by Megan Chance
He agreed quickly then, and left us there by the back stoop, and Charlotte turned to me with a little smile and said, “A walk? Where the hell to?”
“Down to the harbor,” I said.
“We’re as likely to get raped and murdered as make it there in one piece.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” I said.
I felt the curiosity in her glance. “Why? What’s got into you?”
“It’s a beautiful night, and I’m not tired yet.” All of which was true, but there was something else too, the need to have more of her, for just a little longer. I was not ready to go to the boardinghouse, where she would go to her room, and I to mine. I wanted to keep her with me for a few moments more.
The movement in the bay was constant even through the night, the lamps of the steamers set upon deep shadows as they moved through the darkness, reflecting upon the water like stars set in a rippling firmament. I made a blind descent down the bank, slipping a little on stones I could barely see, hearing them roll and rattle to the barnacle-covered ones on the beach below. There was an abandoned wharf just beyond, and I stepped up onto its loose, splintered boards and went halfway down its length before I sat.
Charlotte sat beside me and drew off her boots, sliding to the edge of the dock, trailing her feet in the water, sighing. She lay back, looking up at the sky. “That feels good.”
I took off my own boots, easing my feet into water that was cold even in summer, feeling the gentle nudge of a tentacle-less jellyfish—scores of them floated about the dock like clear, gelatinous bubbles—and then the tickle as it fluttered its edges and drifted away.
The smell of coal smoke from the steamers was heavy on the air, salt and seaweed and tar, from somewhere something rotten. I heard the small splash of her feet below the sight line of the wharf. Her presence eased my apprehensions and my fears, yet even as those lessened, another kind of fear came, familiar, the same I’d felt before, with him. That longing that went beyond friendship or sex, a fear that had everything to do with love, with the dread of losing it.
I found myself saying, “I miss you.”
I couldn’t see her expression in the darkness. “Oh hell, Marguerite. Things change. It ain’t always bad. It just takes getting used to.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.”
“You sound like a spoiled kid.”
I pulled my feet from the water, my knees to my chest, drawing away from her. “Forgive me. I’m sorry if I don’t know how this is supposed to work. I’ve never had a friend. I don’t know the rules.”
“You can’t mean it. You must’ve had friends before. What about your sister?”
“I told you I don’t speak to her. We were rivals, not friends.”
“Your brother then.”
“My brother …” I closed my eyes. It was too hard to think of him. I shook my head mutely.
“There must have been someone.”
“You’re the first to make the attempt. Virgin territory, as it were.” I tried to laugh and failed miserably. “You’d best take care. I understand it can be dangerous.”
She slid closer to me, her skirt catching in the splinters of the boards. The wharf rocked. “What about your piano player? There must have been good times at the start, weren’t there?”
“Yes, of course,” I said impatiently. “But it didn’t last. Nothing ever does.”
“So what happened?”
I searched for what to tell her. Another bit from Barber, perhaps. Or La Traviata. I said, “His father asked me to walk away. He’d arranged a marriage for him with a woman who could do something for him, and said I should step aside so he could be as famous as he was meant to be.”
“And you said no.”
“Why would I say no?”
“I ain’t never seen you do anything without getting something in return.”
“Well, I did this time,” I said hotly. “I would have done anything for him.”
Charlotte laughed. “I ain’t wrong to say it, and you know it. All right … so this time you played the martyr and left him. I guess it was true love. What then?”
I went on, sulking at first, then, as she listened more intently, I forgot my irritation. I added more from Barber, another piece of La Trav here, one from Figaro there. I told her how I’d left him, how he’d followed me. How we’d come back together, how we grew tired of each other.
“He had affairs,” I said. “He was never faithful.”
“Well, he was a man. At least you never married him.”
“No,” I said, and the word carried with it a sadness I’d forgotten, one I hadn’t expected. I let it fall into the darkness, and she let it lie there, untouched, neither of us picking it up to explore it.
