Circled Heart (2 page)

Uncle Hal and I both realized the small moment of sentiment had passed. Grandmother was her usual practical, peremptory self again.

“Of course, Mother.” I felt slightly sorry for my uncle, a man of feeling who wanted to tell his mother he loved her but was not encouraged to do so. Standing on tiptoe, I kissed him lightly on the cheek.

“We’re anxious to get home, too, Uncle Hal. Thank you for making the trip to meet us. I know that wasn’t part of the original plan.”

“Had to come,” he answered gruffly. “Terrible thing to read about. Had to be sure you were both all right.”

“As you can see, we are.” Grandmother picked up her skirts and headed toward the closest cab. “But I can’t promise we’ll remain so if we have to stand in this breeze much longer. Come along, Harry, and stop dawdling.” I linked arms with my uncle and we followed in her wake through the crowd.

“She’ll never change, you know,” I remarked casually. Uncle Hal gave me a sidelong smile.

“I know. Your mother could manage her, though, and I should have paid more attention at the time.”

“Mother had a gift for dealing comfortably with people.”

Uncle Hal helped Grandmother into the cab, then extended a hand to me.

“Yes, she did. I never realized it before, Johanna, but seeing you for the first time in two years makes me appreciate how much like your mother you are.”

“She was a beauty, Uncle Hal.” My tone was polite but skeptical.

“I didn’t mean in appearance although you look more like her than you choose to admit.”

He climbed in next to us and gave directions to the cabbie to take us to a well-known hotel. I wanted to pursue the subject with him, always eager to talk about my mother, but I felt tired and strangely lethargic, not at all my usual self. All I longed for was hot, really hot, water, fresh clothing, and a featherbed. I suppose my reaction was to be expected after the drama of the trip, but I was surprised at my lack of energy and disappointed in myself. I had spent the last two years at the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, had in fact met the great woman herself just before she died, and I wished for nothing more than to emulate Miss Nightingale’s vision and vigor. Yet here I sat, curled into a corner, a silent and weary lump of humanity. How humbling to realize that I was not the woman I wanted to be! Thinking that discreditable thought forced my mind to Douglas Gallagher, who for all the time we had socialized in the same rooms and eaten at the same tables had not noticed me enough to ask my name until an hour before his death. I reached into my coat pocket and fingered the cloth in which I had wrapped his two pieces of jewelry. A better way to keep them safe, I thought, than to let them bounce loosely in my pocket, but I missed the feel of cold platinum against my skin. A man named Andrew Gallagher waited somewhere in Chicago. Did he already know of his brother’s death or would I be the bearer of both jewelry and grievous news? I started to ask my uncle whether he recognized the man’s name, but we pulled up in front of the hotel then and I lost the inclination. Hot water and clean clothes beckoned and they were all I could think about.

We left on the train for Chicago the next afternoon, even though I would easily and willingly have stayed longer in New York. I love the city, love any city really, but next to Chicago I’ve always been especially taken with New York City, such a teeming, busy place, so much to see and do that I could never be bored there. When Grandfather was alive, we had made the trip east at least three times a year. A highly regarded attorney, he had clients and business there, and knowing that I loved the place, always asked me along. Grandmother accompanied us, but disdained the city’s smells and dirt and lamented my need to be out and about. Not for me the sedate carriage rides, the upscale restaurants, Fifth Avenue shopping, and a suitably refined theatrical production in the evening. That was my cousin Jennie’s idea of perfection. I would put on unfashionable walking shoes and a sturdy coat and take to the sidewalks, invigorated by the profusion of languages I heard, by neighborhoods new to me, by the sights and sounds of the docks. Grandfather understood my dislike of being confined and my ill-concealed scorn for the strictures of upper class propriety, and he always rose to my defense.

“Leave her alone, Trudy,” he would say to Grandmother, the only person in the world allowed to use that affectionate nickname. “Nettie was the same way, and Johanna is her mother’s daughter.”

“Yes, and look what came of it. Gone from home by the time she was twenty and dead before she was thirty-five. Is that what you want for our granddaughter?”

Grandfather’s face always saddened at the blunt rebuttal, but he never argued past that point. They had lost my mother, their only daughter, too soon and at too great a distance, and he knew Grandmother felt the loss as keenly as he. Still, he understood me better than anyone else and never tried to force me into a mold I would not fit. I miss him to this day. Through difficult years he remained my closest confidant.

