The World of Tomorrow

by Brendan Mathews

  “If I have to wear it.”

  “Yes, if.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Peggy said. “You think I’m a child—no, I know you do. And that I don’t want to get married because it doesn’t look like fun. Which, thanks for nothing. I thought you had a better opinion of me than that. But if I call this off, or put a stop to it for now, maybe everyone will stop taking me for granted. I know this is a chance for Daddy to show off. And Tim expects me to stick with the plan, this weekend and happily ever after. But when I’m at the fair, or out with Francis, it isn’t just fun, it’s exciting, it’s new. On Sunday night, everyone was happy, and beautiful, and Francis wanted to be there with me and I wanted to be there with him. I swear that half the time I’m talking to Tim, he’s thinking about the office, and half the time when he’s telling me about his work, I’d rather be out with the girls. I want more of that feeling—the feeling of being exactly where you want to be and nowhere else.”

  “Oh, Peggy. You’re about to marry a man who you say you love and who we all know loves you. If he wants to—and that means if you want him to—he could make more money than even Dad has ever seen. And he has Dad in his corner, so if he wants to, let’s say, be a congressman, he can get there easier than most. Wife of a congressman. You have no idea what you’re giving up.”

  Peggy wouldn’t meet her sister’s eyes. All of her attention seemed focused on extracting the cherry from the bottom of her glass. “Wasn’t that supposed to be your life?” she said.

  Rosemary wasn’t going to say, for the umpteenth time, that she loved Martin and was happy with the way her life had turned out. Peggy would never believe it, and Rosemary did not need her sister’s pity. “Whatever Tim does,” Rosemary said, “you will have your own house, your own family, and enough money to get the things you want. It’s more than most people could ever dream of—and you want more? Excitement? Applause? To be giddy and half drunk and swept off your feet by handsome strangers? You have more than enough already. You don’t get to ask for more.”

  Not until she stopped talking did Rosemary see the faces turned their way. Perhaps she had been louder than she intended. Perhaps she had pounded her fist on the table. Perhaps the silverware had jumped on the Formica. A few tables over, one of their mother’s neighbors had paused in the dissection of a club sandwich. Peggy gave her a prim, patient smile. She might even have rolled her eyes.

  “And this just proves my point,” Peggy said. “Married people always want to tell you how it’s supposed to be, but it’s only because—”

  “Peggy, stop talking and listen.” The waitress had their bill in her hand, but when Rosemary made the silverware jump, she had turned back toward the kitchen. “I’m sure you had a wonderful time on Sunday night. Quite sure, actually. But the whole thing was a fantasy. Francis is a charmer, but a month ago he was in jail, and now here he is, pretending to be a millionaire on vacation. You cannot throw away a life that’s right in front of you—a life you wanted with all your heart and soul just last week—” Rosemary stopped. Fantasy. Jail. Millionaire. What would Woodlawn make of this?

  Peggy leaned in over the table. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I keep telling you that, but you won’t listen.”

  “I have listened,” Rosemary said. “You’re tired of getting pushed around about the wedding—I understand that—and you’re willing to throw away something you actually want to prove a point. But a wedding is not a marriage.”

  Peggy sucked the last of her milk shake through the straw. “And maybe there’s more to life than marriage,” Peggy said. “And maybe there’s not. We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

  CENTRAL PARK

  THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT Anisette. Francis hadn’t been lying about that. And it honestly wasn’t the money.

  Francis had considered himself quite a ladies’ man in Dublin, but he had never gotten involved in anything serious. He was young and in the years before he got tossed into Mountjoy he’d had flash clothes and money in his pockets. He was known around some of the best brothels in the city—clever and kind to the ladies, and willing to spend what he had. His line of work also brought him in contact with well-to-do women who needed him to fetch items they couldn’t acquire in Dublin—books, yes, but also luxuries like perfume and silks that were heavily taxed through the normal channels. Their thanks for his prompt attention sometimes went beyond an extra pound or two as gratuity.

