I ran to my tower room and sobbed on my bed until my face was raw and swollen. I heard Mina, dear Mina, my nurse, come into the room. She touched my shoulder softly,
tsk
ing and muttering in German. On most days Mina was my comfort, my soft shoulder, but not that day. I pulled roughly into myself and spoke into my pillow. “Go away,” I muttered, and she did.
I lay on my bed until the sun cast long red rays against the far wall and bathed my room in flaming streaks of dusky light. My door opened again. I thought it was Mina coming to ready my room for the evening. I clenched my pillow tighter to my body.
But it was Mama. She sat next to me as I lay sprawled, the bed creaking softly. “Maggie? Maggie? It’s done. I did as you asked. I got rid of them. I threw them all away.”
I turned and looked at her. She’d pinned up her hair, and was dressed in a simple white shirtwaist and blue serge skirt, her cameo fixed at her throat. She looked like Kitty’s mother, like so many mothers in Newport, like the mother I wished her to be.
“I’m so sorry.” She stroked my hair, separating the strands with her fingers.
I twisted away from her and spoke into the spread, my voice muffled. “I just want you to be normal. Please.” I shook, my stomach heaving with agony, and my heart welled with my selfish need for her.
“All right.” Her voice trembled, but she said it.
I lay still while she stroked my hair, her hand so soft it might have been a bird. I wanted everything to turn out right. I wanted to believe that my mama wouldn’t disappoint me again.
I turned back to her. My eyes were swollen; tears still welled and slid down my cheeks and into my hair. I reached up to touch her cameo, as I had when I was little, running my fingers blindly over and over the carved face on its surface. My voice came out in a whisper. “Will you be here for me, Mama? Please, Mama?”
She sat silent, looking at the great window of my tower room, looking at the red sunset, the purple and blood-threaded sky, her face in profile to me. “Yes.”
“Promise?” I touched her fine, porcelain cheek.
“Yes. I promise.” She bent down to hold me.
I hugged her and didn’t looked at her face again. I was afraid of what I might see there.
I should have looked.
I rested my forehead against Ghost’s neck and forced myself not to think further into the past. I heard the mindless chatter of the stable hands, the
clap-clop
of hooves on brick, the soft, fluttered exhale of a passing horse. I pressed into Ghost, felt the cameo push against my throat. If I’d looked into Mama’s eyes that evening last July, I might have seen the promise broken. I might have seen why, only two months later, Mama was gone.
After Mama disappeared, Papa insisted on a massive search. Bored officers carried out a job they believed to be fruitless. They found her robe, tangled in the rocks. “The waves, sir. You must understand. The riptides, sir. Surely you understand . . .” Papa was shocked to silence and retreated; he was like the rabbit in the mouth of the fox—not yet dead, but no longer able to struggle. For weeks, I’d watched them all—Papa, the police, my neighbors, my friends—relinquish themselves to thinking Mama had been lost to the waves. Not me. I refused to believe she was dead. I wouldn’t believe she could break her promise and abandon me.
Papa would do nothing, lost as he was in his own grief. And so finally, I did the only thing I could. I threw myself into planning my season and my future. With or without her, my life would go on—it had to. I refused to let my prospects die while I waited for her to return.
Until two days ago. Two days ago Papa had surfaced from his self-imposed imprisonment with tales sent by his brother and with maps in his hands. Maps of far-off places, of Montana and Wyoming, of the wilderness; maps of rivers and mountain ranges and plains that were unknown to me. Papa emerged from his study with bright eyes and plans and hope.
I gave Ghost another treat and pressed a few coins into Joshua’s palm. “Take good care of him while I’m gone. Make sure he gets daily exercise.”
“Yes, miss.” I watched as Joshua led Ghost away, his white coat shining until he vanished into the gloom of the stables. I found Papa’s man, Jonas, polishing the brass on the lanterns of the phaeton, waiting to take me home.
When I joined Papa at dinner, he rambled on about his plans for our trip. Yet I was distracted. I kept returning to Mrs. Wolcott’s sneer and Mrs. Proctor’s snide gossip. I picked at the linen tablecloth, having lost my appetite.
“We’ll have a grand tour along the way, Maggie.” Papa carved into his beef with intensity.
I watched Papa’s knife saw back and forth. “Papa, why west? Why do you and Uncle John think we will find her there, and not somewhere else?”
