“I can’t—”
“There’s an extra ruble in it for you if you do,” the countess said.
Mamka stared at her, rubbing the pack of cards with her fingers.
“Tell me what’s to come or I won’t find a place for your daughter after all.”
Mamka stared at the wall, still as a painting, and then took up her cards once more. “If you insist, we will see the future.” She placed one down with a little snap.
The fox killing the dove.
Mamka looked into the countess’s eyes. “Four girls will fall on their stones.”
“What girls?” the countess asked. “I have only two daughters. I don’t understand.”
“The big ones and the small.”
“You make no sense at all.”
Mamka turned another card onto the plank.
The ship.
“This card tells of travel,” Mamka said, a furrow in her brow.
The countess smiled. “More travel? To Paris, I hope.”
Mamka circled the water on the card with the tip of one finger and fixed her gaze on the countess. “It says the boy child will be cleaved from its mother.”
The countess held her dog tighter. “I don’t understand.”
“It says the child will cross water four times before he can rest. He will only be safe when he is under the torch.”
“There must be some mistake,” the countess said. “What torch?”
Mamka’s fingers trembled as she took the next card from the pack and placed it on the shadowed end of her plank. “The next card is most important, so heed it well.” She lifted the candle from the bedside table and angled it downward, squinting at the card. The flame jumped and cried wax onto the board.
The scythe.
A shiver of dread ran down my back.
“Oh—” Mamka handed me the candle and pushed the plank away as if she’d been stung and the cards slid to the bed. She slumped back, one fist to her mouth and waved the countess away. “Go now.”
I held the candle closer to the bed where the offending card lay faceup on the bedcovers. It looked innocent enough: a golden sheaf of wheat, the silver-bladed scythe resting at its base. But nothing good ever came from that card.
“What about the rest?” the countess asked.
Mamka waved the countess away. “I can see no more.”
“But when will all this happen?”
Mamka turned her gaze to the candle in my hands, her eyes wide. “I’ve told all I know. Please go.”
The countess gathered herself, stood, and strode to the door. “Well, this was a most unsatisfactory trip,” she said in Russian. “Can’t say you deserve five kopecks.”
She nodded to the servant in the green jacket who tossed a coin onto the bed and they hastened out.
As the troika rumbled off I took Mamka’s hand. She was shaking, her face toadstool white.
“Are you tired, Mamka?”
Taras burst from his room, dressed in his bearskin coat, and Mamka tightened her grip on my hand. He bounded to the bedside in four steps, the earflaps on his ushanka flapping like the ears of a dog. His shadow on the wall loomed over us.
Taras snatched the coin. “One kopeck? Parasite.”
I hid my disappointed face from Mamka. One kopeck would not buy a piece of bread.
Mamka laid back, head on her pillow, staring ahead.
“What is it, Mamka? You did a good reading.”
“No. I couldn’t tell her.”
“It was fine—”
“No. I saw it all, Inka. You don’t know—”
Taras pocketed the coin. “It serves that pig right. I’ll see her die a painful death.”
CHAPTER
7
Eliza
1916
Once Henry bought The Hay, he made a few small repairs but became too busy with work to travel up there more than a few times. I put it out of my mind completely and focused on city life and my other two favorite things: my correspondence with Sofya and our trip abroad. Sofya wrote every weekday without fail and I sat in the same spot on the sofa in the living room of our Manhattan apartment waiting for the mail. The second Peg handed me the letter that day I slid my opener through the envelope.
Dear Eliza,
You won’t believe what a terrible time we had of it getting out of the city for the country yesterday, like something out of a novel, really. We’d taken a carriage and were besieged by a savage mob, filled with the saddest cases, mothers and wasted babies, deserted soldiers. We are lucky we lived to tell of it. Poor Justine is in nervous fits and I’m afraid we will have to send her home, leaving us with no nursemaid for Max….
