The sight pulled something strange from her, cold and fragile as a strand of ice. Loneliness, perhaps. The champagne had left her mouth dry. She always hoped these nights would go differently. “Stop crying,” she whispered. “It will be fine.”
“No. It was a…horrible fight. He is so angry with me! Sometimes I think…he hates me.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course he doesn’t hate you.” She could not quite bring herself to finish the equation. She could not say, He loves you. It seemed too close to speaking well of him. “He’ll say he’s sorry soon enough.”
“Not this time. He means it, this time.”
She closed her eyes. So many times Mama had scared her with this sort of talk. Mina would lie awake with worry, fearing for their safety, envisioning all sorts of horrors for the morning to come: Mama’s eye blackened, her arm broken, Collins’s guards waiting to throw them onto the street. If only we had money, we would not need to worry. How awful it was to be helpless. On such nights, Jane tried to calm her, but it did not help, because Jane had family in New York who would care for her, and letters of reference and a profession, whereas she and Mama were as useless as those stupid Ming cups Mama collected. Tossed from the china cabinet, they would roll about aimlessly. Soon enough, someone would step on them.
“He will apologize,” Mina said. Certainly he would. It all looked very black right now, but experience had taught her better. Tomorrow she would go down to breakfast and find Mama and Collins smiling at each other. And later, in the hallway, Mama would draw her aside and whisper, He apologized, darling. He realizes how badly he behaved. He’s simply mortified by it. We’ll forget it ever happened. Apologies cost nothing, so Collins found them very easy to give.
Perhaps he shouldn’t even be blamed for it. If a woman’s broken trust could be healed with a few words, then maybe he was right to think it worth nothing at all.
She swallowed her anger. It felt as though it was directed at Mama, which made no sense, like wanting to kick a puppy.
Mama spoke in halting jerks. “I don’t even know what I did.”
“You did nothing.” Collins criticized her for the strangest things. Your long face is depressing me. Or God above, can you not make ten words of intelligent conversation? Always it started with something trivial. But these inconsequential complaints seemed to trigger something in him; very quickly, his rage inflated. And her mother, who as a young widow had led a string of admirers by their noses through the grandest ballrooms in New York, could do nothing but cower before him and make herself sick with apologies. I am sorry, I did not mean to, I did not think I was being so, I never intended to—
“Unless…” Mama drew a broken breath. “Unless it has to do with Mr. Monroe? But that is not my fault. How can it be?”
“Mr. Monroe?” Mina pulled away, just far enough to wipe a wet strand of hair from her mother’s eyes. “His illness, do you mean?” But no, that couldn’t be. There’d been no sign of it until this evening.
Mama shook her head. “No, Gerard ran into someone this afternoon at the club, some American freshly arrived from Chicago, who claimed not to know Mr. Monroe. All I said was that perhaps he travels a great deal. I was only trying to smooth over the discomfort. But it was clumsily done, I suppose. It must have seemed that I was contradicting the gentleman.” She retrieved the handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes. “I did not mean to embarrass him. I never used to be so clumsy.”
“You aren’t clumsy.”
“I cannot please him.”
“Then leave him.”
Mama froze.
So did she. She had not meant to propose this right now. But the words felt right to her. Her lips felt powerful for speaking them. In fact, she wanted to speak them again. Leave the brute. “In Connecticut,” she said very softly, “they will grant you a divorce for common cruelty.”
“Don’t…” Mama drew away to the end of the window seat. “Don’t be foolish.” She spoke so quietly that Mina could not make out her tone. “We would starve in the streets.”
“We could ask Uncle Edward for help.”
“My brother!” Mama laughed bitterly. “He would be glad to see me in the gutter. He says I’m already there, anyway.”
“I could take a job—”
“You? A job?” Mama’s laughter started bitterly, but ended on a sigh. “And anyway, Gerard would never allow it.”
