“I — wish you wouldn’t,” Serena said quietly.
He sent her a crooked smile. “I know you do, and I intend to do it anyway.”
“Nathan, don’t you think it would be better if you waited until—”
“No,” he answered, his voice firm, “I don’t.”
There was no use arguing with him, that much Serena had learned. Whatever he wanted her to have, he would buy, whatever he wanted to do for her, he would arrange to have done. She changed the subject.
“It doesn’t seem possible that it’s Christmastime already.”
“I suppose it doesn’t, not to you. Would you like a tree brought in? You wouldn’t have to do a thing. Mrs. Anson and Dorcas can decorate it.”
“I don’t know,” Serena said slowly. “You must do as you like, as you usually do. I don’t really feel very festive.”
“I haven’t bothered since Nora, my wife, died. Somehow, I feel like it this year. It’s having a family again, I guess.”
She had been with Ward for the holiday season last year. Nathan and Consuelo had come and the four of them had gone to the Continental Hotel for Christmas dinner.
“What is it?” Nathan asked. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, I—I was just thinking of last Christmas, of Ward, and Consuelo.”
“Oh.” He reached to take up his liqueur, staring down into the dark-green depths.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you about Consuelo,” Serena went on, her voice strained. “Did she get over the scarlet fever? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. She was feeling a little run-down, so I sent her down to Manitou Springs to drink the waters, get her out of this altitude for a while. I had a message from her complaining there was nothing going on, so she may show up in Cripple again any day.”
Serena gave a nod, smiling a little at the thought of the flamboyant Spanish Connie sipping mineral water.
“I know it isn’t the usual thing for a wife to know about her husband’s mistress, or at least to discuss her, but our situation is not usual. Consuelo is my friend, and I know she cares for you. I don’t like the idea of her being hurt.”
“If you are trying to get around to asking if I told her about our marriage, the answer is yes, I did. She wasn’t happy about it, but I think she is resigned.”
“She must think I went behind her back to take you from her.”
“I doubt that. Consuelo has — had few illusions about our relationship. She knew how I felt about you.”
“She may have had an idea of your feelings, but I don’t think she had any cause to think we would marry.”
“No,” he agreed, taking a reflective sip of his drink.
“I’ll have to go see her when she comes back, or as soon as I am able to get out of the house.”
He looked up, an arrested expression on his face. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“What?” Serena stared at him, surprised by the censure in his tone.
“I mean, it’s bound to be upsetting for you. Then, you may be seen and recognized.”
“What does it matter if I see someone who knows me? I’m no different from Consuelo.”
“You are my wife now, and an announcement to that effect has been sent to every newspaper in the district.”
Serena sat back. “And I am to behave like a respectable married woman, shunning everyone I knew before, crossing the street when I see them coming, holding up my nose? I won’t do it, Nathan. You may have married me without my consent, but I shall most certainly give you leave to divorce me, if that’s what you want.”
“That isn’t what I meant. I thought that as you made new friends among the wives of the other mine owners you would gradually see less and less of the people from Myers Avenue.”
“The mine owners’ wives have never been known for accepting women like me, married or not. I understand they hold themselves on pretty high form with their trips to the East, rubbing shoulders with the Astors and the Vanderbilts, and jaunting over Europe buying up castles, and importing royalty for houseguests. Thank you, but I would as soon not join the ranks of people whose only interest is how much money their husbands have and whether it is old or new.”
“A sweeping indictment, Serena, but are you sure? You enjoyed our meal tonight, and that’s only a small sample of what money can bring.”
“I won’t be bribed, Nathan! If you want to show me what money can do, then use it to help people.”
“All right, Serena. Where do you suggest I start?”
