City of Light

by Lauren Belfer

  “Even so. I’ll hold the school plans hostage until you say yes.” She spread her arms over the drawings and rested her head upon them, her dark-red hair flowing down her back, overwhelming the silver filigree clip at the crown of her head. Curls touched her forehead and her cheeks. Francesca was lithe and slender. Although on business assignments she wore the shirtwaist and corduroy skirt proper to a professional woman, her hair tidily pinned under a hat, at home she favored the loose, pseudo-medieval garb made popular by the pre-Raphaelites. She had met with much success in the years since she’d returned to Buffalo from Wellesley. In addition to many private homes, she’d designed two classroom buildings for the university, and she was assisting now with the design for a downtown hotel.

  “I think Asia would be a good choice for us this summer,” she continued with a touch of wistfulness. “Angkor Wat. We’ll mount an expedition into the jungle. How many bearers will we need, do you think?”

  Francesca tended to be romantic because she could afford to be. Her family was one of the oldest and wealthiest in the city. To care for the house and garden, which she had inherited from her parents, Francesca employed seven people. She had been named Frances at birth, but changed her name to Francesca after visiting Italy during her Macaulay years. Her parents had traveled the world with their children—as a toddler she’d been carried through the Himalayas strapped to a Sherpa’s back.

  “We’ll have separate staterooms on the boat, if that would fulfill your sense of propriety. We needn’t actually share rooms, after all, to be together.”

  If I accepted her offer, the day after the Macaulay graduation I would be whisked off to New York City, outfitted splendidly with custom-made clothes that fulfilled her idea of the proper attire for female explorers, and soon we would board a ship headed wherever our fancy took us.

  “No one need ever know if there were intimacy between us. A kiss, an embrace, an unbuttoning of all those buttons that go down your dress.”

  That teasing tone took her a long way. She raised her head to look at me more directly. In the fading light, her brown eyes turned black.

  “Sometimes I think I should just throw you across the table and have my way with you. What harm would there be?”

  How easily I could have taken her hand, or caressed her thick hair in all its shades of auburn. Even kissed her cheek, so smooth in the fading light, like a child’s.

  “Francesca,” I said gently, “I don’t think—”

  Abruptly she sat up, twisting her hair into a coil. “Yes, yes, I know. But I must say in my opinion chastity is overrated.”

  I felt sick inside from my loneliness. “Chastity per se has never been a goal of mine.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly fooled me all these years. Really, Louisa, I’m tired of being your cover—lurking in the background so the ladies don’t get jealous of your dealings with their ever-so-handsome husbands.”

  Her anger surprised me. She’d always said that being my cover was a good joke. I felt our friendship shift, leaving me bereft. “Thank you, Francesca.” My eyes filled with tears. “Thank you for being my cover and allowing me to conduct business freely with the ever-so-handsome men of the town.”

  “I’m not interested in your thanks. Just look at you: all your beauty wasted. Hidden away and covered up. What are you saving yourself for? To grow old alone? I should think you’d be grateful for some companionship. For some passion, even.”

  “Yes, I would be grateful. Of course I would.” My voice was trembling.

  Finally she realized I was trying not to cry. She rubbed the back of my hand. How lovely she was.

  “All right, I’ll never mention it again. Especially because … well, I’ve been planning a comeuppance for you.” Her irony was mixed with sadness, as if she too were hiding tears. “This was your final chance.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Simply that I have another interest developing. A requited interest. I may no longer need to bother you with my bribes of trips around the world.” She gave me a brave smile. “I wanted to offer you one last opportunity to see the error of your ways. But as you persist in your misguided notions, you’ll have a surprise. Soon. This evening.” All at once she appeared exceedingly pleased with herself.

  “Francesca—”

  “Jealous, are you? Thinking of changing your mind while there’s still time?”

  “It’s unfair to invite me to dinner when you have something unpleasant in mind.”

  “Not in the least unpleasant, I assure you. Other guests are coming—fascinating, each and every one. Besides, we have the Macaulay plans to review. I’d like to show them off tonight.”

