“Are you coming down?” called my brother Lawrence.
He was alone, bounding toward me on the corridor. The last time I’d spoken to my brother, just the two of us, he’d been quite critical.
“Not sure I’m up to that,” I said cautiously.
“You should, Peggy. They’re making a special place for us on the veranda, looking out over the water, because of the heat. We’ll be eating late. A sunset supper, Ben says.”
Was this Ben’s idea, to send Lawrence as envoy to reel me in? It’s no fun toying with Peggy if she’s not around to be toyed with. Seeing my hesitation, Lawrence said, “Listen, I want you to come. I’m sorry, the things I said yesterday. It isn’t right that you sit in a room all day, by yourself, because you think your family dislikes you.”
“Is that what Lydia said?”
“No, she kept saying you didn’t feel well. But she wouldn’t let anyone else check on you but her. So, I thought you must be mad at the rest of us.” My brother’s features twisted as he strained to express himself on matters he wasn’t used to grappling with. “We had a nice time the first day, Peggy, on the trains, and then when we bicycled… I enjoyed that. I don’t want us to be sore at each other.”
My weary wariness dissolved; his inarticulate appeal touched me. I told Lawrence I’d join the family for dinner. After all, I was completely famished. But I needed time to ready myself.
Alice appeared and a bath was drawn, my hair combed out and rearranged. She laid out a fresh corset and a high-waisted lilac patterned dress with a square neckline. Another fashionably designed and beautifully stitched and embroidered dress that made me look like a dull ingénue rather than an alluring woman. Alice also put out my jewelry: simple pearl drop earrings and a diamond tiara. That gave me pause.
“You magnificent, Peggy. Like rebel princess.” Those were the words Stefan used. With a mirthless smile before the mirror, I watched Alice lower the tiara onto my perfumed black hair.
Lawrence had offered to come back in one hour to escort me to this special supper. Right on time, he reappeared.
“You look pretty,” he said. It was amazing what a bath and change of clothes could do; it seemed the terrible experience I’d endured left no visible mark.
“And you are a handsome sight,” I said, deciding to make an effort.
Lawrence bowed, and the truth was, wearing an evening tailcoat, his hair parted and combed, Lawrence looked more like Father than he ever had before. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
Our destination was the veranda that stretched along the ocean side of the Oriental Hotel. I hadn’t been there yet. It was more popular in the morning than the afternoon, when the hot sun in the western sky bore down. But it was now somewhere between seven and eight o’clock, and the heat of the day had finally eased. At the end of the veranda stood a forest of potted trees, acting as a barrier to anyone who wanted to continue except through a narrow opening. On either side of the opening stood two men, dressed in hotel uniforms and staring straight ahead, like stone lions in the wild.
Lawrence passed through first, stretching out his hand to bring me in after him. It was quite the dinner setting that the hotel had arranged for us: a long table set with a glowing ivory-white tablecloth, and fringed curtains that hung down halfway from the edge of the veranda roof to shield us from the sun. My family already sat at the table, Henry Taul next to my sister. At the table’s head was my Uncle David.
“Peggy… Peggy… Peggy.”
Not only did all heads turn at my entrance, but it was all smiles, even a tittering of applause. Ben rose to clap his hands ostentatiously. “I saved a seat for you facing the water,” he declared.
One of a half-dozen hovering waiters pulled a chair out invitingly between Ben and my mother. “Feeling better, Margaret?” she asked, while adjusting my tiara.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said to her and to everyone. Lydia, sitting diagonally across, gave me a tiny wink.
A second waiter with a cloth draped over his arm asked if I wanted champagne. I nodded. I heard the gasping suck of a bottle removed from ice, and the cool pinkish liquid tumbled into my fluted glass like a fairy waterfall. As I sipped my drink, a cooling breeze with the faintest hint of salt caressed my face and arms.
