Parlor Games

by Maryka Biaggio

  When the lobby bell at the Royal English Opera House rang, Mr. Cooper and his son escorted me to our second-level box. The elder Mr. Cooper offered me the prize seat, the one with the best angle on the stage. I chatted with the younger Mr. Cooper and gazed out on the masses settling in the house’s layers of plum-colored chairs and gilded black boxes. The clattery fits and starts of the orchestra’s tuning wafted from the pit. The conductor took up his baton. As the audience hushed, I turned my attention to the stage, and my gaze passed over a box on the opposite side of the theater. A red-complexioned man—of middle age, I guessed—stared at me. Even as my glance met his, he continued in his steadfast enterprise. I shifted in my chair to optimize my view of the stage and waited for the curtain to rise, all the time noticing out of the corner of my eye that this man gazed steadily at me.

  It was not unusual for me to be acquainted with the box holders, but I’d never seen this gentleman before. His perfectly knotted silk tie, satin-collared frock coat, and cross-over vest suggested either great wealth or dignitary status, even if his behavior indicated otherwise.

  At intermission, the Misters Cooper and I made our way to the Stalls Bar. As I sipped champagne with my companions, a bald gentleman approached our party and addressed me. “Pardon me, Miss Dugas,” he said in an accent as thick as the Black Forest, “I am the secretary to Baron de Vries, and he wishes to make your acquaintance.”

  I studied him. Yes, just as I thought. He’d been sitting next to the man whose eyes had bored through me all of Act One. I glanced at the elder Mr. Cooper, whose expression had turned quizzical, and then back at this man. “Please tell the Baron that I am occupied with my own acquaintances at present.”

  That should have put an end to the Baron’s rude comportment, but the next morning a message arrived at my hotel room: “Dear Miss Dugas, As we have not been introduced, I hope you will forgive the presumption, but I humbly request your company for dinner tonight, or any other evening this week. You may send word to me at Claridge’s. Yours, Baron Rudolph de Vries.”

  “This man is exasperating,” I told Daisy over breakfast.

  “He’s a baron. And probably altogether respectable.”

  “He’s impudent.”

  “He’s taken with you. At least let me find out more about him.”

  Over the next month, the Baron persisted in sending two or three messages a week, sometimes including flowers, which likely commanded dear prices during London’s dreary February. Would I, he begged, accompany him to the opening of Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan? Might I like to attend a lecture on Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum? All the while, Daisy continued to press me to accept his invitation.

  “He’s criminally wealthy,” she said, arranging the fresh bouquet of tulips he’d had delivered. “He’s a medaled sportsman. Why not give him a chance?”

  “I don’t care for him.”

  “Because he’s not Johnny?”

  “He does suffer by comparison.”

  “You can’t replace Johnny.”

  “Then because he’s arrogant and insolent.”

  “You’ve never exchanged a word with him. How can you know that?”

  I scampered to her side and shook his note under her eyes. “ ‘Miss Dugas, I am determined to meet you.’ Who is he to impose himself like this?”

  “He’s his own man. You said you wanted an independent man.”

  “Independent, yes. A fool, no.”

  “You’re the one being foolish.” Daisy threw her hand out in an arc, directing my attention around the suite. “How are you going to pay for this when your bank account runs dry?”

  “Something will come up. It always has before.”

  Daisy slapped a hand to her hip. “You’re testing my loyalty. I have a mother depending on me. I can’t manage without pay.”

  Never before had Daisy sounded such a note of alarm. Although I had grown accustomed to trusting that each day would take care of itself, Daisy’s life had not been so blessed. And I had brought her here all the way from New York. I looked into her teary eyes. “Very well, inform him that he may pick me up for dinner this Thursday at seven.”

  As I descended the stairs at the Shaftesbury Hotel, I spotted the Baron in the lobby, standing erect beside a carved wood chair and dressed in a black Prince Albert coat and a black bow tie. With clipped step he marched up to me, reached for my hand, and bowed. “Miss Dugas, I cannot say what a great pleasure it is to meet you.”