  But he didn’t have any experience that made sense of the way Anisette worked at him. On the ship and at Bingham Castle, he had felt an impulse that he could only describe as protective. He had been warm, enthusiastic, and quick to gainsay those who seemed keen to prick the glossy soap bubble that surrounded her. But that was no more than being polite, wasn’t it? He thought again of her appearance at his stateroom door; she seemed completely without guile. She really was concerned about his brother. She really did want to wish him a good night (Mrs. Walter hadn’t even bothered with pretense, which bespoke an honesty all its own). But since Anisette’s performance on the violin and the way he had looked straight at her, wild-eyed, and she had looked straight back, he couldn’t get her out of his head.

  Perhaps the Angus disguise was starting to affect his brain. Francis wasn’t the type to fall for some doe-eyed ingenue, but maybe Sir Angus was exactly that type. And the more time he spent with Anisette, the farther he fell.

  He was probably violating half a dozen rules of etiquette but he sent a card to the Binghams early Wednesday morning asking if Anisette would perhaps be available for a walk sometime after lunch. What he could not say in the note was that he had gone to bed last night thinking of the particular shade of red in her cheeks when she raised the bow from the body of the violin. Or that the first person he’d thought of when he woke that morning was her. Of course he couldn’t write any of this, but neither could he believe that he was even thinking it. When had he become such a moony romantic? Half of him—his more cynical side—wanted to see Anisette in order to bring her off the pedestal she had occupied since Monday night. Reality would surely remind him of all the ways that she was just another girl. Lying in bed the night before, he had told himself that jail was the culprit. In Dublin, he had become accustomed to the tender affection of female company, and to have it taken away for so long had made him desperate. His brief encounter with Mrs. Walter had been the uncorking of a bottle that had been shaken for a year and a half. And Peggy was easy enough to explain: ripe and blond and game for anything. Hadn’t she been the one who insisted on dancing and on calling his bluff about the Plaza? This attraction to Anisette—as if mere attraction described the space she was taking up in his crowded brain—must have been some pent-up desire, but for what, exactly? Security? Affection? Attention? It was like a toxin in his veins. The strong wine of desire having turned to vinegar from being bottled up so long. But whatever it was, Francis just wanted to see her.

  He received a card by messenger less than two hours later: Miss Bingham would enjoy the pleasure of Sir Angus’s company. Could he meet her at the Central Park carousel at, say, one o’clock?

  He could, of course. And he would bring Michael, too. After the visit to the doctor the day before, Michael had slept through the afternoon. When Michael woke in the evening, he looked ready to take on the world. He dressed himself smartly and the two brothers sought out a steak house where the cuts of beef hung over the edge of the plate. The dinner was splendid, but within minutes of their return to the Plaza, Michael was fast asleep and Francis was off to meet Martin. He had to admit that he’d enjoyed his night out with Martin far more than he had expected. Though the Dempseys had frayed the ties that once bound them, there was something to this business of having brothers that had, in a matter of days, wound them back together again.

  ANISETTE STOOD IN front of the carousel, watching the horses leap and circle. The jaunty notes of the calliope burbled all around her, punctuated by the shouts of children. She loved the carousel, the feeling of spee
d and freedom as it spun, and the music, so bright and full of cheer, rising into the trees. As a girl, she had begged her nannies to take her to the carousel. Félicité had always protested. She hated the carousel, hated the wooden horses who wouldn’t tack left or right no matter how hard the rider pressed. Anisette thought this was funny, because her sister was such a great lover of horses now. Well, maybe lover was the wrong word. She spent all of her time at the farm in Connecticut in the paddock, jumping and circling. Urging the horses over the bars, speaking to them in a clipped voice that got them to prance and pivot. Did she love the horses, though? She did not baby them, did not coddle them with soft playful tones—but people had different ways of showing love. And maybe Félicité wasn’t good at love. Period.

  Maman had been cheered by the note from Sir Angus but she feared that Anisette was being awfully forward in telling him to meet her at the carousel. Was she suddenly a barefoot farm girl, meeting some local swain at the county fair out of sight of her ma and pa? She was to remember herself, her mother said. She was to remember what Sir Angus might perceive as proper or improper behavior for a suitable match. Anisette had blanched at the words. Of course she had thought about it, and so, clearly, had her mother, but they hadn’t spoken a word of it.

