Dreamland

by Nancy Bilyeau

  He continued, “I was ten years old when something fairly… dramatic happened. It took a great deal of money and pressure on the politicians to keep it out of the newspapers. I think it’s what killed my mother, weakened her heart.” Just for a second I could picture that aunt, a dark-eyed beauty, a book of poetry under her arm, forever praising her oldest son’s brilliance.

  “But how can this be happening now?” I asked bleakly. “He’s not in good health, and Thelma – she’s so young.”

  Ben laughed scornfully. “Have you been listening to Helen? Or to her partner in conspiracy, Dr. Mackenzie? My father is forty-eight years old and in excellent health, Peggy. As you may have gathered, one of my duties here is to keep things running smoothly vis-à-vis Thelma. I shouldn’t have sent Paul to her with money. That was my mistake. And he has paid dearly for bringing along Lawrence! Who has no idea who Thelma really is, by the way. And will have no further exposure, I promise you that.”

  “Why did you send Paul?” I asked. “It’s not like you to do something careless or stupid.”

  “Now that’s what I call a backhanded compliment.” Ben winced as he adjusted his arm in the sling. “I’m having a bit of a problem with Thelma.”

  “She doesn’t like you?”

  “I would far prefer that. She likes me too much. I have to be very careful.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, you don’t have to worry about that where Paul is concerned. I could tell from ten feet away that she can’t stand him.”

  “Girls rarely like Paul. The ones who do are as… shall we say, as unusual as he is. And that is as sure a path to scandal as my father experienced fifteen years ago. The police and newspapers aren’t as easy to pay off these days. So, another one of my happy holiday duties is to keep Paul on a tight leash.”

  We were silent together for a moment. I could understand Ben’s life better now, and that of the other men in his family. Or could I? There was still a niggling sense I had of other shadows in other corners unexplored.

  Ben suddenly gripped the edge of my mattress. “This feels so strange, to be talking about this with anyone. But you’re the only person on this planet I could talk to. I don’t want you to turn away from me any longer, Peggy. When you were on the sand, looking like you were dying, and you reached out for me, saying, ‘Don’t be mad at me, Ben’… my God!” He drew a deep, ragged breath. “Your hand, your little hand. If you had died, before I made things right with you...”

  With that very hand I touched his face. I tugged on the tuft of black hair sprouting to the left of his part, a stubborn cowlick that never stayed down. I hadn’t touched that tuft of hair, hadn’t wanted to think about it, since I was fifteen, giggling in his bed, fully dressed under the covers while he shushed me, a candle flickering on the table. It felt strange to me too, to push through the shame and anger quivering between us for years and struggle toward the possibility of a new trust in Ben.

  A click and swoosh on the other side of the room made my fingers freeze. The door was open. Lydia stood there, but her head turned to answer someone in the hallway unseen. She was saying, “That’s the best news, Nurse.”

  Standing next to her was Henry Taul, looking right at me, his mouth dropped open as if he had just been dealt something of a shock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Lydia hurried over, looking fresh and lovely, her face repaired from the tears shed several hours ago. I barely heard her solicitous words, for I was watching Henry – and Ben – with mounting fear. I remembered the questions Henry asked me over and over, gripping my arms so tight it was like I could still feel the pinch of his fingers gouging my skin: “Who’s the man? Who spoiled you?” Did the look in my eyes, my touching Ben’s hair, finally give him the answer that he demanded three years ago?

  But Henry did not do or say anything that indicated he was upset. He merely seemed restless, tapping his hand against his thigh as he gazed around the little room. I’d noticed that earlier he was uncomfortable here. Henry asked a perfunctory question about my health and seemed to listen to my answer. I began to think the shock I saw in his face was my imagination. Ben insisted on giving Lydia his chair, and after a few minutes he said he would find the doctor and make inquiry on how long this ridiculous sling was needed. Henry nodded to Ben as he left. There was no seething glare.

  But even should he suspect that Ben and I got up to some very questionable behavior years ago, why should it matter to him today? He wasn’t marrying me, but Lydia.

