‘He thinks the name Mabel is lovely.’
Evie and Mrs Whitman laughed. Whoever would have thought that Viola could be so determined, in her own quiet way, to get what she wanted?
‘Speaking of Mother, she wrote to me at last.’ Evie pulled the letter out of her purse and showed it to her sister.
June 12th, 1925
Dear Evelyn,
Thank you for your letter. I find it hard to know what to say. You seem to do so much and I have very little news to provide in return. The garden looks lovely. The roses are blooming, and when I look out the window, I’m reminded of you as a girl pulling off all the flowers so you could rain rose petals down upon your head. How I used to scold you for that.
I know you want me to wish you good luck for your examinations, but I’m not sure I’m able to do that yet. I still can’t quite conceive of my daughter being a doctor, but you know that and there is no point saying it again.
Viola mentioned she’d seen you. I hope she is well and not doing too much.
Affectionately yours,
Mother
‘That’s just the kind of letter she writes to me,’ Viola said with a rueful grin. ‘We’ll have to remember not to be like that with our own daughters.’
Evie raised one eyebrow. ‘You mean you’d welcome your daughter with open arms if she told you she wanted to be a doctor?’
‘I’m not quite there yet. But with an aunt like you, she’d probably go straight to you before she told me anything.’
Evie felt a large tear roll down her cheek. She whispered to the baby, ‘I hope the world is a different place when you’re all grown up.’
‘Being an obstetrician isn’t the worst thing you could be,’ Viola said, touching Evie’s arm.
‘No,’ agreed Mrs Whitman. ‘It’s not the worst thing. Thomas wrote to me last week and his letter was full of talk about you, Evie.’
Despite Mrs Whitman’s words, the unspoken truth was that there were so many more acceptable things Evie could be if she wanted to be Thomas Whitman’s wife. And Mrs Whitman and Viola as yet knew nothing about Mary, nothing about Evie’s desire to adopt her. Tommy’s mother might be understanding of Evie’s ambitions, but Evie was certain she would not want to see her son’s name all over the newspapers connected to an illegitimate child.
Lil and Leo were the next to surprise her, when they were all walking home after seeing a show at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Evie thought they were both smiling even more than usual, and so their news wasn’t a surprise, but it unsettled her all the same.
‘We decided last night,’ Lil said, blushing. ‘Leo and I are getting married.’ She beamed at her fiancé and then at Evie.
‘Oh, that’s wonderful!’ Evie wrapped her arms around Lil and then around Leo, full of happiness for her friends. But seeing their faces lit up with uncomplicated joy made her mind whirl uncomfortably. Lil and Leo had discovered that loving one another was so simple in the end when there was nothing standing in your way. That was the way love should be: there should be no secrets, no doubts, no fear that by loving someone, and letting them love you in return, you could also be ruining them, destroying everything they had achieved.
There was nothing Evie could do about it the following day. She was cloistered in a room answering exam questions, which took up all her time and concentration. But when she’d finished it was not quite dusk so, instead of returning to the boarding house, she walked across and uptown. She knew she’d been putting off two things: the fact of her father’s despicable behaviour, and seeing Mary.
The first of these she did not wish to face yet; it was too raw, too harrowing to contemplate. That her father’s mistress had died on his doorstep while giving birth to his child, and that he had shown no grief, simply gone out to a dinner party that night as if Rose and Mary meant nothing, was distressing beyond belief. She would write to her father after her examinations. In the meantime, she would bury her distress beneath the thousands of anatomical facts and diagrams with which she had to fill her mind.
She’d been delaying visiting Mary because she understood that, once she’d seen her, Evie would no longer be able to prevaricate about Tommy and marriage. She would have to make a decision. The realisation she’d had at the news of Lil and Leo’s engagement had made that clear.
When she arrived at the Foundling, Sister Mary let her in without a word and Evie was relieved that Charles had done what he’d been asked to. She followed Sister Mary’s silent figure to the dining room, where rows of unloved children were sitting down to bowls of stew as if in a Dickens’ novel.
