Woman's Own

by Robyn Carr

  “How often do you see her?” Emily asked.

  “I take the train to Reading at least one weekend every month, but there is no way of knowing in advance whether she will benefit from a visit--no way to know what condition she’ll be in because it’s all so unpredictable. I don’t know where people think my wife has gone.”

  “Don’t ever worry about that, Andrew. She can’t help it, and neither can you!”

  “Don’t misunderstand me, Mrs. Armstrong--I’m not embarrassed. Brenda never did enjoy the kind of social life she wanted-- she’s not missed, sadly. I myself seem to be in more demand, but--” He stopped and looked down momentarily. Andrew had become richer; this was becoming a known fact. He had nearly separated from Wilson Montaine and pursued his own investments. He was, therefore, also pursued socially. “It’s fortunate that my business does well. Brenda’s care isn’t as costly as it could be…but I have no encouragement from the doctors that this will be a brief ordeal. It’s very likely she will suffer like this for the rest of her life.”

  “Can nothing be done to help? Nothing--”

  “She must be kept safe from herself,” he said, his voice quiet. “She might hurt herself.”

  “In her mania?” Emily asked.

  “It’s so hard to understand without seeing it yourself. She took scissors to her dresses one afternoon. She explained, angrily, that she was only getting rid of the spots. After a big fuss getting the scissors away from her, it actually appeared that she didn’t think she held a scissors at all, but a rag. She didn’t see herself cutting, but cleaning. The next day she was very upset that she was not allowed to wear her favorite green dress. Mrs. Sherman promised her a new one.”

  Lilly looked down at her hands. She fought the urge to cry. Tears did not come easily to Lilly; she wasn’t fretful and seldom sentimental. And the tears would not be for Brenda, but for Andrew, locked in marriage to a mad woman.

  “It must be like caring for a small child,” Emily remarked.

  “Which is why Mr. and Mrs. Sherman are perfect. They had a child who was severely abnormal and never could do anything for himself. He had to be carried until he died. He lived into his late twenties. Their finances are bad. What they do to keep Brenda isn’t always easy, but far easier than what they had to do for their son. They now have a retirement. If anything happens to Brenda, I’ll give them the--” He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples briefly. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s all right, Andrew. You’ve done all a husband can do. Now you have to take care of yourself. Fortunately you have the means. I’m glad your business hasn’t suffered.”

  “My own investments are fine. I’m trying to keep everything in order because as the business grows, I am less and less able to help Wilson. He has always known the day would come when we would only be friends and I would be working for myself. It was much easier for him to encourage me to be independent when I was twenty or twenty-five. But now--”

  “Ah, Wilson,” Emily said knowingly. “I know, I know. Home now and in a fit over the children. He’s been here. Storming about and shouting. I’ll visit him again. He’s feeling his age, you know. He must calm down. He can’t do anything about Dale, I can’t do anything about Patricia, and he’s going to give himself apoplexy.”

  “Mama,” Lilly said, “you don’t have to take care of everyone all the time. Mr. Montaine can take care of himself.” And, she thought, let the old devil get riled up till he pops!

  “He’s all bluster,” Emily said. “He never learned to show people he cares, that’s all. It’s the fact that he does care that makes him behave like an old bull.”

  “There’s no denying all that I owe him,” Andrew said.

  “Andrew, have you ever had a tour of the hotel? Lilly, take Andrew around the hotel and grounds, will you please? And Andrew, I want to see more of you. Come for dinner. Are you still at the same address?”

  “I’m selling the Philadelphia house, although I don’t have a buyer yet. I find I just don’t need it.”

  “Well then, when it sells and you’re looking about for your next address, we’d be privileged to have you consider the Arms.”

  “That’s very nice, Mrs. Armstrong. I don’t know if I’ll take you up on that, but I will at least visit.”

  “Yes, you must. And do give my regards to Brenda. Poor thing--I do think of her often.”

  When Lilly descended into the hotel foyer with Andrew, she said, “She means it, you know. Only Mama is such a tender heart.”

