Katie

by Michael McDowell

  “Which plans, Aunt Nedda?”

  “We are all going to Saratoga Springs on Monday.”

  “On Monday!” cried Jewel. Her aunt had promised to take her to the final rout of the New York season, and that was on Wednesday night. “But what about the Stallworths’ ball?”

  “I am sorry about that, Jewel, but I’ve decided to go to Sara­toga a few days earlier than I had planned. No doubt,” she added with a bland smile, “you will find something at the Springs to console you for the loss of the Stallworths’ ball.”

  “You’ve decided,” said Jewel petulantly, “because of something Philo told you. Why isn’t Philo down here helping you?”

  “Helping me with what?”

  “Oh – things.”

  “Philo is unwell.”

  “If Philo is unwell,” said Jewel quickly, “she certainly shouldn’t make the journey to Saratoga. Aunt Nedda, let Philo remain here – let her remain here in the house if you like,” Jewel cried with magnanimous eagerness. “I’ll be your companion at Sara­toga! Besides, I’ve been there before; I know my way about. In Saratoga, Aunt, Philo will have got herself into the wrong pew . . .”

  “Philo is going with me,” said Nedda Maitland, and would allow no more to be said on the subject.

  The season at Saratoga Springs did not begin in real earnest until August first. Nedda Maitland had little difficulty in securing her suite a few days earlier than she planned, though the man­agem­ent of Congress Hall, who knew her of old, had to expel an upstart family from Cincinnati into quarters that were decidedly inferior.

  Mrs. Maitland had taken accommodations on the fourth floor, overlooking not Broadway (which in season was every bit as congested and noisy as the real Broadway in New York), but the quiet garden behind the hotel. She had two parlors, four bed­chambers, and a bath. Jewel had begged her aunt to let her remain in that suite rather than go to her parents, who were lodged in the less fashionable Clarendon, down on the other side of Broadway. This Nedda Maitland finally allowed, though it meant that all three maids in attendance must share the fourth and smallest bedchamber.

  Saratoga Springs was a peculiar place: a hamlet in the tame land­scape of the upper Hudson River valley, to which some fif­teen thousands of America’s rich, fashionable, handsome, ambi­tious, flirtatious, and mischievous flocked every summer, osten­sibly for the opportunity to guzzle vast quantities of mineral water from the town’s numerous springs. It was as if Fifth Avenue had been laid down onto the Central Park. Yet there were differences. To begin with, there were no poor in Saratoga. The very bootblacks and newsboys of the place made more money than clerks of ten years’ experience in New York. And, quite unlike New York, the place was clean, with walks swept every morning and every night, where white clothes remained white for more than an hour, where one smelled grass and flowers – not horses and rotting vegetables. Saratoga – it was the common remark – was Eden fenced in.

  A morning at Saratoga was spent digesting the vast hotel breakfast, visiting a mineral spring for a beaker of water, walking up and down Broadway, changing clothes, speaking to the same people one was likely to have spoken to on that other Broadway the week before, making discreet bets on the afternoon’s race, pointing out the famous and the rich, and the mistresses of the famous and the rich, looking in at Tiffany’s, stopping to hear the orchestra in the gazebo on the lake, wondering whether it wouldn’t have been cheaper to go to Long Branch, scraping an introduction to those who have never invited you to their homes in New York, playing croquet in the hotel gardens, planning ex­cursions to Lake George and Mount McGregor, having your fortune told at the Indian encampment, visiting the picture gallery, or changing your clothes again in order to astonish your acquaintance with the extent of your wardrobe.

  The afternoons were quieter. Half the temporary population of the place went to the racetrack, and the other half fell asleep in their rooms or in hammocks that were strung out every day at two o’clock.

  There were balls and dancing every evening, concerts on the lake, entertainments professional and amateur, small card parties, amorous walks down the moonlit lanes, more changes of dress, a great deal of gambling in the men’s clubs, innocent trysts and less innocent assignations, engagements, demands for “bills” (bills of divorcement), confidence trickery, snares and traps for the innocent, drunken revelry, even a few prayers, parties got up for overdressed children, cigars smoked on the piazzas and dia­monds flashed beneath the gaslights in salons, oysters and lob­sters late, champagne slings, weary maids looking out of windows at the fashionable world below, gossip about those newly arrived or recently departed, and a final sinking into bed with the reflection that pleasure was an exhausting affair.

