by Terri Lee
“I hoped you would like it, I know it’s —”
Frances put her fingers to his lips to stop the words, “Never do that. It’s perfect. I love it. I love you.” And she did love it. She thought of him poring over a dozen rings in the jeweler’s case as he searched for the right one. She could see him holding it up to the light with a big smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that he had chosen the ring she would wear for the rest of her life. Then, he would plunk down his hard-earned money…and he would do it for her. He was the sweetest thing she had ever known. The poor guy, no wonder he had seemed like a nervous Nellie.
She threw her arms around his neck and smothered him with kisses. He stood up and shouted gleefully to the passersby. “She said ‘yes!’“
Several people laughed and clapped as they went on their way. A couple of young men strode over to shake his hand and to offer her their congratulations. Young love was impossible to ignore. Like the smile from a baby, it held all the hope of the universe in its very existence.
Frankie spilled his plans to Frances while barely taking a breath between words. He was sure that once they were engaged, her parents would be forced to take them seriously. During the length of the engagement, her parents would have plenty of time to get to know him and of course, they would come around in the end.
“And you will be the most beautiful bride the world has ever seen.” He finished.
“Says you.”
“Yes, says me.”
He hugged her again, and she looked down at the golden ring that had just changed everything. She would not listen to the voices trying to crowd around and steal the joy of this moment. She would not entertain the, what about this?, or what about that? Frankie had asked her to marry him. She had said yes, and that was more than enough for her heart to deal with for one day. Tomorrow would be here soon enough.
TWENTY
“The Hylans just RSVP’d.” Lena smirked as she laid down the acceptance envelope from the New York City mayor and crossed his name off the list. She spent most mornings examining the roster of invitees to Charles’s wedding that read like a who’s who of New York society. So now the mayor’s name would be added to the list next to Vanderbilt, Morgan and Astor. The endless game of the seating chart shuffle would continue with each name added or removed. Lena scrutinized these charts with the dedication of a great general studying his battle plans. Each detail must be gone over a hundred times. And Frances couldn’t care less.
Yet this morning Frances was planning do her best to appear enthralled by the minutia. Lena wasn’t the only one with battle plans. Frances had spent most of the previous night tossing and turning as she rehearsed this morning’s scene over and over. Somewhere in her little girl heart there was a whisper of a notion that she and her mother could find a way to connect. It was possible. Wasn’t it?
“The Hylans? Wonderful.” Frances grinned.
Lena looked up, caught off guard by France’s entrance into the morning conversation.
Frances continued. “I’m sure Charles will be happy. I hope that he and Cassandra appreciate how hard you’ve been working.” This might have been too much. Even Margaret looked up, spoonful of oatmeal hovering over her bowl, to survey her sister from across the table.
“I doubt if they’ve noticed all the levers I’ve been pulling from the behind the scenes.” Lena was quick to don her martyr’s cap.
“Anyway it’s nice to know that you’ll be there to handle all of the details when it’s my turn.”
Lena had turned back to her papers. “Well, that’s a long way off.”
“Maybe not as far off as you might think.” Frances swallowed hard as Lena turned back to her daughter. Frances had this crazy idea that if they spoke to one another as adults that they just might be able to bond woman to woman. She hoped that her mother would open her heart and see Frances sitting there, begging to be heard.
“I’m engaged.” Frances felt bashful now that she had her mother’s full attention. She said the words with all the optimism her young heart could hold. Let it be enough, she prayed. Let my love be enough to open Mother’s eyes.
“Oh Frances, how exciting.” The words that Frances wished had come from her mother came from Margaret instead. Margaret’s mouth was round in surprise and her eyes danced as she recognized the joy in her older sister’s face.
“No, it’s not exciting, and you may be excused.”
“But I want to hear —” Margaret started.
“I said, you may be excused,” Lena said with greater emphasis this time.
Margaret pushed back from the table and crept from the room, but turned to offer Frances a smile of encouragement at the doorway.
Lena shuffled her papers and looked over her reading glasses. Refusing to allow Frances the opportunity to rattle her composure, she laid down her pen with quiet precision. “So am I to understand that you have been seeing him behind our backs?”
“Yes,” Frances stated unequivocally, “since that’s the only way I could see him. And I must see him, because I’m in love.” Frances placed her hand over her mother’s in a small act of intimacy. Didn’t you hear me say I’m in love? Ask me what that feels like. Look at me like you know me.
Lena paid no attention to the silent pleas coming from across the table. “Nonsense, you barely know him.” She said with disgust as she withdrew her hand.
William joined them at the table. “Barely know whom?” Her father looked to his wife as he picked up the morning paper prepared to ignore her answer.
“It seems as if our darling daughter is up to her old tricks. She has been sneaking around behind our backs and has continued to see that Frank person,” Lena said with a level of disbelief that even Frances couldn’t buy.
Just what was the problem with Frankie’s name that her parents could never seem to bring themselves to utter it properly, Frances wondered?
