Lady patiently suffered the baby’s attentions, even rewarding them by licking Mary’s face—to Mary’s delight and Mrs. Rutherford’s horror.

“The germs!” she exclaimed, more than once.

Tara was unperturbed. “Didn’t I grow up on a farm me own self, with animals all around and me runnin’ through the fields barefoot most of the time? If a little dirt was harmful to a child, I’d have been dead long ago.”

Lotte was a tremendous help to Tara. She spoke to the wardrobe mistress about missing buttons on a costume, handled the mail and found vases for the heaps of bouquets that arrived backstage for Tara. She politely fended off the hordes of well-wishers—many of them male—who tried to see Tara. She brought order and serenity to Tara’s chaotic new existence.

Tara was surprised and alarmed one day to find Lotte in tears in the dressing room.

“What is it, Lotte? What’s wrong?”

“My brother. Conrad. He…” She tried to compose herself. “We got a telegram. He gets shot. He is wounded, Tara. It’s very bad.”

“What do the doctors say, Lotte? Is he expected to…recover?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows. He’s in a hospital in France, so far away. The telegram said he was a very brave soldier. Oh, Tara. I don’t care if he’s brave! Conrad is too young to die.”

“Lotte you must not think the worst. Conrad is strong.”

Lotte’s predicament, unfortunately, was quite common these days. The names of sons, brothers and fathers who’d gone jauntily off to war not so many months ago were daily added to the growing list of the dead and injured. Families all across the country were grieving, forced to absorb the unthinkable loss of a loved one.

Although Reece was not in the Army, he was in a dangerous place, and far from her side. Sometimes she felt as if she were holding her breath until he came home.

•  •  •

Rafferty almost passed the Ardmore Theater without noticing. He usually paid little attention to Broadway shows, not being terribly interested in popular culture. That nonsense was for the swells. “Rain or Shine,” appearing in large black letters on the marquis, meant nothing to him, but the name above it, in smaller script, stirred something black and irritable in his memory.

She had some cheek, she did! Turning up again like this! Appearing in a Broadway show as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She was asking for trouble, she was.

He hurried off to find his boss. Muldoon would reward him handsomely for news like this. After all, hadn’t Rafferty made a pretty penny just for teaching a lesson to that cripple who ran the boarding house?

•  •  •

GENERAL DAMON SATISFIED WITH PROGRESS. STOP. SAYS I’LL BE HOME IN SIX WEEKS. STOP. CAN’T WAIT TO START OUR NEW LIFE TOGETHER. STOP. LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU, REECE. STOP.

•  •  •

Kathleen and James came to see the show. So did some of the people she’d worked with at the Millinder mansion, including Cook, George, Francine and Inga.

“The place hasn’t been the same since you and Mary left,” said Francine, after congratulations were out of the way. “Do you have this whole dressing room to yourself? It sure is something. Who are all these flowers from? I bet you get to meet famous people all the time. Have you met Mr. Lionel Barrymore? I’ve seen his picture. He’s so handsome.”

“Francine,” Cook reprimanded her gently, with a slight smile. “Maybe you could stop chattering long enough to let Inga tell Tara her news.”

“What is it, Tara?”

“I’m leaving for Boston tomorrow,” Inga said shyly, her eyes downcast. She appeared terribly nervous at suddenly being the center of attention.

“She’s getting married!” Francine blurted out.

“Let her tell it, Francine.” Even here, away from the mansion, Cook was the one who kept order.

“His name is Frank and he delivers ice to the Millinders every day. That is how I met him.”

“Congratulations!” Tara said warmly. “But Boston! I’ll miss you, Inga. You must be excited.”

“Yes. Excited and nervous too. Frank is going to be in the produce business with his father.”

When they were ready to leave, Inga asked: “Could the rest of you go on without me? I will catch up. I must speak to Tara about something.”

Cook sniffed disapprovingly. “Secrets? Very well.”

When they were alone in the dressing room, Inga turned serious.

“Tara, before you came to work with us, I did something bad. Mr. Millinder made me do it and I was afraid to say no. He told me not to tell anyone. Said he would dismiss me and see that I did not find another job if I ever said anything, but now that I’m moving away… It has been on my conscience for so long.”

Tara was perplexed. “Why tell me?”

“I thought you would know what to do. You do not work for him anymore. Even when you were at the Millinders’ you were not afraid of him like I am. I heard the way you spoke up to him!” She swallowed hard. “You see, he made me practice her handwriting. Then he told me what to put down on the paper.”

“Whose handwriting?”

“Mrs. Millinder’s. He said he needed it to look like a woman’s hand. I felt so awful about it, but he threatened me. I needed my job. Tara, I wrote a letter to her son and signed her name to it.”

