by Diana Forbes
But if there were to be a duel over me, alas, it wouldn’t happen this night. Sam shrugged, then retreated to the table out on the lawn where I could see him and Daggers’s wife observing us through the large bay window. A table away, short but imposing Amy Adams Buchanan Van Buren appeared to be watching as well. Her luminous eyes widened and the corners of her once-pretty lips turned down. For once I actually felt relieved that this doyenne of Newport Society never seemed to remember my name the few times we had been introduced.
At the dance’s conclusion, Mr. Daggers gripped me forcefully by the elbow and guided me through the other guests, clear across the floor, smiling and waving fondly at his wife all the while. “Come here,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“Edgar—Mr. Daggers. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
My experience with men had been limited to a few kisses with Sam Haven in the library, but I knew more than one woman in Newport whose reputation had been destroyed by a philanderer. And I was getting the impression that Edgar Daggers wasn’t particularly interested in me for my fine mind and razor-sharp wit!
“Come,” he whispered. “This will take but a moment.”
I glanced up at him. He looked fatherly and kind, and I wondered if my earlier characterization of him had been unfair. For the first time all night, I didn’t feel the barrel of my mother’s invisible gun leveled at me. For this gentleman was neither eligible nor a bachelor, and therefore a pleasant diversion for a dance or two.
I thought he’d steer me to the Great Hall, and to the safety of other visitors’ eyes, but as we headed deeper inside the mansion he abruptly changed course and turned us into the library instead. The walls were lined with handsome leather-bound books whose authors—Milton, Shakespeare, and Bronte—had occupied many of my afternoons. I stopped to admire a stuffed owl among the display of Victorian “organized clutter” on the desk.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Mr. Daggers said, clutching my elbow. “We’re not staying.”
“We’re not? Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer. After all of the talk about business on the dance floor, he had fallen silent. Wordlessly, he walked toward another bookcase on the far side of the room. I barely had time to realize that the books lining these shelves were simulations, when he reached for a small gold knob in the middle of the wall and pulled on it. To my surprise, the bookcase was really a secret door.
As if by magic, the door opened at his touch. He disappeared through the narrow doorway and then pulled me through after him into a large, red, well-appointed receiving room, which was empty. His eyes darted over to the public door of the room. It was shut tight. Then quickly, silently, he closed the bookcase door behind me, walked over to the lamp, and turned down the gas valve. Darkness.
“Mr. Daggers, please. This is scandalous,” I cried. I’d have trouble escaping from this unfamiliar room in the pitch black. This could not happen—not on top of my father’s financial ruin. I could not risk having my prospects turned to dust.
I could feel his hot breath on my face. He pressed my quivering body against the wood wall. “Just kiss me once,” he breathed, running his hands through my hair until the tangle was in both of our eyes.
“Mr. Daggers, I…”
He pressed his large frame against me and moved his long tongue deep inside my mouth and out again. I knew it was wrong to indulge him, but he tasted so delicious that it was hard to find the strength to say no.
“Joy lasts but a moment,” he said, running his hands over my dress. “Give in to it.”
Each time I opened my mouth to protest, his tongue plunged deeper inside. I was ice cream melting, powerless against his heat.
“Your beauty is so exotic,” he coaxed, “yet you don’t even realize it, do you?” His voice sounded like a lullaby. As he continued to explore me with his soft lips and urgent tongue, I felt transported to a heavenly place that smelled like ginger blossoms with deep hints of musk and sandalwood. His skilled hands traced the outside of my gown and landed at my waist, pulling me toward him with each stolen kiss. I’d never experienced anything like this before. Not with Sam. I felt beautiful, I felt desired, and I felt passion.
“This is our secret,” he whispered, cupping my cheeks in his hands and kissing my face over and over until I felt weak. My knees started to buckle as his taut thighs pushed against mine.
“I will never tell a living soul,” I promised. His wife’s porcelain face flashed before me. “But it can’t go on.”