  Anisette wouldn’t say it directly to her mother but she wanted to see Angus on her own, and that couldn’t happen in the house. Father was likely to bustle in early from whatever it was he did all day long—shouting into the faces of men who worked for him; shouting into the telephone at far-off men who worked for him. And there was Félicité, angry and angular and ready to bring out the worst in Anisette just to show her up in front of Angus. But what she really couldn’t say was that she wanted to be away from Maman herself. Maman was so sweet, but she had been hovering every moment that Anisette had spent with Angus—except for her sudden, secret visit to Angus on the ship (Maman would have three heart attacks and a stroke if she ever heard about that). More than anything, Anisette wanted to see if Angus was interested in her alone or if it was everything else that had caught his eye: the Britannic dining room, the Binghams’ house, Father and his copper-mine stories, and Maman, who always knew the right thing to say, to do, to wear. Not that she suspected he was a bad man or a—what did Papa call him? A treasure hunter? Not that he was any of those things, but she wanted to see him for herself and she wanted him to see her as just her.

  ANGUS ARRIVED AT the carousel with his brother Malcolm and, far from being disappointed that he had brought a chaperone, Anisette was elated. Touched, even. He had held his brother back from the rest of her family and on the ship had kept him hidden from the other passengers while he convalesced. That Angus would want his closest relative to meet Anisette had to be proof of his trust in her, and perhaps of some deeper emotion as well. As he made the introductions, Anisette held out a slender hand, which Malcolm pumped rather vigorously. Angus had described his brother’s condition in such dire terms, but here he seemed restored. Perhaps Dr. Van Hooten had found a cure?

  “The poor dear,” she said.

  “He’s a fighter,” Angus said. “And you wouldn’t believe how much he’s improved since our arrival. America agrees with him.”

  Anisette suggested a stroll. In one direction the whoops of children at the playground filled the air. The other way a canopy of trees lolled in the pale breeze. Vendors hawking lemonade and shaved ice did a brisk business. Angus bought three lemonades and offered an arm to Anisette, which she gladly accepted.

  They wound through the paths, Francis and Anisette in front and Michael trailing behind, grateful for the lemonade. It hadn’t occurred to Francis until they met at the carousel, but this was Michael’s first look at Anisette. He seemed pleased to meet her, but what could Francis really decode from a smile and a handshake? And what could he tell Michael anyway? Best behavior with this one—I’m trying to impress her? He couldn’t ask his brother a single thing.

  Francis was aware that all of the inventing he had done on Monday night at the Binghams’ dinner table had almost sunk the whole enterprise. Today, he barraged Anisette with questions about herself. In response, he began to hear about nannies and tutors and girls’ schools where the students wore white dresses with bright red sashes. Most surprising was the story of her mother, the erstwhile nurse from Montreal. Francis couldn’t help wondering what Mrs. B would say if she knew that her daughter had just admitted to His Lordship that Maman was an even commoner commoner than he was. Anisette didn’t seem to care a whit. She read romance into the story, the phoenix of love rising from the ashes of the first Mrs. Bingham. Francis saw that he wasn’t the first to gate-crash Bingham Castle, but he did not know whether this would help or hurt him with Mrs. B if the news of his own true nature ever came to light. His estimation of Mrs. B, however, increased.

  The trio reached a broad paved lane picketed with street lamps and tall trees. Park benches stretched like ribbons the length of the promenade. Children hooted and squeaked through games of tag while mothers tended to a flotilla of carriages, like ships tied up at a marina. Farther down, a man in a squashed top hat played an accordion, clowning for the attention and pennies of passersby. Here and there young couples sat together. A man no older than Francis had his arms outstretched along the top rail of the bench, affecting a pose of leisure in the hope that the woman next to him would sink back just enough for him to draw her in, hand to shoulder. But the benches weren’t a spot only for lovers, lovers-to-be, lovers-in-waiting. An old man gripped the edges of a newspaper, holding it inches from his face, as if scanning the pages for hidden messages. A woman in a shabby frock sat farther down the bench, her purse on her knees and her hands folded over the clasp. She seemed to be waiting for a bus that would never arrive.

