Dreamland

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Paul shrugged and said, with sarcasm, “Hope you have a nice week.”

  The two Batternbergs, instead of turning around, continued down the hallway, while she was the one who doubled back in my direction. I pulled back into the alcove so that she couldn’t see me and listened to her footsteps grow fainter until I couldn’t hear them at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “We were about to give you up for lost,” said Lydia after I finally found the correct route back to the main lobby of the Manhattan Beach Hotel and on to its Music Room.

  “I was lost for a bit, but here I am,” I said, forcing a smile.

  Lydia and Jason Campion resumed their appraisal of the violin rehearsal they’d witnessed.

  “Strauss would never say too many violins,” she teased.

  “No, but you would, and I confess, you’d be correct,” said Jason. He was not tall, at least an inch shorter than me. Which meant that he was close to Lydia’s height. She didn’t have to tilt her head back to talk to him as she did with Henry Taul. Even in my present flustered state, it pleased me to see my sister enjoying herself.

  But that was to be taken from me after I shifted my gaze to Jason. His hands linked behind his back, he inclined his head toward her as if she held an invisible string. His lips curved into a smile no matter what words she spoke, and his brown eyes gleamed with deep admiration. This young man was falling in love with my sister. No wonder my mother tried to discourage Lydia seeing him again.

  What about Lydia? I recognized no symptoms of infatuation. But after we bade our farewells to the Campions, she linked arms with me and said with a sigh of regret, “Back to the Oriental we must go.” Is this how a woman should react to returning to the side of her fiancé? Yet a crowded hotel lobby wasn’t the place to probe my sister’s emotions – if I should do that at all. Lydia hadn’t pressed me on what happened during my day with Stefan. Perhaps she should be awarded the same privacy.

  As we left the hotel to make our way through its prize rose gardens, my thoughts returned to what I witnessed below. The envelope contained money, I suspected. Why were my cousin and brother paying this pretty young woman? I was fully aware of the reason most men handed cash to women, but I couldn’t believe a sexual link existed between her and the two young men of my family. She and Paul didn’t seem to even like each other. Then again, most females didn’t care for Paul, me included.

  As Lydia and I eased around a ridge of yellow rose bushes, it struck me that there was another Batternberg who was fully capable of charming women. And he was the same person who virtually ran Paul’s life. Yes, the more I thought about it, the more I was certain that the lavender-clad beauty must be Ben’s kept woman. She wasn’t a prostitute, but such an arrangement meant she wasn’t suitable for being introduced to the family. For convenience’s sake, he’d stashed his doxy in the same vast hotel – now I knew why he wanted to be apart from us – and, for whatever reason, sent Paul with some money for her. Perhaps it was her weekly allowance. High tea wasn’t cheap, and neither were those diamond earrings.

  I hesitated to believe it, though. She didn’t seem quite his sort. Ben had three types of females in his life. At society functions, he would be seen with an attractive girl from a nice Jewish family, the proper escort for an ambitious young Batternberg. The women who made his pulse race fastest were the residents of the city’s poshest brothels, I remember vividly the attention paid to his little black book. In between were the quick conquests to stave off boredom, like the girl he’d flirted with at our Independence Day picnic. The woman I saw in the tea room and, shortly afterward, the downstairs corridor, didn’t fit into any of these groups. Expensively dressed and full of complaints, she seemed like too much bother for Ben. But we’d grown apart; it was possible he’d changed in the last few years. She was pretty enough to be any man’s type.

  If this were indeed the situation, I hated my brother’s being exposed to Ben’s sordid private arrangements. This is just what I was afraid of that first evening in Coney Island: the corruption of Lawrence. Should I try to wring the truth out of him? For all I knew, he and Paul could be on their way to the Oriental, walking behind us. I turned around to scan the crowd.

  I didn’t spot my brother or cousin. But I did see a face I knew: the strangely insolent, flat-nosed driver of Henry Taul’s, whom I’d glimpsed twice the day of the picnic. Instead of acknowledging me, he looked away toward a grove of trees.

