by Lynn Morris
Shiloh roused a little and reached for the invitation just received. “This must be from the Buchanans,” he said. “Giant footman, right? With white hair?”
“I believe that is a wig, sir, a powdered wig,” Jauncy said gently. “And yes, the invitation is with the compliments of Victoria Elizabeth Buchanan.”
Shiloh opened the envelope. “I’ve got a whole pile of invitations here,” he grumbled. “How do people manage these things? I can’t keep up with what’s on what night, where this luncheon is, where that promenade is.”
“Why, I can certainly help you with that, sir,” Jauncy said, astounded. “That is, if Mrs. Irons-Winslow wouldn’t mind my, er, interference.”
“Mind?” Shiloh said, grinning. “Not hardly. She likes to go to these things, but she’s worse than I am at keeping up with them. We’ve just kind of gone along with me telling her where we’re going that night. But now, with the holidays coming, we’re receiving a lot of invitations, and I don’t know how people manage the scheduling. Do you?”
Incredulously Jauncy said, “Generally, one must keep a social calendar, sir.”
“Really? You mean like a regular calendar, only with your engagements entered in it?”
Jauncy was having trouble with this conversation. It was difficult for him to believe that people of the Irons-Winslows’ status seemed not to know how to manage their social obligations at all. He couldn’t know that Cheney had always been appended to her mother and father’s social life. Then, when she was on her own, her life was much more centered around her career than her social life. And Shiloh, of course, had never had to manage the complexities of social rounds among the elites of Manhattan.
Finally Jauncy told himself that it was obvious that his gentleman needed his assistance, so he stated, “Yes, Mr. Irons-Winslow, you really must get a calendar, preferably a journal. You can purchase them at any stationer’s. If you would like, I will organize your cards—I have taken the liberty of going through all of your calling cards, sir, to familiarize myself with your acquaintances—and your invitations and social correspondence. Then perhaps on Saturday evenings after the last mail delivery, we could go over the activities for the week, and I will post them in your calendar. Would that be satisfactory, sir?”
“Sure will. The doc will be glad too, if you can get us organized, PJ. We had a narrow escape just two weeks ago. Mrs. de Peyster was having a recital on Thursday night, and we were also invited to Mrs. Josefina Steen’s salon, and I accidentally accepted Mrs. de Peyster’s invitation. It caused quite a dustup, I can tell you that,” Shiloh declared. “I was in trouble with the doc, with Mrs. Buchanan, with Mrs. Steen, with Mrs. Duvall, with Mrs. de Peyster…”
“Shocking, sir,” Jauncy said sympathetically. “However did you manage to extricate yourself?”
“I had to go to both,” Shiloh rasped. “I charmed women till I thought my lips and tongue and teeth were gonna melt like big ol’ dollops of warm butter. I was sickening.”
“It worked, however,” Jauncy said, arranging the tray to remove it.
“Yeah,” Shiloh said, shrugging. “Guess so. No one scratched my eyes out, and I do think I saw another invitation from Mrs. de Peyster in that stack.”
Jauncy picked up the tray. “Will you be having coffee, sir?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
“And sweeties?”
“Something Sketes made?”
“I believe she did mention scalloped apples, sir.”
“Yeah, Sketes makes the best sweets. And see if we have any of Dally’s double cream to go with it, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Soon Jauncy returned with the coffee service and a platter with the steaming apples and the extra-thick cream melting on top. Jauncy poured Shiloh’s coffee and stood respectfully back again. Shiloh took a big bite and said, “Mm, this is really good. You should have some, PJ, with your lunch. We’ve got to put some meat on your bones. And listen, I wasn’t just being nosy, asking you about your family. I was asking because I know you haven’t had the means to write to them, so I wanted to tell you that you’re welcome to use the stationery in the study and include any letters with our outgoing mail.”
“My sincerest thanks, sir. My father and mother will be worried, but of course I had no way of contacting them. Thank you, sir,” he said again.
“Welcome.”
He ate for a while, then picked up Victoria’s invitation.
“Hey, PJ?” he said slowly.
“Yes, sir?”
“You know, I’ve had an idea kinda getting shuffled around in my head awhile. But I haven’t known how to go about it. Maybe you can help me with it.”
“I shall certainly try, sir.”
