The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

by Genevieve Valentine

  Lou’s expression was split between despair and hope; she looked like a different person.

  Jo said, “It’s the best I could think of for you.”

  Lou shook her head.

  “This isn’t right,” she said. “It should be one of the others first. We’re all in danger.”

  Jo said, “I chose you.”

  Lou’s eyebrows sank down her face, and her mouth was tight beneath her welling tears. “Jo—”

  “Don’t,” Jo said.

  There was a little quiet, and Jo watched Lou measuring things out, narrowing her questions, trying to decide what else she needed to know.

  (They looked the same, Jo thought, when they were trying to think their way out of a problem. It was the only time they looked alike.)

  Finally Lou said, “What if Father insists we have a courtship before we go to Chicago? We don’t know what he’ll say. What if he insists we get married? What if I actually have to marry him?”

  Jo shrugged. “You could find worse men.”

  “But I know. You and he were—what if he wants to—”

  “Lou,” Jo said. “Tom won’t insist on anything like that. This is a favor he’s doing for me.”

  Lou narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  There was no answer Jo could give. Even if Jo knew Tom’s reasons for sure (and there was no telling any more, everything now was a series of gambles), the words to name his reasons were trapped in her throat, prisoners of the last seven years.

  Best to let things like that lie. These were uncertain times.

  “Josephine,” their father called up the stairs. “Please come down, and bring Louise.”

  Lou startled and looked around as if their father had been listening. After a moment, she moved to her closet and grabbed for a suitable dress.

  Jo smoothed her skirt, wondering why she was bothering. It didn’t matter now what she looked like.

  “Fix your hair before we go down,” she said to Lou. “You’ll scare someone.”

  Jo didn’t ask what Lou had decided. She watched Lou scramble into a dress (a deep brown that suited her), comb through her hair with her fingers, rouge her cheeks, and guessed how Lou’s decision had gone.

  It was the best offer any of them was likely to get, and Lou wasn’t stupid.

  The other girls peeked out from their open doors as they passed, but they seemed so surprised to see Jo back that none of them so much as opened her mouth.

  Tom and their father were in the study; apparently Lou didn’t merit the parlor for so small a thing as marriage. There was a decanter on the desk, and one empty glass in front of each of the men. No provision had been made for Lou and Jo—naturally, they didn’t drink.

  “Louise,” Father greeted them. “I’d like to introduce you to someone. This is Tom Marlowe.”

  Jo hadn’t known his last name before.

  “Mr. Marlowe,” Lou said, and held out her hand for him to shake.

  Tom rose, searching her face as they shook hands, looking for a sign that she knew what was at stake.

  He must have found it; he smiled.

  Jo didn’t know where to look.

  “Mr. Marlowe is a business associate of mine,” their father said. “He came by last night and was quite taken with you, though I don’t know if you met properly then. Josephine, you remember Mr. Marlowe.”

  “I do,” she said, glanced at Tom, felt like the room was closing in around them.

  “He’s asked my permission to court you, Louise,” their father said. “I trust you’re amenable?”

  Naturally, Jo thought; just as he’d trusted Lou would be amenable to van de Maar, before Tom had put ready money on the table as a gesture of goodwill and smuggled Lou right out from under him.

  This was what Jo hadn’t known—how much their father valued Louise.

  After Lou’s stonewall showing at the dinner party, Jo had gambled on “not much.” Their father must have known that was a nonstarter and figured that in desperate times, something was better than nothing. Now he was letting her go to someone for less than a tenth of what a wife was worth to van de Maar.

  Jo had gambled and won.

  Lou glanced at Jo, then stared at their father as if the whole thing were only now coming clear, as if she realized for the first time what sort of man Jo had been keeping away from the rest of them.

  Jo understood. Even now, with the outcome she’d put in motion herself, she felt as though she was trying to keep back an avalanche. She thought how impossible even a waiting game would be now, and was glad Lou wouldn’t see what happened if Jo failed.