  “I know,” he said. “There is nothing about Mrs. Armstrong that is anything but sincere. And kind.”

  “Would you live at the Arms?” she asked him as they walked out the door en route to the walks, gardens, gazebos, and stables.

  “I don’t think so, Lilly.” He took a deep breath, inhaling the fragrance of summer flowers. “It all thrives so. As do you.”

  “It’s been four years, Andrew. It hardly seems that long. Four years ago since the idea was born, and it will be a year come November since we’ve been open. It’s a success, you know. I imagine Wilson is jealous as a fishwife. He makes Grandmother offers regularly.”

  Andrew chuckled and pointed his elbow toward her, inviting her to stroll. “He still doesn’t suspect me of encouraging you.”

  “For the first time since that awful summer years ago, everything seems to be in order. It’s all calmed. Patricia is fairly quiet, although I brace myself for her next prank. Katherine thrives in my mother’s care--she’s crawling and trying to stand up in her bed! There’s a gentleman who keeps company with Mama, but she is trying to pretend there is no romance. Did you see her face, how bright and beautiful she’s looking?” Lilly laughed.

  “Lady Nesbitt does well?”

  “Grandmother has power and money and her family together. She had three husbands, all of whom she swears she loved dearly. There was hardly anything else she ever wanted. Everyone has what they desired.” She paused. “Everyone but you and I.”

  “I have what I’m going to have forever, but you have no excuse. You could make some kind of happiness for yourself”

  “Don’t start all that. For the past year I’ve been pestered by every bachelor anyone has ever met!”

  “How terrible for you,” he teased.

  “You must do as Mama says, Andrew. You have to come around the family more. Visit. I know what you’re up to. You’re trying not to put temptation in my path, but believe me I’ve had time enough to become accustomed to the fact that you’re a hopeless prude. And I am far too busy most of the time to spin fairy tales in my mind. I’ve become too practical for nonsense.”

  “Oh, have you now?”

  “Unfortunately,” she said in a sulking voice.

  “Are you absolutely sure I’m protecting you?”

  “Oh, absolutely!” she laughed. “Although I’ve come a distance since those afternoons in Rittenhouse Square, you still treat me like a reckless, naughty girl!”

  “I’ll have to watch that,” he said. “You haven’t been a girl in a long time.”

  “I think it’s time you began to give me some credit for intelligence--no one has her life in better control than I.” But the touch of his hand on her back when they approached the gazebo steps brought a familiar thrill. Lilly knew him too well. If he suspected she had any feeling for him at all, he would run away and never return.

  She showed him the stables and the patios, the walks and the gardens that had been begun and explained what would be added. It was not unusual to see Lilly Armstrong showing a gentleman around the grounds, and when any employee of the hotel passed them, she smiled and said good afternoon. She encountered her mother and Mr. Padgett at nearly teatime as they were on their way to the dining room and paused long enough to introduce Andrew to Noel, claiming Andrew as an old family friend. When the tour and afternoon had been spent, he was ready to go. “I’m going to tell Mama that you’ve accepted an invitation to dinner next Friday, Andrew.”

  “Do
you think that’s a good idea, Lilly?” he asked her.

  “Sometimes, when I feel sorry for myself, overworked or lonely or frustrated with the quality of suitors who bang at my door, I remember those days when we walked in the square and talked about books. About Mrs. Hale’s manners. I realize I was just a girl…I know present circumstances discourage any romantic notions…but Andrew, it just isn’t right for us to avoid each other any longer. Perhaps that was the best thing years ago, I won’t argue that, but--”

  “The forbidden,” he said, laughing in a mocking way, “only becomes more delicious as the years--”

  “I’m lonely, damn it! There aren’t many people to talk to-- about books, business, plans I have. Just Mama and Grandmother, Fletcher, sometimes Elizabeth, when I can interest her. You’re lonely, too, Andrew. We can be friends. Mama and Grandmother enjoy your company. Say you’ll come?”

  “Well…”

  “If you don’t, I’ll just plant the seed in Mama’s mind and she’ll pester you until you accept. So?”