  Was he following us? I shook off the notion. All the talk at the police precinct about Stefan and me being followed by a strange man had made me too suspicious. I knew this driver was one of Henry’s favorite employees. But I also knew Henry was supposed to have spent the late afternoon at the race track, supervising the comfort of his horses. Who drove him there and back? There was so little driving to be done on this holiday that it wouldn’t make sense for Henry to give this man the afternoon off just when he was needed. It occurred to me that Henry was perfectly capable of driving himself, like Ben and Paul. And perhaps this man was given another important task to perform. Keep an eye on Lydia.

  Spying on his fiancée. As distasteful as that prospect seemed, it aligned with my memories of being Henry’s girlfriend. At first he’d seemed so confident and casual, until one day he was full of questions about who I saw and spoke to at a party he hadn’t attended – and then of course he was locking me in a lavatory when I wouldn’t answer the question about who’d “spoiled” me.

  Yes, I was discarded spoiled goods, but Lydia was the pure and beautiful young girl he’d decided to marry. How vigilant would he be where she was concerned? I feared no limits existed. If the Taul driver were spying on her, what did he see? Lydia and her sister having high tea with a brother and sister. Harmless. I just had to hope that the driver didn’t get close enough to detect the worship for Lydia pouring out of handsome young Jason Campion.

  Considering her fiancé’s possessive nature, I wondered if I should advise Lydia to break off from the Campions. I didn’t want to. In fact, I passionately didn’t want to. They were kind, intelligent people. But there a fear nagged me, a growing dread that I couldn’t completely define.

  It was Lydia who spoke first. As we walked up the steps to the Oriental Hotel, she said, squeezing my arm tighter, “You know, this holiday has brought us together, Peggy. I haven’t felt this close to you since – gosh, since we were in the nursery.”

  A near-painful gush of happiness seized me, and I squeezed her arm back. I had established a feeling of genuine family with my sister – and my brother. I couldn’t upset this delicate balance with suspicions or accusations and so decided to say nothing to her about Henry’s driver trailing behind us.

  As for the other matter, there was no need to embarrass Lawrence with my questions. I knew who was running the show as far as the junior class of male Batternbergs was concerned. Ben’s affairs were no concern of mine, but I could at least ensure that my fifteen-year-old brother was no longer privy to his sexual circus.

  That night, at another late dinner held on the ocean-side veranda, I sat between my mother and Ben yet again. There would apparently be a seating chart for as long as this heat spell necessitated our special table. By the time the soft-shell crabs arrived, talk had turned to forming a late outing to Coney Island. Tuesday night’s fireworks outside Dreamland were not to be missed.

  “Will you favor us with your presence, Peggy?” asked Ben.

  I felt a distinct aversion to experiencing Coney Island with him. Dreamland belonged to Stefan and me now.

  “I think not,” I said. “I’m making progress with my book.”

  “How retiring of you,” Ben said, but he did not try to change my mind.

  I decided to stir things a bit.

  “Are you happy with your rooms at the Manhattan Hotel?” I asked. “I had tea there this afternoon, it was nicely done, but downstairs, the corridors below the lobby, it’s quite disordered.”

  I studied my cousin’s face, waiting for him to s
how uneasiness as he realized I might have run into Lawrence and Paul or his mistress making their rendezvous. No such realization sparked. He said, wryly, “Oh, they never stop talking about how the hotel is the preferred destination of presidents and princes – meanwhile, the rooms are dusty, the staff dim-witted, and the water is hot when you want cold or cold when you want hot. Paul complains so much that I fine him a dime every time he grouses.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  He shrugged. “Faded glory interests me.”

  It was true that Ben was indifferent to the fastidious standards of conduct, hospitality, and dress most members of my family obsessed over. Protocol made him impatient. He was picky about fine cuisine, but I’d also seen him happily devour food bought on the streets. He’d love the sausages Stefan sold on the promenade.

  “If you’re so curious about the hotel, why don’t you personally survey my rooms?” he asked, his eyes dancing.

  I could swear that Henry Taul leaned across the table in order to better hear my response. Lydia was oblivious, deep in conversation with Aunt Helen. Henry and Lydia sat next to each other but were not united. For a second, I pictured smiling Jason Campion hanging on her every word.