  “This must remind you of home.” Anisette pointed to the lampposts: from each one a Union Jack hung lank in the breezeless heat. A sea of red, white, and blue and stripes—nothing but stripes—in every direction. If there was one thing you could say about the Brits, it was that they didn’t shy away from excess. Would you care for some horizontal? Yes, please. Vertical? Of course. And would you fancy some diagonal? Corner to corner, please, and twice over.

  “Well, it does and it doesn’t,” Francis-as-Angus said. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many at one time.”

  “Not even for the coronation?”

  “Of course,” he said, with a dry laugh, “the coronation.” Yes, the bloody coronation! He had almost Cawdor-and-Glamis’d himself with that slipup. “There is something to be said for all of this enthusiasm. I do think Their Royal Highnesses will appreciate the gesture.”

  “Oh, you think we’re silly. Trying too hard to impress.” She was looking up at him from under the brim of her hat, her front teeth sunk into the pillow of her lower lip. Anisette’s air of innocence made those lips, so full and swollen, seem almost wanton.

  “Not at all.” Francis stopped and cocked his head to see beneath her hat. He wanted to see her eyes, wanted her to know that he was being sincere. “It’s quite charming, really. You care. You—all of you, the whole city—you want the king and queen, Their Majesties, to feel wanted, admired, welcome. What could be wrong with that?” He really did need to brush up on his forms of address before Saturday: Highness, Royal Highness, Majesty. There were rules for this sort of thing, and Sir Angus MacFarquhar would have known them since the cradle.

  “So they’re not going to think that we’re… overeager?” Anisette blinked. She might have even batted her lashes, or perhaps that was the sunlight filtering through the leaves, or because Francis had seen too many films where Myrna Loy or Carole Lombard had batted her lashes in a moment much like this one.

  “Better that than bored, or disinterested,” he said. “Who’d wish to come all this way only to hear ‘What do you want?’”

  Anisette giggled, then fell into a more serious mood. Again her teeth sank into her lower lip. She twice started to speak and then abruptly checked herself. She seemed
always like a kettle about to boil. “Tell me, Angus. What do you want?”

  For a moment he thought it was an accusation, like the jig was up. He made a show of mopping his forehead with the back of his hand. “In this weather, an iced gin would be a nice place to start, don’t you agree?”

  She slapped him playfully on the shoulder in a very un-jig-is-up sort of way. “Now you’re the one being silly. I’m serious. When you think about life and everything it could be, what do you want?”

  “I haven’t given it much thought.”

  “But you must have!” Anisette’s voice was charged, even annoyed. “You must think about the kind of life you want. Do you always want to live in Scotland? What sort of work will you do—or is it crass to suggest that the son of an earl must work? Or is it crass to suggest that you won’t?” Anisette’s cheeks were flushed pink. The color extended down her neck, blazing against the gauzy cream fabric like a sunburn. “Will you be a bachelor adventurer your whole life, or will you live in a big house full of dogs and children and—”

  “Hullo!” he said. “I see that you’ve given this a great deal of thought.”

  “Everyone does,” she said. “Except for you, it seems.”

  He had batted away her question as if it were a trifle, but of course he’d thought about it. Francis was full of wanting. All his life he had chased and desired and sought, and getting only made him want more. Playing that hand for higher and higher stakes had spurred him on in Dublin, but since his escape he had been forced to reshuffle the deck. First and foremost, he wanted Michael to be cured, and he wanted not to have been responsible for the accident—the incident—the event that had damaged him. More than that, he wanted for none of it to have ever happened in the first place. But he knew that without the explosion that had nearly killed Michael there wouldn’t have been a strongbox, and without the strongbox, there would be no FC Plan, and without the FC Plan… well, he wouldn’t be strolling through the park with Anisette, Michael trailing behind dressed like a dapper young dandy.