‘Evie!’ A tiny girl leapt out of her seat, heedless of the nuns’ admonitions to sit down and eat. She arrived safely in Evie’s arms. ‘You came back,’ said Mary, with a look of wonder on her face. She slipped her hand into Evie’s and Evie thought she looked thinner and paler than she remembered.
‘I did,’ said Evie. ‘I missed you.’ And it wasn’t until she hugged Mary tightly to her that she understood just how much she had missed her. That she never wanted to go that long without seeing Mary again.
‘I missed you too.’ Mary said.
Sister Mary interrupted. ‘Mary, you need to finish your dinner.’
‘Off you go,’ Evie said. ‘You’ll only grow as tall as me if you eat up. I’ll wait over here until you’ve finished.’
Mary skipped back to her place and stuffed the rest of her stew into her mouth, eyes on Evie the entire time as though afraid she might disappear. When she was allowed to leave the table, she and Evie walked through to the bathroom, where lines of girls waited to wash their face and hands before bed. Back in the dormitory, Evie helped Mary change into her nightgown, noting the way it draped on the ground. ‘This is a bit big for you.’
‘I should eat more stew.’
Evie was caught by surprise at this attempt at humour. She laughed aloud and hugged Mary to her, delighted that in spite of the ill-fitting clothes and Dickensian dining room, flashes of spirit could still be found. ‘Could I tuck you into bed?’
‘Yes, please.’ Mary climbed onto the bed and slipped beneath the covers. The sheets were grey from overuse and under-laundering, and as Evie pulled the thin blanket up to Mary’s chin she thought that perhaps it was a good thing the nightgown was so large, as it wrapped snugly around Mary’s feet. She bent down and kissed Mary’s cheek, and the little girl threw her arms around Evie’s neck. Evie imagined doing this every night, tucking Mary into bed and embracing her, bringing her up in a home full of love. She imagined Mary smiling all the time because she knew that Evie would always be there. She imagined Mary happy. And safe.
The most important thing to consider was Mary’s – her sister’s – future. Even thinking the word sister felt miraculous, that out of betrayal and tragedy could come this gift, this joyous bond. She would not leave her sister in an orphanage to grow up destitute, to be farmed out to a strange family when she was old enough, or to die from disease and under-nourishment before she was an adult.
‘Mary, what if …’ Evie stopped. She needed to speak to Sister Mary before she gave the little girl hopes that might be dashed. Instead she said, ‘What if I come back, not tomorrow but the next day? We’ll go to Central Park.’
Mary nodded, unable to speak in the face of this unexpected bounty of things to look forward to.
On her way out, Evie saw Sister Margaret. Perhaps she could advise Evie on how best to tackle Sister Mary. ‘May I have a word?’ Evie asked.
Sister Margaret nodded, pleased to see Evie, and led her into an alcove near the door. Before Evie could speak, Sister Margaret said, ‘She’s not been well, the child. Refusing to eat. Pining for you.’
The thought of Mary so sad as to refuse the meagre food on offer gave Evie the courage to finally say the words aloud.
‘If I wanted to adopt Mary,’ she said, ‘what would I need to do?’
The question was enough to make Sister Margaret’s mouth fall open in horror.
‘What?�
� asked Evie, taken aback. ‘I know Mary’s background and I’m not concerned by it.’
‘But you’re not …’ Sister Margaret lowered her voice to a whisper, evidently about to utter something so scandalous that Jesus himself, who’d seen every sin the world, would blush. ‘You’re not married.’
Of course. How foolish she was, not to have realised that marriage would be required. ‘And if I was married … ?’
‘I’m sure Sister Mary would be grateful to have one less mouth to feed.’
‘Thank you.’
Evie walked out to the street. She knew two things. She had to adopt Mary. And in order to do that, she had to be married. There was just one thing she didn’t know. And to find out the answer, she had to talk to somebody who would be honest. It couldn’t be Mrs Whitman, because she was Tommy’s mother, and it couldn’t be Lil, because she was pals with Tommy. It couldn’t be Viola, because she’d just had a baby and needed rest and peace, not unsolvable problems.