“Are you rested this morning, Grandmother?” I asked once we settled into our first-class train compartment. I took in with appreciation the gray silk dress of such impeccable fit that she might have had time for a dozen fittings to make it right. One would never guess that the dress had appeared overnight, that the elegant woman wearing it had spent a night in a lifeboat floating on the Atlantic and the past few days in a cabin the size of a closet, all the while dressed in her nightdress. Seeming to read my thoughts—as she disconcertingly did more often than I wished—Grandmother met my look with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Yes, Johanna. It’s remarkable how a bath and a change of clothes affect one’s attitude toward life.” Then examining me carefully, she added, without a nuance to her voice, “I wish you had had time to find something more becoming than that suit, but I know it was short notice.”

“This is perfectly respectable,” I responded indignantly. “Everything the woman showed me was far too expensive attire for a train trip.”

“You forget that all of the clothes waiting for you at home are two years old at least, and if anything you’re thinner than when you left. I doubt much in your closet will fit you, whether in fashion or not.”

I settled into the train seat and smoothed the navy wool of my skirt. I liked the look and the feel of it. When the woman had brought the suit to my room last evening, I appreciated that there was nothing pretentious about it, a tailored, serviceable, and practical garment in a classic style and color. I would get wear out of it for a long time. The matching jacket was cut broad at the shoulders and unfashionably short, but as susceptible to vanity as the next person, I liked to show off my small waist. I didn’t have a lot of becoming features, so who could blame me for latching onto one and displaying it for all the world to see?

“Clothes can be taken in,” was my terse response before I turned to look out the train window. I viewed the constricting skirts, the laces, flounces, and all those buttons that adorned gowns of fashion as a waste of time and money. That attitude was thanks to my father, who told me often enough that packages could be wrapped up as prettily as you pleased. It wasn’t the outer wrapping that really mattered; only what was inside the box counted.

Hardly a day went by that I did not think of my parents, both dead on the same day over eleven years ago. I kept my grief at their deaths locked away in a private place inside me. The terrible dreams had stopped all on their own several years ago, replaced by gentler night visions. Time had softened the loss, and remembering the women in the lifeboat, the older woman with her daughters pressed against her and my fellow oarsman, who had wept into her infant’s neck, I hoped time would do the same for them.

“I left Mother and Father’s wedding picture behind on the ship,” I volunteered aloud.

“Kitty and I have another copy,” Uncle Hal replied quickly. If he was taken aback by my abrupt announcement, he didn’t show it. “You can have that one.”

I smiled at him. Uncle Hal, my mother’s brother, was a kind and generous man, if inclined to take the easy way out more often than not. Too permissive with his children, I always thought, and ready to be permissive with me, too, if I would allow it.

“Thank you. I would appreciate that very much.” Holding my small purse on my lap, I turned once more to the window. Because I could not help it, I reached inside my purse to finger the two pieces of men’s jewelry there, wrapping my fingers around the ring, its smooth surface already becoming a talisman of sorts for me. I had been gone for two years and was home again, but how could I know if the catastrophic return trip was an omen for my future? The cool surface of the ring soothed me when everything around me seemed to be changing, when I felt I was changing, too, but into what or who remained to be seen.

Levi, my grandmother’s driver, waited for us at the station when we arrived in Chicago. “Madam,” he greeted Grandmother, his attitude one of a man who had dropped his passenger off that morning and was now picking her up after a quick shopping trip.

“We have no luggage,” Grandmother gave Levi a small smile, “and you’ve no doubt heard why.”

“Yes, Mrs. McIntyre. May and I are glad you and Miss Johanna made it home safely. I trust you’re both well.” Levi didn’t look glad, but he was cut from the same cloth as my grandmother, not given to showing emotion and always correct, so for all I knew, inside he was leaping with ecstasy. He held open the door of the automobile for us.

“Quite well, thank you.” She patted the seat next to her. “Come along, Johanna. You may gaze off into space once we’re on our way, but now is not the time.”

“I was delighting in the prospect of being home,” I answered mildly, climbing in as directed.

“Delight all you want—later. If we could make it home before the street lamps came on, I would consider myself fortunate. I am long past the stage of finding evening drives romantic.”

“I have never found them romantic either,” I agreed, but Grandmother surprised me with her reply.