  “How about tomorrow morning?” I asked Ben.

  His hand, holding a spoon of consommé l’Adelina, halted on the way to his lips. He gathered himself, sipped the soup, and said, “How enchanting.”

  “I won’t come too early,” I said. “If you’re planning to sleep in.”

  “I don’t sleep in,” he said with a side glance. “Room 505.”

  When supper concluded, instead of billiards and cigars in the hotel, Ben gathered up his acolytes and headed over to Coney Island for fireworks. I decided to follow through on my announced excuse and return to Wings of the Dove. But as my determined reading progressed, I realized the direction the novel was taking with considerable dismay. The character I most liked, Kate Croy, a clever woman with a secret lover, Merton Desher, befriends an extremely wealthy and extremely sick young woman, Milly Theale. The purpose being that if Merton manages to marry Millie and she dies quickly, Kate and Merton can enjoy her fortune. The naivete of Milly disgusted me, and yet how could I of all people rejoice in her exploitation? This novel was ruined.

  I tossed Henry James aside, only to endure a shallow, broken sleep. It must be this grueling heat spell. Would I be any more comfortable sleeping on the beach, like the unfortunates who poured into the parks, desperate for relief? It was not a choice I could make. But such a scenario entered my dream. Wearing only my nightgown, I hurried down the carpeted hallway outside my room, seeking to leave the hotel, when the hallway turned into the dark and dirty corridor under the Manhattan Hotel, and I was not only lost but in fear, with a shapeless shadow gaining ground.

  I woke with a start, my forehead damp with perspiration. The morning sun was bright. I staggered to my open window. The day brought no breeze, no drop in temperature. I turned to glare at the dream journal I placed by my bedside, at Susannah’s suggestion. I had no intention of reliving my nightmare by recording it.

  I was admittedly in a sour mood when I strode through the gardens of the Manhattan Hotel, approaching the entrance. I had not decided how to bring all this up with my cousin, and I was angry with myself for the nerves fluttering in my stomach. When I knocked on the door to Room 505, Ben called out, “Come in” right away. I worried he would be half-dressed, lounging on his bed. “Alone at last,” he’d croon.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong. Ben had a thick rectangular table set up in the center of his suite, and it was covered with papers, both loose and in folders. There were bound books stacked, too. Ben himself sat at the table, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, next to his father, who was wearing a summer suit. The men had a pot of coffee on the table, half-filled cups in front of them.

  Uncle David and Ben each greeted me, with Ben suggesting I have a look around until he could take a break to entertain me. I had no interest in evaluating the furniture, linens, or water temperature of Ben’s suite. What aroused my intense curiosity was what he was up to at this long table. At our many meals and gatherings, no one had given any indication of bringing work with them to the beach holiday. It couldn’t be law school business, for my uncle wouldn’t be closely scanning those sorts of documents. I edged closer to the table and saw among the papers some highly detailed maps, the sort I had a hunch were used for mines. Some were in English and some in Spanish. One of the English-language maps said “Taul” at the top.

  Two things occurred to me as I stood at the edge of that table, looking down on my relatives scrutinizing a Spanish-language map. One was that the consolidation of mines owned by the Batternbergs and the Tauls was more important than I’d realized, than perhaps Lydia realized as well, and after all she was to be the human glue between the families. The second was how shocked they would be if I were to pull out a chair and join them, saying, “Could you use a third head on this? Tell me what the situation is.” It had long been assumed that I would have nothing to do whatsoever with the family business. But women were writers, teachers, doctors. I’d read that women were taking law degrees, even though we didn’t yet have the right to vote.

  Uncle David looked up as if he could hear my rebellious thoughts, and he frowned. He didn’t seem pleased that I had gotten close enough to read the maps and papers. I forced myself to stroll around Ben’s suite. I peered in his bedroom. His clothes from the night drooped across a chair. Thumb-eared books towered next to the bed. I really could not picture the delectable blonde of yesterday venturing into this domain. Ben must visit her in her rooms.