  She assumed her brusque professional manner, putting on her glasses, turning on the gaslight on the wall beside the window.

  “So,” she said firmly, “let’s see if these meet with your approval.”

  And they did. Indeed they did. The plans were magnificent, inspiring enough to force merely personal worries out of my mind. The new wing would be constructed behind the school, on land we already owned. The exterior would be Gothic Revival, with turrets, eaves, and towers to match the present building. On the lowest level (actually the basement), there would be a swimming pool with intricate tile work and windows near the ceiling, cleverly concealed on the exterior to allow for light but prevent spying by the Nichols School boys (Nichols was the male equivalent of Macaulay, and its denizens were known for their mischief). On the ground level, there was a new gymnasium, with a balcony all around that could be used as a running track. Above that, new chemistry and biology laboratories. On the top floor, an art studio with slanting skylights.

  “I’ve made the tower stairs begin in the art studio, so the girls can go off alone with an easel to draw the sunset or do whatever girls like to do these days when they go off alone. I did nothing but dream—except once or twice when I stole a kiss in the music room.”

  “You did no such thing!”

  “If you insist, Miss Barrett.” She smiled coyly. “But you can’t expect the standards in my day to match your standards!”

  She paused, studying me with a curiosity that changed to concern. “Louisa, do you have any idea why Thomas Sinclair gave you all this money?” I stiffened. “Not that I’m complaining. But it’s the talk of the drawing rooms.”

  I could well imagine. Happily such talk hadn’t yet come to my salon, which might be considered too close to home for open speculation. From the phrasing of her question, I deduced that no one had made a link between the endowment and Speyer’s death. But of course no one knew about Speyer’s visit but Tom, Grace, and me. Even so, I couldn’t share my worries with Francesca. Our interests weren’t the same here. Francesca loved gossip and relished scandal. She had the freedom to enjoy them both, for even if they touched her personally, her position was secure. Unlike mine. I could never totally trust her, not the way I’d trusted Margaret. Some things were just too exciting for Francesca to keep to herself. Not foreseeing any harm, she might pass along something I’d confided in her, telling it as a secret, of course, and someday those told secrets could return to vex me.

  I offered her what I had developed into my set response. “Mr. Sinclair probably wants to give his daughter more opportunities as she gets older.” I tried to sound impatient with the entire issue. “And there’s Margaret’s memory too: I’m sure he wants to create something lasting in her name.”

  “But it’s too much money for that. There must be something else.”

  “Frannie, it may seem like a lot of money to me, and even to you—forgive me for saying so,” I bantered, “but it may not seem like a lot to him.”

  “Well, the money really isn’t the point, is it?” she said, irritated. “People think he’s trying to buy something.” A streak of fear passed through me, but immediately I tried to shake it off. People couldn’t have made the link between us—it was impossible. Impossible. “There’s talk of what it might be. Position, perhaps. Forgetfulness.”
<
br />   “Forgetfulness?” I queried.

  “Like an apology. For Margaret.”

  “What about Margaret?” I asked, hearing myself sound defensive.

  “Oh really, Louisa, you’re so dense.” But I knew what she meant: Because people disapproved of Tom—because he was Catholic, and Irish, and born into poverty—they liked to pretend that Margaret had been mistreated by him, to vindicate their disapproval. I’d never seen any evidence of that, however, and I’d seen Margaret almost every day. Or perhaps the apology Francesca referred to was simpler: Tom had taken—stolen—one of the princesses of the city and essentially killed her with pregnancy; his gift to the school helped to make up for his theft.

  Apparently bored with the subject, Francesca stared out the window at the growing dusk. The Canadian shore had turned a deep, shadowed green, the western sky above it shot through with pink and purple. From our eyrie at the high bay windows, we ourselves might have been part of the sunset.

  Abruptly she said, “How are the girls coping with the accident they saw at the power station?”

  I was taken aback. “How do you know about that?”

