by Hazel Gaynor
Madeleine grinned. “Well, now I’m looking forward to Venice more than ever. I want to meet this mysterious Matthias Morelli. See what he’s all about. To Venice, then!” She raised her glass in a toast.
I raised my glass in return as the setting sun cast a golden glow over the table. “To Venice. And whatever might be waiting for us there.”
Madeleine leaned back in her chair. “I think a delicious story is what’s waiting for us.”
I bit back a smile. “You sound just like Nellie Bly.”
She folded her arms across her chest and smiled. “I know. And hopefully I’ll soon be writing just like her, too.”
Part Two
Arrivederci
Violet
Veneto Estate, East Hampton, New York
April 1937
I think of the girls every moment of every day. I go over their itinerary and imagine where they are at that exact minute, what they’re doing, what they’re thinking in private. After so much time together, I wonder what secrets they still keep from each other, as every woman does, even from her sister.
It’s a perfect spring day, and Henrietta insists we do something nice outside.
“A picnic at the beach,” she announces. “Like those you’re always telling me about when the girls were younger. It’s such a nice day, for April. Do you think Celestine would like to join us?”
“Not today,” I reply. “She’s running errands. She’ll be sad to miss it, though. Our beach picnics were always a favorite.” They were such happy times, languishing beside the surf, the roar of the ocean the only music we needed.
“It’s a pretty name, Celestine,” Henrietta continues. “Unusual.”
“It was her father’s favorite,” I say, and I picture him, telling me in that animated way of his about the painting above his fireplace, and the artist who’d captured the beautiful young woman playing among the stars. “It means ‘heavenly,’” I add, recalling how he’d first said the same to me all those years ago.
Henrietta packs the perfect spread—tea sandwiches, fruit, cakes, and lemonade, the basket filled to bursting—but I find I have no appetite and pick at the sandwiches like a sparrow as I gaze at the expanse of sand in front of me, empty now and yet so full of memories.
I picture the girls racing from the water to warm themselves on the blanket, building a kingdom of golden sand, giggling as they work to stem the flow of the tide and defend their fortress. Then they would listen to Nellie’s stories of sailing across vast oceans to foreign countries, and I would doze happily in the sun and wonder which bits were true and which Nellie had made up to amuse the girls.
I can still see them, dressed in matching bathing suits, their hair styled the same; mirrors of each other when they were clearly anything but. “Let them become their own people, Celestine,” I’d urged. But she wouldn’t listen. My daughter had inherited her father’s flamboyant temperament: stubborn to a fault, certain she knew best. I wonder, now, if her insistence on dressing them the same as children was partly the cause of them being so determined to be different as adults.
“How do you think they’ll manage, spending so much time together?” Henrietta asks, pulling me back to the present. “Do they really hate each other?”
I think about that for a moment. “No, they don’t understand each other is the problem and, well, life is complicated. Anyway, they’re not back yet, so it can’t be a complete disaster, I suppose. I just hope that whatever bridges they build between them are strong enough to remain when they come home.”
“I don’t think I’d like to travel,” Henrietta muses as she combs her fingers through the sand. “I’d be afraid I wouldn’t like things as much when I got back.”
I’d certainly returned from Venice with a sense of longing for what I’d left behind, and an understanding that life would never be the same. As I stare at the ocean, I wonder how different things would have been if I’d returned home with Margaret that summer as planned, rather than staying in Venice with Matthias for the extra month.
I tire quickly and ask Henrietta to take me back to the house. There is something I need to read again, words I must have read a hundred times, and yet call to me still.
I rummage in my desk until I find what I’m looking for: the letter Matthias wrote to me in reply all those years ago, the gracious way he’d accepted my news. I run my fingertips over his writing and my heart lurches back over the decades until I am standing in the Piazza San Marco and he twirls me around in an impromptu waltz, and everything is perfect.
I wonder what he looks like now. If his eyes are still full of mischief and passion. I wonder how he will react to hearing my name, and most of all, what will happen when Clara and Madeleine discover the truth of my past. My past—and their present.
Maddie
Paris to Venice
April 1937
The morning of our departure, Clara and I said goodbye to the hotel concierge, farewell to the glittering Seine, and so long to beautiful, enchanting Paris. Within the hour we found ourselves standing on another train station platform. I could hardly believe we’d already finished the first leg of our trip. It had passed so quickly—too quickly. Though I was sad to leave Paris, I loved the sense of change, and the anticipation of what lay ahead.
Clara fidgeted beside me, checking the station clock every few minutes. She was ready to board and to get to our next destination. I suspected part of her eagerness had a lot to do with Edward Arnold. How deliciously awful of her, daring to meet her art tutor in Venice while she was away from her fiancé! A behavior I wouldn’t necessarily condone—unless the fiancé in question was Charles Hancock. Perhaps I’d misjudged her. Perhaps there was more to perfect, sensible Clara Sommers than I’d given her credit for, and although being a third wheel in the Arnolds’ struggling marriage wasn’t really something to be encouraged, if Edward could distract her from Charles, and help her see him for what he truly was, that could only be a good thing. In the meantime, we would enjoy our ride on the Orient Express.