  The nurse took my temperature – still normal, thankfully – as well as checking my throat and eyes and my heartbeat. A little later the doctor returned, and with only Lydia there, tested me in other ways. I could not seem to control my arms or legs very well; I was quite wobbly.

  It was at this point I discovered that I presented something of a mystery.

  “Your present condition does not indicate either food poisoning or an infectious or chronic disease,” Dr. Deitch said. “But you were significantly ill in the water, weak and vomiting. And you are still weak, although that is attributable to the trauma of losing consciousness.”

  “What about sunstroke?” I asked.

  “That is most likely it. You had not been exposed to the direct sun for more than a few minutes before the first bout of weakness, according to your own account, but it is extremely hot.” He paused and then continued. “Sunstroke’s symptoms are dizziness and disorientation, even nausea, but not apraxia.” At my puzzled expression, he explained that was the word for my lack of coordination.

  “But she is getting better?” asked Lydia.

  “She is,” said Dr. Deitch, but not with the enthusiasm I’d have preferred. And indeed, the doctor was insistent on my staying in the Medical Suite throughout the entire next day. I didn’t like the thought of being confined, but it was true I didn’t have my full strength back.

  I ate dinner served in bed, a plain one: chicken soup and brown bread, with sliced cantaloupe. I lacked appetite; still, I pushed myself to eat it all. After dinner every member of my family came to visit me, including Mother, who had, like Lydia, resumed her customary self-control. Henry Taul did not reappear, with Lydia making vague excuses for him. That was fine with me.

  I found it difficult to look Uncle David in the eye, now that I knew the truth. Yet he acted the same as ever: seeing to everyone’s needs, a relation we could all depend on. I forced myself to act normally toward him. I had made a promise to Ben and I intended to keep it. Still, I was relieved when Uncle David left my room for the night, along with Ben, my mother, Lawrence, and Paul. Only Lydia and Aunt Helen remained.

  Putting on the thicker robe Lydia had brought, I felt ready to walk, slowly and tentatively, around this small room. I wanted to peer out its single window and get my bearings. Parting the filmy curtain and looking down, I determined the room’s location: second floor and facing east toward the end of Coney Island. Brittle yellow marsh grass quivered slightly, bordering a dark turquoise creek. On the other side of the creek rose a couple of rather ramshackle wooden houses, boats tied to their docks.

  “You should rest,” said Aunt Helen.

  She did not leave but sat by my bed for a while, her hands busy with needlework. I studied her serene profile, wondering what she knew of her husband’s mistress. Establishing his kept woman in the neighboring hotel was such a heartless thing for Uncle David to do.

  After falling asleep, I suffered a nightmare of thrashing impotently in darkness – a horrible repetition of what happened in the ocean. After I woke, I struggled to make sense of strange surroundings. It took me some time to grasp what happened, to remember that I nearly drowned and was being kept here to recover.

  Something else frightened me: I wasn’t alone. In the dim light, in the far corner, sat a young red-haired woman. Although she wore a nurse’s long white dress and hat, I found her being here unnerving.

  “But Miss, it was your aunt who ordered that someone be in the room all night, that you could not be left alone,”
she said in a light Irish brogue.

  I couldn’t believe that Aunt Helen would do that – it seemed an overreaction – but it was two o’clock in the morning, and there was no one to appeal to besides this young night nurse. I couldn’t relax until I cast back for a pleasant memory. I seized on sitting with Stefan that first night, looking at the gauzy electric white lights of Dreamland in the distance. That finally returned me to sleep. To my delight, a vision of Dreamland segued into my next dream, a less violent one.

  First thing the following morning Dr. Deitch checked me again. “You show no signs whatsoever of pneumonia, which is what we’re on the lookout for. And your apraxia has lessened. I think I can clear you to return to your own room at the end of the day. In the meantime, you can have all the visitors you like.”

  There were indeed visitors, but several did not turn out to be a comfort. And though I didn’t know it at the time, the seeds were planted that day for a dreadful harvest.