•  •  •

Francine was surprised when she opened the front door to the Millinder mansion the next day and found Tara standing there.

“Is he home?”

Francine shook her head.

“Good. I need to see Mrs. Millinder. Don’t announce me. No need for you to get involved, or you may get into trouble. Pretend that you didn’t even see me, Francine. I’ll be after findin’ her meself.”

Francine stepped aside and inclined her head with a subtle angle in the direction of the upper floor.

Adrienne Millinder looked up from the needlepoint she was working on when Tara came upon her in the sitting room. Before she could say anything, Tara blurted out: “I’m Tara Waldron, Mrs. Millinder. I’m married to your son Reece, and I must speak with you…”

•  •  •

Dear Reece,

I hardly know how to begin this letter. I pray that it reaches you safely. Tara gave me your address but she warned me that the war has made mail delivery uncertain in much of Europe these days. Oh, yes. I’ve met Tara. You can imagine my surprise when she paid me a visit and announced that she was your wife. Of course I’d seen her before, when she worked here as a maid. Tara told me about the dreadful thing Emory did to you, sending you a forged letter. It explained so much—your silence, your absence, your seeming coldness. It grieves me to realize that all this time you thought I’d turned against you, my own son. I now understand why you stayed away for so long.Nothing you could do could ever alienate you from my affections.

Tara also told me about Emory’s attempts to blackmail you into marrying Miriam Sedgewell for his own purposes.

I have no excuse for allowing him to come between us. I’m afraid I allowed Emory to take advantage of my loneliness. He showed me great solicitude, which I mistook for genuine affection. It was not the kind of love your father and I shared, but then I never expected to encounter that again. Once in a lifetime is as much as anyone can hope for. In his own way, Emory was kind to me, at least during the first few years.

Any feeling that may once have existed between Emory and myself has long since passed into indifference. I allowed the marriage to continue, as so many do, because it was a tolerable, convenient arrangement between two civil people—or so I thought.

Tara is a beautiful, remarkable young woman, Reece, and clearly very much in love with you. I once would have scoffed at such a union (I also thought that your father lacked a sufficient pedigree!), but fortunately, I have learned a thing or two over the years.

I intend to have done with Emory as quickly as possible. A fair sum of money will have to be settled on him, but I believe he’ll go quietly enough. After all, he’ll have gotten what he wanted from this marriage: money and prestige.

Please hurry home, son. I shall be counting the days until we can put this terrible misunderstanding behind us. Know that I am proud of you and of what you’re doing. Your father would be proud, too.

Love,

Mother

SOCIETY NEWS

Fifth Avenue hostess Mrs. Adrienne Millinder announced last week that her son, Reece Benjamin Waldron, was married in a private ceremony to Broadway sensation Miss Tara McLaughlin last year, shortly before his departure for Europe, where he is engaged in aeronautical work for the United States Army. Mr. Waldron is expected to return stateside soon. A gala hosted by Mrs. Millinder in honor of her daughter-in-law was well attended by members of the business and theatrical communities. Mr. Emory Millinder was unable to be present. Upon his doctor’s orders, he has retired to a chateau in the south of France for an indefinite period of time.

•  •  •

“What’s that you’re reading there, Mrs. Flanagan? The society news, is it? Seein’ what the rich swells are up to?”

Mrs. Flanagan jumped up from the crumbling stoop as if someone had caught her committing a crime. She tucked the newspaper under her arm and hurried up the stairs and into the tenement house.

Her neighbor watched her go, shaking his head sadly.

Mrs. Flanagan knew what he thought of her. What they all thought of her. That she wasn’t right in the head. That she wasn’t a good mother. She saw their pitying glances when they looked at Padraig: twelve years old now, undersized and scrawny for his age, looking half-starved and dirty most of the time. He worked so hard to take care of the two of them, instead of the other way around, as it should be. She should be looking after him.

Mrs. Flanagan sat down at the wobbly table in her apartment and started to read the story again. It was difficult to concentrate. She was interrupted several times by a moist, racking cough that rolled through her in waves and left her weak.

She’d managed to convince herself over the years that Tara McLaughlin must be dead, even though she had glimpsed her on that rescue ship after the Titanic sank. It was so long ago. Real memories and imagined terrors swam together in the murky pool of her mind, confusing and frightening her. She could hardly remember her girlhood long ago in Ireland, her husband, her son, Danny. She’d knew she’d done something very, very bad.

But now, with this newspaper story, she felt hope. Tara McLaughlin was still alive. Maybe it wasn’t too late for redemption.

•  •  •