  Chapter 40

  AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

  Nedda Maitland rightly calculated that Saratoga was the very place, the very thing, to take Philo’s mind away from the terrible incident on Christopher Street. And Philo was perfectly willing to be comforted. Given the slightest excuse, Philomela Drax was a young woman who tended toward cheer. It was only a pity that so very little in her life had been an encouragement to that propensity. She did not feel guilty for having been the indirect cause of Ella LaFavour’s death, any more than she had allowed herself to feel responsible for the deaths of her grandfather and mother. On the narrow shoulders of Katie Slape that burden rested entirely.

  Nedda Maitland never mentioned the business, wishing Philo not to be reminded of it. Jewel never learned of it and still supposed it was some affair of the heart which had so agitated Philo on the Saturday before they all left for Saratoga. The case of the Jepsons had been followed in the papers, and a few of these articles Jewel had read, but Philo’s name had not entered into them. Nedda Maitland’s maids knew of the circumstances of course – maids always do know of such matters – but their loyalty was to Philo rather than to Jewel, and they said nothing either.

  Jewel all but abandoned her parents at the Clarendon. She infrequently took meals with them, scarcely nodded her head to them when they passed on Broadway, refused to accompany them to the racetrack, and only now and then, for form’s sake, begged money from them for certain purchases. She saw that Jacob and Caroline Varley’s stature in the shifting Saratoga com­munity was considerably below that of Nedda Maitland, and even below that of Philomela Drax, Nedda Maitland’s acknow­ledged companion. There were wives of rich men who would talk for a quarter of an hour with Philo of an evening but wouldn’t exchange nods with Caroline Varley in the street.

  Caroline Varley saw this with anger and wondered at her daughter’s consorting with that “female counter-jumper.”

  “Philomela has never worked behind a counter, Ma,” sniffed Jewel.

  “She’s poor as dirt, that girl,” said Jacob Varley.

  “She has the money she got from selling her house to Mr. MacMamus,” said Jewel pointedly, and her father said nothing more on that subject.

  “She’s not a fit companion for you, Jewel. And besides, you never liked her before in New Egypt.”

  “It’s different now, Ma,” said Jewel placidly. “Aunt Nedda has taken her on. I don’t like it, I suppose, but there’s nothing to be done. I’m pleasant to her for Aunt Nedda’s sake.”

  “I hope Nedda remembers you in her will,” said Jacob Varley.

  “I hope Nedda remembers you to her son,” said Caroline.

  “When is he returning?” asked Jacob. “Young men gallivant­ing . . .” he breathed with disapproval. “He ought to have married somebody before he went off like that. What if something has happened to him?”

  “He’ll be back in September.”

  “Very annoying,” said Caroline, “that he should not join his mother in Saratoga. Very annoying that we should not see him this season. By the time that he returns from South America, you will be in New Egypt again.”

  “I hope, Ma, that Aunt Nedda asks me to stay with her in New York for a few months.”

  “Do you think she might?” Carol
ine asked eagerly.

  “I’ve dropped a hint with Philomela,” said Jewel, who had adopted the true form of Philo’s name in imitation of Nedda Maitland.

  “Ah!” breathed Jacob Varley with disgust. “She has so much in­fluence with Nedda? This is dangerous. Jewel, I will advise you. Persuade Nedda to rid herself of that girl.”

  Jewel shrugged. “She won’t do it, and if I said anything against her Aunt Nedda’d rid herself of me. Pa, you don’t know how Philo’s tied her up.”

  “I’ll speak to Nedda,” he said.

  “No, Pa!” cried Jewel. She had but a poor opinion of her father’s persuasive power. He much more often offended when he intended only to ingratiate himself. “Let me see what I can do. Lord knows I want her out of that house by the time that Cousin Henry returns.”

