She Walks in Beauty (45 page)

Berlin.

How I wished I could see her again. But I might as well have wished to go to Italy.

My visit with Katherine only made me long for my friendship with Lizzie. And so the next Thursday at half past three saw me heading for the hedge in the garden. No one went calling the first six months of mourning. If there was to be any contact between us, it had to be at Lizzie’s initiation. And so I hoped against hope that Lizzie would remember our tryst.

And she was there waiting for me! “I didn’t know if you would be here, but I decided to come anyway.”

I moved to embrace her. “Thank you.”

She put her arms around me. “I’m so sorry. For everything.”

“No, Lizzie. It was me. I was the one who broke our promise. It’s my fault. I just … I got … scared. When Father had his fit. And then, with Aunt pushing me like she did … Franklin seemed like the only way. I’m sorry.”

“You weren’t the only one to be pushed. Mother would have had me cut you a dozen times these last weeks. At least!”

Mrs. Barnes? “No!”

“Oh yes! But I could never quite bring myself to do it. Because I knew you had put your trust in me. Every night before I went to sleep, I would look at that motto you made for me:
Friendship Love and Truth
. And to be truthful, I had placed no little trust in you too! I still don’t know how I’ll be able to manage Franklin all by myself. I mean . . .” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to—!”

“It’s fine.”

“Really, Clara, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“It’s fine, Lizzie. You deserve him. You should have him.”

“But I don’t really know that he’ll choose me. I mean … what if … ?”

“What if … you suddenly sprout wings and fly off to China?”

She smiled at the mention of our childhood game. “Or grow whiskers and start to meow like Old Puss.”

I sighed and shook my head. “You’re right. In such a case he wouldn’t want you.”

She turned the full force of her smile upon me and threw herself into my arms. “Are you … is everything all right?”

It was now.

Aunt and I sat in the parlor the next day. I expected no more visitors. None for at least the first six months of mourning. So I decided to ask her a question for which I had never been able to discover a true answer. “Someone once told me that Father was a frequenter of The Bowery.”

Aunt stirred in her chair. Lifted dull eyes to mine. “He was.”

“Did you know about him? About the tenements?”

“I did.”

“But how could he own such things? How could he treat people as if they were little better than animals! He was a doctor. He was supposed to save lives. He was supposed to … he was supposed to save Mama’s life.”

“No one could have saved your mother’s life. You can’t blame him for that.”

I could. And I did.

Aunt closed her eyes for such a long time that I thought she might have succumbed to a sleep of exhaustion. But then she opened them and began to speak. “How could he own the buildings? The better question might be ‘How could he not?’”

“It’s immoral—to keep people in … Don’t you know what they’re like?”

She shook her head as though she had long ago forgiven such foolishness. “He was simply a man. Like all men. And he was trying to recover what had been lost to him. Many men make their fortunes off the poor. Or the immigrants. Or prostitutes.”

“Not all men. Not all men are like that.”

“Believe me or not, I’ve been trying to teach you how to survive in this world. As a woman. I’ve been trying to prepare you for what lies ahead. Whether we want them or not, one thing is certain: We need a man. We all need a man and I’ve been doing my best to teach you how to entice one and then secure him.”

“Then you’ve only taught me how to catch the kind of man I don’t want.”

“There is no other kind of man.” There was a sorrow, a great fatigue that underscored her words.

There was. There had to be. “What about the kind that marries for love? What about the kind I marry because I love him?”

“There is no love—I’ve already told you this! There is only an illusion. A poor approximation. And it is that which I am trying to teach you. To converse. To flirt. To dance . . .”

“So that I can live my life trying to be someone that I’m not?”

“So that you can be the person others expect you to be.”

“But isn’t there anyone who would love me as I am?” A remembered conversation echoed through my head.
“God made you, didn’t He? Different than anyone else who has come before or anyone else who will come after? I must insist that you matter to Him much more than you seem to realize.”

“As you are? Why, you can barely dance a waltz! How can you be of use to anybody as you are? Why … why are you smiling? I’m only trying to save you heartache.”

“I’m smiling because I just realized that I don’t need saving. I’m fine just the way I am.”

“But don’t you understand? I don’t want you to end up like me!”

I didn’t know what to say. We sat there, both of us, perched on a razor’s edge of emotion. Perhaps she felt herself misunderstood. It was true that she had given freely of herself and her knowledge during the past year. I would never have made it through my debut without her advice. But if she thought herself misunderstood, I thought my own self misunderstood. And so, I decided to try again. With a softer voice and kinder, simpler words. “I don’t want a compromise of broken dreams. I want love.”