Mina felt her heart quicken. This, the heart of the matter, she could address. “You’re right, maybe he wouldn’t.” She hesitated, then grasped Mama’s cold hand where it clenched the little button sewn into the seat cushion. If Mama was trying to hold herself down, she did not need to. They could fly—tonight, even! She had been saving for it from her pin money. A meager amount, but enough to book passage to San Francisco. And there was the small trust from her late grandfather, which she came into on her next birthday. “California, then. He would never think to look there. I have researched it.” She tightened her grip and spoke over Mama’s gasp. “All you need do is publish an announcement in a local paper. You need never even tell him your intention! Some newspaper in a small California town, which he would never see—”
Mama ripped her hand away and stumbled to her feet. “Stop it! Do you hear what you’re saying?”
She should never have mentioned the research. It bespoke too much forethought. She dug her knuckles into the cushion. Mama was staring at her in horror, as if she’d just proposed they light a candle for the devil. A weird embarrassment touched her. But there was no need to feel ashamed. This was the modern way to handle such difficulties. “Mama, he—”
“Divorce.” Mama pulled the wrapper tight around her body. She looked peaked, as if the word itself were enough to nauseate her. “Do you hear yourself? That is what you mean. Well.” She gave a short laugh. “You take after your father, no doubt. An American through and through. But Peppins honor their marriage vows. Do you know—have you any idea what people would think? And if Robbie were to hear of it, good Lord!”
Mina knew a sudden, powerful urge to rip the button straight from the cushion. It was incredible. Robbie, some twopenny Englishman whom Mama had jilted twenty years ago, was going to guide her actions? “What does he care? He forgot about you decades ago! Who cares what anyone in England thinks? You yourself said it—they would be glad to see you dead in a gutter!”
“Stop it.” Mama stalked to the dresser to grab a comb. She smoothed her hair with an angry hand, twisted it up, then stabbed in the comb to hold it. “I am shocked by you.” As she pivoted back, her chest rose and fell on a long breath. “That you dare to speak such things to me…. It’s clear that I’ve failed you somehow. He is my husband, whom I vowed before God to love and obey. And as his daughter, it is your duty—”
“I am not his daughter,” Mina said flatly. “And I made no vow to him. But he made one to you, didn’t he? Has he kept his vow?”
Mama gave a queer laugh. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Oh, Mina. You’re so young. Far younger than I ever was. I expect it’s your father’s fault; he spoiled you so terribly. What do you know of marriage? Nothing at all.”
She knew enough about it to feel uncertain that she ever wished to learn more. “Would Papa have made you cry like this?” When Mama pressed her lips together and did not answer, she felt resentment twist in her throat. She spat it out with her next words. “Would Robbie?”
Mama’s frown faded. She stared into space for a long moment. “No,” she said. “Robbie was everything good and kind. Though one can never say, I suppose. Love does fizzle, with time.” Her gaze focused on Mina. “And your father was quite good to me as well; don’t mistake me on that. But when he died and left us without the first red cent, that was not love. That was not caring.” As Mina gaped at her, she made an impatient noise. “You think me mercenary? You’ll learn in time that there are all manners of caring. Some are far more useful than others in this world.”
Mina rose. It felt almost like relief, to be giv
en a credible reason to be angry. “You are lecturing me on the value of money? You? The woman who bemoans that she tossed away her true love for a share in Papa’s dirty American fortune?”
“You will address me with respect, or you will hold your tongue!”
“I know I should speak with respect, and I would try to do it, but when you slink behind Collins like a dog with its tail between its legs, I begin to think you don’t deserve any!”
Mama stepped forward and slapped her.
The pain was not so great, really. She would not cry. Mama cried very easily, but Mina never wept; even when Monroe had cracked her nose, she’d shed no tears.
But as she lifted her hand to her face and felt how the impact had left her cheek hot, something inside her seemed to shift, to break away and dissipate. The sense of its loss touched her so sharply that she made a low noise. “And now you hit me. For what? For his sake? I see whose love you find more useful.”