“You will, Johanna, you will. There are a great many things you haven’t experienced.” I turned to meet her gaze. Affection there, a hint of a smile, and something almost wistful. So she had not been as unaffected by the sinking of the great ocean liner, the loss of life, and the grief of fellow survivors as she tried to pretend. She had been on social speaking terms with the Astors, after all, and apparently they both went down with the ship, so her sudden small wave of nostalgia should not have surprised me.

Instead of replying, I rested my hand on my bag and felt the hard metal of Douglas Gallagher’s jewelry through the cloth. Grandmother was right. There were a great many things I had not experienced, but I was alive when so many were not, and if only for that reason, the future must be bright.

Labor with what zeal we will,

Something still remains undone,

Something uncompleted still

Waits the rising of the sun.

Chapter Two

The big house on Hill Street blazed extravagant light from every window.

“I see Kitty is here for our welcome,” Grandmother remarked dryly but made no other comment. I think she was as relieved and happy to be home as I was but more skilled at hiding her emotions, and that evening Aunt Kitty could have built bonfires on the front porch without Grandmother’s disapproval.

My Aunt Kitty came out the front door and down the porch steps as the auto came to a halt in the side drive. Levi held open the door as Uncle Hal handed Grandmother out of the vehicle.

“Gertrude, what an ordeal! You must have been beside yourself.” Kitty gave her mother-in-law a feather kiss on the cheek, then turned to me. “Johanna, this will teach you to go gallivanting around the globe. You both could have been killed.” She spoke with a light tone and kissed me, too, but as always with Aunt Kitty, I heard her implied criticism of my behavior, the loss of Titanic and its subsequent endangering of Grandmother somehow to be laid directly at my feet.

“Hello, Aunt Kitty. Many people were killed, but as you can see, Grandmother and I weren’t among their numbers.” I disembarked from the auto without assistance and looked past her to exclaim, “Jennie, is that you?!”

My cousin Jennie was sixteen when I left, a fair and pretty girl with a charming smile and a girl’s slim figure. The past two years had turned her into a blooming beauty. She came forward, more her father’s daughter than her mother’s, and gave me a heartfelt hug.

“Hello, Johanna. It’s been so dull without you. I’ve been anticipating your homecoming for weeks. That nuisance Titanic almost spoiled it all.”

Her mother said her name with more indulgence than chastisement. “Jennie, that’s hardly sensitive to what your grandmother and your cousin have had to endure.”

My cousin linked arms with me and spoke over her shoulder as we walked up onto the front porch. “Nonsense. Look at them. Grandmother looks a decade younger and Johanna looks quite—“ She paused and I waited, brows raised, for the missing adjective. Jennie caught my look, gave a gurgle of laughter, and finished, “—intelligent. Johanna looks even more intelligent than she did two years ago, and that was awe-inspiring enough then.”

I wanted to tell my cousin that the sinking of the great liner was more than a nuisance, that I had seen people die, watched fathers and sons fall to terrible graves, heard wives and mothers and daughters moan with grief. I wanted to say that the handsomest man I’d ever seen had stood by a tilting railing and lit a cigarette not many minutes before he would slide into the ocean and that when I least expected it, I could hear his quiet “Thank you, Miss Swan,” the words clipped and clear. But I spoke none of my thoughts. Because Jennie was Jennie, spoiled and charming and funny and endearing and not one to be weighted down with the realities of life, I gave her a poke with my elbow instead.

“I would rather be intelligent than incorrigible, devil child. Behave yourself and show some respect for your elders.”

She laughed again and led me inside, saying in a low voice, “I am truly glad you’re home, Johanna. I wasn’t joking. It’s never boring when you’re around.”

“Only because I drive your poor mother to distracted frustration with my lack of social skills.”

“Yes there is that,” she agreed with equanimity. “While you were gone, I had to bear the full force of her motherly advice and admonition. I begged Peter to come home more often but he abandoned me to her tender mercies.” We went into the parlor where tea and sandwiches and an array of cakes were laid out. Something in her tone made me turn to look at her more intently.

“She is your mother, Jen, and as much as she and I disagree, I know she dotes on you and has only your best interests at heart.”

“I’m not sixteen any more, Johanna, but Mother refuses to see that I’ve grown up.”