She threw her head back to look up at the sky. “A pretty night, ain’t it?” she asked, and then she began to hum, low in her throat, “Roll on Silver Moon.” When she mangled a note—too quiet; she couldn’t reach it—I couldn’t help myself. I joined in. Very softly, correcting. I closed my eyes; I tried not to think of her beside me as the hum turned into words, as I began to sing: “‘Roll on silver moon, point the traveler on his way….’”
She went still and quiet and I could have stopped too; I should have stopped. But my voice took on an odd sort of power in the night, and I could not stop singing. I could not stop until I’d finished the song, until I climbed to the final crescendo: “‘I never never more with my true love will stray by thy soft silver beams, gentle moon.’”
When I opened my eyes, it was to find her staring at me.
She said, “Sing something else.”
Had she complimented me, I would have stopped, I would have put it away and locked it tight. But instead I broke into “Long Time Ago,” a light, comic tune that required no effort at all, even from my unpracticed throat, and though I had known I missed the singing, I had not truly realized how much. It felt as if something had been restored to me, something I had loved and never expected to see again.
When I finished, Charlotte clapped her hands and put her fingers to her mouth, whistling as if she were in an audience, and I bowed where I sat, deeply from the waist, gracefully opening my arms in thanks as I’d been taught. “There’s seduction in a bow, Bina. The finishing touch—it tells them how much to love you.”
The words from the past startled me. For a moment I could not find myself, I did not know who I was.
But then Charlotte said softly, “Don’t. Don’t ruin it.”
I called myself back with effort. “What?”
“Whatever you were thinking just then—don’t think it. You were happy when you were singing.”
“Charlotte—”
“I ain’t never seen you like that. D’you know this one?” And she began to sing “Ständchen,” though she sang it in English. “Serenade.” “‘Murmur low and sweet through the leaves, the night winds moving….’”
The happiness I’d lost for a moment bubbled up again inside me. I sang with her, and the night was suddenly so beautiful my heart ached with it. Charlotte lifted her foot, splashing water that sparkled and glowed, though there was no sun to reflect in it, and she stopped singing in a rush of startled breath. “Oh! Look at that! Phosphorescence!”
She plunged her foot in again, swirling it, and the water came alive with light that shimmered against her skin, as if she’d set off sparks.
“It looks as if the stars fell in,” I said.
Charlotte arched her foot and made the water dance, creating a waterfall of light from her bare toes, and together we laughed like little girls at the wonder of algae that made its own light in the summer water, and I felt something inside me shift, a lurch of memory, and one I’d forgotten—a girl on a beach in Cuba, lifting her skirts and petticoats to run barefoot in the surf, laughing with happiness as she did so, bursting with it, while nearby a man laughed in reply as he took off his coat and sat on the beach to watch her, the wind ruffling his dark hair.
From the Journal o
f Sabine Conrad
JANUARY 10, 1874—I have not been sleeping well, and Gideon said this morning that I must not let Barret’s death continue to haunt me, as Leonard told him that it made me poor company. Leonard has sent: one gold tiara studded with diamonds and pearls; an ivory and silk fan painted in the Japanese style; three rings: one emerald, one amethyst, and one ruby; one sapphire brooch in the form of a beetle with diamond eyes. He has written a note with each one saying that he misses our drives together, and to please say I have not abandoned my most ardent friend.
Gideon says the jewels are not enough, that if we are to put a troupe together to tour this summer we must start now, and Leonard must finance it, and I can grieve all I want, but I mustn’t lose sight of our future. He says Barret is still controlling me even into death, and do I mean to thrust us into poverty because of my brother’s selfishness?
Sometimes I hate Barret so much for leaving me to feel as guilty and horrible as I do. At night I hear his words—that I am not myself, that Gideon is ruining me, and I hate that I even allow such thoughts into my head. Barret never understood. I can hardly bear the moments I’m not with Gideon, and he has been everything that is patient and kind. He has held me more nights than I can count and let me sob into his shoulder until we are both wet with my tears. How can I doubt him?