She closed her letter with an elaborate signature and a photograph of little Max in Luba’s arms, now a handsome toddler with a halo of light curls. How lovely to hear from her, as usual, but when would they take a savage mob seriously?
I turned my attention to our upcoming trip. The arrangements seemed endless, since the war in Europe made planning difficult, but that fall there were rumors of a cease-fire daily so I hoped for the best and threw myself into preparations. There were trunks to pack, and with Henry’s mysteriousness about the destination I kept our dressmaker busy fashioning clothes for every climate.
It was a cool autumn afternoon, the threat of rain heavy in the air, as Peg and I threw all the clothing I owned about the enormous living room in our apartment. Peg, whose given name was Julia Smith, was a slender, doe-eyed Irish rose, often in need of tending. She had alabaster skin and an unruly headful of brown hair, which never knew its place, no matter the number of hairpins employed.
That apartment was a high-ceilinged place at 31 East Fiftieth Street in Manhattan, too big for the three of us really, with five bedrooms, maids’ quarters, and a lovely library. I left the spacious living room untouched by a professional decorator’s hand and evoked a dramatic Parisian scheme myself, furnishing it with a great many Louis XV sofas and chairs, etchings of French scenes, and Grandmother’s soaring trumeau mirror over a gilt console table. A chinoiserie foldout bar stocked with liquors of the right sort and Father’s Sarouk carpet added just enough flavor of the East.
Among it all Peg arranged our luggage in a circle about the room, a Stonehenge of Mother’s Goyard wardrobe trunks, vanity cases, and hat trunks, each fixed with its own plaque: Malles Goyard 233 Rue St-Honoré Paris—Monte-Carlo—Biarritz.
The very sight of the trunks, heaved from the luggage room at Gin Lane, evoked all that is good about adventure. With their black-chevroned linen and cotton fabric linings, orange leather belting, and brass hardware dented by rough seas and even rougher cargo boys, they still bore the vestiges of my parents’ last voyage éclair. Bits of dried lavender in the fabric-lined drawers. A stack of gauzy, vaguely mothball-scented saris in emerald and pink and orange. I smoothed one finger across the ghost of Mother’s initials marked in red across the side of the hat trunk. CWM. Caroline Woolsey Mitchell.
I laid linen and a variety of gloves for hot zones in one drawer. Gabardines and wools for mountainous regions. Should we add oilskin coats in case of monsoon?
My daughter Caroline sat reading a book of Lord Byron’s poems on one camelback sofa, surrounded by the dolls making the voyage with us, arranged by height, an unblinking, silent army.
Peg held out one stocking. “Put them on and you can read all you want.”
Caroline kept her gaze on her book and extended one slender foot.
Peg rolled the stocking up Caroline’s shin. “There you go.”
For a girl who bought her hats in economy basements, Peg wore her street clothes well, but took the complete maid’s uniform only as a general suggestion. She seldom forgot to wear the black dress with stiff white collar and cuffs, but the accessories were often missing, one black stocking loose and fallen to her ankle,
her coronet cap of white muslin nowhere to be found.
Peg wouldn’t have made it in any other reputable household in Manhattan at the time, for although the best maids to get were the Irish girls who had been in this country for some time, Peg showed only a dim recollection of how to draw a bath and certainly wouldn’t have made it one day ironing the queen’s newspapers.
It was a good sign, however, that she was up and about that day and had not retired to a closet to read gossip magazines and drink something other than tea.
Peg hovered a golden straw hat crowned with a wreath of hydrangea blossoms above Caroline’s head. “This will keep the sun off.”
Caroline batted it away. “I’d rather not go to India, Mother. May I stay with Betty? She wants me to join the Girl Scouts with her.”
“What in the world is that?”
“It’s a club. Girls wear homemade uniforms to meetings and learn to survive harsh conditions. Rub two sticks together to make a fire. Make a whole meal from one potato.”
Peg tossed the hat into the trunk. “Sounds like why we left Ireland.”