Shiloh finished his dessert, picked up his coffee cup, and went to stand by Jauncy in front of the fire. “See, the doc is so busy with the hospital—I don’t know if you knew this or not, but she has a private practice too.” He looked sharply at Jauncy.
The smaller man lifted his face to look Shiloh directly in the eyes. “Sir, I know everything about you and Mrs. Irons-Winslow that Sketes knows. Perhaps it may seem to you that I’ve been intruding in your private affairs. And so I have. You see, I’ve always taken it for granted that a retainer, particularly a live-in retainer, would know just about everything about the family for whom he works. It was only natural to me to find out all I could from Sketes and Miss Fiona about you and Mrs. Irons-Winslow. But now that we have conversed, sir, I think I realize that you may not be perfectly comfortable with the old conventions regarding servants.”
Shiloh grew thoughtful. “You know, you’re right, PJ. I am having kind of a hard time getting used to it. I’ve always been alone. I’ve lived alone, worked alone, went to war alone, been on my own ever since I was fourteen. So I’ve got a whole new life that I’m trying to adjust to. It’s hard because it’s so different, but I have the best life that any man could ever hope or pray for right now, so I’m learning as fast as I can.
“Because, you see, my wife is completely different. The Duvalls are not millionaires like the Vanderbilts and the Astors and the Steens, but they are prosperous, and the doc has been brought up in the kind of social atmosphere—with servants and at-home days and social calendars and things—that you know. And that’s why I wanted to ask you, PJ…I think my wife would really enjoy it if we did some entertaining. Just small parties of some kind, with her parents and the Buchanans, some other friends we have like the Blues, Dr. Batson. But I don’t know how to go about giving that kind of party. And as great as Sketes and Fiona are, they don’t either.”
“But I do, sir. I can do just about all of it except the actual hosting, of course,” Jauncy said eagerly. “I would be happy to arrange any parties you would like, large or small!”
“Yeah? But listen, PJ, you’ve gotta be sure that you and I can do it,” Shiloh warned. “The doc is not going to be bothered with one thing about any of this. Not an invitation written, no worries about the food, nothing. She’s got enough to worry about, take my word for it. If giving a party turns into work instead of a time she can enjoy with her parents and friends, then she’ll hate it. Right?”
“I agree completely, sir,” Jauncy said. “I give you my word that I can make all the arrangements, plan the menu, order the supplies, everything. And, sir, I know that Sketes is not le chef d’haute cuisine. But I believe I can learn enough about good, solid American cooking that we can plan a menu that will impress even Mrs. Josefina Steen. Take those scalloped apples, for instance. Call it les pommes avec crème, and soon Mrs. de Peyster will be bribing Sketes for the recipe.”
“You could call it ‘the saddle with cream’?” Shiloh asked, his blue eyes alight.
“Saddle?” Jauncy asked, mystified.
Shiloh sighed deeply. “Pomme. Pommel. That big knob on saddles.”
“Oh yes, of course,” Jauncy said with the faintest hint of sarcasm that upper class British servants can do so well. “I had heard that American
s had such an aid on their saddles. English saddles have no pommel, sir. At any rate, you likely could call it saddle with cream in French and Americans would never know the difference.”
“My wife would,” Shiloh said proudly. “She’s one-fourth French.”
“Is she, sir?” Jauncy said with that scarcely hidden disdain that every Englishman has for every Frenchman.
“She is,” he said and added mischievously, “She’s a Bourbon.”
Jauncy dropped the dessert spoon, and his sparse eyebrows shot up. “She’s a Bourbon?” he blurted.
“Yeah,” Shiloh said, then uncertainly added, “That’s a good thing, right? ’Cause I heard this lady—in fact, it was the Mrs. de Peyster that we were talking about a minute ago, with the recital—I heard her tell another lady that, and this other lady sort of went, ‘Ohh,’ only not the bad kind of ‘Ohh’ that ladies make when they’re saying something catty. It’s a good thing, right?”
Hiding his smile by looking down to gather up the tray, Jauncy said, “Yes, sir, the House of Bourbon is generally considered to be a very aristocratic line. All of the Louises, you know. The ladies were not insulting your wife. They were, if anything, envious.”
“Thought so,” Shiloh said with satisfaction.
