“The Tribune so appreciates the flexibility shown us. I know it’s quite unusual.”
She sat, facing forward, and unleashed Duty, grateful the compartment allowed him freedom of movement. She took off her hat, gloves, jacket, for she had dressed somewhat formally this day, and lay her head back on the cushioned seat to gaze at the blur of the large window. She’d left Clarksburg only that morning, aware of the caskets behind her as they shifted slightly on the winding mountain roads. Dorothy Lemke, Asta Eicher, the children in their headlong travel, had likely seen the same hairpin turns and picturesque observation points.
She thought of Eric, driving to Chicago, then of William, and wanted him with her. “Duty, you must be thirsty,” she said, for the dog pawed excitedly at the window, licking the glass. She took his small bowl from her valise and filled it at the lavatory; Duty drank noisily, then stared fixedly outside.
She must look over the armful of newspapers she’d purchased at a sidewalk kiosk just outside the station. Stories she’d hurriedly filed yesterday appeared in the Tribune. She opened the paper to below the fold, to see her article on Grimm’s intercepted missive. “Let On You Hate Me,” He Writes Wife headlined Powers’ letter to Luella. Emily checked to see that the text was quoted exactly, and read her own careful words:
. . . said to have been written shortly after Powers’ arrest. . . . How it was translated is a mystery, but Chief C. A. Duckworth . . . admitted its contents were familiar to him. “Yes, I have seen that letter. I am sorry that it is out.” . . . He would not give further information . . . other than to say, “It is the Powers letter!”
Papers from New York, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., Charleston, Pittsburgh, featured Powers, front page, item after item gleaned from local reporters or the AP. Powers’ published directive, Say You Are Against Me, undermined the sisters’ claims, one column over, just as Grimm intended. The train had reached full speed. They were going home, all of them; Emily could not cross the distance fast enough. She pulled Duty to her for comfort and thought of the baggage car she’d glimpsed from the platform. The Eichers were there. She felt them profoundly, moving with her, as though the cremation had distilled the power of their vanished lives and released them from any confines.
She closed her eyes a moment and allowed herself to remember the open caskets. The yards of white satin brought to mind the wedding gowns the girls would never wear, the bride Hart Eicher would never touch. An upper-class, European family, transformed to striving, penniless Illinois householders, was ended; if there were any relatives, Emily would not be here, thinking of weddings that could not happen. She wished to hear quiet, trilling laughter from the identical compartment behind her: children and fond parents would so enjoy such a train ride, sleeping all night in a bed that gently moved with the roar of passage. She lay across the seat, pulling up her knees like a drowsy child.
She must sleep, even for a few minutes. Duty lay in his carrier, insensate. She pillowed her head with one arm and felt herself rocked in the intense forward motion. It was as though she flew forward and fell backward, back and back, into warm enfolded safety she could not remember.
• • •
Annabel is above the train, borne up gloriously on the ruffling air, for the cloud of the steam engine’s heat is like a rolling wave. It is nearly twilight below. The train gleams along its length, roiling the gathering dusk.
She is with her mother; Grethe is with Hart. Some trace of them is here, secreted together in the dim baggage car. She sees into the lounge with its facing sofas and armchairs: the manicurist polishing tiny scissors, the barber folding towels. Tables in the dining car, menus in place on the white tablecloths. Small lamps at each table cast illumined half-moons.
She sees within; she flies above. Charles’ long white scarf streams from her, winter silk that something tugs and wants. She follows it down, passing her hand through the stream of the train, and sees Duty at the window. She can fly along with him this way, one moment to another; she hears his ragged, excited breathing. He has found her again, a sense only. She would throw her scarf through to him, to smell, but it is only air, the air of her.
She sees Emily sleeping and must tell her that Duty needs some remnant, some scent still real and left behind. Mrs. Pomeroy, hidden, has the golden cord about her. Duty must have it, and Mrs. Pomeroy’s soft face, her fabric skirt. Annabel can see through Duty’s eyes, a sideways veil, and smell intensely, following a scent that disappears.
