by Megan Chance
Now, of course, Willa is very angry with me. She says I vowed to bring him home--did she want me to drag him there by the ear? How could I promise he would love her forever? He is twenty-four, after all, a grown man who knows his own mind.
But I do feel guilty too, because later, when I asked Gideon what his reason was for ending it with Willa, he said, "Why, because of you," very quietly, as if he didn't like to admit it, and I confess I could hardly breathe for joy. It isn't over between us! Oh, perhaps I am selfish, and I do not like to hurt Willa, but is it so very bad of me to love him as I do?
NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 10, 1871--It has only been six weeks since the tour ended, but my yearning for it is a torment. We have put up at a small hotel just off Broadway, better than we can afford, but not quite good enough for society, so Gideon says we should try not to stay long. He & Barret share a room and I have my own, which is very small but comfortable enough. I find myself sleeping far too late in the morning and staying up far too late at night, still used to the hours of the tour, though there is nothing now to keep me busy. I miss singing every night--practicing is not the same. To see the tears, to hear the applause ... I would even take the Volksstadt just now, though Gideon will not hear of it.
When we returned, Renate and Mr. Arriete offered us rooms at their home, but Gideon told me that she only means to use me, now that I have grown more famous. And she did ask if I might keep her husband in mind for future tours so we could be together again. I thought it was out of love for me, but Gideon says I am too naive for my own good. So I refused her. I felt terrible about it, because she seemed so hurt, but Gideon said it was all an act and I trust that he knows better than I do.
Also, Mr. Cone & Mr. Wilson offered to manage me, but I told them Barret was my manager and I could not abandon him. Even if Barret hasn't the experience to know what to do with me, he is good at listening to Gideon, who does, and Barret is trying to learn all he can. Gideon is full of plans for all of us. In spite of how late the two of them stay out at night, it doesn't seem to affect Gideon in the daytime, when he writes letters for Barret to sign on my behalf and chases down Mr. Maretzek, who has leased the Academy of Music for next season's opera, to try to secure an interview. Gideon never leaves without a book of my favorable notices in his hand. Barret tags along, though I think he doesn't feel very useful. I asked Gideon if he could at least try to give Barret more to do, but he reminded me of the mess Barret had made of the affair with Paolo and said it had taken all his skill to salvage things, and that he was not quite ready to trust Barret again with something so important as my career, but he would if I wished it.
I had not thought of it that way, and of course Gideon is right. But I did feel a little guilty--Barret has dedicated himself to managing me, and even if he has been well rewarded for it, I cannot just dismiss him. So I asked if perhaps Gideon could think of one small thing for Barret to do, and he smiled and said he would.
Gideon was worried, when we arrived home, that news of my affair with Paolo would have got out, which would have been very bad for my chances of securing an audition with Mr. Maretzek, as society would not approve, and would shun my performances, but it seems Paolo didn't return to New York City and so my reputation is unblemished! But Gideon has not been able to get work with any company because of the things Follett said about him, and so we must depend on me. He has been frustrated and cross, which is one of the reasons, I suppose, that he and Barret go out every night.
But I also know it is because of me. It's very hard to be so close to each other, and never speak of it or act upon it! Sometimes when he looks at me I feel as if my heart must burst from my chest. I tell myself that soon we will be together, and I can be his equal in patience for now. If he must go out with Barret every night rather than give in to temptation, then I mustn't complain.
He means to cheer Barret too, I know, as he's been low since we came home. Sometimes I see my brother looking at me as if I am a puzzle he cannot figure out, and he is always staring out the window toward Tompkins Square. He asked me the other day if I missed it. I told him no, and he asked me if I was going to be angry at Papa and Willa forever. I answered him that it was they who were angry at me. Papa wouldn't speak to me when I went to the Volksstadt after we returned, in spite of the fact that I'd sent him all but a very little of the money I'd earned and I saw the new settee it had bought upstairs. He told Barret that he wondered how he had the hodes to look him in the face after failing so badly. Mama said it was best if we stayed away for a time, and Willa ... I can still feel the sting of her hand against my cheek.