As we waited to board, I admired the famous train that would whisk us away, southbound across France to the Simplon Tunnel carved through the Alps, and on, to Venice. The cars were a sleek midnight blue and beige with a gold crest that said Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Stewards stood poised in front of open carriage doors. They were smartly dressed in royal blue livery trimmed with gold, and little hats strapped to their heads that gave them an official air. Well-dressed women gathered on the platform in Chanel coats and gloves, their hair pinned in neat curls beneath fancy hats. Their male companions wore the latest fashion in gray checks and brown double-breasted suits, none of which I would have noticed before I’d spent time with Clara on the Champs-Élysées. Porters dashed about, shouting good-naturedly to each other while the baggage was handled, and the low rumble of conversation competed with the train engine as it roared to life.
“It’s quite exciting, isn’t it?” Clara said. She looked beautiful in her pearl-gray travel dress. “I can hardly wait to see Venice.”
I slapped her affectionately on the shoulder as I bounded up the steps. “That’s the spirit, Sis. Come on!”
As we made our way through the train cars to our sleeper compartment, I took in every exquisite detail: the luxurious wood paneling, the scent of fresh flowers and brass polish that filled the air. Our accommodation was spacious and equally opulent with more inlaid paneling, polished to a shine and bringing a warm richness to the room. I glanced up at the ceiling, lined with smoked glass, and then at a small en suite bathroom fitted with pearly white tiles.
Clara declared it delightful as she settled on a cream-colored sofa, beside which two small chairs, upholstered in teal velvet, were arranged around a glass-topped table, bolted to the floor. Brilliant sunlight poured through a set of large windows nearby, casting a golden glow over Clara and the entire room.
We spent a little time unpacking, again. Or rather, Clara did while I quickly shoved the contents of my ba
gs into a few drawers and hung the two dresses I’d brought.
“It’s more like a luxury hotel than a train,” I mused as I continued my way around the sleeper car to inspect the details, opening a cabinet or two and eyeing a set of shelves cleverly designed with a thin rod to hold the glasses steady.
A shrill whistle signaled our departure, the train lurched, and we both stumbled slightly, laughing.
“Here we go!” I said.
While Clara continued to unpack her things, I took in the view from the window, enjoying the slight sway of the carriage and the forward motion as we gained speed. Memories of Paris drifted through my head, and the farewell we’d exchanged with Daniel. He really was a decent man. He’d never been threatened by my passionate nature, and we’d had very enjoyable conversations—politics, history, literature, our flagging careers—and we’d also laughed a lot. Clara liked him, too, though she’d been slower to come around. I felt a tug of regret that I hadn’t exchanged addresses or telephone numbers with him, but it had seemed silly to ask, and he hadn’t seemed inclined to ask me for mine.
Distracted by my thoughts, I left the window and the views and sprawled on my bed. I soon drifted off, sleepy after the early morning wake-up call.
When it was time for lunch to be served, Clara woke me and we made our way together to the dining car. We’d skipped breakfast and it felt like I had a crater where my stomach should be.
We were shown to a table with fine white linen, a crystal decanter and glasses, and napkins shaped into rosettes. I laughed as I plucked mine from the center of the plate and smoothed it over my lap. “I wonder whose job it is to do that. It must take them hours.”
“It’s the little touches that matter,” Clara said as she admired the decorative place setting. She let the waiter unfold her napkin and drape it across her lap, as was the proper way. “I wish Violet could see this. Wouldn’t she adore it?”
“She would. Yes.”
I wondered how Violet was faring. Still stubbornly hobbling out to the garden each day, insisting on card games and visits from her friends, or laid up in bed for the duration? What must it be like to face death as your health diminished before your eyes? As exciting as the trip had been so far, it was important to remember why we were here.
“Good afternoon, ladies. How can I be of service?” The waiter bent gallantly over the table as he filled our crystal glassware with water. He was attired in crisply ironed livery, and moved as stiffly as his uniform looked.
Clara smiled politely at him as I lit a cigarette and leaned back in my chair.
“What’ve you got for us, fine sir?” I asked. “I could eat a whole roasted elephant, I’m so hungry!”
He looked a little taken aback. “Indeed, miss.”
Clara kicked my foot under the table as he rattled off the lunch special of duck à l’orange with whipped potatoes, grilled onions, and haricots verts.
“That sounds wonderful, thank you,” Clara interjected before I could reply with some other silly comment.
“Shall I bring you both an aperitif while you wait?” he asked.
“Perhaps you should bring two,” I replied.
His eyes widened. He looked from me to Clara and back to me again.
“I meant one for me and one for my sister,” I said, smothering a laugh.
“Very good, mesdames.”
Clara leaned forward when he’d gone. “Roasted elephant? Really, Madeleine?”
“Did you see his face?”
She rolled her eyes but a smile tugged at her lips.
After we finished the excellent meal, as fine as anything we’d eaten in Paris, we took a digestif into the lounge where several couples played bridge and others read novels, or engaged in hushed conversations.
When a gentleman beside us folded his newspaper and stood to go, I asked if I might take a look.