Annabel flies faster now, higher in the blooming air above the train, and beyond. She sees her street, her house, skips away as St. Luke’s opens its broad doors for the service. She knows the pale blue robes the children wear, and the songs they sing: Jesus loves them. The words follow her to broad, flat fields flung open to the sky, and a deep barn filling with hay. Annabel wants to see but hears the train, louder and louder, everywhere about her. Their compartment is quite comfortable and Grethe is playing jacks, laughing as she never did, scooping up the metal jacks between bounces of a small red ball. Their mother smiles, her hair done up fashionably, her eyes young. Duty cannot smell or see them, but knows them and waits to hear his name. Mother will take them to the observation deck; the view is grand and disappears like a film before one’s eyes.
Annabel flies before them. The train shines into the dark, lighting the rain in Quiet Dell, lighting the slippery road. Mr. Pierson’s car is there in the ditch and Mrs. Pomeroy has fallen in the wet mud. Annabel takes her up quite easily, only thinking of touch, until Mrs. Pomeroy is in the car, hidden deep in the crease of the backseat. The doll is cotton batting; she can crush quite small. Annabel tells Emily: the world is air and the heavy train moves through it.
• • •
Emily is swimming in her sleep, for the heavy rain buoys her up like a river and she floats within it. To one shore the sun is shining brightly: that is Mexico. Charles O’Boyle stands on a balcony with Annabel, who clutches her faceless rag doll and puts out one hand that a bright parakeet might land upon her finger. To the opposite shore a snowstorm rages. Emily finds herself with Charles and the children; the long toboggan is quite large enough for five and she is on the sled. He takes their picture as snowflakes drift and fly, catching on the children’s eyelashes and their blouson hats. Duty barks from the porch, snapping at the snow. How odd to hear the dog bark, a deep and welcome sound, for Duty has never been injured and Powers has not arrived. Powers will never arrive if Emily stays on the sled. She holds on to Grethe tightly, a head taller than the slender girl, and feels Charles pressed close behind her. He has got them to the top of the hill in the park and shouts, over the wind and whirling snow, to hold on; they must hold on to one another. They are flying down, too fast it seems, from day to night, and the snow all about them turns to heavy rain.
It is a pounding, clattering storm on a humid summer evening; a car is stuck in a ditch, sitting lopsided so that its headlights shine askew. Emily hears a train, far off behind the trees. She must get the children onto the train, for it is Powers’ car in the ditch, his empty car. The back passenger door flies open. She sees a glow within, shining up through the backseat—a small, weak glow, like a firefly trapped in the palm. Something is there. Emily hears Duty barking his raspy, broken sound, very near her face. The dog barks, furious to be heard, for someone is knocking, knocking. Emily hears the train roar up about her.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
The sound is lost in the noise of the train, which drops away suddenly. She is awake.
“Ma’am? Porter, ma’am.”
She was on the train, of course, and stood so suddenly she had to catch herself. She opened her door to the porter, a Negro gentleman in spotless white, bearing a silver pitcher in a pleated cloth napkin. “Good evening,” she offered. “I do apologize, I must have fallen asleep. Do you have the time?”
“Why, ma’am, it is just dinner time, seven P.M. What time would you like your reservation? And may I refresh the water in your server?”
&
nbsp; “Of course. And, might I have dinner at seven-thirty?”
“For one, ma’am?”
“Yes. You could make up the bed as well, please. And would you wake me tomorrow at eight A.M.? A knock on the door will suffice.” She returned his assenting nod. “I’ll go to the observation deck now, I believe.”
“Oh yes, ma’am. We are climbing the Alleghenies and it’s not full dark.”
