by Sally Koslow
A door led to the bath, where, for the second time that evening, I gasped. Unlike the half tub, cracked and cramped, that I was allowed to use twice a week at my rooming house, here was a rowboat on lion’s feet. I could not resist opening a jar of crystal bath salts placed on a small oak table by the tub’s curved flank.
I had learned to believe that if I took a risk the world would open up for me. I found my hand letting the tap flow as I allowed a handful of crystal snow to drift into the steaming water. One by one, I stripped off my heavy stockings and my smalls, allowing each item to fall on a plush rug that covered half of the marble floor. Down to nothing, I turned to size myself up in a mirror that backed the bathroom door.
I had never seen a reflection of my entire bare body. I might have been looking at a portrait of a voluptuous stranger, with a nipped waist and rounded hips tapering to slender legs. She had a full bosom, sugary white, with small nipples the color of rosé wine. The womanly hair down below was the color of dark honey.
I blushed and quickly stepped into the tub, where I sank into the billowing froth, laughing for no reason except that I felt grand. As I soaked I allowed myself gauzy dreams, becoming Josephine to John’s Napoleon, until the water chilled. I dried myself with a Turkish towel, hurried into my clothes and fine grey coat, stuffed my damp hair under my cloche, and shut the front door behind me.
In the office during the next few weeks, John might say, “Lily, you’re so beautiful” or “How did I ever manage without you?” When that happened I remembered our kiss, and fantasized about becoming Mrs. John Graham Gillam, though I quickly flicked away the thought. Our age difference was as vast as our backgrounds. He knew I’d been raised in a slum and orphanage, though he was too polite to probe. That I was Jewish remained a secret. When he asked if “Shiel” was German, I had nodded yes.
Eager, grateful, and attractive as I hoped John might find me, I realized I was no more than his Eliza Doolittle. Nor was I without male companionship. Everywhere, I met men and received invitations.
Chapter 10
1923
One Saturday evening a long black car stopped at my boardinghouse and a liveried chauffeur stood by, as my regular escort, George, rang. He proceeded to sit in the front seat, and his sister Helen and a stout man with puffy cheeks the color of her fuchsia dress shifted to make room for me in the back. He introduced himself as Monte Collins.
Our first stop was to see a play, which George and I watched from the row in front of Helen and Mr. Collins. I tried to concentrate on the plot, but all I could think of was Mr. Collins’s rat-like eyes boring into my head. The performance ended at eleven, yet he insisted that we return to his house in Knightsbridge. “Collins is a millionaire!” George whispered. “Hasn’t Helen fallen into pudding?”
At Mr. Collins’s home, brocade pillows picked up the purple of thick carpets. Vases burst with peacock feathers and pungent lilies. At every turn, silver gleamed. Over sandwiches pinched by his fleshy fingers, our host explained that he had made his fortune through a chain of grocery stores, and despite Helen fluttering around him like a pink bat, he could not stop nattering away to me. Only me.
Did I enjoy the play? Did I notice lilies were his favorite flower? The questions came in such a salvo I doubt he even heard my boneheaded answers. Though he was another woman’s escort, Monte Collins, millionaire, was plainly flirting with me. Apparently, he did as he pleased, as I grew to discover could be said of most wealthy men. I became a popinjay, chattering without shame. As the evening wore on, I raised a glass and toasted, “To our friendship,” locking eyes with Mr. Collins. George groaned.
Mr. Collins insisted that his driver drop me off last. Soon we were alone in the back seat of his Rolls-Royce. This was when I began to regret that back at the flat I hadn’t asked to visit the lavatory. I’d stopped counting how many glasses I’d drunk of Champagne, which tasted like a divine adaptation of my favorite fizzy water. Now, oy gevalt, my bladder.
As we approached my rooming house, I exhaled deeply in appreciation of the nearness of a commode. This is when Mother Nature took the upper hand. Beneath me, warmth puddled, soaking my coat and most certainly leaving behind a small lake. As the driver opened the door I hurried toward my stoop; over my shoulder, I thanked Mr. Collins. That’s the last I’ll ever see of a millionaire—or George, for that matter—I thought, eager to flee my urinary felony. I was right, but only about George.