I eyed her objectively before agreeing, “That is certainly true. The girl who waved goodbye to me at the train station two years ago has been replaced by a beautiful woman.” I only stated the obvious. My cousin Jennie was indeed beautiful, glowing skin, sparkling blue eyes, golden brown hair, and a figure like the quintessential Gibson Girl with her small waist and graceful, slender neck.

Jennie didn’t argue, respond with false modesty, or color with pleasure at the compliment. So, I thought, she’s already used to attention and to flattery. I could understand why her mother might wish her back to fifteen again. That combination of face, figure, and temperament might be more than either Uncle Hal or Aunt Kitty could handle.

“Now, Johanna,” said Aunt Kitty, seating herself on the sofa next to Uncle Hal, “tell us about your stay in London and your chosen profession.” She colored the last word with a touch of censure and a whiff of distaste. The women in our family, wives and mothers all, never made their living outside the home. They might volunteer to do good works, but they must never, never be paid for their efforts. I understood her message and as usual ignored it. Since entering my grandmother’s household over eleven years ago, I had been something of an enigma to my aunt, and from the beginning she had feared my attitude and temperament might contaminate Jennie in the same way I might pass along a contagious disease.

“If I hadn’t gone to bring her home,” Grandmother interjected, “I believe Johanna would still be parading through the London streets marching for women’s suffrage.”

“Johanna, you didn’t!” exclaimed Jennie with admiration.

I turned to give Grandmother an unambiguous but respectful frown. “I am a nurse by profession, not a suffragette.” Grandmother eyed me, daring me to say more so that I couldn’t help but add, “Anyway, it was a perfectly peaceful demonstration before the police got involved. Imagine billy clubs used on defenseless women, their arms twisted around behind them like dangerous criminals. And all because women wanted the right to vote, a perfectly legitimate and rational expectation.”

“Johanna, you are even more my hero.” At the admiring tone in Jennie’s voice, I could tell poor Aunt Kitty wanted to lean over and press her hands over her daughter’s ears.

“I’m not a hero at all,” I admitted honestly. “I was marching along peacefully and then the melee started and I was pushed into an alley. It was clear our intended message was being lost in all the hubbub so I simply went back home.”

“Johanna, I have just the idea. You can organize a march for women’s suffrage in Chicago. I’ll help you. We’ll make the headlines of the paper and get our pictures on the front page. I’ll mess my hair and tear my dress and be such a sympathetic figure that we’ll win the vote out of pity and guilt.”

“We ought to receive the vote because we’re intelligent human beings who can make sensible decisions without the condescension or the intervention of the male sex. There are very few things that differentiate women from men, and none of them is our brain.”

“That,” stated Grandmother calmly with a hint of humor, “must be something you learned in nursing school.” At her words, Aunt Kitty stood abruptly, Uncle Hal following suit as if a string connected them.

“No doubt nursing school was an education for you in many ways, Johanna. We’ll have to hear more about it later. Right now I’m sure the two of you wish to unpack and settle in.”

“Oh, Johanna’s not a settling-in kind of woman, Mother, you should know that by now.” Jennie’s eyes sparkled. “She’s never bored and never boring, which is why I want to be exactly like her.”

That night, crawling into my familiar bed, I recalled the look on my aunt’s face at those words from her daughter and felt a stirring of pity for her. Aunt Kitty had a vision for Jennie and a plan, neither of which included suffrage marches or nursing school. I privately thought that Jennie should be in college, using her quick wit and bright mind to learn more about herself and the world around her, but that wasn’t part of my aunt’s plan either. Jennie was to marry well, marry someone with a recognized name and old money. That’s what her mother had done, and Aunt Kitty intended Jennie to follow in her footsteps.

Over breakfast the next morning, Grandmother told me we were going shopping. “I know you don’t generally favor shopping as a pastime, Johanna, but even you must admit we have a reason to invest in new wardrobes. Besides, your aunt thinks we should hold a party to celebrate your homecoming and you’ll need something besides a navy wool suit to wear to the festivities.”

“But Aunt Kitty isn’t glad I’m home,” I pointed out. “If she’s planning a party, it’s so my dark hair and pallid complexion will show Jennie’s glow to even greater advantage.” I caught Grandmother’s reproachful look. “You know it’s true, Grandmother, but I don’t mind.”

Grandmother didn’t argue, only replied, “Jennie is a beauty without the necessity of comparison, Johanna. We’ll leave for Marshall Field’s after breakfast.”