  As he rose from his bow, he raised my gloved hand to his lips and kissed it. Though he sported a thick, dun-brown mustache, a spot of thinning hair on top of his head revealed shiny pink skin. He held his long-waisted torso bent slightly forward, as if to make it easier for our eyes to meet, and he appeared taller—close to six feet—than I had guessed he was, with a trim figure not at all compromised by his middle-aged years. His olive-flecked hazel eyes played brightly against his reddish complexion, and a broad forehead dented and gave way to a nose that sloped sharply from a bump at its midpoint. We stood suspended for a moment on the hotel’s expansive burgundy-and-navy Persian carpet, beneath leaded-glass gasoliers, while he held my hand and gazed into my eyes.

  “Yes, Baron,” said I. “We meet at last.”

  “Please, do call me Rudolph.”

  I nodded.

  In a long step and swivel reminiscent of a military move, he came to my side and offered his arm. “Shall we go to dinner?”

  With a graceful lift of his other arm, he put on his top hat. I pulled the folds of my pelisse together, and the Baron escorted me out of the hotel to a glass-windowed landaulet.

  We seated ourselves side by side on plush velvet seats, and he offered and arranged a wool warming blanket over my lap. “You must forgive me for burdening you with my insistence all these weeks.”

  “You are a man who is not easily deterred.”

  “You are a woman who is not easily forgotten,” he said, his words thick with a Dutch accent. He lifted a corner of his mustache into a half smile. “I only hope you will let me prove that I can be a pleasing companion.”

  We drove along Shaftesbury Street, beneath ornate green lamppost spires and past theatergoers in their formal wear. I snuggled my hands together under the blanket. “I would love to hear about your family.”

  “My father is deceased. Mother lives at our property in Dalfsen, with my two sisters.”

  “Your sisters aren’t married?”

  “The elder, Miriam, is widowed. She lost her husband in a terrible boating accident.”

  I tilted my head. “How tragic.”

  The Baron leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. “She is managing. Mother keeps her busy assisting with the property.”

  Wondering if a man of his age still answered to his mother, I inquired, “Your mother’s property?”

  “The family’s actually, though it is in my name.”

  “And the other sister?”

  “Cornelia is only twenty. A very lively girl. She loves to ride horses.”

  The Baron asked after my family as well, and I told him about Papa’s success in the restaurant business and how, after his untimely death, our family had retreated to northern Michigan’s bountiful forests and sandy lakeshores. As our carriage horse trudged through London’s streets, past countless chimneys puffing smoke into the dusky night sky, we settled into a lively exchange about the contrasts between life in America, London, and Holland. I might have said that London’s fogginess reminded me of San Francisco, or that Japan’s sublime temples outshone England’s blocky churches, but I had resolved to make no allusions to the unfortunate chapters of my earlier life.

  Dinner was pleasant enough, and though my appraisal of the Baron softened after our evening together, my initial reservations stood. He put great stock in himself, his property, and his sport as a shooter, all of which did nothing to disabuse me of my first impression about his abiding self-importance. Still, I consented to dine with him again, thou
gh I begged a busy schedule and pushed the date out two weeks hence. Meantime, to assuage Daisy’s concerns about our finances and to stretch my bank account until fortunes changed, I moved us out of our suite into a cozy but tastefully furnished flat on Piccadilly.

  Over the spring and early summer months, the Baron persevered in his attentions, insisting each time we parted that I consent to another meeting. Though he took me to the finest restaurants, toured me through the British Museum and Kew Gardens, and proved generous in his gifts not only to me but to Daisy as well, I did not find my heart moved by him.

  Then, one July morning, while Daisy and I prepared to go marketing, we were surprised by an urgent rapping. Daisy hastened to the door, and when she opened it I heard the Baron’s voice.

  “Miss Emmett,” he asked, “is Miss Dugas in?”

  After twisting around to question me with her eyes, Daisy said,

  “Yes, she is.”

  The Baron stood in the doorway, leaning first to one side and then the other, trying to see around Daisy. Upon catching my eye, he said, “May, I must speak with you. Will you invite me in?”