  “I’ll come,” he said. “And you had better be a good girl.”

  I’m not a girl, she thought.

  “I wonder how I was able to convince myself to come this far,” Emily told Noel.

  He turned her around and began to unfasten the buttons of her dress. He pulled the shoulders over her arms and kissed her neck. “Maybe you just stopped borrowing so much trouble,” he said. “I love you.”

  She turned in his arms and met his lips. Her dress fell around her ankles, and she stood against him, clad only in her chemise. “I don’t know when I’ve been happier, Noel,” she said at long last.

  “That’s all I ever wanted, your happiness. It don’t hurt none that mine comes in the bargain. I waited a good long time.”

  “You always give yourself so much credit,” she said. “As though I didn’t wait as long!”

  “Yes, ma’am, but you wanted to. I always knew it was a good idea. You still determined how it has to go?”

  “Yes, Noel. I could never leave my family. It would be hard enough to leave my mother and Lilly, but Katherine? Impossible!”

  “I could stay.”

  “Forever? Oh, Noel, darling, I know better than that. And if you did, it would never be more than this. A few strolls, an occasional dinner, now and then an hour in your room. I love it all! But you must believe me, when you become restless, go. Go happily. I’ll be here when you return.”

  “And if I want more, Emily? What if--”

  She stopped him with her lips. “There isn’t any more, darling, but isn’t this so much more than either of us thought possible? It’s enough, Noel. If you can’t come back to me, I’ll be all right. If you come back to me, I’ll be better.”

  “I can’t get too restless when you tempt me all the time.”

  “You’re such a wonderful liar! So we can’t marry, but never mind! How is it any different for a married man to go off on his adventurous diversions of hunting and herding and leaving his wife behind with a bunch of little ones clinging to her skirt?”

  “The thought of leaving hasn’t hit yet,” he said, running his hand up her rib cage and over her breast. His touch made her sigh and lean against him.

  “But you will,” she said, resting her head against his chest. “And you must believe me, I’ll wait for you patiently, contentedly. When you’re an old man and I’m an old woman, then perhaps you’ll stay. The one thing I want you to know, to believe, is that this is no longer the kind of life I feel has been thrust upon me--not the kind of life I must endure. This is what I really want. I have my family, my work, pride in what I can do…” She lifted her head and looked up at him. “And you. There isn’t anything more God could give me.”

  “You think it’s a good idea to bring God into this?”

  “I no longer think He begrudges me happiness. Did I tell you, Noel, that Ned Armstrong appeared?” He held her away and looked into her eyes. “Oh yes, he is alive. Sent on his way by Lilly, poor girl. The shock of seeing his face caused a remarkable thing to happen to me. I realized very suddenly that I could no longer punish myself for what he did to me…to all of us. I tried to shoot him with Mother’s Flintwood.”

  A big smile broke suddenly over Noel’s face, and he laughed.

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to load it, so I simply pointed it. The sight of him running away from me was the most pleasant thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

  “And he’s gone?”

  “Oh yes. Gone. Lilly informed me just after you arrived that she had visited him with Fletcher and threatened to expose him by sending a drawing of him to all the city newspapers in the country. What a good bluff she had! Although Fletcher had gone about the business of trying to find out if he had committed any crimes, nothing could be found. Still, Lilly assumed that there must be at least some angry women or fathers about. It must have been a good bluff.”

  He embraced her, holding her close. “You know how to load that gun yet?”

  “I don’t need it anymore, Noel. I’m not afraid of him. I don’t care what he does or says. He can rot in Chicago--a great place for him to rot and far from here. I’m completely apart from him at last. Not free, but I have everything I--”

  “But the hotel--”

  “Impervious. It is Mother’s hotel, not mine or Ned’s. Lady Nesbitt will be replaced by Lilly. I am still what I have always been, what I want to be. I am a domestic woman. It is my love and my talent. I am found in the kitchen, in the halls, with the maids and clerks. It is Mother who greets the guests and bids them farewell, Lilly who labors over ledgers, newspapers, and correspondence. I visit Sophia at the Nesbitt House and she comes here, we sit and gossip and laugh over tea like old widows. I show young girls how to mop floors and wash sheets. What can Ned ever do to me?”