  The remainder of that afternoon – this conversation had taken place over luncheon – Jewel cast about for a way in which to alienate Nedda Maitland from Philo. Philo was absurdly faithful to Nedda, and never spoke but her gratitude and affection for the woman. Philo’s conduct in all matters was exemplary, and there was not a hook on which she could be caught. Jewel decided she must wait her opportunity – surely something would present it­self before the end of August.

  Something presented itself that very evening.

  Mrs. Maitland was visiting an old friend at the Grand Hotel, and Philo and Jewel sat together in the grand salon of the Con­gress Hall, underneath hanging baskets of fragrant jasmine, play­ing draughts.

  Jewel didn’t like draughts, and Philo was playing only at her friend’s insistence. The game was merely an alternative to sitting with their hands crossed in their laps, waiting to be approached by anyone desirous of speaking to them. Etiquette at Saratoga did not allow young women of their age to thrust their company upon others.

  Jewel knew everything there was to know about their fellow guests in the hotel. She would lean over the draughts board, cast her eyes to the left, and say in a low voice, moving her lips scarcely at all, “See that gentleman in the red waistcoat? Fought a duel in Spartanburg, South Carolina, killed a man, and will never be allowed to see his mother again. He told a man at Mor­rissey’s yesterday that when the season was over he was going to put a bullet through his brain.”

  The gentleman in question was laughing until he was purple in the face at something a rich married woman had whispered to him behind her fan.

  “And see that lady over there,” said Jewel, flicking her eyes to the right. “She was the young cousin of Mr. James Onions, the man who owns one-third of the Lackawanna Railroad outright.”

  “Young cousin?” Philo repeated, looking out for the young woman of whom Jewel spoke but not being able as yet to see her.

  “That is to say, she stayed in his suite, as a young cousin might do – but this morning at ten o’clock, he discovered another young cousin who was more to his liking – they were placing bets upon the same horse, called, I believe, Country Matters – and this first young cousin has been turned out. She looks desperately desperate, if you ask me.”

  “I still don’t know whom you mean,” said Philo.

  “I wouldn’t remain here under those circumstances.”

  “Jewel, I trust you will never find yourself so inconveniently placed,” laughed Philo.

  “She’s right over there, by the table with the newspapers on it.”

  Philo saw her now, but the lady in question had her back to the two young women at the draughts table. But when she turned, Philo was shocked to find hers a familiar face.

  Philo held up her hand to Jewel to quiet her and temporarily halt their game. She cast about in her memory for the name that corresponded to that slightly remembered visage.

  In a moment she had it. To Jewel’s intense astonishment Philo walked directly across the room and approached the distraught lady, who was surreptitiously examining a railway schedule of departing trains.

  “Ida?” said Philo quietly.

  The woman looked up startled. “Who are you?”

  “You’re Ida Yearance, aren’t you?”

  “That is not my name in the register. I am the cousin of Mr. Onions. My name is—”

  She stopped suddenly and stared at Philo.

  “I don’t know you,” she said sharply, and headed for the doors that opened onto the piazza.

  Philo gently caught her arm. Ida tried to pull away but Philo did not let her go.

  Ida Yearance looked around her. Everyone in the room ap­peared to have left off conversation and games, put down news­papers and fancywork to look at them. Under the protection of powerful Mr. Onions, Ida Yearance had been tolerated in the public rooms of the hotel; but now that she had been cast aside, she was universally shunned and abhorred.

  “Come with me onto the piazza,” said Philo in a low voice.

  Ida nodded and the two moved out of the room. Philo glanced back once at Jewel’s wide-open mouth.

  They did not stop on the piazza, for there were too many persons lingering there in the warm evening, but descended the steps into the hotel garden. Philo pointed to the fountain, and they approached it. The noise of the rushing water would cover their conversation.

  “Ida Yearance, you stole a thousand dollars from me,” said Philo abruptly.

  “No!”

  “At Mrs. Classon’s on West Thirteenth Street. On the fifth of May. It was all the money I had in the world.”

  Ida looked steadily at Philo. “I guess it wasn’t,” she said harshly. “I guess it left you so destitute you had no alternative but to spend a month in the country.”