His easy capitulation took her aback, but she rallied “By — by taking the fifteen hundred dollars you offered for information about Lessie’s murderer and building a home for women with it, a place they can go when they have nowhere else to turn, a place where they can find a hot meal and a warm bed until they can get back on their feet, or at least collect their thoughts. Not a place run by pious preachers and do-gooders who think that listening to a sermon is a small price to pay for aid, but a place where women can help each other. After that, you can build an orphanage, and after that, a home for the elderly and the miners who have been hurt in accidents.”
“Charity, Serena? Most people don’t want it, and those that do will take advantage of anyone weak enough to give them a free handout.”
“That isn’t so, at least not entirely. Not so long ago needed your help; I might even have died without it. But though I am grateful for your charity, Nathan, I am not anxious to live on it forever.”
“No,” he answered, “to my sorrow.”
That was not quite the end of the argument. The next afternoon Nathan came to her, and with a smile on his thin face, dropped a document printed on thick white paper into her lap.
“What is it?” Serena asked, slanting a long glance at him before unfolding it.
“Something you wanted,” he answered.
It appeared to be a deed to a plot of land, a city block, in the section of the town halfway between the business and residential sections. At the sight of the purchase price, a frown drew Serena’s brows together.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It’s the land for your home for indigent women, and whatever else it might suit you to build on it.”
“A five-thousand-dollar lot?”
“You did say that it was a good use for my money.”
“I didn’t mean this much of it!”
“Land is high in Cripple Creek these days. You will notice that it is in your name? I hope you don’t mind if we keep it that way, and if your name appears on the building? I would just as soon not be known as the mine owner who takes care of destitute women. It could prove embarrassing.”
“Building?”
“The one they started putting up this morning. It should be completed by the end of January, with the crew I’ve got on it.”
“Oh, Nathan,” Serena said, lifting her blue-gray gaze to his face. “This is marvelous. You are so kind.”
For an answer, he leaned over her chair and pressed his lips to hers. They were hard and thin against the vulnerable softness of her mouth. The pressure was brief, but there was a flush on his face when he straightened.
“And you are so beautiful. You grow more lovely every time I see you.”
“Please, you promised—” Serena faltered.
“So I did. More fool I,” he said, and smiled, though his hazel eyes remained dark.
The land was only the first of the presents. Nathan began to bring her something every day. He was not being extravagant at all, he said when she protested. Hadn’t she ever heard of the twelve days of Christmas? She should be glad she hadn’t received anything as impractical as a partridge in a pear tree, or seven swans a-swimming, for heaven’s sake. He did, however, bring her a canary with a stupendous voice in a cage plated with gold, and a few trifles in silver. These last included a sewing bird to hold her embroidery silks, a scent bottle on a satin cord, a chased pen with a screw-on cap from which dangled a silk tassel, an inkwell
set with separate holders for ink and blotting sand, and a card case with a supply of calling cards engraved with her new name in flowing script, and instructions for leaving them when she made visits. The next thing to arrive was a lady’s phaeton by Bradley with a dark-blue body, a convertible top, and hardware of sterling silver. After that came a square piano by Steinway and Sons of New York with massive turned legs and a glasslike finish. It was intended, he said, for her to accompany herself while she sang.
“The first day of Christmas is Christmas day itself,” Serena pointed out.
“For the rest of the world,” Nathan answered. “For us, it can be any day I make it.”
He did save a few things for the twenty-fifth of December, however. She awoke to find boxes of every shape and size, and tied with satin ribbons in every shade of the rainbow, piled at the foot of her bed. The housekeeper was standing ready with her morning coffee and a request from Nathan to allow him to have breakfast with her. When it was granted he appeared in a floor-length robe of royal-blue quilted satin with velvet lapels. Seeing it, Serena’s smile of welcome wavered for an instant. It was the same robe, or a close copy, that she had come across in Nathan’s private railroad car that night so many months ago.
Without noticing anything amiss, Nathan scanned the boxes. Choosing one, he looked at it in mock perplexity. “Now what, I wonder, do we have here? I think you had better open it and satisfy my curiosity before breakfast comes.”