Papa concentrated on the piece of beef on his fork. “It’s complicated, Margaret.” He took a bite, then looked at me, wiping his mustache with his napkin while he finished chewing. “We can discuss this later. It’ll all be a surprise! An exciting surprise.” He flashed a smile at me and returned to his meal.
My stomach knotted. I lifted the glass to wet my dry mouth. I didn’t want to lose Mama, not again. Nor did I want to lose my season and my only chance to make a good match and secure my future. I picked up my fork and twisted the tines against the plate. “I hope we can find her. Bring her home. I hope we can make her well.”
Papa said nothing. The click of metal on china filled the room, bouncing off the oakwood floor and plaster walls.
“Things are hard, Papa. Hard for me,” I said in a low voice. “It’s all so hard without her.”
Papa sawed his meat, his eyes cast down.
“People—Newport people—they aren’t sure about me. They say things . . .” I searched for Mrs. Proctor’s words, “They say I lack propriety. That I’m shameful. Like Mama. But I’m not. And if I am to find a husband, I need to prove to them that I’m respectable.” I picked at the tablecloth, making tight little fabric hills. “It’s important to me, Papa. It’s my future.” I looked up at him. “This is all I have, right here in Newport. This is where I belong. And right now, they don’t want me.”
His hands stopped moving.
“I need my debut, a really fine debut, with everything done exactly right, to make them want me. I want to prove to them that . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence, but what came to my mind was, “that I’m not like Mama.”
I reached down the table and took Papa’s right hand, forcing him away from his food, willing him to look at me. He leaned back, wiping his mustache with his napkin again, regarding me with dark eyes. I needed to make him see how important my debut was, that it was as important as finding Mama. I needed to have my debut as much as I needed her back. Without a proper debut, I had nothing. If I was not introduced into society, I would not be able to find a husband—not one of good standing. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I did not marry. I would have nothing—not Mama, not a future, nothing.
“We’ll be back in time, won’t we? We have to be back by the middle of July. And then we can make Mama well, here at home, and then she can help me plan. All right, Papa?”
He hesitated only a second before looking away. “Of course, Mags. Of course.”
Chapter THREE
June 1, 1904
When the guests at the ball, who numbered about 200, arrived, they drove to the house from the massive gates through an avenue bordered with bay trees set in tubs. These trees were outlined with vari-colored electric lights . . . There were two orchestras. Dancing did not conclude until almost dawn.
—“Mrs. Ogden Goelet’s Ball: First Important Function Given at Ochre Court, Newport,”
New York Times
, August 29, 1900
FOR FRIENDSHIP, I HAD NONE BETTER THAN KITTY.
Dear Kitty! We’d been inseparable since we’d babbled at one another over the edges of our prams. We shared tea parties and doll clothes, school gossip and hair ribbons. Now we were to share our future. At least, that was my wish.
The morning after my ride, I finally worked up the nerve to tell Kitty about Papa’s decision to go west. I found her lolling on the divan with Bear, her spaniel, curled beneath her arm. My voice trembled a little as I started in, and I gave a delicate cough. I needed Kitty’s support to make everything work. I paced around the room, exaggerating, trying to make this “tour” sound fun and romantic, glancing at Kitty from time to time and watching her great blue eyes grow round.
“But this is dreadful, Maggie! You can’t leave now!” She leapt from the divan, tumbling Bear to the floor, and rushed to my side, clutching my hands in her tiny fingers. “We have dresses to order and decorations and—goodness! Thousands of details!”
When we were little, only able to watch the preparations for a ball—the ordering of gowns, the fuss of coaches, the top hats and silk gloves of departure—Kitty and I had pledged that one day we would share our debuts. “It will be the talk of Newport!” We’d giggled. “Two balls in one!”
Now Kitty’s eyes sharpened with annoyance and she returned to the divan and flounced down in a spray of silk and bouncing blonde curls. “Once again your mother is ruining things.”
My breath caught. “Kitty!” The sting went deep, all the more because I feared it was true.