• • •
She was alone on the observation deck but for the small red signal lights to either side of the awning above her. The deck seemed the prow of a roaring ship, climbing an ocean of rushing air, racing forward as the heights of the mountains dropped below. She could barely keep her feet, the sight was so dizzying, and she sank onto one of the fixed benches, her valise upon her lap. Duty was in it; she leashed his collar and lifted him out. It was a walk of sorts, she supposed; he sniffed his way along the edge of the platform, safely, it seemed, as the rails were too tightly spaced to allow even a small dog to slip through. He lifted his leg at the corner and urinated into the air like a sailor on a vessel, and then stood, ears blown back, eyes nearly shut, scenting the darkening air.
What a peculiar character, for he was certainly not a mere dog! Many, she supposed, entertained such notions about their pets. She’d grown terribly fond of him. She’d never had a pet, other than the dogs and cats on her grandparents’ farm, who never truly belonged to her. As though summoned, Duty came to her and nuzzled her hand, then lay at her feet. She watched lines of track disappearing into the dark, only to continue, back and back and back. The family was on the train, at last.
She thought suddenly of the muddy shoes lined up as evidence in Grimm’s office, of Dr. Goff, the coroner, coughing in the morgue, saying August was hot and dry and July was wet. Raining, yes, it was raining that night. Powers had made them walk through the mud, or he dragged them, feet sliding, for it was late and they were asleep, or he had drugged them. Why not drive the car into the garage? Some fact evaded her, some image.
She kept Annabel’s one bedraggled drawing, that Duty had rescued from the playhouse, at her Tribune office. Emily saw the sprite or fairy creature as an aspect of Annabel herself; the glow that extended around the figure, so insubstantial and delicately wrought, seemed the essence of the child.
Emily closed her eyes to hear the train, to feel the vibration, and saw, in the slanted rain of Annabel’s drawing, Powers’ tilted, empty car, and the left rear passenger door standing open.
Where, in fact, was Powers’ automobile? Grimm must have impounded it. Surely they had searched the car, but perhaps not deeply enough. Something was there, in the fold of the backseat. She would tell Grimm to pull out the seat and look properly; she knew he would do as she asked.
Duty was at her knees, and then in her lap, jumping up excitedly to lick her face. She felt a weight lift from her. The train raced forward. All was left behind, escaped. The dining car had seemed a narrow palace: the waiters in white jackets, the curves of the recessed ceiling set with faux medallions. She would have dinner, carry a plate back for Duty, and sleep deeply for the first time in many nights. Tomorrow she would arrive in Chicago. Arrangements were made: a Park Ridge mortician would receive the caskets.
William would meet her. The train sped her closer and closer.
• • •
She disembarked at Union Station onto a crowded platform. The porter followed with her luggage. They proceeded to the baggage car, and a gentleman stepped forward.
“Park Ridge Mortuary Services. Are you Miss Thornhill?”
“I am.” The baggage car doors were not yet open, but the man seemed to have brought a small delegation. She saw the wheeled metal biers behind him.
“We shall handle all details from here, Miss Thornhill. Please meet your party outside at arrivals, front of the station. Town car number twelve.” He gave her a card.
Emily turned away. Of course William would not be here, on the platform. He was protecting her reputation. The porter, still beside her, took the card she offered, and her suitcases; they walked toward the station. She followed the porter blindly into the vast terminal, through its entrances and exits, onto the street. A long line of cars was drawn up. The porter turned to her, smiling, indicating car number twelve. She took his gratuity from her purse, balancing her valise and the dog in the carrier.
Instantly a driver was beside her. “Miss Thornhill, let me assist you.” He led the way with her suitcases, then paused at the car to take the dog’s carrier and opened the passenger door of the Model A town car. It was dim and quiet within, for the tinted windows darkened the brilliant light. The driver put down a block for her to step up, onto the running board.
William was in the far corner, not to crowd her, she knew, and reached for her. She was in the car, his hand grasping her forearm, supporting her and pulling her gently toward him.
The driver put her valise and carrier inside and closed the door. She was beside William. They were enclosed; no one could see them. “The cremation was done . . . with every consideration,” she said in a near whisper. She felt tears on her face, and was in his arms.