  “Yes, sir,” said Lou. “I’m amenable.”

  When she looked at Tom, Tom smiled, the genuine camaraderie of two people sharing a gallows joke.

  Lou returned it. It was the first real smile Jo had seen from her in a while.

  “Well,” their father said, “that’s nice to hear. Tom?” He poured the two glasses of liquor and toasted to Tom, with an absent gesture to Lou before he drank.

  Tom glanced at Jo over the rim of his glass, just before he drank.

  Their father set the glass down with purpose. “Now, why don’t you two go on to the parlor and I’ll have the cook send something out for lunch?”

  “Lovely,” said Lou.

  As Tom and their father stood up, their father leaned across the desk, stone-faced. “Marlowe, I don’t believe in extended courtships. It keeps things uncertain that shouldn’t be so.”

  Tom glanced at Lou and nodded, the picture of a serious suitor. “I understand, sir. She’s a swell girl; if she thinks well of me, I hope to be taking her back to Chicago with me before long.”

  “As do I,” their father said. At the idea of a speedy courtship, he’d managed a smile. “Come with me into the parlor. Jo, thank you, you can go back upstairs. I’ll speak with you later about last night.”

  As they passed Jo, Tom glanced at her sidelong and extended a hand to shake good-bye. She was too slow meeting him; he brushed the tips of her fingers, just skimmed her skirt.

  A moment later they were gone, their voices filling the hall, fading as they turned the corner into the parlor. Tom said something Jo couldn’t hear, and all the way from the parlor Lou’s laugh echoed.

  Jo wasn’t surprised. Tom had that effect on a girl.

  • • •

  On Jo’s way up, Rebecca opened the door. She was only visible for a moment; when she saw Jo was alone she closed the door again, and the whispers began.

  The whispers would spread—these girls could walk through walls—and within the hour all ten of them would know that Lou was downstairs with some man, and Jo had abandoned her.

  Their bedroom was quiet and bright white without Lou in it. Jo went to the window—she needed air, suddenly.

  In the morning light, Eighty-Fourth Street looked fresh and busy and open, as if leaving room for the wonderful something that could happen any moment.

  Jo stared at the hats of the passersby, gripped the sill until her knuckles went white.

  • • •

  Twelve P.M. The upstairs maid brought the lunch trays. Jo’s was set for only one; Lou was still in the parlor with their father and Tom.

  One P.M. Jo went into the library to calm her nerves with the atlas.

  One thirty P.M. She gave up. No matter what page she looked at—Russia, China, Mexico, Iceland—she thought of Lou on the road to Chicago, Tom showing her how to drive, the two of them laughing about their clever escape.

  She was too restless, too uncertain, to speak to Ella or Doris. She was waiting for word from Lou or a summons from Father—anything that would put affairs in order.

  Jo needed a new hobby. Araminta and Sophie remade dresses by hand; Jo should take up sewing. That was useful, and it made the time go faster.

  Two P.M. Someone knocke
d at the door, the timid tapping of someone afraid to face her. (One of the little ones, then.) She didn’t answer; there was nothing to say.

  Three P.M. Jo sorted out her wardrobe, arranging and rearranging her dresses: day and night. There were only eight of them—it was hard to convince their father that they needed many dresses, and they tended to wait until the last moment to ask for anything, so they could present something suitably shabby.

  The black dress was still in the bottom of the wardrobe. She took it to the hall bath and washed it in the sink with a little white vinegar, which got the scent out without the color bleeding. (Mary had shown them, long ago, as if she’d known they’d need it, later.)

  As she hung it on the wardrobe door to dry, her chest got tight for a moment. When it passed she felt foolish, and made her bed again just for something to do besides stare at the windowpanes like they were the bars of a birdcage.

  Four P.M. Lou came up the stairs and closed the door with a firm click before she turned to Jo and broke out with a smile in earnest.