  I’d been sitting on the sofa, composing a shopping list. I hated that he was seeing me in a simple yellow day dress, but he seemed to take no note of it. I put down my pen and paper. “Yes, of course.”

  Daisy stepped aside, allowing him to enter, and said, “I’ll just excuse myself.”

  Daisy shut the door behind her, and a flush-faced Rudolph hurried in and sat down beside me on the sofa. “I am sorry to barge in on you. Please forgive me.”

  By this time alarm was rising in me. Might Dougherty have tracked me down? Would he dare to sully my reputation yet again? “What is it, Rudolph?”

  Rudolph bent forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and nesting his face in his hands. “My baby sister, Cornelia. She has been killed in a riding accident.”

  I reached out and cupped my hand over his trembling shoulder. The depth of his sorrow washed over me, like the sun’s rays on springtime ice. I tightened my grip, hoping the tenderness enlivening me might soothe him. “Oh, Rudolph, I’m so sorry.”

  He crumpled onto my lap and sobbed.

  Less than a month later, Rudolph invited me to dinner at the first restaurant we had dined at in London—Wiltons. This time, however, the dining room was empty, except for one table in the middle of the room. A host of tall-stemmed candelabras graced the perimeter of the stucco-walled room, bathing it in a golden light. I hardly noticed our waiter, so unobtrusive was he. Over the next two hours, our glasses brimmed with claret, a squash soup prompted reminiscences of our first dinner in this very room, and plates of pheasant, Brussels sprouts, and slivered carrots appeared as if by magic.

  After dinner, as I sipped my cream-laden coffee, Rudolph rose from his chair and stood by my side. He reached for my hands, brought them to his lips for a kiss, and formed them into a bowl. Dropping to a knee, he reached into his vest pocket and extracted a velvet pouch. He untied its drawstring and tugged it open.

  Spilling pearls—thirty-five, I later counted—into my cupped palms, he said, “You are to me the most precious pearl. Never will I find one more perfect than you.”

  The pearls, warm to the touch, shimmered in the candles’ halcyon glow. I lifted my eyes to Rudolph’s. They, too, sparkled, but with the dew of ardor.

  He placed his hands around mine. “Marry me, my darling.”

  THE TRIAL

  LOANS AND CHECKS

  MENOMINEE—JANUARY 26, 1917

  My attorney began his afternoon examination of Frank by hammering away at her credibility on the matter of loans.

  As Powers strolled casually toward the witness box, he asked, “Miss Shaver, did you ever try to borrow money from the Baroness?”

  Frank frowned. “No, I did not.”

  “Did you, on the occasion of boarding a train to Chicago in December of 1913, ask the Baroness for money in the presence of her assistant, Miss Daisy Emmett?”

  “No, that can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Whenever we got on the train, Daisy headed straight for the dining car.”

  At this, the ladies in the courtroom found cause for merriment. I turned and sought out Daisy, who was sitting among the onlookers. She shot me a look of consternation, which faded when I myself smiled in amusement.

  Mr. Powers swished a hand over his jaw. “Miss Shaver, do you recall celebrating your birthday with the Baroness on Valentine’s Day of 1915 at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal?”

  “That I do recall.”

  “Did you invite Miss Emmett to this party?”

  “Yes, at May’s request.”

  “Did you, at one point, open your purse and exclaim that you had no money?”

  “No.”

  “Did you try to borrow money from Miss Emmett to pay for the party?”

  “No.”

  “You deny trying to borrow money from Miss Emmett in Montreal?”

  “Objection,” said Sawyer. “My client answered his question.”

  “Sustained,” said Flanagan.

  Powers smoothed his palms together. “Did you ask the Baroness to give you the money to cover the hotel costs for the party?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Such bold, outright denials! I glanced at Daisy. She looked the way I felt—as if a horse had kicked me in the belly. Both of us, with dropped jaws, shook our heads to signal to anybody who might look our way how outraged we were by Frank’s lies.

  “Let me be clear, Miss Shaver. You never borrowed or attempted to borrow money from the Baroness?”

  With a firm dip of her head, Frank said, “That’s correct.”

