Tiffany Girl (18 page)

“No, it will be a while before he makes a decision.”

“How will he decide?” Mr. Wilder asked.

“It’s based on performance.” She tucked a piece of hair back up into her coif. Only Mr. Wilder knew of her blunder at work—other than the Tiffany Girls, of course. But over the past month she’d worked doubly hard and arrived even earlier in the mornings. Last week she’d been moved from tracing cartoons to working with Nan. Nan would select the glass, then Flossie would cut it the exact shape of the paper template. It was harder than it looked and her arms and fingers had been sore all week.

Smoothing the napkin on her lap, she directed the conversation away from her in order to include the others. “Since you weren’t in the parlor with us last night, you might not be aware that it will be Mrs. Holliday’s birthday on Sunday.”

Mr. Wilder turned his attention to the young woman beside him. “Congratulations, Mrs. Holliday.”

“Thank you.” She looked up at him, her excitement palpable. “You’ll come to my party, won’t you?”

Mr. Holliday patted his wife’s hand. “Of course he’ll come.”

Mr. Wilder balked. “Party?”

“Why, yes.” Mr. Oyster removed a piece of food from his teeth with his tongue. “Miss Jayne has arranged for us to all go ice-skating at Central Park this Sunday.”

The full weight of Mr. Wilder’s gaze turned to her. “I’m afraid I’m—”

“Even Mrs. Dinwiddie is coming,” she interjected, cutting off his refusal. She knew he longed to engage with them, to be a part of their family, yet he simply refused. It didn’t make a bit of sense.

“ ’Course I’m coming.” The elderly woman dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Wouldn’t miss it, and neither will Mr. Wilder. Will you?” Her blue gaze drilled into his.

Mrs. Dinwiddie might have been in her seventies, but she’d been married to a retired colonel and had raised a son of her own. Flossie marveled at the skill with which she handled the men in the house.

Instead of answering, Mr. Wilder made a noncommittal sound, then took another spoonful of his soup.

CHAPTER

21

R
eeve studied the half-finished portrait of Mrs. Dinwiddie. It didn’t look like much, other than a pair of eyes with different shades of red war paint blocking out parts of her face.

“Does it tire you to pose for these painting sessions?” he asked.

Mrs. Dinwiddie poured his cup of tea, the scent of camphor oil clinging to her. “Not at all. Miss Jayne keeps me quite amused.”

He
harrumph
ed.

“Maybe she’ll do your portrait next.”

He gave her a look of warning, but the woman simply handed him his cup. He settled into the chair beside hers and they discussed the trial of Lizzie Borden, the failure of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, and his most recent article on the New Woman.

“You cannot deny,” Mrs. Dinwiddie said, looking at him over her glasses, “there is a mercenary element in our present form of marriage.”

“Not you, too.” He frowned at her.

“Admit it. A wife, more often than not, performs the lowest grade of unskilled labor.”

He sighed. “I will admit that there are a great many women
who bend over the washtub, but it’s not as if their husbands’ lives are any less sordid or monotonous. He’s out wrapping up codfish or selling five-cent cigars and engaged in a laborious occupation not a bit more idealistic than her own.”

They spent another quarter hour in an invigorating debate. He conceded a bit of ground, but took even more. Already he was brimming with ideas for his next article.

“So, are you going to the ice-skating party?” she asked, picking up her knitting. Whatever she was making was of a dark navy blue.

“I’m afraid I’m going to pass,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t have any skates and I’d rather not spend the money to rent them.”

“You can borrow Herschel’s.”

“You still have your son’s skates?”

“Indeed, I do.”

He shifted in his chair. “That’s very generous, thank you, but I’m still not going.”

“Why not?”

He rubbed his hands on his trousers. “I don’t know how to skate.”

“
Pshaw
. There’s nothing to it. You strap the skates on to your shoes and off you go.”

It had looked easy when he’d watched others from his window, but it couldn’t be as simple as it appeared or he wouldn’t have seen so many people fall.

“You can’t mean that you’re going skating?” he asked.

“Heavens, no. I’m way too old. I’d crack my noggin open for certain. No, I plan to rent a chair sled.”