  “I leave tomorrow,” she said. Her eyes were wild with the terrified delight of the pardoned prisoner. “Tonight Tom and Father will go over Tom’s finances, to make sure he can provide for me.” Lou rolled her eyes. “Then it’s straight on to Chicago.”

  “That’s . . . very efficient,” Jo managed.

  Lou wrinkled her nose. “Tom didn’t give him any reason to delay. Father started out talking a month or two, and Tom agreed, but then Tom kept talking and before I knew it my bags were practically packed. I don’t think Father even noticed the runaround Tom gave him. Tom’s very clever.”

  “I know,” said Jo through a dry throat.

  “Of course.” Lou moved to the closet and began to sort through her dresses as if she had a hundred instead of ten and would have to leave some behind. There was a hint of panic about it, as if she was under surveillance and anything that went wrong now would lock her in the house forever.

  “I’ve got to pack, somehow. Father said I should pull one of the trunks out of the old nannies’ room and not waste any time.”

  Lou stopped and turned, as if she’d just realized how this happiness might look to Jo.

  “I’m glad for you,” Jo said. “Does he want to see me?”

  Lou nodded.

  It was strange to think that their father’s office, which a week ago had been another country, was now so familiar that she knocked only twice before entering.

  She plastered a polite smile on her face.

  Tom was still standing in front of their father’s desk, shaking hands, shifting his weight as if he was eager to be gone.

  “Father,” said Jo from the doorway. She watched Tom’s shoulders go tense.

  “Ah, Josephine. Come in, come in. Mr. Marlowe was just leaving. As a very happy man, I might add.”

  Tom turned and gave her the sort of smile a young man wears when meeting his beloved’s spinster aunt.

  “Congratulations,” she said. “Best wishes.”

  She shook his hand. It ached.

  His gaze was dark and unwavering. Her misery was probably palpable, but she met his eye anyway. There was nothing to fear from him now; he could hardly kiss her in front of her father, and the next day he would be gone to Chicago with Lou. He wouldn’t be back for weeks or months, and even then—

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, sir,” Tom was saying. “Josephine, nice to meet you.”

  He perched his fedora on his head and was gone.

  Their father sat back in his chair and laced his fingers over his slim stomach, the picture of satisfaction. “I knew this would work out in the end,” he said, as if to himself.

  Then he remembered Jo. “Now, about last night.”

  “Van de Maar will be disappointed,” Jo said, taking a seat. Outside the study windows, Tom was revving the engine, hopping into his car, disappearing into the traffic.

  She let her feelings disappear with him. There wasn’t time to mope; she had to think sharp.

  “Van de Maar will understand, I think,” said their father, and Jo wondered if that meant there were other daughters in the wings who had been earmarked for van de Maar’s understanding. “How did you like Foster?”

  “I can’t say I did,” said Jo. “I don’t know if I trust a man who”—she stopped herself from saying can’t hold his drink just in time—“drinks so much in front of ladies.”

  Their father nodded. “A fair point,” he said. “Foster has always been a little blind to excess. Well, if you don’t like him, that’s all settled, then. Have you spoken to Ella and Doris?”

  It had been settled quickly—too quickly—and Jo suspected something terrible looming even as she answered. “Ella seemed very quiet at dinner,” Jo said, “and she hasn’t said anything to me this morning about Prescott one way or the other. He seems to be very refined?”

  “He is,” their father said. “He comes from a very influential family. Ella would be a lucky woman if she could become Mrs. Prescott—probably a chairman’s wife someday. I trust she’ll keep that in mind.”

  Because nothing seduced a girl like the idea of becoming the chairman’s wife in a family even more ambitious than her father’s.

  “Yes, sir. When will he visit again, do you know?”

  “Soon, I suspect. He seemed to like her. What about Doris? She and that Lewisohn boy seemed to get along. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “She likes him enormously, I think,” Jo said, and managed a genuine smile. “She already told me she’d like to see him again.”