  Powers again returned to the defendant’s table, grabbed an envelope, pulled several papers from it, and advanced on the witness box. “Can you identify these items, Miss Shaver?”

  Frank shuffled through a half dozen or so sheets. “They’re checks made out to me from May’s account.”

  “And did you endorse these checks?”

  Frank flipped the checks over and examined each one. “Yes.”

  “And do they total roughly three thousand dollars?”

  “Are you asking me to perform arithmetic?”

  The sarcasm did not escape me, or the rest of the courtroom, though my tolerance for Frank’s witticisms was wearing thin.

  “Yes, Miss Shaver,” said Powers, “if you would please.”

  Frank took her time thumbing through the checks. “Yes, about that.”

  “Do you still contend you never borrowed money from the Baroness?”

  “Yes.”

  “Objection,” said Sawyer. “Counsel is badgering.”

  Judge Flanagan knotted the lapel of his robe in his hand. “Mr. Powers, I will instruct you again to conduct your questioning without being argumentative or repetitious. I will release you from your duties if you do not obey this court.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Powers took a deep breath and turned to Frank. “Miss Shaver, can you explain the meaning of these checks?”

  “They’re for expenses.”

  “If they’re for expenses, why are they made out to you?”

  “Because I generally paid our expenses.”

  “What expenses were they for?”

  “Could be for almost anything.”

  “You can remember every dollar the Baroness borrowed from you, every dollar you spent on her, but you cannot remember what these checks were for?”

  “No.”

  “If you don’t know what expenses these checks were intended to cover, how can you say they were not loans?”

  “Because I did not borrow money from May. She borrowed money from me.”

  “You have not answered my question, Miss Shaver. Can you prove these were not loans—yes or no?”

  “No, I just know they’re not.”

  After a brief recess—and before Sawyer could attempt to repair Frank’s tarnished credibility during his redirect examination—my attorney dished
out another unpleasant surprise.

  “Miss Shaver, do you know a Mr. Wayne Schroeder of Chicago?”

  “Yes, he’s an electrician who worked on my office.”

  “Did you discuss this lawsuit with him?”

  “He asked about it after he read something in the newspaper.”

  “Do you recall the conversation?”

  “Generally.”

  “Can you recount it for us?”

  “He said something to the effect ‘I see you’re trying to get some money back from the Baroness,’ and I said something like ‘We’ll see how it goes; these things take time,’ and he said, ‘I hope it works out for you,’ and I thanked him for his concern.”

  “Did you not tell him you could blackmail her and get certain sums of money?”

  “No, that word is not in my vocabulary.”

  I, for one, thought that she answered awfully fast. Despite her denial, the seed had been sown. All in all, Powers scored some damning points during his cross-examination of Frank. How could she account for all the checks written to her from my account?

  Try as he might to undermine our case, Sawyer could not make the checks disappear, to say nothing of the release signed by Frank.

  THE SACRIFICES OF MARRIAGE

  DALFSEN AND LONDON—1892–1901

  The Baron and I wedded in a private ceremony at his Dalfsen family property on November 20, 1892, with Rudolph in a regal, trim black suit and me, the shy bride, in a flowing white gown with layered sleeves. All his family attended—his mother and sister, as well as three sets of aunts and uncles and a smattering of cousins—as did the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk and nearly a dozen members of the Dutch royalty. As for my family, I had to content myself with sending them photographs—one of me and Rudolph, another of the complete wedding party in the airy front parlor of the estate. Daisy, who had accompanied me to Holland, spent the wedding day unpacking and arranging our personal effects. (“A maid at a wedding? It wouldn’t be fitting,” Rudolph had said. “And it would upset Mother.”)

  As I accustomed myself to the company of the Baron and his mother and sister, Daisy took up a modest third-floor garret. In her position as my personal assistant, she spent many hours with me in my boudoir on the second floor, during which time she often complained about her circumstances: “It takes forever for news from Mother to reach me, and I miss New York’s newspapers,” or “I know I should be grateful for the steady pay, but, my goodness, this is a dull place.”