“Of course, please help yourself,” he said, though his eyes were on Clara. She blushed at his open stare.
“Thanks.” I snatched the newspaper up and slid into an empty chair.
“You’re not going to read that now, are you?” Clara asked. “I haven’t brought my book.”
“I’ll just take a quick look through the headlines, and save the rest for later. Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
She took the seat opposite mine and picked up a magazine as I thumbed through the edition of the New York Times, already nearly a week old. There wasn’t much of interest until page five. My eyes widened as I read the headline.
Hancock Enterprises to Buy City Block, Build by Autumn
Charles was going through with his development! I skimmed the article rapidly.
“It will be a magnificent building and will help clean up the neighborhood on the fringes of the financial district,” Charles Hancock of Hancock Enterprises said on Thursday morning outside his office on Fifth Avenue. “We’ll be employing dozens of new architects and engineers.”
Nowhere did the article mention the hundreds of poor people who would be displaced because of his new building. They would likely move to Hooverville, the shantytown in Central Park that had continued to grow since the big market crash several years ago.
“That absolute pig!” I said aloud, catching Clara’s attention.
“What?” She looked up from the French fashion magazine she’d taken from the pile on the table.
I hesitated, debating whether or not to tell her, but decided against it. I didn’t want to start another fight between us, and this most certainly would.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Just some political nonsense. I’ll finish this later.”
As I folded the paper, my mind raced. If Clara went through with the wedding, the Sommers family would be linked with the Hancocks, and with all of their projects—and misdeeds. My stomach churned at the thought. Our family was known for philanthropy and generosity. The Hancocks were known for their mansions and Fifth Avenue society projects, and, more recently, for Charles’s success in business. This latest development of his would affect our good name by association.
I smoothed the newspaper, pausing as I was struck by an idea. What if I wrote an exposé about the displaced people suffering because of Hancock Enterprises? Since Charles’s business dealings were already hitting the headlines, it would be the perfect time to pitch it. It was a great idea! I reached for my journal to take down a few notes.
“Struck by inspiration?” Clara asked as she picked up another magazine from the table.
I nodded. “Something like that.”
My pen hovered over the page. Charles was Clara’s fiancé, whether I liked it or not. Could I do it? Could I really expose the man my sister was going to marry? An article like this could be my way in, a real career break, but at what cost?
“Well, go on then,” she prompted.
I looked up as happy chatter floated toward us from a circle of chairs near the window.
“It’ll wait,” I said as I put my pen and journal away, and put Charles Hancock out of mind for the time being. I motioned to the group beside the window. “Let’s introduce ourselves. Maybe we’ll meet some interesting people.”
“Must we always be in search of interesting people?” Clara asked. “I’d be happy to sit quietly and read, or sketch. I can go back to the room and grab my things.”
I told her she was no fun and that the best part of traveling was meeting new people.
“People like Daniel Miller?” she teased.
“Or like Edward Arnold?” I countered.
She cast me a warning look. “He’s an old friend, and I would leave it there if I were you.”
She begrudgingly followed me over to the group, where we were introduced to a Dr. and Mrs. Culpepper, an English couple headed to Venice and then on to Naples where Mrs. Culpepper hoped to recuperate from her gout. When they left, we enjoyed coffee with an elegant couple from Philadelphia named Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright, on a trip with their adolescent daughters, Eliza and Juliette. Clara enjoyed the young ladie
s’ company, chatting animatedly with them about her art and promising to draw each of the young girls’ portraits as a memento of their trip, while I had a rousing conversation with Mr. Wainwright. Though he seemed to disregard his wife’s opinions—to my annoyance—he shared my passion for politics and current affairs.
“Young lady, I’m surprised by your interest in such things,” he said, straightening his spine and puffing out his chest. “The Depression, the stock exchange. It really isn’t a usual topic of conversation for women, especially of your class and wealth.”
“I’m a journalist, sir. I follow the news diligently,” I insisted for the second time. “I don’t see how class or wealth have anything to do with the truth. Or compassion for others.”
His eyebrows raised in surprise. “Well, I suppose I can see your point.”
Growing irritated, I changed the subject. “What do you think of Hitler? Do you believe Germany will go to war?”
He nodded thoughtfully as he added more tobacco to his pipe. “Hitler will make a move soon, I suspect. Invade Austria, perhaps France. It seems likely, even to an observer from the United States.”
“And what about Italy?” I asked, curious about Mussolini and the mark he was leaving on the country. Would there be visible signs of his rule when we arrived? I wondered.
Mr. Wainwright puffed on his pipe a moment, contemplating my question. “Mussolini is power hungry, too. According to an editorial I read the other day, he’s threatened by the republican movement sweeping the country. Dictators do not believe in men’s rights, after all.”
“You mean men’s and women’s rights,” I added.
Mr. Wainwright didn’t reply and took a long drag on his pipe before he met my eye. Clara cast me a warning look from the chair opposite. Judging by both of their expressions, it was clearly time to move on.
“Well, sir, we’d better be going.” I held out my hand to shake his, while Clara said her farewells to his family.