Faithful (6 page)

That night at dinner, I asked Papa about Mama’s trip west.

He pushed his plate away. “There’s really nothing to tell.”

I tried to hide that I was fishing for information by acting like a simple child. “Did you two go to California?”

“No. Never been there, I’m afraid. Though I hear San Francisco is quite a city now.” He placed his napkin on the table.

“Montana, then? You mentioned Montana. Isn’t that where we’re going now?”

He placed his hands flat on the table, examining his fingers. “It’s all a surprise for you, Margaret. You’ll see.”

I buried my frustration beneath a calm veneer. “I’d really like to hear the story of her earlier trip. Mrs. Delaney mentioned it.”

He started, seeming surprised, and looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “What did she say?” His voice was harsh.

“Nothing. Not much. She really didn’t recall.” Papa’s look frightened and confused me. “She couldn’t recall any details.”

He relaxed a little. “That’s because there’s nothing to recall.” He paused. “We’ll be on the noon train tomorrow. I have business in St. Louis, so I’ve decided we should see the Exposition. We don’t have these opportunities every day. That should be fun, eh? Shall we?” He stood and held my chair for me. I had no choice except to retire.

On my way to my room the bellboy approached me with a letter from Kitty.

But fret I did. The uneasiness I’d been feeling for the last week since we’d left welled to a peak. Something was not right. I felt certain it had to do with Mama’s earlier trip out west, and Papa’s reluctance to discuss anything with me. I could sense it.

Frustrated, I threw myself into the wing chair that sat before my small fireplace. Now, thanks to Kitty, I had to endure the thought that Edward was receiving the unhindered attentions of Isabel. I wasn’t sure he’d remember enough about me to resist her persistent charms.

I wrote back to Kitty.

From Philadelphia we traveled to Chicago and then to St. Louis. I’d never been farther west. The miles seemed endless, although when I counted carefully, I marked that a straight train trip from St. Louis back to Newport would only take five days. I relaxed a little then, knowing that we still had time to get to our yet-unnamed destination, find Mama, and return home before mid-July. I distracted myself at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and tried to enjoy the marvel of its classical architecture, gardens and fountains, the astonishing array of innovations, and the exotic displays from the world over.

We left St. Louis on June 15. As we changed trains in Omaha, my foreboding returned with greater intensity as I watched the children waiting for the orphan train.

Hundreds of children, from babes in arms to girls not much younger than me, gathered in a group waiting for their ride to their new homes. Taken from New York by charitable souls, these children were supposed to be on their way to a better life on a farm or homestead. I paused on the step up into our Pullman, watching a group of giggling girls making bubbles from soap. They’d lost everything, yet they could laugh and play. I clutched at the handrail as Papa held my elbow, helping me into the car, and I felt my stomach twisting into knots.

I sank back against the plush seat and closed my eyes. Mama had left me half an orphan. I wanted her back, and that was why we were here. We were going west to find Mama and bring her home. I said it over and over to the rhythm of the iron wheels that picked up speed and ran beneath me. Find Mama and bring her home. I had to hang on to this despite my ever-deepening suspicions that Papa was hiding something from me.

Find Mama and bring her home.

The train wheels ran, sounding like muffled shots, and the light from the sun flashed through the window in dagger points. I kept my eyes closed and let my head rock back against the headrest.

Find Mama and bring her home.

From Omaha, the Great Plains swept before us as we went north and west.

“Where are we going now, Papa? And how much longer until we’re there?”

“We’ll be in Livingston, Montana, tomorrow.” Montana. Papa didn’t speak much now. He left our compartment at intervals. He seemed anxious and restless; he spoke with the conductor at length in the corridor; he peered out the windows in all directions.

All I saw were flat, barren grasslands, desolate and endless, not a tree or mountain in sight. The plains reminded me of the ocean, gently rolling and swelling. The train lurched and bucked and ran with me toward Montana. Papa paced and grew more and more distant. I thought about the rolling, grassy dunes and gray sea that we’d left behind. My home. I missed it as it slipped away behind us on thin parallel rails.

June 17, 1904

WE EMERGED FROM THE FLATLANDS AND ROLLED INTO Livingston in the afternoon. I hadn’t time to appreciate the landscape that rose so abruptly from the plains. The Rocky Mountains, capped with snow, were bathed in slanting light that was cut and crossed by clouds that brought on an early dusk. It was too cold, with a brisk breeze, to spend time outside in any case, so we hastened inside to have an early dinner at the Murray, a new and gracious hotel just across the road from the depot.