“Love? Love will only disappoint you. Love will only see you abandoned and humiliated, waiting up nights for a man who will return with the sun’s rising, drunk, with the scent of some other woman on him. Love will destroy your dreams and corrode your heart.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt. For your pain. But you do understand me, don’t you? There must have been love for you. Or the expectation of it. Once.”

“Oh, there was love. There was plenty of love right up until the day I miscarried our first child. After that … after Brother told us it would be dangerous to ever try again … well … Mr. Stuart took his love down to The Bowery. He’s the one who told your father about the tenements. But it didn’t matter, you see, because by then I understood. And then a few years later, he died.” She was trying to speak louder than the tears that were streaming down her cheeks.

But she failed to remember one thing: I wasn’t blind.

She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and swiped at her eyes. Then she sniffed a long, shuddering sniff and looked at me with stoic red-rimmed eyes. “All is lost. What are we to do?”

“I see no reason why you shouldn’t do exactly as you like. Have you no money left? Of Mr. Stuart’s?”

“Not much; it’s been spent. On gowns and gloves and lessons. For you.” To her credit, there was no blame in her eyes. No accusation in her words. She was simply stating a fact.

“Then we will sell the house and everything in it.”

“And what will we do then?”

“I won’t need any of the proceeds. I’ll be taken care of.” I had to be. I had no reason to believe it, but I had never been more certain of anything in my life. “Why don’t you use the funds to take a little cottage by the sea and retire there?”

“By myself?”

“Why not?”

“But … who will take care of me?”

“I think you’ve managed to do an admirable job all of these years taking care of yourself, don’t you?”

Something like her old indomitable spirit came back into her eyes. She lifted her chin. “Yes. Yes, I have, haven’t I?”

I read in the papers the next week that Lizzie and Franklin had become engaged.

T
HE
N
EW
Y
ORK
J
OURNAL
—S
OCIETY
M
ARCH 22, 1892
B
ARNES
-D
E
V
RIES

The engagement has been announced of Miss Elizabeth Wallace Barnes, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Barnes of this city, to Franklin Schuyler De Vries, also of this city.

Miss Barnes is the granddaughter of The Honorable John Eames and the great-granddaughter of Zechariah Carlisle. She debuted with aplomb just this season.

A graduate of Yale, Mr. De Vries is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Peter De Vries and is a member of the Knickerbocker Club, the Union Club, University Club, the Tuxedo Club, the Player’s, the New York Riding Club, the Racquet and Tennis Club, the New York Yacht Club, the Jockey Club, the Turf and Field Club, and the Skating Club of New York. He recently returned from a several-year tour abroad.

The wedding will take place on September 15.

Truly, I was happy for Lizzie.

I was.

Except when I realized that she would always have something that I would not: proximity to Harry on a practically daily basis. As often as she wanted.

41

THE NEXT DAY there came a knock at the door. I might have let the butler answer, but I had released him from service. We could no longer afford to pay him. So, though I was clothed in morning dress, I answered the door myself.

It was Harry.

And he looked surprised to see me.

But no more surprised than I was to see him!

He put a hand into the front of his jacket and withdrew from it a letter. “For you. It came just the other day.”

I took it from his hand and tore it open.

Dearest Clara,

There is another way. Although I have accepted a proposal from a Mr. Powell and am soon to be married, I have just become acquainted with the needs of a Miss Thompson. Being a woman advanced in years, but determined to see the Continent, she would be delighted with a companion such as you. And she is a woman of no little means. I feel certain that you would be more than pleased in this situation. Surely, if your father’s illness is as grave as you say, he cannot be far from death. Forgive me if I have offended your sensibilities, but having been of your situation, I must tell you that it is far better to plan while you still have means at your disposal. Shall I speak to Miss Thompson of your interest?

With only the fondest of thoughts
,

Julia Miller

I nearly sagged against the doorframe in relief. This was it! This was what I had been waiting for: the path God had prepared for me. He knew, He saw. He cared.

“Good news?”

I folded the letter back into its envelope. “News from a friend. She is to be married.”

“That’s very good news indeed.”

It was. Only, underneath my relief, I somehow felt completely abandoned. In a way that I had not even when Father had died.

“I just—I came because—I wanted to say—”

“I once told you, Harry, that I was unspeakably rude.”

His mouth slid up on one side and his eyes began to twinkle. “I remember.”

“But what I did to you, at the Patriarch’s Ball . . .”

The twinkle in his eyes disappeared and his mouth settled into a line. “At the Patriarch’s Ball … ?”

“Mr. Douglas, the newspaper reporter?”

“The one who followed you around all season?”

I nodded. “He wrote about me in the
Journal
, but he also wrote about me in
The Tattler
.”

“I know he did.”

“You … do?”

“I read the papers. He was the only one who had been with you all season. Except for me, of course.”