I have not written about Barret’s funeral because I cannot. It was horrible, and Papa and Mama both blame me for his death, I know. They barely spoke to me, and they accused me with every look. Willa, of course, kept her distance, because I brought Gideon with me and she is heavy with her husband’s child. But I felt how she blames me too. None of them understand. No one understands but Gideon.
Gideon whispers that I don’t belong in that world anyway. He reminds me of the dreams we share and says that this is the beginning, and once we have the troupe together we will be in control of our future. We will decide what shows we produce and where we play, and I will have the chance to show my talents to their best advantage and become the diva I should be.
When he says things like that, I feel much better. He reminds me that it is only a matter of time before I convince Leonard to give us the money we need, and the truth is that I do love the attention that Leonard and Belmont and the others lavish upon me. Next Wednesday is the French Ball held by the Cercle Français de l’Harmonie at the Academy of Music. It is to be a masked ball, and I confess I cannot help but look forward to it. I am tired of being so sad.
JANUARY 11, 1874—Today I had a visit from Willa.
How wretched it was! I had not expected her, and when the boy came to ask if the manager might send her up, I was in bed with Gideon. It was near eleven, and though we had been up very late the night before after the Hamilton soiree, I knew Willa would think me very decadent indeed to be sleeping the day away (though, in truth, I hadn’t been sleeping). I told the boy to have her wait for me in the Ladies’ Tearoom, but he said she insisted on a private interview. Gideon kissed me and said he would stay and that it was time my family understood there was no separating us now.
There was no time to dress, so I put on a chemise and dressing gown, and Gideon pulled on his trousers and a shirt, but no coat or vest, and the bed was unmade behind us, even though I pulled out the screen, so I knew Willa would see right away how intimate we were, and I was nervous to face her.
I was right to be so. When she came through the door, her gaze went right to Gideon, and I saw the longing that came into her eyes in the moment before he came to stand behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. When he touched me, her expression went hard. But worse still was that Willa was no longer pregnant. She’d had the baby, and I hadn’t known. No one had sent a note or told me anything. When I asked her, she said she had a little boy who looked just like his father, and that she’d named him Barret after her brother—her brother, as if he was nothing to me—and that she hadn’t told me because she wanted him not to have anything to do with me.
I started to cry, though I tried to hide it from her. Gideon squeezed my shoulder and asked her why she’d come, and Willa said she was on an errand from Papa. When I said how strange it was that he’d sent her instead of coming himself, she said Papa had no wish to see me, that I was selfish and willful, and Barret was dead because of me and none of them could forgive that.
She must have known how much she hurt me. I grew angry and said very sarcastically that shame hadn’t kept Papa from taking the money I sent him. She reached into her bag and brought out a small stack of bills tied with string and set it on the table—it was why she’d come, to return the money I’d just sent Papa, the first since Barret’s funeral. “Don’t send any more,” she said flatly. She said Papa didn’t want anything from me, that he wanted her to tell me I was no longer his daughter.
I said Mama could not feel the same, and Willa said she did. That since I so obviously wanted to be free, my family would release me. She glared at Gideon and said she hoped I was happy with my choice.
Then she left.
When she was gone, my tears left with her. Gideon made to comfort me, but I told him I had no need of comfort. I was cold deep into my heart, and so angry it stays with me still—I think it might never go away. I saw the confusion come into his face, as if he didn’t know what to make of me, so I kissed him and made him take me to bed once again because sometimes I can only forget things when he is deep inside me.
If my family wishes to have nothing to do with me, I am happy to oblige them. I hope they still feel that way when I am very rich and very famous, and they are still crowded into a tiny apartment above a beer hall in Kleindeutschland.
JANUARY 15, 1874—It has been twenty-four hours since I’ve slept, and I am still so awake and stimulated I wonder if I will ever sleep again! The French Ball was truly the most lascivious thing I have ever experienced. It is so bacchanalian I’m surprised the city hasn’t put a stop to it, but then, how could they? The people who were there … well, I think they wouldn’t admit to it in the light of day, but I spotted several very rich men despite their masks and costumes, and of course Leonard was there and August Belmont too, and all kinds of women I’d never seen before (and NONE I recognized from the Four Hundred) and some I hope never to recognize in society, because how would we look one another in the eye? What a balm it was for my unhappiness these last weeks! For a few hours I confess I forgot everything.