The next evening, my landlady presented me with my first slim white florist box. In it I found calla lilies and a note on monogrammed vellum.
“Enchanting Lily,” it said, “expect me next Sunday promptly at noon. Yours, Monte.”
I was too shocked to be insulted by the assumption that I desired this man’s company. When I joined Monte the following week in his black car I discovered that we were headed for Maidenhead. Was this a joke? Humor seemed on the far side of the man’s range. After he complimented my looks, with a reddened face he pointed out the location of the restaurant’s sanitary facilities.
As we sipped our consommé and proceeded to aspic, delicate game birds, and blancmange, topped off by wines, Monte recounted how he had excelled as an “old boy” at Harrow and become a grocery store gladiator. I caught every other word of his monologue, hypnotized as I was by the surroundings.
On Monday when I told John that I’d dined at a restaurant called Skindles, he huffed, “You must be careful. That spot is notorious for adulterous assignations.” My virtue, however, was safely intact. Monte had ended the afternoon with only a chaste peck.
Monte established a routine that I passively accepted, still pinching myself that a man of wealth fancied me. We dined every Wednesday evening and Sunday afternoon. On other nights I often saw John, who was far superior company. Unlike Monte, who had all the grace of the elephant seal lounging behind glass in the British Museum, John was an effortless dancer eager to teach me the Charleston and the Peabody to records he’d play on his Victrola. Yet while my time with John fell somewhere between friendship and flirtation, there was no question: Monte Collins was courting me. After the fourth Wednesday, we once again wound up at his home.
This time, when he took my wrap, fear uncoiled. I’d held tight to my virginity through the orphanage years, well aware of what had happened to my friend Freda at the park one Shabbos afternoon. I’d defended myself against the swine of Stepney Green and showed reserve even in my physical awakening with John, not that he’d pressed me. But despite the lure of Monte’s bank balance, I was unready to surrender to a corpulent man who sat too close and looked too hard, an escort who when he gave me chocolates every Sunday, insisted I eat only one, lest I lose my appetite. When we danced in the snazzy clubs he favored, I wished I could wind up with one of the lordly types who wafted their partners across the floor as if they were made of tulle. Yet who was I to dismiss a mantle of money, especially when I compared him to Sir John Gillam, whom I now knew was far from successful?
Aided by office scuttlebutt, I’d pieced together that the John Graham Company stayed afloat thanks to a noble tradition of which the Shiels were unaware, the financial beneficence of family—in John’s case, from an indulgent older sister who’d married above her station. Yet John had attributes finer than business acumen: warmth, humor, an uncanny ability to make me feel that I could soar, and the endearing habit of always wearing a crooked bow tie. I began to suspect that he tilted his necktie intentionally so that each morning I would perform our ritual of my reaching up to straighten it, and saying, “There, John. Got it right.”
For my birthday, Monte presented me with a shiny lizard pin, an unfortunate choice, given the comparisons it invited. When John admired the jewel, I admitted that the brooch was from the man we now referred to as Mr. Skindles. I am not necessarily linking cause to effect, but the next week, John made an astonishing gesture. Would I go to Paris to sleuth down French perfume to be had at a rock-bottom price?
Would I ever. I was still beaming from my half-day trip to
Dover. That I knew not a word of French and worried that John was Don Quixote, chasing a windmill of eau de toilette, did not deter me. I blurted out the news to Monte when we next met.
“I wish you wouldn’t go,” he pouted.
“But this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
“In that case, while you are away, I will do a great deal of thinking,” he said, lifting his beetled brow. To make sure that I did not forget him, he made reservations for me at Elizabeth Arden and Lanvin and gave me a hundred pounds of spending money.