No, I don't want to go back there. I don't know if I will ever want to go back, though I suspect that Papa will soften after a time, even if Willa never does. But now, with Christmastime approaching and the city growing festive--yesterday it snowed--I do miss them, even if I am mostly relieved that I am away. But now I hear Barret and Gideon at the door and I must go--
* * *
N.B. I am to audition for Mr. Maretzek!!!!! Gideon has secured it, and he and Barret brought me home a Christmas stollen to celebrate, and we ate every bite of it and drank wine and Gideon kissed me in congratulations (or so he told Barret, but the kiss did not feel like only a congratulatory kiss) and I am now a little drunk and very happy. The audition is next week. Gideon tells me I must sing Pamina and Rosina and that I must practice every day before the audition because I have become a bit breathy and my shoulders raise too high and so I am not as beautiful singing as I could be.
DECEMBER 16, 1871--This morning I had the audition with Max Maretzek. I had not been inside the Academy before, and only the stage was lit, but the gold trim of the boxes and the curtains glimmered in the light, and it was so big! So much bigger than I'd thought, with the shadows disappearing into the boxes above and into space below that seemed to extend so far out I could not imagine where it would end, like a huge cave, with every voice echoing up into the rafters and suspended there. Mr Jarrett, the business manager, was there as well, and Barret and Gideon, who played for me. I was very nervous, though I had been practicing, and I knew the arias flawlessly. Still, Pamina especially is very difficult to sing, as it is mostly in the middle voice and pianissimo and a lament too, so that one must act so solemn and bereaved. Before I went onstage Gideon kissed my forehead and then rubbed his thumb, though there was no rouge to rub away, and whispered "In boca al lupo"for luck.
Once Gideon began to play, I forgot to be nervous. I was to sing "Ich bin fuhls" first, and then Rosina, and Gideon added my favorite Zerlina too because I do it very well, and he believes the ingenue parts are the ones I am best for just now. Barret smiled up at me, and I sang for him, and my voice sounded so magnificent there that the passion came over me as if it were newfound. I forgot all else until the last notes died away. I was a little stunned when it was over, so I failed to see the expressions on Mr. Maretzek's and Mr. Jarrett's faces.
They said nothing except "Thank you, Miss Conrad," and I was certain I had failed, but Gideon told me it was how they always were, and to be patient. So I am trying to be, but I'm not very good at it. Gideon says that if they want me, we will know it by the end of the week, which seems far too long to wait.
DECEMBER 18, 1871--I've heard nothing yet, and I'm in despair! The audition only made my longing for the stage worse! I told Gideon this morning he must arrange another tour for me or we will all starve, and he snapped at me that he was looking for a company every day and what else should he do?
His tone surprised me, so I broke into tears. Though both of us knew he should not, he took me in his arms and whispered he was sorry, but that the wait affects us all and the two of us must support each other and not let anything come between us. And I said, "Not anything?" and he looked at me and such a communion passed between us!!! I knew he wanted to kiss me, and oh how I wanted it too, but I meant to be noble and turn away--it has only been a few months since he broke with Willa after all. But in the end I could not. There was no one there to see o
r stop us, and his lips were so soft and yet so forceful too. I could not have pulled away for the world, and he was the one who had to stop it. I was so breathless and confused and longing.... I begged him to forgive me, and said it was so hard to live with uncertainty and Barret esp. does not bear it well. He has come home every night quite drunk.
Gideon said that Barret didn't have the faith in me that he did, but that we shouldn't hold that against him. He said that Barret forgets the dreams we had, but he never will, and he hoped I wouldn't either. Which I never shall!!!
DECEMBER 20, 1871--It's almost Christmas. Barret sent Mama a note saying where we were staying, but we've heard nothing from them. I do not think I shall go even if we do.