From the length of the box, and Nathan’s previous comments, Serena had a shrewd idea of what it contained. She was not wrong. From the depths of a cloud of tissue paper she lifted a wrapper of black lace. Voluminous, it featured Watteau pleats in the back and was lined with black silk for a degree of warmth. With it was a matching nightgown of diaphanous black silk with lace inserts, and a pair of black silk slippers with high opera heels.
“Are you certain,” Serena asked, one brow arched, “that this is what respectable married women wear?”
“I am indeed. That is, they do if they have the skin and the coloring for it, not to mention the shape. Will you put it on?”
As he spoke, he nodded in the direction of the screen that stood in the corner. Serena glanced at it uncertainly, then back at the wrapper in her hands. The label, sewn with tiny, delicate stitches into the lining, was that of a famous Parisian salon. The temptation was too great to resist. She looked at the housekeeper hovering expectantly nearby. Throwing back the covers, she slid out of bed and padded toward the screen. Mrs. Anson picked up the box and wrapper and hurried after her.
It was only as she stood in the nightgown and wrapper, wearing the slippers while Mrs. Anson smoothed her hair with quick, deft strokes, that she realized what she had done. How easy it was to become used to luxury, to be being waited upon at every turn. How fatally easy.
When she stepped from behind the screen with her center-parted hair streaming over her shoulders and folds of lace swaying rhythmically around her, Nathan got slowly to his feet from where he sat on the foot of the bed.
“It’s everything I hoped it would be,” he said, his voice husky.
“It’s ridiculous is what it is,” Serena said with an air of frank disdain, though there was a twinkle in her eyes.
“You don’t like it?”
“I love it, but it means I am going to have to thank you yet again. It does look as if you might have some consideration for my feelings!”
He assumed a grave expression. “You’re absolutely right. I have a suggestion. Why don’t we dispense with the thanks until after you have opened all the gifts, and then you can express your appreciation one time only? Let’s see, what would be appropriate without requiring you to use the words you find objectionable? I have it: you can pour me a cup of coffee.”
“Done,” she said and, accepting the hand he held out to her, returned to the bed.
The high-piled boxes held duplicates of the black ensemble in cream lace, and another in deepest rose. There was a selection of French parfum in what appeared to be quart-size cut-glass bottles, and a dressing case of black leather with silver catches filled with silver-topped bottles, and a silver-backed hairbrush, comb, clothes brush, nail buffer, nail file, cuticle brush, button hook, even a personal silver toothpick. Next came a gramophone with a morning-glory horn and a box of recorded rolls. It was followed incongruously by a full-length coat of French sable with a matching hat and shoulder throw. After that came a dozen pairs of gloves hand-stitched of French kid in white, black, brown, and assorted other colors with a glove stretcher resembling a long curling iron; a carriage cloak of black satin edged with French sable that was striped with white embroidery and lined with blue satin which, quite incidentally, had a Worth label; a detachable yoke of jet that had a most satisfying “rain” or deep fringe of small jet beads; a large opera fan of black silk and marabou that Serena eyed with something less than favor; an assortment of jet, horn, and tortoiseshell hair ornaments; and finally, a boxed set of several years’ back issues of The Delineator, a women’s fashion magazine.
Serena thought that was all, but it was not. From his pocket Nathan drew a large, velvet-covered box, and in the same manner as he had presented her ring, handed it to her. Inside was a circlet of diamonds to be worn with the ring, and also a complete parure of sapphires; a necklace, bracelet, earrings, brooch, and even a small coronet. With their octagon shapes in graduated sizes, the sparkle of gems, the glitter of diamonds and gold, it was a gift fit for an empress.
As if attuned to her thoughts, Nathan said, “They once belonged to Catherine the Great of Russia, and now they are yours.”
“I — I’m overwhelmed. It’s too much,” she told him, looking from the treasure she held in her hand to all the rest spread out around her. “I don’t know what to say.”