I spent every pence. English-French dictionary and Baedeker in hand, I may as well have been the first Englishwoman to hope that the refinement of Paris would wash over her. On day one of the trip I enrolled at Berlitz, where I was a quick study. On day two I bobbed my hair. On day three, quivering with indecision, I ordered dresses in shades that had previously been too impractical for me to consider—powdery blue and cream—and a sequined silver evening gown, all in the knee-grazing flapper style with low necks and dropped waists. That this silhouette was not in the least flattering to my hourglass shape didn’t matter a whit, since I wanted only the latest fashion. I also bought matching hats, silk knickers, and T-strap pumps, though I stopped short of a teasing lynx boa.
When I wasn’t in class, I fulfilled my mission for John, shipping crates of perfume to London. Yet I found time to traverse Paris by foot and by Metro, from Montmartre to Montparnasse, gaping at the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame. I sipped espresso at outdoor cafés while smoking a Gauloise or wandered into brasseries, where, as if it were marmalade, I slathered foie gras on hunks of freshly baked baguettes.
I returned with a set of leather luggage and a demeanor that was at least less wide-eyed than that of the girl who’d left London. That evening Monte fetched me for dinner at one of the city’s more exclusive spots. I dressed in my Paris gown. After a five-course meal, we returned to his flat. With great drama he extracted from his vest pocket a box of an unmistakable size and shape, which he opened with precise slowness, and withdrew a diamond ring. Big. Square. Flashy.
“This is an emerald cut,” Monte explained, as if he were a geologist. “You will be my wife.” He took my hand.
Monte did not ask on bended knee. He did not ask at all, except to wonder, “Lily, do you love me?” a question I barely heard, so focused was I on the ring, which exceeded my expectation by carats. It looked like the paste an actress—or worse—would wear. I must have appeared stupefied, because he repeated the question. “Do you love me?”
I loved the security I could batten down by becoming Monte’s wife. I also reminded myself that had I lived in my parents’ shtetl I’d most likely have been betrothed to the village idiot, penniless and slovenly. In Paris I’d had not a scintilla of trouble spending Monte’s stipend, but rarely thought of him. Now that matrimony was imminent, I pictured him dead weeks after our wedding, leaving me able to turkey trot in John’s arms forever. I immediately replaced this thought with the realization that if I married Monte and he did conveniently expire, John would spurn me as the gold digger I was. With these scenarios clogging my mind I stuttered, “I do love you. Thank you.”
Monte’s face assumed the same satisfied expression I witnessed after he ate a rich dessert. “While I was shopping, my darling, I also bought you this.” He watched me take in a bracelet glittering with tiers of tiny diamonds and slipped it over my hand, which was as stiff as if I’d had a stroke. “And to match . . .” He withdrew a diamond brooch from yet another black velvet case.
The ring alone . . . Dayenu . It would have been enough, though no one would believe it was real, least of all John. I decided not to show him the ring, which felt heavy as a bolt. “Oh, Monte.” I could not get “darling” out of my mouth. I was not that good an actress.
“If you accept these gifts, you will make me truly happy.”
The words sounded rehearsed, which embarrassed me on both of our behalves. All I could say in response was, “Golly.”
When I returned to my room, I sandwiched the jewels between my sanitary napkins. As I fell asleep I realized I’d never told Monte how thrilled I would be to become Mrs. Monte Collins. At least I hadn’t lied.
Chapter 11
1923
I led John to believe Mr. Skindles and I had parted ways. In fact, Monte was busy planning our wedding. We spent every weekend looking at mansions on London’s outskirts. Did I prefer the Tudor to the Georgian? The brick to the stone? I faulted every one. Too drafty. Too shaded. Too rambling.
“You’re very discriminating, Lily,” my fiancé pointed out.
“It has to be right. We’ll be living there for a long time.”
The problem, exactly. A house would be a prison for my life sentence as Mrs. Monte Collins. But as much as I knew I didn’t love him, I felt controlled by a despot who spoke in the voice of Matron Weiss, proclaiming that I was in no position to chase castles in the air when a man here on earth was offering me the key to a stately residence, most likely in Surrey. My moony version of living happily ever after with a more appealing sort—John, specifically—wasn’t for a slum-bred girl.