With this bit of news, William set aside the New York Times and looked directly at his daughter. “So you have defied us?”
“I don’t choose to look at it in those terms.”
“And just how do you choose to look at it?”
“I am a twenty-year-old woman. I’ll make my own decisions about whom I see and whom I don’t see. And I will not be sent to my room without my dinner like a ten-year-old child.” She winced over her quick retort. She could never seem to maintain the level of calm that she so easily displayed in her many practice sessions before her bedroom mirror.
“I see.” William sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “And in whose house do you reside?”
Frances stiffened her back and refused to play the game.
Lena was happy to throw more fuel on the fire. “Not only has she continued to see this young man despite your clear objection, but she has even more news to share, don’t you dear?”
William looked from one to the other. “Do tell, Frances.”
A pause hovered in the air, hanging over the breakfast table. She was about to set off the spark that would ignite the fuse. “I’m engaged.”
“What?”
“I’m engaged.”
“No, you most certainly are not engaged.” The ease with which William dismissed his daughter’s assertion implied she would not be taken seriously.
“Just how far do you intend to go with this nonsense, Frances?” Lena was incredulous.
“It’s not nonsense.” She turned from one to the other, “What is the matter with you people? Haven’t you ever heard of a thing called love?”
“I have heard of it, and this isn’t it.” Lena turned up her nose.
“Why? Because he doesn’t have one of the coveted names for you to add to your precious list? I will not marry someone simply for you to fill your trophy case with. You don’t even know Frankie. You’ve never met him. How can you dismiss him so out of hand?”
“I know everything I need to know about him.” William jumped in, reminding her of their last conversation.
“And you,” she turned her wrath on her father. “I’m not part of your business dealings. You will not pawn me off to someone you think will be beneficial to you!”
“That’s quite enough, young lady. I’m warning you to watch your tone.”
“I’m sorry, but I feel as if I have to shout to be heard.”
“I hear you loud and clear. The entire neighborhood always hears what you have to say.”
“No,” Frances shook her head with the realization of a lifetime, “You hear words, but you don’t hear me. And I’m sorry but I refuse to play along with the role that’s already been written for me in your play.”
“What kind of a man continues to see a young woman despite the wishes of her father?”
Frances could feel the ground shifting as her father subtly changed his point of attack.
“The kind of man who stands on his own two feet.” Frances would not be lured into his spider web. She was well aware that she was no match for her father who had a well-earned reputation for being a fierce negotiator. “The kind of man who is decent and honorable in every way,” she continued, “and that is why I said yes when he asked me to marry him.”
“A decent and honorable young man would ask a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage.”
“Not if the father refused to even meet him,” Frances countered another volley. “Whose fault is it that Frankie has not been allowed to speak with you?”
“I’m sure he has asked you to marry him. What a perfect scenario for him.” Lena found her way back into the conversation. “But the truth remains that you most definitely are not engaged.”
“Then what do you call this?” Frances thrust her hand with the ring under her mother’s nose.
Lena squinted. “I’d call it a trinket. A trinket that you will be obliged to return.”
Lena’s word stung, in spite of Frances’s cavalier attitude. “I will not return it.”
“Fine. Keep it. It’s of no consequence to me. But you are not marrying that boy.”
“He’s not a boy,” Frances contradicted. “He’s a man. He’s older than Charles and Graydon. Calling him a boy is simply another way for you to place him beneath you. And I won’t let you do it.”
“I’m sure you think this sounds like a wonderful story, except this is not a little dime novel, Frances.” Lena was about to dash all of Frances’s fragile hopes. “You’ve always been too headstrong for your own good.”
Not this again. Frances groaned.
“And now you’re going to sit here and tell me that you are willing to throw away your entire future, simply to spite your father and me? And you have the nerve to talk about how stubborn your father is. Are you sure you aren’t simply interested in this young man because you’ve been told not to be interested in him?”
“What that says to me is that you don’t know the first thing about me. You never have.” The words tumbled from Frances’s heart. “I’m not throwing away my future. Frankie is my future.”
“If that were so, then you’d be resigning yourself to a life of poverty. He comes from nothing. He’ll always be nothing.” Her mother stated as if she had already looked into the crystal ball. “Your entire life will be a struggle. You’re too young to know this now, Frances. You’re too young to know that you cannot live on love alone.”
“I see. So my goal should be a marriage like the one you and father have? So I can sit at my luxurious table every morning and never speak to my husband?” She couldn’t take the words back. They’d come rolling off her tongue so fast, she couldn’t stop them and now the tide had turned. There was a stiffening, a change in the air. She heard the quick intake of breath not only from Lena but from her father as well.
“I’m sorry.” She offered. She looked to her father and saw him square his shoulders, but he would not address the truth of her words.