  “Excellent,” said their father. “I’ll start thinking about another small party next week, then. I’ll tell Mrs. Reardon so she has time to get something decent. I didn’t like the pheasant this time—nasty bird, pheasant, unless you know how to cook it. And Pavlova for dessert. Lewisohn will be for Doris,” he said, like it was still a discussion of the menu, “and tell Doris she’d better lock him in before he gets wind of her strange thinking and changes his mind—and we’ll get some of the other girls downstairs in the meantime. What are their names? The twins, I mean, next ones in line. Matilda?”

  “Hattie and Mattie,” Jo said, her skin crawling. “The twins.” The older twins. She couldn’t even imagine him succeeding so far down the list of them that he got to Rose and Lily.

  “Right.” He smiled. “That should be a joke, shouldn’t it? You can just change them around until everyone gets along, and no one’s the wiser.”

  Jo blinked at him and didn’t answer.

  “Well, that’s all,” their father said, taking up the paper. “I’ll call you or Louise if you’re needed.”

  She stood, feeling numb, and turned for the door.

  “And tell Ella to make up her mind soon,” he said. “If it’s not Prescott it had better be the next one. We can’t let word get out about a houseful of choosy girls.”

  Though she should not by then have been shocked at anything their father said, still the words stopped her in her tracks.

  She had also rejected the first choice; would she now be bound to the second?

  Carefully, she asked, “And what about me, sir?”

  He waved a hand. “I have other plans for you,” he said, “don’t you worry. Now go along.”

  Jo could have hit him; she could have picked up one of the paperweights off his blotter and thrown it at him hard enough to knock him right out of his chair.

  For a moment her hand felt heavy, as if she really could take aim and bring him down.

  But if he got up again, God help all of them. That was the trouble. Even after all of this, there was still something to lose.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  • • •

  Jo had to give Lou credit for efficiency.

  While Jo was gone, Lou had dragged a small trunk down from the attic. It had been mostly wiped clean
of dust, except near the hinges, where she hadn’t bothered. Now she was folding her dresses as fast as she could, as if nothing could backfire once her trunk was packed.

  When Jo came into their room, Lou looked up, hugging a green dress to her chest as if she’d been caught out.

  Jo had never seen her this way; Lou had never been hopeful before. She was a different creature.

  It helped; not as much as it hurt, but it helped.

  “Jo,” she said, “I want to thank you. I—I can’t believe I’m getting out of this house. I should be afraid, shouldn’t I?”

  Jo thought about Lou and Tom in the front seat of his car, driving through open country, and wondered what there was to fear.

  “I should be terrified,” Lou answered herself, “but all I can think about is what it looks like outside the city—what it really looks like, not just in pictures.”

  The green dress went into the trunk; a nightgown appeared in her hands.

  “Your Tom is the cleverest cat I ever saw,” she said, her eyes feverish. “He handled Father like it was a parlor trick! I could hardly stop myself from laughing and ruining everything.”

  Jo’s black dress was still hanging on the outside of her wardrobe door. The late-afternoon sun filtered through the net, and the dress looked as if it had been covered with dust, forgotten for a hundred years.

  Lou was inspecting pots of rouge, holding one up to her face in the mirror. “How was Father with you? You arranged everything, I’m sure, you’re as smart as he is, that old bastard. Is everything settled for Doris?”

  “Soon,” Jo said, feeling like her throat was turning to mud.

  “Good.” Lou knelt to look through her pile of ruined shoes. After a moment the sound stopped, and Lou said to the inside of the closet, “I shouldn’t have doubted you, Jo. I’m really sorry. Of course you know what you’re doing. You’ve always looked out for us.”

  Lou sat back on her heels and looked over her shoulder. Jo saw she was holding a pair of gold shoes in her lap—one of her first catalog pairs, Jo remembered—so worn down that the strap had vanished and every last flake of glitter was gone.