For Easter weekend, Monte planned a trip to Brighton, assuring me that we’d have separate rooms in a vast Victorian hotel. On the evening we arrived I slipped into my sequined gown, its luminous ante raised by my ring, brooch, and bracelet. I’d left Brighton as a dim bulb of a housemaid and returned as a floodlight beaming throughout the dining room, turning heads. My fiancé and I were escorted to a prime table. We ordered. We looked at one another. I could not think of one thing to say. If only Monte had come to my room and ravished me. At least we’d have a topic to discuss. I thought of him kicking in my door with his short legs and a chuckle built to a guffaw until I was convulsed with snorts. As my hysteria ramped up, Monte’s face grew white.
“Lily,” he hissed. “Do stop.” But I couldn’t. “Everyone is ogling.”
Let them. These were people I did not know or care about.
Except one. First I thought I was imagining, but I looked again and there was John Gillam, no more than thirty feet away, staring in disbelief. I covered my face with a napkin as if I were a child who believed it would render her invisible.
A minute later John reached our table and addressed not me, but Monte. “Excuse me, sir,” he said in his lovely, low voice, “but may I ask who are you?”
“I am Monte Collins.” He sounded as baffled as offended.
“I am Sir John Gillam, the young lady’s employer.”
Monte twisted toward me. “Is this true?”
I put down the napkin and cocked my head in John’s direction. “May I have this dance?” he asked. When Monte nodded his dumbstruck consent, John swept me to the dance floor.
“Lily—that man.” He took in my jewels, my gown, and my bosom on display. “Please don’t tell me you have gotten yourself into a compromising position.”
“I have.” John grimaced. As we waltzed, I caught Monte’s pin-sharp eyes tracking us like prey. “But I am not a fallen woman. I am engaged.”
John winced. “Do you love this man?”
I said nothing as we danced on in harmony.
“Lily, do you want to get married?”
I blurted out, “Yes—to you.”
“Good lord.” He pushed me away. “Darling, I can’t offer you”—he glanced at my jewels—“any of this.” But I believed John desired me as much as I did him.
“None of it matters.” This was also true.
“Then you must call me in the morning. I am staying at the hotel.” John escorted me back to Monte, executed a military bow, and returned to his table.
“Your boss is in love with you.” Monte made the accusation as if it were an indisputable criminal offense. “What has been going on behind my back?”
Dancing. Laughing. One kiss. “Nothing of which I’m ashamed.” What did shame me was that I had accepted the proposal of a man I loathed. “But I realize I can’t marry yo
u.” One by one, I removed the jewels and placed them on his empty plate. “I am truly sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” I stood up and kissed Monte on the forehead. “And now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” In my room, I buried myself under the covers, longing for John’s comfort.
John and I met for breakfast. “I never had the foggiest that you were betrothed to Skindles,” he said. “Why on earth didn’t you let me know?” He seemed more caught up in the astonishment of our situation than the decision that we’d made to marry—until we kissed. We held hands, kissed again, and strolled along the boardwalk under a wide umbrella, John’s arm wrapped around my waist.
“I really should tell my sister we’re to wed,” he said in the afternoon.
I knew that was a ghastly idea. “We can tell her later. Let’s go to the registry office in the morning.” He agreed.
On the following morning, I lied on my marriage certificate. I was claiming to be twenty-one, the legal age of consent. Before a magistrate office in Westminster, with two charwomen as witnesses, I became Mrs. John Graham Gillam, who’d tossed away a millionaire for a wholesaler of dreams. Monte’s brooch would have looked smashing on the blue Paris day dress in which I was wed. As I said my vows, that was my only regret.
Chapter 12
1923
After a wedding lunch, we returned to John’s flat. My bridegroom swooped me off to bed, professed his adoration, and . . . nothing much. “We shall try again tomorrow—too much to drink,” he said, though we’d shared only one split of Champagne.