“Please, Mother. They’re taking a field trip to a pond in New Jersey.”
“We don’t know for certain if Father has planned on India, dear, but wouldn’t you like to meet a maharishi? Wear a shocking-pink sari?”
“Not in the least. I yearn to walk in the woods. Wrote a poem about it this morning.”
Peg knelt to hook Caroline’s shoe button. “I’d give my right arm to meet a maharishi.”
Caroline pushed the hook away and drew her feet up under her. “Stratford-upon-Avon is the only town I’m interested in seeing.”
Peg tossed the buttonhook on the sofa and scooped an armful of scarves into a trunk drawer. “He may’ve wrote good sonnets, but Shakespeare was not at all faithful to that poor Anne.”
When Henry came home with his friend Merrill in tow there could not have been a more inconvenient time to chat. My Henry was not blessed with the coordination athletics require, which thankfully saved me from expeditions like birchbark canoeing and limited him to safer pursuits like reading. But that Saturday was different. He was to play tennis with Merrill.
The two bounded through the apartment door like college boys released from class. Mr. Richard Merrill, known in society simply as Merrill, was a friend of Henry’s from St. Paul’s boarding school. Full of a tremendous amount of “roll up your sleeves” energy, Henry had made his own fortune, while Merrill had inherited his seat on Wall Street. And while Henry was blessed with strawberry-blond hair and aquamarine eyes, Merrill was a bit taller, raven-haired. Merrill was considered the most eligible bachelor on the eastern seaboard, if one didn’t count the handsome artist Albert Eugene Gallatin.
“Hi-ho!” Henry called.
Merrill stopped short when he saw me. “Hello, Eliza.” He’d changed little since I’d seen him last, perhaps a few more lines around the eyes.
“I live here, actually.”
Henry stepped to me, kissed me on the cheek, and I caught the scent of a mentholated lozenge.
I lay my hand against his cheek. Warm. “Still coughing?”
He kissed the top of Caroline’s head and that of the closest doll. “Merrill has challenged me to a tennis match in the park. Just going to change.”
“Please don’t, Henry. It’s chilly out.”
Since the two had known each other at school, they’d fought with fists over a variety of issues, including me. Injuries were usually minor, though Merrill had once received Henry’s ire in the shape of two black eyes. Henry quickly presented Merrill with two steaks to bring down the swelling, which Henry cooked and they ate that night, quite happily friends again.
Henry waved Caroline down the hall to his room. “Caroline will help me choose the proper clothes, won’t you, my girl? And fix me a Dubonnet, Eliza?”
“Before tennis?”
“It is mostly quinine.”
“It will protect you from malaria,” Caroline said.
Henry held out his arms, palms up. “See? It’s medicinal.”
“May I come to tennis, Father?” Caroline asked.
“You have a German test to study for.”
Caroline stood. “I hate the kaiser. He’s rank mad.”
Henry glanced at me with a wide smile. “I think we have an actress on our hands, Eliza.”
“Let’s not fan those flames, Henry.”
He took Caroline by the hand and hurried down the hall to his room.
I called after Henry. “Please don’t go, dear.”
“Do offer Merrill a lemonade, Eliza,” Henry called back.
Their steps receded down the hallway and Merrill turned to me with a smile. “It’s been a while.”
Peg cast us furtive glances from her spot at the trunk where she stood folding a sweater, glacially slowly as if practicing furoshiki, the ancient Japanese art of garment folding.
“I’m terribly busy, Merrill. Packing for a mystery trip. Hoping for India.”
“The wilds of India? Hot as hell there.” He pulled a gauzy, orange sari from the trunk and held it to the light. “You’re wearing this? I prefer women in quiet, conservative clothes, carefully made.”
Was it any wonder I chose Henry over Merrill? He had none of Henry’s flexible, good humor. Though undeniably attractive, Merrill was almost too typically good-looking and lacked those flaws that make a face interesting. Like a curious scar or slight overbite.