I forced myself to pull away from him. Turning toward the wall, I fumbled in the dark and tried to locate the seams of the secret door.
With great relief I discovered that one of my hands found the line where the edge of the door met the wall. I felt my blood cooling down; I was returning to my normal self. What he had done—what he was proposing—was against all decency. But I felt personally offended as well. He saw me as just a pretty girl facing changed circumstances. That didn’t make me his property. Surely there was more to me.
“Stop struggling,” he whispered, sweeping my hair to one side and kissing the back of my neck. “No one will find out.”
“It doesn’t matter whether they will or won’t.” I pushed him away. “I know about it, and it’s wrong.”
As he pressed his legs against the back of mine, I heard the secret door give. I pushed against it with all my strength, and miraculously, it opened. I saw a ray of light lance against the darkness in the room, and following the light, I ran out of that receiving room as fast as I could without looking back.
Chapter 3
Bee-Stung
Wednesday, May 31, 1893
I woke up with a piercing headache and the even worse affliction of desiring to see Edgar Daggers again. I wanted him to woo me with talk of the economy, and then make me forget all about it with his tongue. I longed for him to sweep his hands over my body. I closed my eyes against the blinding sun, burning my sheets. I was wanton, wanting, reprehensible.
I picked up the dance card that had hung from my wrist the night before and traced my index finger over the gilded raised lettering that said “Memorial Day Ball.” The Gilded Age, people were starting to call this decade. I ran my finger back and forth over Edgar Daggers’s signature in black ink, noticing how all the letters slanted backwards.
My life was tarnished.
A few Beecham’s Pills, taken with water, eased the pounding sensation that felt like hammers attacking my brain.
Part of me wondered if the incident the night before had been real. It had a dreamlike quality that would fade but then return in vivid color. I could taste his salty tongue in my mouth and feel his smooth face against mine. I could see his deep-set eyes rove down my body. But I could also hear tongues wag.
Society’s dowagers would be quick to cast me out into the cold over this impropriety, if discovered. Forget about marriage: I’d never be invited to another party for as long as I lived.
I heard a carriage draw up and wondered if I should seek Father’s advice. Part of me wanted to, as Father and I had once talked openly with one another. But lately he wasn’t as forthcoming with me—or as empathetic.
I couldn’t turn to him—not anymore.
Father sat on the stone bench at the perimeter of our property. His back was to me. There was a slump to his shoulders.
“Father,” I called out from the gravel walkway. “I was riding home, when the strangest thing…”
Stiffly, almost arthritically, Father turned around on the bench to face me
“You wouldn’t believe what Sam just—”
The words stopped on my tongue.
My father looked unrecognizable. His gray, wispy hair was disheveled. His normally clear brow could use a strong iron. Even his cheeks were gray.
“Penelope, I was meditating on some business matters,” he said, slamming shut a small, olive-green ledger. His gray eyes steeled. “I wonder if you’d leave me to my thoughts and not alert the
others that I’m here.”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded like gravel.
I brushed my teeth three times to wash away the taste of Edgar Daggers, but it didn’t help. I scrutinized my reflection in the mirror. Did I look any different now that I had fallen?
No, I looked exactly the same.
My afternoon French class proceeded without an insurrection. As my students started to file out of the emerald drawing room, my mother burst in with energy and purpose. She wore a bright yellow dress that emphasized every curve on her body, and she resembled a large hen whose nesting instinct had suddenly kicked in.
“Two gentleman callers,” she proclaimed merrily, hugging Lydia and me to her bosom.
“Only two?” I asked, assuming they must both be for Lydia. “Who are they?”
“George Setton and Edgar Daggers,” Mother announced, as if she were opening the world’s biggest Christmas present.
I felt like my head would explode. He dared to visit me here?
“Uhm—Mother,” I said, determined to detain my intrepid visitor for as long as possible, “I hardly think George Setton should be considered a ‘caller’ in the traditional sense when he’s here only to see Father.”