“Now that our Peggy is here, let’s begin,” Uncle David announced. A new gaggle of waiters paraded onto the veranda, holding massive silver trays on their shoulders. When they took off the lids, mounds of sculpted ice were revealed, topped with gleaming shells, lemon slices, and dishes of sauces.
“Cherrystone oysters and littleneck clams,” said the head waiter.
A few minutes later came the slices of melon and the asparagus tips, served on the hotel’s best china. The silver was polished so rigorously that I could see the diamonds of my tiara reflected in the melon knife.
It seemed that to respond to the heat, everyone ventured into the ocean today, by way of the hotel’s private bathing pavilion. After bathing, Lydia and the other females had enjoyed another musical program at the Manhattan Beach Hotel, while the men played pool. I couldn’t contribute to any thread of conversation, I was too captivated by the food. It was hard to restrain myself from gobbling it down, savoring every morsel.
But there was something else. I felt strangely aloof from our party, our family, as if I were observing everyone from someplace high above, between the roof of the Oriental Hotel and the first bank of clouds. I didn’t feel hostility. I was just… apart.
Leaning over, Ben said, “They suggested chilled salmon for the main entrée. Father told them yes, but I wonder if they’ll bungle the mint sauce. There are only three chefs in Manhattan I trust to execute chilled salmon with the proper sauce.”
I swallowed my asparagus tip and said quietly, tears burning the corners of my eyes, “They’d better not bungle. After all, we are the ruling class.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Of all the distortions in time, none seemed greater than finding myself in Lydia’s hotel suite for the second time. It was exactly twenty-four hours later but felt as if weeks had passed, if not months; more than that, it was as if I, Peggy Batternberg, were a different person. To try to settle my mind, I was the one to sip black coffee this morning.
Lydia stood in the center of her spacious room, wearing her chemise and corset as Alice chose her dress. I assumed our maid’s presence was the reason my sister didn’t press me for details of my presumed romantic adventure. Or perhaps it was the thick heat, already so oppressive, that accounted for her lassitude. She twirled a strand of blonde hair, staring into space before saying, “I had the strangest dream last night.”
“Tell me.”
Instead of answering, Lydia lapsed into silence again. Apparently she didn’t want to share the details of her dream. As she stood there, waiting for the maid to dress her, I couldn’t help but say, “You are positively ethereal, Lydia.” It was a polite word for it. The truth was, the girl before me was bony, with frail arms and spindly legs. The corset she chose pushed her breasts toward her collarbone. Otherwise, she’d have no cleavage at all.
Her fine-lashed blue eyes drifted over me. “The fewer clothes I have on, the worse I look. But for you, it’s the opposite.”
“Lydia!”
An eyebrow arched, she said, “Do you deny you have a good figure?”
“Clothes hang better on you than they ever did on me – or ever will,” I pointed out.
Still twirling her hair, Lydia said, “Yes, but there comes a point in time when it’s no longer of importance how well the clothes hang, but what happens when they come off.”
I suppose it was inevitable that Lydia would contemplate her wedding night with Henry Taul now that the date was set, but there wasn’t enough coffee in the world for me to wish to picture that encounter. To my relief, Alice approached at that moment, holding the dress for the day, and there was no more talk along those lines. It was a sailor dress, one of my sister’s favorite styles. As Alice fussed with the light
blue bow fixed on its neckline, it struck me how much of a beautiful child Lydia looked. Yet by the end of the year she’d be a married woman.
“Peggy, you have to go in the sea after lunch,” Lydia said. “It’s the only thing to do in this frightful heat.”
“I suppose it is.”
As she pinned Lydia’s hair, Alice said she’d heard that all over the city the parks were filled with people who slept on the ground, afraid that they’d suffocate if they spent the night inside their homes.
“Yes, people are actually dying of the weather,” said Lydia, and she yawned.