  “Oh, I hear everything, you know. Eventually. A girl tells her mother, her mother tells one of my all-too-many cousins, that cousin tells another cousin who tells me. What does it matter how I heard?”

  “Only that we agreed, the girls and I, that it was something we wanted to keep private. Just for immediate families.”

  “Afraid there’d be more concern for the girls than for the man himself?”

  I paused. “Frankly, yes.”

  “And you were absolutely right. I haven’t heard much mention of the man—but the girls, the poor girls! How people worry for the girls! Have no fear, though: No one’s criticizing you for taking them there.” Francesca cocked her head at me: “Everyone knows that your motives are eternally above reproach. What happened is viewed more as another mark against Sinclair. So how are the poor girls?”

  “They were shocked at first. But now—this is a horrible way to put it—they are inspired to do better. They’re inflamed with the passion to improve things. Evelyn Byers has even spoken to her father about the safety of the crewmen on his fleet, if you can believe it.”

  “Did he tell her to tend to her knitting?”

  “No. He said he would investigate. Possibly having heard that before, Evelyn herself investigated, and now she reports that something may actually be done. She’s even offered to borrow against the funds she’ll be coming into when she turns twenty-one to pay for the improvements. Maybe there really will be more to her future than flower arranging.”

  Suddenly a feeling of futility swept over me. “So you see I am doing some good in my life, Francesca. I haven’t wasted all my time since Wellesley.”

  She hugged me tightly, in friendship, not passion. “No one ever said you had, Louisa. You’ve transformed the lives of all the girls who’ve been at Macaulay under your care. You should feel proud.”

  “I see that man—Rolf was his name—falling over and over when I close my eyes at night. That we were even there to see it feels like a sacrilege; like a violation of his dignity. I wonder how he’d feel, if he knew he’d ‘inspired’ my girls.”

  “He probably wouldn’t care a hoot about ‘your girls.’ Why should he? And what you should care about is that maybe you’ve rescued Evelyn Byers from a life of nothing but diamonds and lace. Seeing the accident didn’t miraculously change her. She was changed before—by you. The accident simply gave her an impetus to act.”

  She squeezed my shoulders and shook me a bit. “Come on now, snap out of it. Shall I tell you the rest of the drawing room gossip? That’ll get your mind off things. People are wondering,” she said with conspiratorial glee, “whether there’s more than coincidence in the two recent events relating to the power station.”

  “Which two events?” I asked, confused.

  “Come now, Louisa. Don’t be naive. First the chief engineer drowns, under a sheet of ice, no less, and even after almost a month of work the police still can’t seem to figure out anything to say about it.”

  She was right: There’d been no official report yet on Speyer’s death, and I’d wondered what Mr. Rumsey was waiting for. But I would never share that question with Francesca. At my salon, I’d listened carefully for any loose bits of information that might be circulating, but everyone seemed to agree that Speyer’s death was accidental.

  “Then a generator casing—that’s what it was, wasn’t it?” I nodded. “You wouldn’t believe some of the descriptions I’ve heard. Anyway, a generator casing falls on an experienced workman—”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Obviously there’s more than chance at play. Hasn’t that occurred to you?”

  Until this moment, a link between Speyer and Rolf had not entered my mind.

  “What everyone’s debating is, who is to blame? Is it the handsome parvenu Mr. Sinclair, with his million-dollar endowments to little girls? Is it the God-fearing preservationists? The union militants staging a coup d’état? Or maybe, just maybe, could it be J. P. Morgan’s own representative Frederick Krakauer, stirring up trouble for reasons best known to himself?”

  “Accidents take place every day at the power station,” I said, forcing myself to sound dismissive about her speculations. “We just never hear about them.”

  “If we never hear about them, how do you know they happen?”

  This was absurd. “They’re reported in the local Niagara Falls newspaper.”

  “You read the local Niagara Falls newspaper?”

  “I’ve been told by someone who does.”

  “Who?”