My mother’s eyes were a certain shade of blue that were almost violet. Now they ignited as if I’d inflicted a mortal wound. “Didn’t you see the way he and Lydia danced?”
She leaned back her head, held up her right arm diagonally, and started to polka by herself while humming the tune. “Bum-bum-bum-bum,” she sang while narrowly avoiding crashing into the oval table. “He has a special fondness for your sister.”
I felt flushed. I’d missed their dancing during the interlude with Mr. Daggers.
“I’m very fond of him, too,” Lydia piped in, practically jumping up and down with excitement. “How do I look?” She twirled about so that we could observe her from every angle.
From the pocket of her ornate dress, she extracted a small hand mirror and held it up to her face to check her appearance. Then she ran to the window, pulled up the sash, and reached out her tiny hand to pluck a geranium petal from a nearby flower. She held the silvered mirror in her left hand, then pursed her lips over the leaf in her right hand. She blotted the leaf with her lips several times until its red color transferred to them.
I crossed my arms, waiting for our mother to chastise my sister for turning something as beautiful and natural as a geranium into something as artificial and gaudy as lip color.
Mother beamed at her instead. My face burned. I wondered if it was turning to a hue of geranium as well.
“Now, go,” Mother urged Lydia. “Go. Go talk to your suitor. He’s waiting for you in the White Room.”
Lydia sped out of the room, golden hair flying behind her, to meet with George Setton. She had left her trusty hand mirror behind, so I knew she’d be back. “Now he’s her suitor?” I asked. “He’s forty years old.”
Mother placed her hands on her sturdy hips. “Don’t exaggerate. He’s only thirty.”
She fanned herself with her hands. “I can’t emphasize enough that, due to certain rumors which are no doubt false…”
I grabbed her hands. “What? We should all lower our standards?”
Mother paced the room, stopping at a small globe on one of the bookshelves. She pointed at France. “Marriages are like treaties, dear. Our ‘country’ may appear a bit weak right now. So, we need some nice, strong alliances to shore it up. And hold your tongue—there’s nothing ‘low’ about George Setton.”
I mentally compared Mr. Setton’s rat-like appearance to the symmetrical beauty of Mr. Daggers. “You’re right,” I replied. “On the unattractive scale, George Setton rates high, indeed.”
She spun the globe then turned around to face me. “He’s a solicitor—he’s unmarried, he’s available, and without any wards or dependents.”
I removed the globe from her hands and set it on the bookcase at the far end of the room, still stalling my meeting with the married man down the hallway. “George Setton’s a man, Mother, not a bank account.”
She threw up her arms. “Don’t be so naïve.” She started ticking off on her fingers. “He has two homes, six horses, three hens…”
“One’s property should not be confused with having a personality.” For if we were merely the sum total of all of our belongings, where did that leave me or Lydia or any of us?
Mother wrinkled her brow at me, then shrugged. “Plus his young sister died falling off a horse. Such a tragic story. Things like that leave their mark.”
“He has a long nose and globular eyes.” I stood up to straighten the teacher’s desk, aligning the pencils and fountain pens just so, then realigning them. “These are the features he was born with and not the result of a tragedy.”
Mother sighed. “His brother, Algernon, was more charming to look at, but became a man of the cloth.” She said it as if his brother had been swallowed by a sea monster. She whispered, “Priests can never marry. Such a joke God played on the female population, taking the best men for himself.”
I struggled to keep my expression placid. “Mother, that’s only in the Catholic Church. In the Protestant—”
“The Settons are Catholic, dear.”
Yes, but we’re not, I wanted to scream. “So, that leaves—er—George Setton,” I said instead.
My mother pointed her finger in the air. “He has a heart of gold and a wallet full of it, too.”