He stiffened. Once again, Mrs. Dinwiddie would be spending her own coin because Miss Jayne desired it to be so. “Aren’t those rather costly?”

“Not terribly so.” The
click-click-click
of her knitting needles sounded loud in the quiet of her room.

He tapped his thumb against his leg. At what point should he interfere? What if she didn’t have a head for numbers? What if she overspent by accident and couldn’t pay her rent? He’d never asked about her finances before because there’d never been any need to. “Mrs. Dinwiddie, do you think that’s wise, spending your resources on such frivolous things?”

Her knitting needles paused. “Is that a philosophical question or a practical question?”

“A practical question.”

She lowered her knitting and stared at him for several beats.

His face warmed. “It’s really none of my business. Please forgive me.”

She shook her head. “No, I appreciate your concern. That’s not why I didn’t answer.” She looked to the side, took a breath, then turned back to him. “Since we are such good friends and since I trust you to keep a confidence, I shall entrust you with a little secret. I’m rather well off. If I’d wanted to, I could have lived in the lovely brownstone Robert and I shared for fifty-four years. But I decided instead that I wanted to live in a boardinghouse so that I’d be around people, so I’d have someone to eat dinner with, someone to linger in the parlor with after my meals.”

He blinked. He’d had no idea.

“I’d tried some of the fancy boardinghouses,” she continued. “But I tired of the airs the boarders put on. So, I simply looked for someplace clean, in a good part of town, and with salt-of-the-earth people.” Reaching across the table, she patted his arm. “I certainly found one in you.”

He sat up a little straighter. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. I meant no offense.”

“Of course you didn’t. That’s why you’ll go to Mrs. Holliday’s ice-skating party.”

“Wait, what?”

“She’s very young, Mr. Wilder. You’d cause her great offense if
you did not attend. She would think it had something to do with her, that perhaps she wasn’t engaging enough, or pretty enough, or a good enough wife to Mr. Holliday.” She picked her knitting back up. “No, you must go to the party, even if only for a little bit. You’ll find Herschel’s skates in a box on top of my wardrobe over there.”

After several seconds of hesitation, he mumbled his acquiescence, pushed himself up, and retrieved the skates.

ICE SKATING IN CENTRAL PARK 
¹⁴

“Stretching out his legs, Reeve crossed his ankles and leaned back on the bench, content to watch the others do all the skating.”

CHAPTER

22

S
tretching out his legs, Reeve crossed his ankles and leaned back on the bench, content to watch the others do all the skating. A cloudless sky allowed the sun’s unrestricted rays to provide a bit of warmth against winter’s bite.

Hundreds of skaters soared across Central Park’s pond in what he imagined would be the next best thing to flying. A man in a dark-blue frock coat, hands behind his back, sailed past, gliding first on one leg, then the other. A young boy whizzed by him, filching a red cap from another little shaver. With a shout of protest, the hatless fellow gave chase, paying no more attention to his skates than he would to his feet if he were running.

Reeve shook his head in wonderment. It was different watching the skaters from a bench as opposed to a window. He could hear the cutting of the blades, feel the sting of crisp air, smell the woodsmoke from the warming fires, and almost taste the roasting chestnuts.

Mrs. Dinwiddie waved to him from her sleigh chair, barely recognizable beneath her pelts, cloak, and scarf, the latter wrapped about her mouth and nose. Mr. Nettels skated behind her, holding on to the chair’s handles and propelling her forward.

“Come join us, Mr. Wilder,” Miss Love shouted, gliding beside them, the breeze snatching away her laugh.

He waved back, then scanned the other skaters, looking for the rest of their party. He spotted Mrs. Holliday in a dark jacket and skirt gripping her husband’s arm. She wobbled along with a slow shuffle, fighting to navigate the frozen pond marred with uneven marks from other skaters.

Without even searching, though, he knew where Miss Jayne was, what she was doing, and whom she was skating with. She was hard to miss. A plush maroon gown accentuated her curves, and its trimming of white fur brought attention to her neck and wrists. A matching hat was anchored with a white snowy scarf tied beneath her chin. Oyster skated in time beside her, their right and left hands joined in promenade style.