Barret is still drunk this morning. He is lying on the end of my bed, curled up like a babe, laughing at what he says is a strange pattern on the rug.
DECEMBER 25, 1871--Christmas Day--I write this very late. It is near two in the morning, and the moon is very bright, so I don't even need a candle. The snow piled in the gutters is too dirty to reflect the moon's shine, but at least it's cold enough that the stink of shit and rotting garbage isn't as strong as usual. When the horses piss on the street it freezes immediately, leaving little pools of ice to slip on when you cross, and it is so cold that my fingers are still stiff, though we returned to the hotel hours ago.
I find I would rather write about these things than what happened today, but I can't sleep either and so perhaps writing things down might help.
The day started out well enough. Gideon and Barret came to my room in the morning and Gideon gave me a soft pair of expensive kid gloves--he says he bought them when we were on tour and has kept them for me all this time. They fit perfectly. He helped me try them on, as they are very tight, and when Barret wasn't looking he kissed the underside of my wrist and whispered that he would give me a proper Christmas kiss later, and I was trembling at the thought of it. For Barret he had a leather wallet "to keep the money in when Sabine sings at the Academy," and a bottle of brandy "for celebrating," though we've not heard from Maretzek yet. Barret gave me a bag of toffee, which I love, and to Gideon he gave candied orange peel, and I had for them each a knitted scarf that I bought from some old woman who was selling them near the Washington Market--not the best or softest wool, but the colors were pretty: blue for Gideon and green for Barret.
There were none of Mama's pfeffernuesse or springerle or Papa's Christmas ale. Just coffee, and not very good coffee at that, and day-old sweet rolls that Gideon fetched from the bakery down the street the night before. I was thinking that the only flaw was that Mama and Papa and the others weren't with us, when there was a knock on the door, and Papa stood there, come to bring Barret and me to Christmas dinner.
I was very happy, thinking we would all be together, and Papa had forgiven us, but then I saw the way he was looking at Gideon, as if he couldn't stand the sight of him. When I said I wished to invite him, Papa refused, and Gideon said it was all right, that we should go on. I felt terrible leaving him there, especially as it is his first Christmas without his mother. I asked him had he any other family to spend the day with and he said Barret and I were his only family now, so I felt doubly sad--it doesn't seem fair that I should be forgiven when he is not, especially when, without him, I would not have a career. I told Papa this as we were walking, and he said if I wished to talk about Gideon then I should go back, as he would not tolerate mention of him.
It felt so good to be home that I forgot Gideon for a while. I had missed it: the smell of beer and smoke and fried fish that has seeped into the walls, so it is always there, like the quiet beat of a drum below a melody; the sound of Mama humming as she cooked sauerbraten and baked apples; Gunther playing with his new Christmas top. The only thing that marred it was Willa, who offered her cheek to Barret and laughed with him, but only gave me a cold stare and said Happy Christmas as if I were a stranger she must be polite to.
Willa has a new beau, Mama said. A German like us, a good, solid boy who will inherit his father's grocery one day. Mama said Willa was happy, but she said it with a sigh and a sidelong glance at me, as if she thought Willa might never be truly happy again and it was my fault.
Papa gave us some of the Christmas ale he'd brewed and we drank it with springerle that was dry in my mouth. By the time Mama served up the sauerbraten, Barret was so drunk that he dragged his shirt cuff through his plate and knocked over a chair. Papa stared at him with disapproval that only grew worse as the evening went on and Willa looked at me as if that were my fault too. Then, after Barret broke into a loud guffaw over some stupid thing Gunther said, Papa asked him since when had his oldest son become so dissolute, and Barret told Papa that he was old enough to do as he pleased. They said some horrible things to each other, and Barret kept drinking until he could barely stand upright and his eyes were glassy and his nose red and I said it was time we should be getting back to the hotel. Then Willa said to me that she wasn't surprised Barret had become a drunk, given that he must take responsibility for my bad behavior, and that I was no better than eine Dirne who must have every man she sees and I lost my temper and said perhaps she should look to herself for the reason that Gideon no longer loved her.