  Why was she pushing me on this? “I’ve been told by—” Suddenly I didn’t want her to know about Peter Fronczyk, didn’t want him and Maddie pulled into the round of gossip. “By someone in a position to know. Someone far from the intrigue you are so absurdly implying.”

  “Absurd? Moi?” She laughed with joy.

  There was a light knock. “Sorry—am I early?” A woman stood in the shadows at the open door. Suddenly I realized that the room had become dark; the sunset had passed into night. “The young lady downstairs said to come up.”

  How deftly her words—“the young lady downstairs”—pegged the background of our visitor. A woman like Francesca or Margaret would have said “your girl” or, if she had visited before, simply the servant’s name. Only someone who’d grown up without servants would refer to the maid as “the young lady,” as if she were the equal of herself.

  “Come in, come in.” Turning on another gas lamp, Francesca went to greet the visitor, taking her hands and bringing her into the light. Only then did I recognize her: Susannah Riley, the Macaulay art teacher. The painter who’d done the watercolors in Tom’s library and who tutored Grace in drawing. So this was the person on whom Francesca had set her sights as my comeuppance: the young woman from Fredonia who’d come to the city only a year and a half ago and to whom I’d given her first professional opportunity by hiring her at Macaulay. How quickly she had insinuated herself into our lives.

  “Look who’s here, Louisa,” Francesca was saying. I rose to give my greetings, filled with proper politesse even though I wasn’t accustomed to socializing outside school with junior faculty. Furthermore, Susannah’s developing friendship with Francesca made me wish I could disappear.

  “Good evening, Miss Riley. Miss Coatsworth and I were reviewing the plans for the addition to the school. You are going to have a wonderful new art studio.”

  “Yes, I know,” Susannah said eagerly. “The entire addition is going to be beautiful.” So: Francesca had shown the plans to Susannah before showing them to me. I glanced at my friend, but she was studying Susannah with frank admiration.

  Susannah was an odd one to elicit such attention. I knew from observing her classes that when she taught, confidence filled her, and she was precise and blunt with both her criticism and her praise. But outside the art room, sh
e sometimes appeared unsure of herself and vulnerable, like a child finding her way. She was thin and small, probably just five feet tall, and her clothes always seemed too big for her. Tonight, with her regulation shirtwaist she wore a lavender necktie that almost shouted “artistic.” Her boots needed polishing. Her dark hair was pulled into a thick, disarrayed bun at the nape of her neck. Yet seeing her here tonight I had to admit, as much as I hated to, that there was something alluring about her. Her lips were thick, her features sculpted, her eyes big and dark. Her expression was simultaneously childlike and womanly, innocent and knowing. With a shock I realized that the vulnerability I saw in the faculty room at school could easily be an act. The thought of her as Francesca’s physical intimate made me cringe.

  “I was sorry, Miss Barrett, to hear about what happened when the girls visited the power station.”

  Obviously she was already well within the loop of gossip.

  “Yes, it was unfortunate,” I said, too brusquely. Quickly I changed to an alternate topic. “I saw your watercolors at the Sinclair home when I was visiting recently. They were remarkable—and quite realistic, I was surprised to see when I went to the station.”

  “Thank you, Miss Barrett.” She gave me a wide-eyed, almost flirtatious look. I’d seen that kind of look before: on the faces of young women attempting to please and flatter wealthy older men. That Susannah was using this type of pseudo-innocent enticement with me was noteworthy: I wondered what she wanted. “I tried to show the beauty of the natural world around the power station, so the buildings wouldn’t overwhelm nature.”

  “You found the perfect balance,” I assured her, maintaining the rigors of courtesy.

  “Hi-ho, where are you, Frannie?” a man’s voice called from the hall. “Awfully dark up here.” All at once there was a bustling of arrival as the other guests came up the stairs: Dr. Charles Cary and his wife, Evelyn Rumsey Cary; Louise Blanchard Bethune and her husband, Robert; and bringing up the rear, focusing on everything around him with a curiosity that wasn’t strictly polite, the man whom I had met at the lakeside: Franklin Fiske.