He held her tightly to him. “My love, I am so sorry I wasn’t there with you. Can you forgive me, ever—”
She pressed her brow to his lips to answer the words and offered him her mouth. Kissing him, she said, “Come home with me now.”
“Anywhere,” he said. “Home, if that is what you want.”
“Yes,” she said, weeping, “yes.”
“Tell me the address. Just say the address.”
She told him and he half stood, leaning forward to repeat the address and slide shut the small panel of the driver’s partition, closing the curtain. She had opened her jacket and blouse, and lifted her breasts free of her chemise and undergarments, for she wanted his hands on her, and his mouth. The drive from the station was twenty minutes, along the lake. She would have what she could of him now, and then they would be together in her bed. It was miraculous. She said his name in a kind of desperate happiness, again and again, as though asking something of him, but she was kneeling in front of him, stroking his thighs, unfastening his trousers.
• • •
Later they would have a routine, and safeguards; William would arrive in a cab and come up the back staircase to use his key, unless Reynolds, so protective of Emily, was at the desk. William would rent a room at the Drake, be seen checking in, and go to her place at once, calling the hotel for messages until he returned to check out. He stayed at weekends, and two nights or so a week. They did not go to restaurants, or the theater; they did not walk together through the lobby of her apartment building, but only in the park across the street, late at night. He kept clothes in a closet she cleared for him, and brought his books when they could read in one another’s presence, lying close together, and not feel so urgently the press of time.
That first day, William paid the driver while Emily took Duty inside to stay with Reynolds. She would be occupied, she said, the entire day; she was on deadline and must not be disturbed; she would ring down later for her suitcases; would he walk and care for Duty until this evening? She stood at the elevator then, holding her valise, with William. They rode the elevator to her fifth-floor corner apartment. Emily unlocked the door, shaking, and William bolted it; he picked her up and carried her in the direction she indicated, to her bed. And so they began, in the morning, with sunlight streaming through the windows, and the blinds half drawn. They could not have imagined the feel of being naked together so quickly, so easily. Their knowledge of each other was surely intuitive, for they were blindly inside one another and did not look, did not see, until some time later when he asked her to stand, slicked with sweat, beside the bed. She came to him but waited, breathing, holding herself above him, touching his eyes, shoulders, the swell of rib and pelvic bone, the dark thick hair of his sex, wet with her, before she drew him barely within her, looking at him, until he was fully inside and they were blind again, rocking one
another to slow the race forward, inward, to prolong their union, for here was the meaning of that word, in their bodies and pounding hearts.
She slept for a moment in his arms and woke up afraid. “You must never die,” she said. “Or die without me.”
The light had changed; it was afternoon. They had opened the windows. Sounds drifted up from the street.
“You are strong and healthy,” she whispered. “Tell me if it isn’t true.”
“If what isn’t true, my girl.”
“There’s not some hidden weakness in your heart, in that broad chest, or in your head.”
“I have a very competent physician who wonders aloud at my constitution. I extol riding, but he says it’s genetic, that I descend from a strain of healthy, English, working animals that found their way to privilege, and so grew even stronger.”
“You will stay with me always.”
“I shall be here, as long as you allow me near you. I cannot be without you, ever again.”
She touched his face. “How can it be that we’ve found one another, in this sadness? Am I wrong to rejoice in you so?”
“We feel guilty because we have our lives and hopes. But we are not guilty.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“I will live with you, here, in these rooms, or anywhere I can find you. I will allow you whatever separation you need; I will never compromise your reputation, but I must have you, and know I can have you.”
“You will stay with me, William. And I shall stay with you.”
They kissed one another, several times, lightly on the lips, like children.
“The service is tomorrow. William, tell me what is planned. Will you speak?”
“Only briefly, to say why there are two caskets. It begins at eleven; there is lunch for the neighborhood children afterward, in the courtyard of St. Luke’s, while many of the adults walk to the cemetery, a block away, for the graveside rites.”
“It will be crowded, I suppose, but I must bring Duty. Will the press be allowed in, or must they wait outside?”
Quiet Dell: A Novel Page 24