“Don’t be foolish.”
Her voice barely found the strength to serve the words. “Oh, Mama. I am not the fool here.”
Her mother’s mouth flattened. “I lost my temper, and I am sorry for it. It is a terrible example to set for you. But I will tell you that this episode makes me agree with Gerard. You are too headstrong for your own good. Mr. Bonham claims to admire your spirits. Very well, let him deal with them.”
Mina laughed in disbelief. “You made your path, and you chose to walk it. But I’ll certainly not walk it with you. I want nothing to do with Bonham.”
Mama’s brows lifted, and her shoulders squared. For a moment, she looked like the woman Mina remembered from earlier years—proud, composed, assured of her own worth. “That path keeps you in silks,” she said. “But I see how much it pains you to endure such luxury. Poor Mina. How terrible, to be paired with the most eligible bachelor on the continent.”
“As if that has anything to do with it.” She gritted her teeth. “Listen to me, Mama: it will be a cold day in hell before I marry Collins’s protégé.”
“Then I suggest Jane pack your furs. We expect an offer any day now, and we are planning to accept it.”
Mina drew a hard breath through her nose. This was important news. She should be glad to know it, regardless of the manner in which it emerged. Leave, her reason bade her. Go figure out what to do. Maybe it was time to risk speaking with the consul. She’d collected a bundle of documents, some in code, others suggestive enough to provoke his interest, provided that his honor proved stronger than his friendship with Collins.
But her emotions were clamoring for a hotter conclusion to the conversation than her reason desired. She struck a compromise, speaking quietly. “I could have run away, you know. So many times I was tempted to do it. Every time he screamed at me, every time he locked me in my room because I dared to disagree with him, I stayed for your sake. For your sake, I learned to grovel.”
Mama’s expression softened. “Darling. I know it hasn’t been easy for you. You’ve always been so high-spirited. And as God is my witness, I’ve never wished to see you hurt.” She lifted her hand, and Mina turned her head to avoid the touch. “Mina,” she whispered, and her hand fell back to her side. “I love you more than my life. But the world has no use for a woman’s spirits. Trust me: if you learn that now, it will save you a great deal of grief in the long run.”
“There is only one thing I’ve learned tonight. I was wrong to stay with you.”
“Brave words,” Mama said gravely. “I expected no less from you. But my brother no longer acknowledges us. So tell me, child. Where else would you go?”
They had tied Monroe to the bed. “He started to thrash,” explained Jane. She was holding a cold compress to her eye and looked unsteady on her feet. In the corner, a Chinese maid was mixing powder into a cup. “Blackened my eye and threw a manservant into the wall.”
“Poor Jane.” Mina spoke absently. Her cheek still seemed to burn. Was it wrong to feel envy? A black eye would heal, but the numbness in her bones felt unreachable by common medicine. Where else would you go? “Perhaps you should sit down.”
Jane accepted her help into a chair. “I’ve never seen such behavior. First he was laughing hysterically, and then he began thrashing. Do you see how red he looks? His pupils were the size of saucers! And he’s hot as a bedpan to boot. I’d think it some queer tropical fever, but he hasn’t voided himself. We’re giving him quinine anyway, and laudanum to dill him—just until the doctor arrives. It can’t hurt, I think.”
“Probably not.” She couldn’t marry Bonham. He was so much like her stepfather. He would expect her to sing on command and to fall silent at his bidding, and when she failed to do so, he would consider it his right to punish her, for he was, after all, a man of power and reputation, whom any woman should be grateful to have for a husband.
But if he took after Collins, she did not take after her mother. She would kill him before she let him cow her.
“Mina. Are you all right?”
She exhaled. “My mother has decided to marry me to Bonham. As if she has had any success in choosing a husband. As if her judgment hasn’t been proven wrong in a million different ways!”