Evie needed to talk to someone who understood how the world worked.
As she hurried through the stage door of the New Amsterdam Theatre, Bob caught her arm. ‘You’re back!’ he said, as if he’d missed her.
Evie kissed his cheek. ‘For one night only,’ she said, then raced into the dressing room, where Bea wrapped her in a hug and commanded the rest of the girls to scram.
‘What’s eating you?’ Bea said.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders. Missing that man of yours?’
‘I am.’ Evie sighed. ‘He wants to marry me when he gets back from London.’
‘Shouldn’t you be shouting from the rooftops? If a man like him said that to me …’ Bea trailed off, face suddenly sad. She didn’t need to say it aloud. They both knew what she was thinking: if it hadn’t happened to her after hoofing it at Ziegfeld’s for six years, it probably never would.
‘Bea –’ Evie began, but her friend blinked and shook her head.
‘I can take care of myself. Tell me what the problem is.’
Evie sighed. ‘Tommy’s a banker. No, Tommy owns a bank. He looks after people’s money. They have to trust him. If he doesn’t have a good name and a good reputation, he has nothing.’
‘And you’re a little controversial for a world where they make money between breakfast and lunch and go out dancing all night on the proceeds.’
‘I want to adopt Mary too. Turns out she’s my half-sister.’
At this news, even Bea was lost for words.
‘You’ll catch a fly,’ Evie said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it another time. But it makes things worse. Now I’m not just an ex-Ziegfeld Girl wanting to be an obstetrician, I also have an illegitimate sister I want to adopt.’
‘Story gets better all the time. Panther sweat?’ Bea pulled out the flask of whiskey she kept in the dressing table.
Evie took a sip. God, she needed it. ‘I have to adopt Mary. I can’t leave my own sister at the Foundling. But adopting the illegitimate child of my father is one of the least conventional things I could do. I can’t trap Tommy into a life with me and a child born on the wrong side of the blanket.’
‘So you can have Mary or Thomas, but not both.’
Those were the words Evie hadn’t wanted to say to herself. She looked at herself and Bea reflected side by side in the mirror. Bea’s face was a yellowish hue beneath the makeup, which almost hid the finest of lines that were starting to scar her complexion. Bea, the oldest of Ziegfeld’s Girls now, the one who’d been there the longest, who still had nothing – no man, no child, no family, and no job to turn to next year or the year after or whenever Flo decided to put her out to pasture like an exotic cow milked for the last time. Whereas Evie just about had everything she’d come to New York for. An obstetrics internship was in reach if she performed well enough in her exams. She’d found the baby from the river and in the process gained a sister. Trouble was, after she’d arrived in New York, she’d added something else to her list of wants: Thomas Whitman. She wanted to marry him, to have children with him, to grow old with him, to always be able to slip her hand into his and feel his lips against hers. But wanting it didn’t mean it was the honourable thing to do.
‘If you told him about Mary, he’s the kind of man who’d do the right thing, no matter what,’ Bea said.
‘I know he would. But is it right to let him?’
As soon as she said it, Evie knew the answer. Of course it wasn’t. Because Tommy had done everything for her. From the moment he understood that all she needed was a push in the right direction, he’d helped her believe she could go to university, become a doctor, do something, just like she’d said to him in the tree. He’d encouraged her; he’d had more faith in her than anyone had ever had. And he’d never once done anything to hold her back, he’d never encumbered her the way she would encumber him if they were to marry.
Evie held out The New Yorker for Bea to see. ‘This is what he’s worked for. Everything I am will ruin him. I love him too much to destroy his life.’
‘It’ll hurt like hell to set him free, Evie.’
‘I know.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
June 22nd, 1925
Dear Evelyn,
I received your letter. I ask that you don’t share the information you’ve learned about the child with Viola or your mother. There is little point disrupting their lives with this.