“I know you think this sounds romantic and exciting.” Lena continued after a moment’s hesitation. “Throw off convention, throw off the expectations of your parents. Throw everything to the wind and run like a gypsy out into nothing. It’ll take years before you regret it, but mark my words, regret it you will. I’m simply trying to save you the intervening years.”
“You’re not trying to save me from anything. As usual, you’re only worried about yourself. You’re worried someone might whisper about you behind your back. I’m the last person you are concerned with,” Frances said, but the truth hurt her more than their intended target. “I’m sorry.” Frances said again in an attempt to get the conversation back on a reasonable track. How many times would she have to say that this morning? “I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I don’t want to fight. Really I don’t.”
“That would be a first.” Lena smirked.
“I believe I’ve said all I intend to say on the subject. This is getting us nowhere.” William threw down his napkin in disgust. “As is your habit, you chose a most inopportune time to lay your little story at our feet. I’ll be out of town for the next few days, but we’ll resume this conversation when I return on Thursday. If you insist on seeing this Frank What’s-His-Name while I’m gone, let it be only to tell him good-bye!” William rose from the table leaving his breakfast untouched and strode purposefully from the room.
Lena rose too, like Lillian Gish in a dramatic silent exit, and Frances was left stunned, with her new found joy lying in tatters around the breakfast table. Much had been said this morning. Things that couldn’t be put back inside the bottle once they’d escaped. The words that had been hurled around the dining room were still bouncing off the walls. Indeed, they were the kind of words that could destroy relationships forever.
Frances marched from the room, a girl on a mission. She ran up the stairs and slammed the door to her room. Her father would be home in three days and until then, she would talk to Frankie and they would revise their strategy. If her parents wanted a battle, then a battle they would have.
TWENTY ONE
Frances was exhausted. Not so much from the physical act of packing, but in trying to do so while being unable to think clearly. She was in a fog and had been so for the last several days. Since the battle at the breakfast table. Now in the midst of her confusion, the simple task of folding sweaters and dresses seemed insurmountable when every item she picked up was full of memories that sent her careening back over the days and months and years.
She and Frankie had talked and talked until there were no words left. They’d made their plans, and now the rest was up to her family. Her stomach was in knots, as she thought about what lie ahead for this evening. But first she had to finish packing.
In every corner of her room was some treasure, some memento. How in the world was she to decide what she would take and what she could leave behind? Could she really walk away? Would it be necessary? She looked around her room, which told the story of her life, and knew that she had to get into the proper frame of mind. She would have to be ruthless in her decisions about what she absolutely had to have and those things she could live without.
With each item placed back upon the shelf, she tried to tell herself that even the worse-case scenario would only be temporary. She would return to retrieve her belongings. On the other hand, she had to face the fact that this might be a very long exile. With that thought in mind, there were several treasured items and family photos tucked between the folds of cashmere for safe-keeping.
She sat on the end of her bed with a silk blouse in her hands and surveyed her surroundings. Even if everything went smoothly tonight, she would still be leaving this room soon enough. The Durant’s were finally about to move into the newly renovated apartment at the Dakota. Lena had had so many changes to the original plans that construction had dragged on twice as long as originally planned. Apparently, the end was now in sight. The movers were scheduled for next week.
Frances was not looking forward to the new place with its cold marble and walls of mirrors and glass. It was emotionless and impersonal and if ever a home represente
d its owner, that one surely did. Frances didn’t know how her father would ever be comfortable in such a place. But his only job was to keep his wife happy, along with supplying her with endless amounts of money, which kept her very happy.
Frances’s room in the new apartment was a sterile box. Thank God she would always have her room at Greenfield. Vermont would always be her true home. As she thought about the new apartment, she caught herself wondering what her grandmother would have to say about the house of mirrors in the sky. She laughed to herself, knowing exactly what she would have to say.
Time was passing quickly and she urged herself to keep her mind on the task at hand. She continued to pack, putting some things aside still confident that she would not be leaving for good. There would still be time. But what if? She looked around her with a worried glance. As she sifted through the memories, she was so afraid she would forget something important.
She had done all she could. She had certainly stuffed everything possible into the beautiful leather cases. Closing the lids, she snapped them firmly shut, and the sound rang out in the room like a warning shot. She dragged her suitcases down the stairs, stopping at the landing to listen for any voices.
Finding the coast clear, she continued to the entry way and wrestled the cases into the hall closet. She closed the door softly behind her. Her heart was beating out of her chest.
“Are you planning a trip?”
Frances whirled around at the sound of Foster’s deep voice. “Foster! You scared me half to death.” She placed her hand on her heart and swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry, Miss Frances. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Can I be of assistance?”
Frances took Foster’s hand and led him away from the scene of the crime. “Yes, you can. I need you to keep this just between us.”
“Of course, Miss Frances.” The look of alarm on his face said more than he dared.
“I’m not exactly planning on a trip.” She tried to soothe away his concerns. “But I’m prepared to leave if I have to. My fiancé is coming to dinner tonight. I’m not at all sure how this evening will end.”