None of us were sleeping well at night in this heat spell, not even Batternbergs with top-floor hotel suites facing the sea, and ceiling fans. Still, that indifferent yawn was not right. I thought of Stefan, sweltering alone, suffering the pain of his beating in his Brooklyn apartment, of Wiktor and Marta having no choice but to perform labor when, even under the best of conditions, they were not hearty people. I felt a twinge of dislike for my sister. She chose to deny herself food for reasons of nervous strain; Wiktor and Marta had gone without food in Europe and nearly died of it. And people struggled in America too. I thought of the boy who collected bits of gum wrapper and cigarette packet liner from the streets.
“You’re looking at me funny – what’s wrong?” Lydia was saying.
“Nothing.” I began to gather my things. “I think I’ll go down to the veranda before it is too hot for it.”
She shook her head at me, eyes darting toward Alice. “Stay a bit longer.” So, she did want to have a private chat out of the earshot of our maid. I girded myself for the conversation to come. I had no intention of disclosing anything near to the truth about what happened. I prayed my lies would be believable.
As soon as Alice had vanished, Lydia said to me, excitement flushing her wan cheeks, “I helped you yesterday. Now you can help me, later today.”
This was not what I’d expected.
“Come with me to high tea at the Manhattan Hotel after swimming, Peggy.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “This is your idea of illicit activity requiring concealment?”
“We won’t be alone. We’ll be with Susannah and Jason Campion, the sister and brother I met. I’ve been attending musical programs with them and having discussions afterward. They’re nice people. Very cultured.”
“I still don’t understand why it would be necessary for me to accompany you.”
“Mother’s been with me every time up to now, but she thinks I should cool the friendship. You know how snobbish she is!” Lydia’s lassitude had vanished; the words now tumbled out. “Even though they’re from a perfectly nice and respectable family, Mother says that Susannah is too modern and Jason is too… oh, I don’t know. There’s not a thing wrong with him, with either of them. Mother just gets her ideas, and now she won’t come with me today.”
“For heaven’s sake, you can’t walk over to the neighboring hotel by yourself?”
“That isn’t the problem. It’s Henry. He doesn’t like me to see new people without his being there. If Mother is with me, he’s not going to make a fuss. But without her…”
I continued to be baffled by Lydia. “The solution seems to be Henry joining you, not me.”
“He’s going to that stupid race track after swimming this afternoon. Please, Peggy, just say yes and stop quibbling.” Her lower lip pouted angrily. “I didn’t hesitate to help you yesterday, and I’m not asking for details this morning. I find it hard to understand why you’d object to this.”
“Oh, I have no objection,” I said.
“And you won’t mention to Mother that we’re seeing Susannah and Jason? If she asks, just say you and I are having tea?”
I agreed, finding the subterfuge a little sad. Lydia’s movements were so constricted.
Like everyone else in New York City, I wanted to be out of doors, not stuck inside. Even our electric-powered fans seemed to be doing little but blowing warm air from one corner to the other. The shaded hotel veranda seemed a better prospect, and I found a table set for two guests that was not taken. In less than a moment, a hotel waiter appeared before me.
“I’d like an iced tea,” I said.
“Very good, Miss. Will anyone else be joining you?”
“No, not today. Would it be possible to receive the morning newspapers as well?”
“Of course, Miss.”
I drank not one but two iced teas while I read The New York Times and The New York Tribune. In the last six days, the heat spell had inflicted nothing less than hell. Even stories of the Triangle shirtwaist factory trial were shoved aside for tales of the city’s suffering. Electric fans and ice are luxuries that very, very few can pay for, noted one article, making me shift uncomfortably. The largest headline said, Heat’s Scythe Mows Down Fifty-Six on Fifth Day. And many more seemed to have been driven mad. A man had shouted, “I can’t take it anymore,” and jumped off a pier into the East River – he couldn’t swim, and rescuers had a devil of a time dragging him out of the water because he fought off their help. Another man tried to attack the police with a meat cleaver. It was even worse in Boston and New England, where the temperature had crawled above 100 degrees for two consecutive days.
My eyes wandered to another headline. Kaiser Wilhelm Addresses Group on German Encirclement described the German leader’s threats over a treaty between France, England, and Russia. I thought again of Stefan saying that a catastrophic war was brewing.