Shiloh went to the bay window, put his hands behind his back, and happily whistled a few notes of Shadow Song. Jauncy cleared all the dishes and crumbs, polished the library table, and straightened the letters and cards that Shiloh had been going through. Just as he was about to pick up the tray, Shiloh said, “Let’s go ahead and set a date for this party, Jauncy. And let’s decide what we’re going to have. I’m just a mutt, but I’ve been to cotillions, musicales, grand balls, masquerades, levees, and more I can’t think of right now. What about…How about New Year’s Eve? I’m on the Gramercy Park Community League, and we’ve just decided to have a fireworks show on New Year’s Eve. What if we had guests to dinner, went to the park for the fireworks and the band performance, then come back here for a late buffet and dancing?”
“Then that would likely be called a fête, sir, since part of the festivities will be outdoors,” Jauncy said confidently.
“A fête,” Shiloh repeated thoughtfully. “A New Year’s Eve fête.”
“You are hereby cordially invited to a New Year’s Eve fête, at the special invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Shiloh Irons-Winslow,” Jauncy recited in a sonorous voice.
Shiloh turned from the window. “That sounds good,” he declared. “Let’s do it, PJ. Prepare the invitations. But there’s one invitation I’m going to send by letter on the fastest clipper on the seven seas. He probably won’t come, but I’m going to invite him anyway.” He hurried into the study.
Jauncy watched him with affection and slowly descended the stairs carrying the coffee service. Sketes and Fiona were sitting at the worktable having their lunch. Sketes got up, took the tray from him, and ordered, “Mr. Jauncy, you sit down right now and eat something. You’ve been hopping up and down those stairs all day, and you’re pale and still not well. Mr. Shiloh will understand if you take a rest now and then these first few hard days while you catch up with your strength.” She put the tray on the washstand.
“Thank you, Sketes, I believe I will sit down for a moment and have a cup of coffee. I seem to have developed a taste for this vile American brew.” He sat on the high stool, his thin shoulders sagging, but he said cheerfully, “Mr. Irons-Winslow won’t miss me for a bit, I believe. He’s writing what I’m sure must be a very difficult letter.”
“Oh?” Sketes said eagerly, setting his cup of hot coffee down and climbing back onto the high stool beside him.
He sipped the very sweet coffee gratefully. “Just so. You did tell me, did you not, that Mr. Irons-Winslow’s first cousin, Mr. Bain Winslow, has never answered any of his letters?”
Across the table Fiona’s head came up, and her dark eyes grew alert. She had a spoonful of double cream halfway to her mouth, but she froze. Both Sketes and Jauncy took note of this, though they gave no sign. Sketes answered, “You’re right, Mr. Jauncy. No letters have come here that I’m aware of, that’s for sure. Right, Fiona?”
“I-I’ve never seen any from Mr. Winslow,” she said, her fair cheeks delicately coloring a pale pink.
Jauncy went on, “Well, right now Mr. Irons-Winslow is writing a letter inviting his cousin to attend a New Year’s Eve fête that will be given by Mr. and Mrs. Irons-Winslow here at Gramercy Park.”
“Really,” Sketes said speculatively. “Surely Mr. Shiloh doesn’t think Mr. Bain Winslow would come? Does he?”
Jauncy said thoughtfully, “I don’t know. I believe he hopes his cousin will come.”
Breathlessly Fiona—her spoon still suspended—asked, “Oh, Sketes, do you think he might? He might come to a fête when he wouldn’t come just to…to come. Mightn’t he?”
Kindly Sketes, with a meaningful glance at Jauncy, answered, “He might, child. Mr. Bain Winslow just might.”
Ten
Invisible Mice
“There you are, Cheney. I was beginning to wonder if you had just saddled Eugènie and ridden off into the sunset,” Victoria Buchanan said as she came up to the nurses’ station. “After the morning you’ve had, no one could blame you.”
Cheney looked up from the stack of files she was working on. Victoria was stunning, as usual, in midnight blue velvet trimmed with mink. Her crystalline blond blue-eyed beauty was enhanced rather than dulled by the somber colors. Behind her Minerva looked around, her blue eyes wide, in chocolate brown with gold braid and tassels and trim. Dr. Pettijohn, too, hovered behind Victoria.
Cheney said, “Hello, Victoria, Miss Wilcott. Oh, you two look so fresh and lovely and—clean. You make me look dingy, I declare.”