Gideon had our costumes made, and when I saw what he’d done I did not think I could wear such a thing in public. He’d made me into a Turkish harem girl, with flesh-colored tights beneath thin silk pants and my bare stomach showing beneath the long fringe of a very revealing corset-like top. I told him it was too indecent to wear and he said it would be nothing compared to some of the other costumes. It was, however, quite beautiful, all in gold and that color of blue that looks very nice on me. He went as a harem guard—which I said I believed were eunuchs and he pulled me close and asked would I like to see how much of a eunuch he was and I laughed.
I had sapphires at my ears and throat and several bracelets on my arms, and my hair was down and Gideon had a hairdresser weave jewels into it so that every time I moved they thudded against my back, and I wore a blue silk mask too. Then we went out in the cold night, and I felt quite naked beneath my cloak. We teased each other in the carriage so that by the time we reached the Academy I was so inflamed for Gideon I wanted him to take me back to the hotel and to bed. But he told me that my distraction these last weeks had annoyed Leonard, and that tonight I must lure him in again. He said too that I should be careful, because these balls were known for their excesses, and though he would keep an eye on me, I must remember what I was about. Then he said he would reward me later if I were very good, and I laughed and promised I would do what he asked, but I was unprepared for how truly debauched the night was!
There must have been two thousand people there, crowding the floor and the pit and the boxes; so many it was near impossible to get through the lobby, and the music from the orches
tra onstage was loud and there was champagne in every person’s hand. And the women! There were many that were almost naked, far more so than I was. I saw another woman with a harem costume, only her corset was cut out to show her rouged (!!) nipples, and there were two men I saw who had painted phosphorescent paint onto their chests so they shone and glowed in the gaslight. There were a hundred satyrs and nymphs and a dozen Cleopatras and Caesars and scantily dressed Marie Antoinettes and lion tamers and Napoleons and gypsies. Everyone was drunk, and in our costumes and masks, we were not ourselves, but strangers who did not bear responsibility or consequence. I saw men leading women into darkened corners and it was like being in the back alleys of Kleindeutschland, passing the younkers and their girls and turning away in embarrassment, though some I passed motioned for me to join them. At first I was shocked, but then Gideon pushed champagne into my hand, and after a few glasses I stopped being shocked at all. Twice Gideon had to tell me I must not look at him that way, and when he led me upstairs to a box, I thought he meant for us to have our own private spot, but he drew me into the shadows and kissed me hard and told me that he meant to find Leonard, and I was to wait there for him.
I drank my champagne and went to the railing to look over the crowd. In the box below there was a woman lying over chairs shoved together, with her legs spread and her skirts pushed up while the two men she was with took turns mounting her. I was both embarrassed and titillated—I could not look away, and I wished only that Gideon would return, because my skin felt too sensitive and my breasts felt tight and I thought I might burst if he did not touch me.
Then I heard the curtain open behind me and I smiled and deliberately did not turn, but waited for him to come up behind me. I felt his bare hands on my naked waist, and I arched back against him and twined my arms around his neck, and it wasn’t until then that I realized it wasn’t Gideon at all. I gave a little gasp and turned to see a gladiator, and I thought it must be Leonard, whom Gideon had sent to me, but then he said, “How beautiful you are, little nightingale,” and I recognized his eyes behind his mask and the words he said, because he’d called me that before. It was August Belmont. I remembered what Gideon had told me, that I must not encourage him because Leonard would be angry, but I was very drunk, and I let him kiss my breasts and my throat and closed my eyes because to be adored is a heady feeling, and also because (I confess it!) I expected Gideon back any moment, and I thought this would make him just a bit jealous and I like him that way.