  “I was fortunate in finding someone to take care of me. If it had not been for that, I would have been left destitute.”

  Ida smiled grimly. “Does he beat you? Mr. Onions beat me.”

  “No! I have honest employment! I am employed as secretary to Mrs. Nedda Maitland.”

  Ida shrugged. “What do you want from me?”

  “You stole my money!”

  “You want it back?” Ida laughed. “I haven’t three dollars to my name.”

  “You spent so much in three months?”

  “I spent so much in two weeks. I bought new clothes, I rented me rooms up on Thirtieth Street – first floor front, looking out right on the Fifth Avenue mansions. I took out a few advertisements in the papers, and I met a few high-toned gentlemen, who introduced me to other high-toned gentlemen, who took me out for lobster and champagne and drove me through the park in their carriages. And last week I came to Saratoga in a private railway car – and tonight I don’t even have the fare back to New York. Would you like your money in gold, notes, or a draught on a private bank?”

  Philo was silent.

  Ida seated herself on the edge of the fountain. The air was warm and heavy with the spray, the scent of the garden’s flowers, and an impending rain.

  As Philo looked at her, all the brash effrontery seemed to drain from Ida’s face. “What will you do then?”

  Ida looked up at Philo with a slow, grim smile. “I’ll go back in there and take up a collection for myself, what else? I’m certain you noticed how many kindly looks I received. Or perhaps I can find a position as nurserymaid, if there’s a lady who’ll allow me to touch her children. Or maybe I’ll just go for a little swim at the bottom of a mineral well.” She turned to Philo with a smile. “You’re the lucky one, you know. Three months ago, I may have taken all your money – there’s no reason for me to deny it now – but look at you! Here at Saratoga, dressed all in white, sitting in the salon of the Congress Hall, with your virtue intact. And I’ll bet you’ve got more than three dollars in your porte-monnaie.”

  “I don’t know,” said Philo after a few moments. “I’ll see.”

  She drew it out, opened it, and withdrew two ten-dollar bank notes, which she pressed into Ida’s hand.

  Ida looked at her strangely. Philo thought there was almost rage in her eyes. “Why are you doing this? Do you forgive me?” she demanded sarcastically.

&nbs
p; “For stealing all the money I had in the world?” said Philo. “For leaving me destitute in a strange city? No, I don’t forgive you for that. You were heartless. I’m giving you those bills for myself.”

  “What do you mean – ‘for yourself’?”

  “I realize how easily I could have been put in your position. If it had not been for the kindness of my protector, I don’t doubt I would have ended up in some similar straits. Only I doubt my dress would have been so nice.”

  Ida paused a moment, then she said, “Take care of your good fortune, Philo. Hug it to you.” She snapped open her reticule and slipped the bills inside it. “I won’t thank you,” she said, rising. “I never thank the lucky ones.”

  She hurried away into the night. Philo never saw her or heard of her again.

  Turning to go back into the hotel salon, Philo noticed Jewel on a bench that was wrapped about an ancient elm.

  Jewel smiled. “An old acquaintance . . . ?”

  Chapter 41

  JEWEL’S SCHEME

  Jewel couldn’t wait to get to Nedda Maitland with the tale of Philo’s speaking in close confidence (for thirteen minutes, accord­ing to the watch pinned to Jewel’s breast) with a woman who was scarcely better than a nymphe du pavé. She rose very early the next morning – she had slept scarcely at all the night before thinking how soon she would supplant Philo in her aunt’s esti­mation, affection, and will – and knocked softly at the door of Nedda’s chamber.

  Nedda was already dressed – though breakfast wouldn’t be served for half an hour – and seated at her desk before the window.

  “Are you awake already?” asked Nedda in some wonder, for her niece was neither an early nor an uncomplaining riser.

  “I am here on a very distressing errand,” said Jewel sadly, shaking her head.

  “I am sorry to hear it,” replied Nedda. “Please sit down, Jewel, and tell me what has upset you.”

  “I fear that you will be the one to be upset. I don’t really know but that I should keep it to myself . . .”