My uncle John was there waiting for us, and Papa sequestered himself at once with him before I was able to ask him anything about Mama. When they emerged, Uncle John avoided my eyes. Over dinner, my uncle talked up a storm on every subject except Mama. My father had done well for himself, rising up from his common beginnings to be an admired architect, but my uncle was still a laborer—skilled, yes, but only a carpenter. He talked of his work on the fine hotels, and waxed especially poetical about Yellowstone.

“You’re sure to have a fine time. It’s filled with wonders, Margaret! That’s what it’s called—‘Wonderland’! Of course, the Indians had a different view of it—they said it was like white man’s descriptions of hell, all boiling and steaming and bubbling . . .”

“John.” My father nodded in my direction.

“Oh. Well, Charlie.” He waved his hand over Papa’s plate of trout and his own venison stew. “Maggie’s a big girl now.” Uncle John glanced at me, then down. “Well, anyhow. You’ll see, Margaret.”

“Yes.” Papa smiled. “We’ll be on the train into Yellowstone in the morning.”

“So we’re going into Yellowstone?” I asked, tentative. I looked at my uncle, busy with his stew. “And then?”

“And then everything will fall into place.” Papa drank his claret.

I reached my hand to Papa’s arm. “Doesn’t Uncle John have . . .”

Papa shot me a harsh look and I withdrew my hand. Here we were, so close, and yet Papa was still keeping me in the dark.

“We’ll retire early. The train leaves at nine sharp.” He gave me no opening for further questions, and Uncle John still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

My room in the hotel looked out over the town of Livingston to the mountains that sat now in shadow. I closed my curtains and drew a hot bath.

I settled into the steaming water. When I lifted my arm the water ran down in thin ribbons. We’d arrived in Montana and Uncle John had news. But the news clearly wasn’t for my ears, at least not yet. The nagging suspicions that had been troubling me since we departed home came to a point: it was clear Papa was hiding something from me. Maybe he now knew that Mama was dead and he hadn’t had the courage to tell me. Or maybe he knew that Mama was alive but in such an awful state . . .

After her tea with Mrs. Delaney, Mama had reverted into a deep depression. She withdrew from me and Papa and took again to walking along the Newport cliffs alone. Her depression was worse than before, although how much worse hadn’t been clear to me until later.

I slipped deeper into the bathwater, trying to clear my mind of terrible thoughts. Edward. I’d think about Edward.

I’d think about that night last summer when he filled my dance card. When he kissed me. The night of Mary’s ball and the dress with the red sash. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift back to the happier moments of that evening.

The intense heat of that late August afternoon had been building toward a storm. Low, rolling breakers swelled to foam-topped monsters crashing on the shore. As the festive mood at the ball grew the wind picked up and rain spattered fat drops until the wind swelled to a howl. Servants ran from room to room until all the doors were closed and all but a few windows shuttered.

We gathered at the last unshuttered window to watch. The fairy lights hanging from trees and bushes swung, trembling, then were stripped from the branches and shattered by a gust. Rain came in sheets. The wind shrieked like a phantom and Mary’s father sternly ordered us away from the glass. Just afterward, the great oak at the bottom of the garden swayed and toppled with a thunderous crash.

The electric lights flickered and went out. The ball was illumined only by candles, but the revelry was undimmed. Edward held me close as we danced, and then, during a fevered waltz, pulled me behind the stairs.

“Now I have you,” he whispered.

“Do you? Are you sure?”

He tightened his arms around me and pressed his body against mine. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed into my ear. His hand pressed the red sash at the small of my back.

I felt weak, and my hands gripped his jacket as if it were a life vest. I was in grave danger of floating away.

He lifted my chin, and I let him kiss me, my lips burning and my breath stopped. The layers of fabric that separated us crushed and melted and the laces of my corset strained.

I sighed in my bath. Such a brief, sweet moment, that time with Edward. If only I could have all of that happiness again. I lifted my arm again out of the bath and stared at it, at the tiny hairs and the streaming water. My mind drifted to the possibility of Uncle John’s news, and then there was no helping where my memories went next. For just at the moment Edward had been kissing me under the stairs, Mama had turned my life upside down.