  “Emily, there’s something I have to tell you. I don’t know how it’ll sit.”

  She lifted her brows. “Do we need your tonic?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. He let go of her, and she backed up to the bed, sitting down, while he went to his carpet bag and retrieved a long, folded paper. He looked at it for a moment and then handed it to her.

  She unfolded the paper and studied it, frowning. “It’s a deed.”

  “The boardinghouse,” he said. “Things were mighty bad when I left you that day. I didn’t know what was going to happen to you. I visited every bank in Philly till I found the one that held your mortgage. I wasn’t even sure you had a mortgage. I told the banker to hold my offer to buy it, lock, stock, and barrel. I didn’t let on that I knew you. I let them think I had money to invest and gave them a long list of property locations to check against their mortgages.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You wouldn’t let me help you. I got all stirred up and worried that you’d be in a snare--you’d need money, and the only thing you could sell would be that old house at a time when there weren’t buyers. Emily, I wanted to rescue you right at the time when that was the last thing you’d let me do. I would have tricked you into marrying me if I could only think of a way.”

  “Oh, Noel. What a stubborn, wonderful man you are!”

  “Keep it, Emily. Put it in your safe with your other papers. Maybe you’ll never need it. Once it was your security--all yours and yours alone. If times ever get bad, you need a place.”

  She smiled at him, put the deed aside, opened her arms, and he entered her embrace.

  The Armstrong Arms saw its way into 1882, a year filled with people from near and far and a growing peace at the center where Amanda hovered, queenlike, over her family. Katherine walked, Noel Padgett left Philadelphia in late October and was expected to return in May, and Andrew Devon was frequently invited to dinner, receptions, or musicales. Although Lilly was often obligated to accept the escort of some bachelor, she thrived on Andrew’s presence. She had also constructed it. “Mama, you must remember Andrew Devon. At least when you feel it necessary to invite Wilson and Deanna Montai
ne. Remember, he has no family…no family at all.” How easily done!

  Patricia’s behavior was similarly disciplined; she was given times and places and words to speak. Although her marriage to Dale Montaine was a hopeless joke, there were times that Amanda insisted the two of them stand together at a social event, or Patricia was not allowed out of her suite. “But we haven’t lived under the same roof in a year,” Patricia argued. “Why bother with any pretense now?”

  “Since you never had many visitors, no one speculates much on where you live…nor does anyone care. But he is still your husband and will remain your husband, and I intend to protect the reputation of this hotel.”

  Lilly celebrated her twenty-third birthday with guests. There was food, dancing, and gifts in the Armstrong Arms ballroom. She was kept busy by dance partners, but the tune she hummed after her party was the music that she had shared with Andrew, in his arms. Two weeks later there was an afternoon reception for John Giddings; he was beginning the publication of his novel in monthly segments. A special edition was being financed by his newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer. The gathering was small--few would ever be personally acquainted with John Giddings; his novel was being published under the name John Patrick. The significance was not lost on Lilly.

  In order to do a kindness to John and perhaps help the popularity of his forthcoming work, Emily had asked her mother to prepare this small party, introduce John to some of her old friends as an author, and announce the novel, The Found Fortune.

  It was difficult for Lilly, for she had not forgotten the letters and knew they continued. Patricia was altogether too sure of herself, something that made Lilly very suspicious of what might be going on. John’s admiration for her was distant but evident, his apparent shyness mere duplicity. They did not look at each other often, but when they did there was a kind of poorly restrained fever in John’s eyes. That they never stepped nearer than twenty feet from each other only distressed Lilly; she found this peculiar romance of constant arousal without consummation bizarre. They had not been in the same room together since the boardinghouse, so far as Lilly knew. They did not touch, but what was between them, evident only to themselves and Lilly, was flushingly hot.