I snatched the sari from him and handed it to Peg. “Of course you do, Merrill.”
“Why anyone travels is a mystery—”
Merrill considered a trip to Staten Island risky.
“Must you take Henry for tennis, Merrill? You’ll just run him around—and he may have a fever.”
“Nothing wrong with friendly competition.” Merrill held out one hand. “It’s good to see you, Eliza.”
I walked around him toward the trunk, which held my wraps, folding a scarlet piano shawl. One can never have too much outerwear when traveling.
He followed. “It would be nice to catch up sometime. Talk.” He placed one hand on the small of my back. How many times had he done that when we’d stepped out together in the old days?
I stepped aside. “About what, Merrill dear? I need to fix Henry’s drink.”
“Just, well, old times, I suppose.”
Though I had seen Merrill about town at social events, it had been twelve years since he and I had briefly seen each other socially.
I touched his sweater sleeve. “I hear you’ve been seeing the Jackson girl. She seems quite nice and would be willing to share your, well, simple lifestyle.” I handed the shawl to Peg and she tossed it in the trunk drawer.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, let’s be honest, dear, when you’re not working you’re chasing a ball somewhere.”
“You’d prefer I went on safari?”
“What I prefer doesn’t matter any—”
Henry bounded back into the living room dressed in white duck trousers and a linen shirt, Caroline in tow twisting a peppermint candy from its cellophane.
Merrill stepped to the wall to examine a print.
“What are you two scheming?” Henry asked. “I’m off to teach old Merrill a lesson.”
“Henry, stay home and make sure your trunks are packed properly. It’s going to pour rain and there’s no need to prove anything, dear. Not everyone is meant to be sporty.”
Henry pulled a towel across the back of his neck and held it by both ends. “I played tennis at St. Paul’s.”
“So you claim,” Merrill said.
Henry kissed me on the cheek, his mustache grazing it in a lovely way, and the two headed for the door with barely a glance back.
“Stay and have your Dubonnet, Henry.”
> They rushed out the door.
“We’ll toast the winner, so don’t wait up,” Henry called back over his shoulder.
Peg closed the door behind them and their voices trailed off. I stepped to the window and watched Henry and Merrill emerge onto the street below. Henry lit a cigar and Merrill waved his tennis racquet as they walked, the sky darkening over the building tops.
Then I turned back to my packing. One cannot be too prepared for the wilds of India.
* * *
—
IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT when Henry returned and stumbled to his room, no doubt having drowned the sorrows of his defeat in Dubonnet. I pretended to be asleep when he crept in to say good night, keeping my breathing deep and rhythmic. Henry stood by my bedside for a long moment and then made his way back to his room.
The next morning, I woke early for a ride. Henry did not emerge from his room so I slipped into my riding clothes and Thomas drove me to the Central Park stables. Caroline was visiting her friend Betty Stockwell for an overnight, so Betty’s mother, Amelia—a friend since our debutante days—joined me for my morning ride.
It was a glorious, clear fall day, for the storm had swept through and left the sky cerulean. We rode north on the Bridle Path in Central Park, toward the reservoir. We were mostly alone up there since, at midmorning, ladies formed the bulk of the civilian cavalry. Amelia had clearly spent most of the morning on her toilette, her chestnut hair pulled back in a snood. Her daughter Betty resembled her in every way, down to the mane of chestnut hair, widow’s peak, and casual offhand manner of speaking.
“Your Caroline is teacher’s pet, Eliza. Miss Webb said if she had a daughter she’d like her to be like Caroline in every way. Who coaches her?”
“Really, Amelia. Caroline is simply like her father.”
“I was having Betty tutored, but the young man resigned, claiming exhaustion. Young people are so delicate today. Maybe it’s for the best. Latin never got a girl a husband. Men just want a warm body. Richard would just as soon have Cook in the bed as me. Wouldn’t know the difference in the dark and he’s always excited by cinnamon.”
Lost Roses Page 8