Kitty Kalm, the two ward nurses Mrs. Alsop and Mrs. Abbott, and Mr. McBean, the male ward attendant, slowly drifted into the nurses’ station. All of them appeared to need something—this file, that file, a pencil, a question answered—but Cheney knew they were all hovering around because Victoria was there. She was something of a celebrity, Cheney had come to see during the years they had been best friends. The entire Steen family were known about town, like the Vanderbilts and the Astors and the Stuyvesants. Victoria was so extremely wealthy. Her clothes were always such that most women could only dream of them or at most see drawings in books like Harper’s Monthly or Godey’s Lady’s Book, and of course she was noticeable because she was so beautiful. She had such grace that she never acted as though she noticed—though of course she must see that people stared at her all the time—and she never seemed to be self-conscious. Cheney admired that poise in Victoria. She herself could never have such self-assurance. Now, though she had changed clothes and of course had exchanged the bloodstained coverall she had worn during the surgery for clean ones, she still felt gritty and worn.
“Nonsense, Cheney, you positively glow in the newest coverall couture,” Victoria said, her blue eyes sparkling. Minerva giggled, and Dr. Pettijohn smiled at her indulgently.
Victoria went on, “Oh, Cheney, don’t make that sad face. I’m sorry to tease you. Besides, you know perfectly well that you’re one of those enviable women who could wear a flour sack and your skin would still glow and your eyes would still flash, and of course your hair is always the envy of every woman you meet. There. Better?”
“Mm, a little. More about the hair, maybe?” Cheney suggested.
“You mean the part where I tell you that when you’re coming to work you dress as if you’re going to wear a wimple?” Victoria said devilishly. “And you with the modiste of the world too! I should have stolen Fiona for myself. Anyway, Cheney, we came to visit Annabeth Forbes and dear Cassandra Carteret, and of course I want to see dear Becky. Dr. Pettijohn tells me that Ira is fit for polite company again and Becky is resting quietly. Would it be all right if Min and I visited her now?”
“Of course. I’ll go with you,” Cheney said, rising and turning around the long counter, carrying Mrs. Green’s fi
le. “Dev left instructions for an hourly check on her and ordered detailed entries in the file.”
She hurried to walk by Victoria, but somehow as the four of them went down the ward hall, Dr. Pettijohn maneuvered close to Victoria, and Minerva and Cheney were left trailing behind. But when they got to the cubicle, Cheney moved ahead of them. Dev had left the responsibility for attending Mrs. Green with her, and she wanted to do a quick assessment of Mrs. Green’s condition before everyone trooped in there.
She pulled the curtain aside. Ira Green was sitting in a straight chair by his wife’s bed. He looked up, his beard-stubbled face distorted by fear and grief. But when he saw Cheney, he narrowed his eyes and jumped up so quickly that the cane-bottomed straight chair fell over. Rebecca made a small whimpering noise and reached weakly for him, but he didn’t see it. He was a short stout man with heavy dark hair and a leathery outdoorsman face and gnarled thick hands. Now they were bunched up into fists, and he marched to block Cheney.
“Now look here, Miss Fancy Doctor Lady,” he said in a low taut voice, “I’m not gwine ter raise my voice ’cause I know you’d just have me socked outer here like before. But you and that hatchet-faced Nurse Flagg has done all you need ter do ter my poor Beck. So I’m asking gent-like for you to just let her be.”
“Ira, Dr. Duvall is an excellent doctor. It’s not her fault, or Nurse Flagg’s, that Becky’s surgery didn’t go well,” Victoria said evenly.
“All the same, Miz Buchanan, I don’t want no more females doctorin’ my Beck,” he said doggedly. “We thank yer for paying for the hospital and all, and we thank yer husband for doing his bit. But if those two females are goin’ ter be cuttin’ any more on my Beck, we two will be leaving.”
Victoria started to respond, but Cheney laid her hand on Vic’s arm and said quietly, “No, Victoria, it’s all right. You and Miss Wilcott go ahead in and see to Mrs. Green. Mr. Green, I will have Dr. Pettijohn, or one of the other male doctors, make the necessary hourly checks on your wife. Please don’t upset yourself any further and especially don’t think of taking Mrs. Green home. She needs to stay here until she’s recovered from the surgery.”