I regretted the words I had spoken, the result of my sharp tongue and too many years of crossing swords with Aunt Kitty, and I wished Grandmother had reproached me for my uncharitable comments.

When I admitted as much, Grandmother remarked, “That trait must come from the Swan side of the family. Your mother often disagreed with me, but she had the ability to turn every disagreement to her advantage without a single unkind word.”

“That’s how I remember her, too.” After a pause, I added, “Remind me to get their picture from Uncle Hal. My bedside table is empty without them smiling out at me.” I paused again before saying, “I’ve been thinking about the Swan side of the family lately,” trying to watch Grandmother’s face as I made the comment without appearing to do so.

“Thinking what exactly?”

“That I might make a trip west for a visit.”

“Johanna, you’ve just arrived home. Take some time to settle in for a while.” I pushed myself away from the table and rose.

“You heard Jennie. I’m not a settling-in kind of woman.”

“First, you wanted to be a social worker and left for two years to accomplish that. Then you wanted to be a nurse and crossed an ocean in order to do so. Don’t you think you should decide what you really want to do with your future before you leave on another trip?” I knew that although she was careful not to criticize, Grandmother never liked my interaction with my father’s side of the family. For the first time, I heard in her voice the same worried, almost jealous tone I sometimes heard from Aunt Kitty when she talked of Jennie. It was love that spoke so. I turned back to kiss Grandmother lightly on the cheek.

“Perhaps you’re right,” I conceded. “Does that apply to today’s shopping trip, too?” She gave a little smile and returned to the newspaper she held.

“Those tickets are already purchased, Johanna. Levi will be waiting at the front door at ten sharp. Don’t be late. It doesn’t do to keep the McIntyre train waiting.”

The planned shopping was something to be endured but not enjoyed. For as long as I had lived with my grandmother, I had coveted a flair for fashion. I don’t recall that clothing and style ever mattered before I came to Chicago, certainly not to my parents, who lived simply and wore utilitarian clothes. My mother loved color, though, and I remember her tying her hair back with a bright ribbon. Then, seeing me eye the streak of blue with wonder, she removed the ribbon and fastened it around my neck with a flourish. But that one gesture did not display a love for fashion on her part, only a love for me. One would think that after so many years I would not still miss my mother so sharply.

The problem with fashion was that I had no one to pattern myself after, not Grandmother, with her choice of dresses from the last century, and not Aunt Kitty, who equated style with cost. For my aunt, the more costly a garment, the more fashionable it must be. Even when she sadly pronounced that I did not inherit my mother’s good taste, I knew I was a step ahead of her when it came to realizing that expensive fashion was not always smart or becoming. Fortunate Jennie could wear anything with flair; I knew I did not have the same gift.

I came back from our all-day trip with my usual assortment of practical skirts, shirtwaists and long jackets, very little lace, and not a ruffle in sight. Grandmother insisted on a new spring dress for me—“It’s possible you will go somewhere besides the hospital in your lifetime, Johanna”—and I found a pretty, high-necked gown in lavender for the party Aunt Kitty planned. When everything was delivered the next day, I felt slightly guilty. Why should one person need so many clothes when others had only what they wore on their backs? But I stroked the lavender silk with pleasure and thought Mother would have appreciated the color.

At the end of that week, my cousin Peter came home from Harvard, bounding up on the porch and nearly running into me as I stepped outside the front door.

“Peter!”

I was very fond of Jennie, and I had the greatest affection for Uncle Hal, but I absolutely loved my cousin Peter. He was the most unspoiled of the family, fair-haired like Jennie but without her innate mischief that often bordered on malice, kind like his father but with an energy that my easygoing uncle lacked. Peter was spared all of my overbearing and stubborn traits, and he resembled his mother only physically. Peter had inherited all that was the best of us.

“Johanna, how terrible it must have been for you!” He put his arms around my waist and gave me a big hug that left me breathless. “We’re so glad you and Grandmother are home safe and sound. Was it very awful?”

We went inside and sat down.

“Not so awful for me, but it was terrible for a great many people. Now let’s talk about you. How are your studies?”

He grimaced, but I knew the expression was in jest. Peter was bright and a good student and planned to be an attorney like his father. No one had to force him into the profession either. He loved the law. Someday I knew he would be a fine lawyer, the best in his field and much in demand.

“Grueling.”

“Then why are you home? Surely it’s not break time.”