“Well?” She pursed her lips. “I’m sorry, Maggie, but you know I’m right. Your father hasn’t been the same since she fell into the ocean.” The image that her hurtful words conjured was terrible, and I bit my lip to stop myself from saying something rash in response. “It’s been almost a year, for pity’s sake, and he’s still making bad decisions. Dragging you off to some godforsaken place at the start of your season. What is he thinking? How are you going to find a husband now? Clearly, this is the influence of your mother’s irresponsible behavior.” I could see that her eyes registered my balled fists and rigid posture. She sighed. She came to me, oozing sympathy. “I’m worried about you, Mags. It’s your year now. I can have my own debut. Why, the Danforth boys have been fighting over me ever since last summer. It’s time for you to catch an eye or two!” She reached up and tugged at a curl on my forehead, adjusting it as if she were designing a table setting.
Kitty’s quick turns of mood tempered my frustration. I could never stay mad at her for long, and I didn’t try to admonish her for her thoughtlessness. I watched her eyes fixed in concentration on my errant curl. When she finished playing with my hair, she flounced back to the divan and I slipped to her dressing table. I fingered the silver-backed hairbrush that lay there and let out my breath in a sigh. “I think boys will never be fighting over me.”
Kitty giggled. “Margaret Bennet, you’ll have boys eating out of your hands. Those long legs of yours will keep them on their toes. Literally! Of course, they’ll fall in love with me first. Boys like to dominate. But I can only love one at a time, so surely there will be someone left for you.” She batted her eyes.
Was she joking? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry with her. “What do you think of Edward Tyson?” I examined the hairbrush as if I’d never seen it before, looking at every tiny badger bristle.
Kitty sat straight up. “Why, Margaret Katherine Bennet. I do believe you have a secret crush.”
My face went hot. “Maybe.”
Kitty came and took my cheeks between her palms and turned my face to hers. I looked down into her perfect blue eyes. “Liar,” she said smoothly, then smiled. “I guess I’ll let you have him.”
I pulled back. She had to be joking. Yes, she was teasing me, she just had to be. I smiled back at her, uncertain of her motives, but needing to trust her.
I still hadn’t told Kitty that at Mary’s ball, the last of the summer before, Edward had kissed me, his full, soft lips pressed to mine. The memory of that moment was so sweet. But the memory of what happened only moments after that dear kiss . . . I moved away from Kitty toward the window.
I tapped my fingers on the wood window frame and inhaled the calming lilac scent that drifted in from the garden. “I don’t know what I’ll do, Kitty. I won’t be here when Edward comes back from New York. Isabel, you know, she thinks he’s for her.” A little buzzing fear crept into my brain. A breeze lifted the sheer curtains so that they billowed around me like sails.
“Pooh on what Isabel thinks!” Kitty said. “But that’s beside the point, Maggie. You need to stay right here. You need to tell your father you won’t go. Besides, who wants to go west when you can go to Paris? Really, Mags.”
“Do you think Edward would wait?” I turned back toward Kitty. “Do you think he might be the right one? You know, for me?”
“What do you mean, does he have money?” Kitty sank onto the divan and reached down and tussled with Bear. “We know that already.” She touched Bear’s nose with her fingertip, and spoke to him, baby-voiced. “Don’t we, Bear-Bear?”
“No, Kitty, that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, I’m looking for someone special.”
“As in . . .”
“As in, I don’t know. Someone who can take care of me. But not take over me. Someone who’ll let me be who I am.”
“And who are you, Miss Margaret, O Emancipated One?” Kitty laughed out loud, her sarcasm ringing through the room.
“I don’t know. That’s just it.” I bit my lip. Was I my mother, bohemian and lost? Was I my father, crippled by loneliness and propriety? I’d been brought up to marry someone of the right social status, bear his children, run his household. This should be my future. I still wanted this future. I wanted all the lovely things a doting husband could provide; and, with any luck, I could sit at the top of the social tier and command respect and admiration, like Kitty’s mother did now. Like Kitty surely would. Like Mama never had. Mama had rejected all of that, and had been rejected right back.
I wanted to be more like Kitty than like Mama, but there was still one deep-dwelling dream inside me. Now I dared speak it out loud for the first time, and I felt a passion rise up in me as I spoke. “I do want to fall in love. I want a true love. I want to fall in love with a boy who would stand next to me on a mountaintop. And with him next to me I wouldn’t be afraid. Not because he was rescuing me. I wouldn’t be afraid simply because he was there. That’s what I want. That’s what I think true love is.”