The child will continue to be accommodated at the New York Foundling until such time as she is old enough to be adopted by a family outside New York. I will concede to your visiting her until then.
Of course I don’t have to say how much I wish you had left the situation alone and then nobody need be burdened by this knowledge.
Sincerely,
Your father
PS I had a high regard for the child’s mother.
July 25th, 1925
Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
Dear Miss Lockhart,
I am writing to advise that you received the highest grades in your year group for your final examinations. As you are aware, this guarantees your first choice of internship, thus bypassing the usual competitive interview and selection process. Please advise by return post which position and at which hospital you would prefer.
Yours sincerely,
Dr F. Dunnett MD
Dean, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
August 19th, 1925
Sloane Hospital for Women
Dear Miss Lockhart,
It seems you have achieved your goal and will be taking up a position as intern at the Sloane Hospital for Women. You will commence on January 4th, 1926. You will be paid a wage of $25 per week. Please advise the hospital immediately should you change your mind about accepting this position, as we have received several other very worthy applications.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Richard Brewer MD
Until she’d received those three letters and was sure of her future, Evie had forced herself not to think about Tommy. Because every time she did, she thought she might faint from the pain of what she had to do. She’d stopped writing to him and had made herself not read his increasingly worried letters. She’d avoided Mrs Whitman. She’d even managed to intercept the letters Tommy had written to Lil in an attempt to find out what had happened to Evie. All she’d done since her exams was plan and organise and visit Mary. Luckily Lil was distracted with wedding preparations, so Evie was able to pretend that everything was fine. She smiled and danced and was as happy as a best friend should be on the night of Lil and Leo’s very informal wedding reception at Chumley’s. She helped them move into their new apartment on Grove Street and tried not to think about their love because it made her wonder if she could go through with what she had to do.
Her father’s letter angered her, but it also made her absolutely certain that she was doing the right thing. He wouldn’t look after Mary, so Evie must. The news from th
e college and the hospital would once have delighted her, but now she didn’t feel anything.
The day after she received Dr Brewer’s letter, she invited Lil and Leo to lunch in the Village at the San Remo Cafe, where she explained everything. Her plans to adopt Mary and to take up the internship to support them both. Her decision not to see Thomas again.
Their initial reaction was silence. Then Lil began to plead. ‘You can’t do that! Tommy wouldn’t care what anyone thinks about Mary. He loves you more than the bank. Tell her, Leo.’
Leo hesitated, and Evie saw in his eyes that he heard the truth of what she was saying. If he had told Evie that she was wrong, that none of it mattered, she might have faltered, because God she wanted to falter. But Leo was a lawyer. He worked in the world of men. He knew that New York would rip Thomas to shreds if Evie married him.
The three strikes against Evie were bad enough: obstetric intern, former showgirl, and hopefully the soon-to-be adoptive mother of the adulterine Mary. But there was something else, which Evie knew was the bullet in the gun, the final unarguable reason why she could never marry Thomas Whitman. ‘I’m also pregnant,’ she said.
She’d only realised this herself a couple of weeks ago. She’d been so busy sitting exams that she’d lost track of things. The precautions they’d taken had failed. She knew when it must have happened. It was when they were in the sitting room in Newport on their last evening there. They’d been too impatient to be naked and joined together, unable to slow down and check that the rubber was on properly, because how could you slow down when you knew what it was like to fall bodily and utterly into the person beside you?
‘By the time Tommy gets back from London, I’ll be six months along and obvious to all,’ Evie continued. ‘There’ll be no shotgun wedding; I’ll look more like I’ve swallowed a cannonball. Nobody in New York is foolish enough to believe a baby only takes three months to gestate. That’s too tall, even for a New York story. So tell me, does the newspaper headline Thomas Whitman marries hugely pregnant ex-showgirl, who has adopted the illegitimate daughter of her father, and who is also an obstetrician sound like the kind of thing that will pull in a lot of new business for the Whitman bank?’
A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald Page 29