I glanced around the dark walls. My eyes lit on a collection of wooden music boxes Father had brought back from Vienna, prettily displayed on two bookcases. Would the creepy solicitor advise my parents to sell off their trinkets? And could a man like Edgar Daggers not keep us in them? I shuddered, disgusted with myself for entertaining the materialistic thought. And yet…
“Tell me, is George Setton not here to count up Father’s estate?”
“Yes—and in that calculation, Lydia is your father’s best asset,” was Mother’s calm reply.
A chill traveled down my spine as she said it. I hastened to close the window and observed the red geranium plants on the sill outside. The flowers looked as ripe and luscious as my young sister. Still, I couldn’t help feeling that the bloom of youth was wasted if she was going to allow George Setton to pluck her.
“Lydia deserves better. Horses are auctioned off, but people?”
“Careful,” said Mother, fluttering her eyes heavenward. “He hasn’t bid on her yet.” She crossed her fingers, held her entwined “finger cross” up in the air, and kissed it, presumably to speed up the process.
I considered what it would be like to have George Setton in the family and felt my toes curl up. He was ugly. He was rude. And who could tell if his motives were pure?
“Where is Edgar Daggers?” I asked, now impatient to get it over with.
“I let him into the Pink Room.” If she wanted me in the pink receiving room, it could mean only one thing: she entertained high hopes for my acquaintance with him. Of the two receiving rooms, the pink was her favorite. Her voice softened to velvet. “You know how flattering those pink walls are to your face, your red hair, your skin. I thought this way, you and Lydia could both have your privacy.”
My stomach lurched. “I don’t want to see Mr. Daggers in private. Ever.”
“Methinks she doth protest too much,” Mother challenged, a wicked gleam in her eye.
I believed Mother only read Shakespeare to find quotations that would bolster her arguments.
“I’ll see him only if you come sit with us,” I said.
She clasped her hands together, forming a steeple with her index fingers, perhaps imploring the matchmaking deities for help. “There’s but one of me. I can’t be in both receiving rooms at the same time. And frankly, I have no desire to be in either.”
According to Mother, privacy fanned the flames of love while chaperones dampened them. It was a theory no one else on Bellevue Avenue agreed with. (That on
ly made her subscribe to it more.)
She joyfully clucked around me, attempting to remove the two hairpins from the bun above my head.
I waved her hands away. I felt as if I were her mother, trying to teach her how to behave.
Succeeding in her aim, she held up the two ivory hairpins in triumph. “Smart people don’t ignore the wishes of people like the Daggerses.” She pursed her lips and looked at me as if I were crazy not to do every last thing Mr. and Mrs. Daggers might want, whenever and wherever they may want it, and as often as they liked. “You could help your prospects by looking a bit more feminine. Mrs. Daggers apparently talks non-stop about the ‘social graces;’ and Mr. Daggers is a man, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t care if he’s a prince.”
“You should.” She gingerly petted my arm as if I were a wild animal. “Princes marry distressed damsels.”
“Not when those princes are already married.”
She tugged at her ear. “You’re right, dear. That is a problem.” Her eyes flicked around the room, as she seemed to mull over this insurmountable obstacle. “But don’t despair, marriages don’t last as long as they used to. Statistically—”
I cracked my knuckles. “It’s a new marriage.”
Mother rubbed the bridge of her nose. “An excellent point,” she admitted with a tiny frown. She gently placed her arms on my shoulders. “Still, I urge you to keep an open mind. Always remember, the very rich can open doors for us that may otherwise slam. Before that happens, why not just poke your head in the door and say ‘hello’ to him. Surely, there’s no harm in that.”
I felt hot under my Mutton sleeves. “I just wish he’d have the decency to say whatever he came to say in front of his wife.”
“Perhaps his wife is busy today.”
“She shouldn’t be.” His wife should track him like a bloodhound.
“Darling,” she said, “it turns out that both he and his wife want you to ride with them this afternoon. So, you see, it’s all terribly proper and above board.” She clapped her hands and practically jumped in the air at the propriety of it all.