  Lydia breezed into my room near mid-day, her eyes bright with excitement. “The morning lecture on roses was simply fascinating,” she said.

  “You went over to the Manhattan Hotel by yourself?” I asked, surprised. I didn’t care a bit about missing the lecture, but Lydia had explicitly told me she didn’t want to see the Campions without my being there as chaperone. She went anyway. I realized that she must have wanted to see them very badly – or was it just one of the siblings she could not bear to miss?

  “How could Henry disapprove of my walking in a garden – it’s just ridiculous,” she said, tossing her head. “Especially since he’s at the racetrack today, fussing over his horses, as usual.”

  “I don’t think it’s the garden, it’s who you walk in the garden with,” I said gently.

  As if she hadn’t understood me, Lydia said, “Are you well enough to see Jason and Susannah? They were horrified to hear about your accident, and they would like to pay a call. They’re waiting on our veranda now.” I agreed, and she darted away to fetch the brother and sister.

  Jason Campion stepped shyly into my room, a pale vision. He wore a white seersucker suit and white hat, and he held out to me a bouquet of white roses. They were the first flowers anyone had brought me for the longest time, and I was incredibly touched. I took the bouquet, inhaling the roses’ dusty yet sugary fragrance.

  “Careful for thorns,” Jason said. He smiled, his limpid brown eyes bathing in their warmth, and said, “‘But he who dares not grasp the thorn’…”

  Lydia chimed in with “‘Should never crave the rose.’”

  Now they’re finishing each other’s sentences, I thought. Feeling I should change the subject, I told Susannah, “I had a dream about Dreamland last night, what would Dr. Freud say about that?”

  “Did you write down the details in your dream diary?” she asked hopefully.

  “Oh, Susannah, you never stop pushing those diaries on us,” said Lydia, laughing. “It’s as if—”

  Lydia stopped; her head turned. Following her gaze, I saw a man standing in the doorway. It wasn’t Henry Taul, but the man wore a uniform bearing Henry’s initials. He was sallow and sharp featured, with a moustache. He looked like a weasel. I was sure he was the second servant I glimpsed with Henry on the beach during the Alexandria siege.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded Lydia.

  “I have a message from Mr. Taul,” he said, with a slight accent. “He will be back at the hotel for cocktails before dinner.”

  “I find it hard to believe you needed to seek me out expressly to say that Mr. Taul will be back before dinner,” she said with a haughtiness rarely voiced by my sister. The Campions exchanged glances. They too were surprised by the change.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” he said with a shallow bow, but that only angered her further.

  “I don’t want you peering into the room of my sister, who is not well,” she said, and as if that were not enough, “I don’t want you here!”

  He disappeared, and Lydia turned back to me, her chest rising and falling with fury. Alarmed, I said, “Are you all right?” With a supreme effort, she smiled and assured me she was fine. But the opposite was true. Once the Campions had left, I pleaded with my sister to confide in me.

  “I can’t endure him,” she admitted. “His name is Francois. I think he came to spy on me, not to deliver a message. And to slither his way into a sick room to do it – it’s beneath contempt.”

  A cold dread of suspicion stirred.

  “Francois is a French name, isn’t it?” I asked. “Is he – is this man from Paris?”

  “He’s French, but is he from Paris? Oh, I’ve never asked. I don’t care to know.”

  Trying my best to keep it casual, I said, “Lydia, when Henry went on his long trip through Europe, was Paris part of the itinerary? I supposed Francois would have been useful if he had.”

  “Yes, he stayed in Paris at the beginning of his holiday,” she said. “Francois goes out of his way to be useful to Henry, he’s a horrible sycophant, and I don’t doubt he was dancing attendance in Paris.”

  One of the few advantages to sitting in bed, recovering from an accident, was that being distressed by something was not as noticeable as otherwise. These revelations horrified me, for now I was nearly convinced that the blind item in Town Topics described Henry Taul, throwing a party for prostitutes so extravagant that news of it circulated among the gossips of Paris and drifted across the Atlantic. This Francois must be one of the “friends” who aided Henry in his disgusting activities, though how he would keep Henry up all night I didn’t know. I’d think the prostitutes would be charged with that task.