“So you’ve taken up the newspapers,” said Henry Taul as he took the chair across from mine.
“The heat spell is quite the story,” I said, scrutinizing Henry. These temperatures were wreaking havoc, even on him. Strands of damp hair clung to his head. He’d missed a button on his white linen shirt.
He waved to the waiter, who immediately pivoted toward us to take Henry’s order of lemonade. “I’m worried about my horses,” he said. “Over a thousand horses died in New York in the heat spell of ’96. I’ve taken on extra men at the track to keep mine as cool as possible.”
His chief concerns were for his animals, not human beings. Words of scorn leaped to my lips, but I forced them down. I’d vowed to not be rude to Henry this summer, for the sake of my family. And there was something else. His eyes were sunken behind those glasses; he had no color. “You look tired, Henry,” I heard myself say, and I shifted even more uncomfortably in my chair. My tone was too intimate for a woman speaking to her prospective brother-in-law. It was difficult to find the right degree of familiarity in my dealings with him.
Henry reached impatiently for the lemonade when the waiter tried to put it on the table. He drank it in one voracious gulp, his Adam’s apple pulsing in his thick throat. Setting down his glass, he stared down at the little wicker table which was all that stood between us. As the seconds ticked by, I wasn’t sure if I should resume my reading the newspaper. There was such a thing as a comfortable silence between two people. We were not experiencing one.
“My mother will be meeting you, all of you,” he said abruptly.
“Oh?”
“Why shouldn’t you meet her?” he asked belligerently.
“No reason. It’s only that Lydia didn’t mention it. I just saw her.”
He stood up. Apparently, it was time for Henry to move along, and as always, I wasn’t sorry to see him go. “You and Lydia are thick as thieves, aren’t you? ” he said.
“We’re sisters, that’s all.”
“Yes, you are.”
He just stood there, seemingly on the verge of saying something that couldn’t come out.
Weary of this, I said, dryly, “Well, I shall await further instruction.”
That did it. The boards of the veranda creaked under his well-heeled shoes as Henry Taul strode away. The heat definitely brought out the worst in him. With a determined snap, I picked up the newspaper again, but my concentration was broken.
Lydia was right about one thing – in this heat, there was nothing to do but vent
ure into the ocean this afternoon. After our lunch of lobster salad in the hotel dining room, all the Batternberg women gathered for the procession to the bathing pavilion. We would spend a half hour precisely outdoors, to prevent sunburn. To cover the short distance between hotel and pavilion, provisions were made. When each of us stepped away from the shade of the veranda in order to follow the walkway to the beach, a hotel maid walked a step behind, holding a parasol high to shade our skin from the sun. First came Mother, then Aunt Helen, then Lydia, and finally, me. Alice trailed behind me, holding her parasol in one hand and a satchel containing our bathing costumes in the other.
As we made our stately way toward the white strip of sand shimmering at the foot of the pulsing ocean, I felt so ridiculous that I was tempted to apologize to passersby on the boardwalk. How spoiled and shielded we were. What would my dealings with the world be like if every layer of protection were removed? Yesterday I’d gotten a taste of it. In the police precinct, the detective hurled an obscene insult at me while his superior, Lieutenant Pellegrino, pressured and manipulated me. And yet they’d known full well who I was, who my family was, the whole time. What sort of treatment would I have received within those walls if I were from an ordinary family – or from a poor one?
Walking in single file, we reached our destination: the first bathing pavilion, with “Number One” painted discreetly on the door. The maids came in with us, and Alice put them to work, helping us disrobe in curtained stalls. Before disappearing into one, I noticed that the Batternbergs weren’t the only females occupying this pavilion. Two women accompanied by their own maid were preparing to step out of the pavilion, already wearing their bathing costumes. The younger one wore something resembling what I’d glimpsed on other women jumping in the surf: a striped belted dress hanging to one inch below her knees.
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