“Did you tell her of your objections?”
“Of course. She thinks me too high-spirited.”
Jane sighed. “You must have a little compassion for her, I think. She regrets her own choices, and wants to make sure you don’t do the same.”
No. She was done with compassion. “I told her not to marry him.” She remembered the exact moment she had seen Collins as he really was. He had just arrived to pay a call; it had still been early in his courtship. She had come in from the garden, laughing, and greeted him as he was handing over his hat. He had looked over her muddied gown in a cold silence, then instructed her to go and change; she was too old to be frolicking like an urchin, he said sternly.
It had not been his right to upbraid her. But he had taken it anyway. And at twelve years old, she’d already been wiser than Mama. She had known to suspect any man who claimed entitlements that did not belong to him. “I told her it would be better for us to starve,” she whispered. “But she didn’t trust me. She said my fears were girlish.”
Jane spoke very gently. “And how could you expect her to trust you? Or anyone, for that matter? Dearest, she doesn’t even trust herself.”
Her thoughts now felt too raw and hot to share. Looking up, she mustered a smile. Sometimes the act of aping cheer made her feel more cheerful. Lies were like medicine, that way. “Dear heart, your eye must feel awful. Why don’t you go and rest, and let me watch him for a while.” She did not want insightful company at present. If she had to share a room with someone, better that he be unconscious.
“Are you sure?” But Jane had come to her feet. “I admit, I have a terrible headache. I only wish I knew what ailed the man.”
“Malaria, maybe.”
“A very odd case of it, then. He doesn’t sweat at all. In fact, it reminds me of nothing so much as that poor Wilkins boy who used to live down the street from my parents. The doctor tried to cure his tetanus with belladonna, and ended up killing him with it. I would give Mr. Monroe a little morphine to see if that improved things, but—well, why would he have eaten nightshade? Unless he’s an epileptic, and didn’t tell us?” She shook her head. “Has Mr. Bonham sent any word as to when the doctor might come?”
“No, but I’m sure he’ll come soon.” Mina glanced at the bed. “I hope he will,” she added more soberly. Mr. Monroe looked very poorly.
When Jane had departed, Mina perched on the little stool by the bed. It was no normal flush that stained Monroe’s cheeks, but an angry rash that rose in welts. She reached out to touch his cheek, but at the last moment, her fingers curled away. He had not wanted her to touch him in the hallway earlier. She hadn’t understood it. Only a week ago, he’d been so attentive…and she was Collins’s stepdaughter, after all. Spurning her overtures was like refusing a shield in the midst of battle.
The memory made her sigh. So naïve. He had shown his true colors now; how she would have regretted it if she’d revealed hers beforehand! She was usually smarter than that. Maybe his looks had blinded her.
She considered him critically. He was handsome, no doubt. But she should have seen the arrogance in his face. The sharp blade of his nose seemed designed for looking down on women whose behavior did not match his standards. You wouldn’t want others to think you intemperate. Well, and people might think him an overbearing, painfully sober bore, but she had not remarked on it, had she? Those sharp cheekbones bespoke haughtiness, and the stark square of his jaw, inflexibility. Have a care, Miss Masters. I don’t think that would be wise. She could not interpret the cleft in his squared-off chin, but it probably accounted for his vanity.
She sat back, irritated with herself. To think she’d chased him down a hall! He was a typical specimen…apart from those delicious lashes of his, which lent his eyes such arresting gravity. No, she told herself sharply. His looks would no longer impress her.
He whispered something.
“Are you awake?” She came to her feet on a wave of relief. But his eyes remained closed, and he did not respond.
The Chinese maid said something. Mina could not make it out. The maid shook her head and waved a dismissal; she was to ignore Mr. Monroe.
“Delirious?” she asked the girl, who shrugged helplessly, then pillowed her hands against her face to mime sleep. Mina nodded, resuming her seat.
Written on Your Skin Page 3