  How could I let Lydia marry Henry? I shuddered at the thought of her sharing a life, and a bed, with such a man.

  Saying I looked tired, Lydia left for lunch with Mother and I didn’t stop her. While I was still in an agony of indecision over what to say or do, Aunt Helen appeared. “Did you tell the nurses that someone must be in my room last night at all times?” I asked.

  “I did.”

  “Tell me what you are thinking,” I urged.

  She said, “You must prepare yourself for a shock, Peggy.”

  “I’ve had quite a few shocks of late. I don’t see how you could possibly do worse.”

  Aunt Helen looked around to be sure we were completely alone, the doors tightly shut, before saying, “I think it’s possible you were drugged, and that’s why you collapsed in the ocean. Someone secretly gave you a drug, and only you.”

  She was right. This was worse.

  “How? When?” I bleated.

  Aunt Helen said, “For lunchtime in the hotel restaurant, you had begun giving those bottles of Coca-Cola to the kitchen staff beforehand, so they had them all ready to pour into a glass with added ice. Someone could have had access to your drink then. And no one else at the table – or the hotel – drank Coca-Cola.”

  “This drug put into the Coca-Cola… what would it be?”

  “I believe it was chloral hydrate. That’s the strong sedative given to people before they have surgery. I had it before an operation last year, and I read up on it. Between thirty minutes to an hour after swallowed, it takes effect. I remember reading about the side effects, the nausea and vomiting and dizziness. And if given in too large a dose, a person experiences apraxia. I’ve never forgotten that word. You don’t get that from sunstroke or bad food. If you’d been taken to a hospital, they could have performed tests. The required equipment is in any hospital. But the hotel owner, Mr. Lancet, was insistent that you’d receive better treatment here. This doctor obviously isn’t the best. And by now the drug must have passed out of your system.”

  “So there is no way to prove this happened?”

  “No.”

  “But would anyone do this?” I asked, still reeling. “Was it a waiter I offended? Why would someone in the kitchens want to hurt me?”

  She took my hand. “No. Not someone on the hotel staff, Peggy...”

  For the second time in two days, m
y eyes filled with tears. Aunt Helen thought it was someone I knew. “Who?” I whispered.

  “I’m not sure. I have suspicions, but… I don’t know.”

  “You must tell me!”

  She tightened her grip on my hand and said, “I do know you’re not safe here. You need to leave the Oriental Hotel, Peggy. I’ll help you. Now that your sister and Henry Taul are officially engaged, it’s not necessary you be here to present a united front. You could spend the rest of the summer with one of your other uncles and their families. Perhaps Bernard’s family out on Oyster Bay. Or a close friend from school?”

  I said, “To take such action, I’d have to be certain. While yes, my relations with the rest of my family have been a bit… strained, I just can’t believe someone I’ve known forever would secretly give me a drug. I came close to dying.”

  “It was very hard for me to tell you this. I wish more than anything I hadn’t needed to. But I couldn’t live with myself if the person… tried something else.”

  My throat ached; tears burned. “But why? Why would anyone want to hurt me?”

  She was silent as she gathered her thoughts. “It could have been done to punish or to prevent. For four days, you swam after lunch. Perhaps someone wanted to stop you from doing so. It wasn’t foreseeable that you would suffer the side effects of a large dose in the water and come close to drowning. Chloral hydrate is supposed to sedate you. Most people, feeling that tired, wouldn’t have ventured into the Atlantic Ocean.”

  What had my mother said? I could be “provoking” without realizing it. But even if the intent were to induce me to fall asleep in my room, not drown me, to engineer a secret drugging was something so perverse. It suggested a mind that was… wicked. And ruthless.

  “I suppose,” I said, “the only person I can rule out is you.”

  She smiled.

  “And Ben – he was the one who saved me,” I said.