“We had an agreement, I think.” As Serena turned her head to stare at him, he indicated the cart that had been rolled into the room. “Now you pour the coffee.”
As prodigal as he had been with her, Nathan was no less generous with Sean, or with his staff. He distributed largess as though his wallet had no bottom. For the baby there was a complete layette, rattles with gold trim, moving toys to watch and touch, and a hobbyhorse painted dapple-gray with a mane and tail of red yarn. There were bicycles for the women, a pair of “bloomers” with which to enjoy them, fur-trimmed cloth coats, lisle stockings, scent and powder, and rugs and lamps to add to the comfort of their rooms on the third floor of the house. For the coachman there was his own mount, he not holding with new-fangled contraptions like bicycles, plus a buffalo coat, new leather boots, a bright-red union suit, and sundry other items to make his life easier. For the stableboy there was only slightly less; for the chef considerably more.
In return Nathan was deluged with small gifts, most of them made by hand. With Mrs. Anson’s connivance, Serena had made and embroidered a soft leather pouch for the tobacco Nathan always carried for his pipe.
“It isn’t much in return for all you have given me,” Serena said when she gave it to him.
“It’s worth more this minute than anything I own, because you made it.”
“But you have given me so much.”
“Selfish gifts, for the pleasure of watching you when you open them,” he answered with a shake of his head.
“Despite what I said earlier, I am grateful, and I do thank you, for everything.” The conversation had taken place at the breakfast table. On impulse, Serena had risen and, leaning across the small table, brushed his lips with her own as Mrs. Anson stood by, a benign smile on her face. When she regained her seat, Nathan had reached for her hand, his grip so tight the diamonds on her fingers had cut into her skin.
It was late, now. The day was done; dinner was over. Mary had come for Sean some time ago. Serena wound the gramophone with its dark-blue morning-glory horn and set a roll to turning. As the false gaiety of “The Dance of the Hours” from La Gioconda poured from the instrument, she turned away, moving toward the window.
&nb
sp; Outside, the glow of the moonlight was reflected on the snow while shadows stretched long and dark. Mt. Pisgah caught the light on its slope, shining as the moon rose into the night sky. The wind swept down with a lost and mournful sound, waving the branches of the trees, loosening the dry snow so it sifted in a fine powder to the ground.
She felt restless, a sign, she supposed, that she was getting well. There was still an ache in her chest when she breathed deep, and she tired easily, but her cough was almost gone. She didn’t feel particularly invalidish; she felt, in fact, like putting on her clothes and leaving the confinement of the gold bedroom.
The trouble with that was the problems waiting for her outside the door. So long as she stayed in here, keeping to her bed, she did not have to decide if she was going to stay at Bristlecone, or try to make some kind of life on her own; whether she would try to be a wife to Nathan, accepting the physical intimacy that entailed, or if she was going to return his gifts, take her child, and go away.
She owed Nathan so much, even life itself perhaps, and the life of her child. She was fond of him. He had many qualities that she admired. It would not be such a bad thing. She would be lapped in luxury, petted and cosseted and prevented from lifting a finger. Instead of being Serena Walsh, she would become a rich man’s wife, weak, dependent, anxious to please lest her privileges be taken from her. He would buy her things and she would repay him by accepting them. In the end, wouldn’t she herself be merely another toy he had bought? Wasn’t that the real purpose of all the lovely trinkets he had poured into her lap, payment for value he hoped to receive? This time the bribe was being offered to her instead of to Ward, but wasn’t the principle the same? It was a bitter thought, but it seemed better to recognize and accept it before she committed herself.
The record roll came to an end. The first Serena knew of Nathan’s presence was when she turned to see him removing the wax cylinder.
“Do you want to hear it again?” he asked.
At the quick shake of her head, he put the roll away in the box. “I’m glad you’re still up. I wanted to talk to you.”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2 Page 117