Then Papa exploded that he would not hear that name in his house, and I yelled back that Gideon had made my career possible and they should be grateful to him. Papa said, "Grateful? For what? For taking my daughter on a tour that taught her to forget her good upbringing?" He said the daughter he had raised would not have betrayed her own sister or made herself into a whore. I yelled back that none of them understood me at all, and he spat at me that it was true, and that he had no wish to understand a girl who so easily and thoughtlessly sullied her family's good name. Then he told Barret and me to get out, and I was glad to go.
Mama was crying, and Gunther calling out after us, and it was dark and cold and starting to snow, and Barret could not walk without help. I had to support him while the both of us slipped on the ice and he was laughing and stupid and then he fell on his ass, nearly taking me down with him. He lolled back on a mound of garbage, falling through the layer of ice and snow that disguised it, laughing like some mad idiot. I was so angry I cursed him in German, and he said: "No more German, Bina, remember?" and then he began to sob.
I had never seen him like that. Never so drunk, never so sad. His crying was so gulping and loud that someone opened their window and called out to ask if he was all right and when I said he was only drunk they said to shut him up, he was waking the baby. I tried to grab him and pull him to his feet, but he grabbed my hands instead and I lost my balance and fell into him, and he put his arms around me and held me so tight I could not move, and cried into my hair. He kept saying: "What are we doing, Bina? What are we doing here? This is all wrong. We should be at home." I told him home was the hotel now, with Gideon, and Barret said we should not stay with Gideon, that he was not what he seemed.
I was very angry with him then. I pulled away and pushed at him so he went deeper into the garbage, and I said coldly that Gideon had done everything for me. Then I walked away, though I knew better than to walk alone at night in this neighborhood.
Barret ran up behind me, falling into me to stop himself, hard, so I stumbled, and as we passed through the halo of a streetlamp, his tears glistened like trails of light on his face. He kept saying he was sorry for failing me, that he meant to take care of me and he would not fail again.
Then we were back at the hotel. He would not come up with me, though I begged him. He said he wanted a drink and went staggering off like a man meaning to fall down at the first comfortable place. I ran up the stairs to Gideon's room and I pounded on the door like a mad thing until he opened it. His eyes were heavy and he was holding a book, and he looked so beautiful in that moment, so safe, that I launched myself at him, crying into his chest, not realizing until his arms came around me and he pried me gently away that his shirt was open and I had been pressing my face against his bare skin. "What happe
ned?" he asked me. "Where's Barret?"
I could not tell him everything; I only told him that Barret was drunk and mad, and that Gideon must go after him or I was afraid we would find him tomorrow dead in some ditch, and he threw his book aside and grabbed his coat from the hook beside the door and told me to go to my room and stay there, buttoning his shirt as he hurried down the hall.
That is all I know. Neither of them have returned, and I've been listening very closely. I have not heard a single step. I have put the gloves Gideon gave me on my pillow, where I can see them and touch them, the softest kid, the purest white. And I intend now to think of them as a good luck charm, because only a lady of society would own such a useless thing as white kid gloves. It means that Gideon has faith that I will be hired to sing at the Academy of Music. It means he thinks everything will work out, and we will be rich and successful and as lauded as I was in Philadelphia and Boston and Chicago. Even Barret was happy then.
CHAPTER 7
Seattle, Washington Territory--March 1881
I t took longer than Mrs. McGraw had predicted for Mr. Clemmons to leave. After three weeks, he still wasn't gone, though Mrs. McGraw said he kept promising he would go. "I'll have that room for you yet, Miz Rainey," she said, and Charlotte gave me a troubled glance that had me reassuring her that I didn't mind.