  Back in the main area of the suite, I noticed a line of photographs propped on a table near the window. They were casual pictures of members of our family, myself excluded, I was relieved to see. Most were of Ben, Paul, or Lawrence. One showed Lydia smiling adoringly at Henry Taul, his arm around her.

  “I’m the one who needs a break,” said Uncle David, standing and stretching. “I’ll go down for The New York Times.” With a nod to me, he was out the door.

  Ben joined me at the photograph display. “Paul’s taken this up pretty ferociously. He’s actually booked a separate room and boxed it up with interior walls to serve as a darkroom.”

  “It’s Paul who I’ve come to talk about,” I said, turning to face my older cousin.

  “Oh?”

  I could sense his wariness as strongly as if it were a pomade emanating from his thick black hair. Last night I’d thrown him off by suggesting I’d come to him like this. He knew that something significant must be behind it, that I’d never go out of my way to be alone with him again. I felt a flicker of fear over the coming accusation. But it was too late now to halt what I’d set in motion.

  I said, “When I was downstairs, in the corridors beneath the lobby, I saw Paul and Lawrence handing an envelope that I think contained money to a young woman, a blonde, a very expensive looking blonde, and one whom I’ve never been introduced to.”

  I waited for him to recoil, to bluster. Ben did neither of those things. He said, calmly, “Why come to me?”

  “I think she is yours.”

  “Mine? Do I now own human slaves? If so, I’ve not been informed.”

  “Your kept woman,” I snapped. “Girlfriend, if you want to be genteel about it. You told Paul to give her an allowance and he was following orders.”

  Ben held up a hand. “Peggy, I think you were confused about what you saw. Mistaken.”

  “Am I blind? Dumb? I don’t think so.”

  “For the sake of argument, if this sighted blonde were my doxy, why should you care?” His voice was hard now, like the lash of a whip. “What business is it of yours?”

  “I couldn’t care less who you keep, except for a certain degree of pity for your latest trophy. But I really do not want my brother exposed to these illicit arrangements. He’s fifteen years old.”

  “Ahhhh, so this is all motivated by sisterly co
ncern,” he said, folding his arms.

  “You admit that Paul and Lawrence took money to her at your request?”

  Ben burst out laughing. “Are you playing lawyer, Peggy? This is now officially the high point of my summer.”

  Furious, I said, “Maybe I should take this up with your father.”

  The laughter died. Ben’s hand shot out to grip my shoulder, so tight that a spasm of pain shot through me. “Say nothing to my father about this.”

  “Why?” I cried. “Why should I help you? I will speak to Uncle David.”

  Panic flashed across Ben’s face before, with visible effort, he resumed control. “I don’t want my father to know that I’m keeping her here in the hotel. He can’t learn about Thelma’s presence. Your brother won’t be anywhere near any more necessary… errands. Does that satisfy you?”

  I stared at him, my thoughts spinning. So, her name was Thelma. And he was afraid of his father finding out.

  Ben said, “It better satisfy you. Or else—”

  At that moment, the door to the hallway clicked open, and Uncle David strolled in, a bundle of newspapers under his arms. “There’s talk of suspending the mail service because of the heat spell,” he announced. “More dead in New York, and it’s even worse in New England.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said, moving toward the door.

  “Leaving us, Peggy?” my uncle asked.

  I paused at the door, glancing back at Ben, standing motionless before that line of propped-up family photographs. “Yes, I have… shopping,” I said.

  Out in the hallway I intended to walk quickly to the elevator, eager to find myself out of this hotel, but my heart was beating so fast, I had trouble drawing a full breath and had to reach out to the wall. I had expected the conversation to be unpleasant, but not to provoke threats. Ben’s reaction didn’t just disturb me, it frightened me. I was chagrined to discover he could still intimidate me.

  During a holiday the days are supposed to pass quickly. My God, but the next few hours felt interminable. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, to go anywhere. My room was an inferno. The only refuge seemed to be the ocean. I simply couldn’t wait for the rest of my family to make their way to the bathing pavilion. After lunch, I took my modified bathing costume from Alice and went alone, right after lunch, not waiting the recommended full hour. The sky was half-covered with wispy clouds. But I could feel no rain quivering in the air as I walked down the beach.