by Gwen Bristow
She gave a low, bitter little laugh. “Funny, you making me remember all that. I don’t like to remember it. It makes me ashamed of myself.”
“Oh Florinda, not ashamed! You were just a child! You did the best you could.”
“Yes, I did the best I could. But I mean, I’m related to him. I hate to think I’m related to a man like that. And I look like him.”
She was sitting very still on the floor, among the bags and boxes and the litter of paper. There was a silence. Garnet looked at her beautiful profile and her great blue eyes and her silvery hair. She wondered how it would feel to see such a reflection in the glass, and to remember that what you were seeing was your legacy from such a father. She said suddenly,
“You’re not helpless like your mother.”
“No, dear, I’m not.” Florinda laughed tersely. She roused herself, and turned the carpetbag around to go on with her packing. “I always get along,” she added.
“Yes,” said Garnet, “and I think you always will.”
“Oh, I will. You’re mighty right. Nobody’s going to kill me the way that man killed my mother.”
She picked up the box of soap, and glanced over her shoulder at Garnet.
“I’ll die of something one of these days, no doubt,” she ended coolly, “but I’ll be damned if I die of a broken heart.”
She said it with a half-humorous energy. Garnet had no doubt that she was right.
NINE
FLORINDA GAVE A SHORT little laugh. “Look, Garnet. Let’s stop talking about that cockroach I’m descended from. It’s no fun.”
“Why of course. We’ll stop right now,” Garnet agreed. She changed the subject. “You’ve just about finished packing, haven’t you?”
“You’re a sweetheart,” Florinda said gratefully. “Yes, I believe this is everything, except for the clothes I’ve got on. I’ll put them in later, when I’ve changed.”
Garnet looked at the black clothes on the bed, and then at Florinda again.
“What are you thinking about?” Florinda asked.
“Your disguise. You know, your hair is so unusual, it might be noticed. When you dress up, brush it tight under your bonnet.”
“That’s an idea. My hair’s a dead giveaway.” Florinda stood up, and glanced at herself in the mirror over the bureau. “But Garnet, won’t I look kind of suspicious with not a lock showing?”
“No, I’ve got an idea.” Garnet was taking out her own hairpins. “Bring me the sealing-wax, and light the candle.”
“Garnet, what are you doing? My dear child, you’re not cutting off your hair!”
“Just a little bit, I’ll never miss it. Give me the black bonnet. Now look.”
Using the sealing-wax, Garnet stuck two loops of her own black hair under the front edge of the bonnet, so it would look as if the wearer’s hair were parted in the middle and drooping over her forehead. Florinda whistled with reverence as she helped her.
“This is great. I wish I had your head, dearie. I could use it.”
“You can take out the black hair as soon as you get on the boat,” said Garnet, “unless you see somebody you’ve known before.” She shook her hair and put a comb into it to hold it back from her forehead.
Florinda was stroking her green-ribboned bonnet with affection. “I do hate to throw this away. It was very expensive. Could I put it into the bandbox the black bonnet came in? Would it be all right for a widow to carry an extra bonnet?”
“Why of course, that’s quite all right.” Garnet picked up a bandbox, labeled “Mme. Sidonie Drouet, Finest Widow’s Weeds, Bonnets, Veils,” and the same words repeated in French. “I had to have this wrapped in brown paper,” she said, “so the label wouldn’t show. You won’t need to wrap the outside, but your green bonnet should have lots of tissue around it so nobody could see the color if the box-top should slip. I’ll wrap it while you’re taking off your dress.”
She knelt on the floor and began to smooth out the bonnet-ribbons.
“Thanks,” said Florinda. “I’ll be mighty glad to have it. Well, I’ll get undressed now.”
Turning to the mirror, she took off her bracelets and began to unbutton her gloves. Garnet wondered again why she had been wearing gloves all this time. Thinking back, she remembered that in the restaurant last night, though Florinda had taken off her bonnet and shawl, she had not taken off her gloves. And in the theater, she had worn gloves with every change of costume. Garnet wondered if the gloves were merely a fancy, or if Florinda had some reason for wearing them all the time.
She reached for a sheet of tissue to be wrapped around the bonnet. Just then she heard Florinda’s taffeta dress rustle, slipping over her petticoats to the floor. Garnet glanced up.
She caught her underlip between her teeth and bit hard. She had not gasped aloud, but she had nearly done so. Without looking around, Florinda bent to gather up her dress. Garnet bit her lip as hard as she could.
Florinda’s hands and arms were covered with scars. The scars were big shiny red patches that crinkled like paper as she moved, and between the patches was a network of skin drawn this way and that, like cloth that had been torn and badly mended.
Garnet looked down again and pretended to be very busy wrapping the bonnet. She heard Florinda pick up her dress. The rustling of taffeta and tissue paper sounded loud in the room.
Garnet knew what made scars like that. They were burns. A girl at school had had one on her arm, caused by an overturned lamp. But that had been a small burn received in childhood, barely noticeable now. These marks of Florinda’s were new, and they were not small. The scars seared her hands and crisscrossed her arms above the wrists. Even above her elbows were several little pinched-looking places, as though sparks had fallen there.
Garnet tried to think of some ordinary remark about something else, but for the moment she could not. She could not think of anything, except that at some fairly recent date Florinda had fought a battle with fire. It had not crippled her, and time would probably make the scars less glaring than they were now. But part of her beauty was gone forever. Garnet felt revolted, as though she had been looking at a work of art made ugly by vandals.
She remembered. “Did something ever happen to you that you just couldn’t talk about?”
So that was it. Garnet was very glad she had not given an audible start when she saw Florinda’s tortured hands. She would go on, not noticing them. She thought that if she were to see Florinda every day for the rest of her life, no power on earth would ever drag out of her a word to show that she had ever noticed them.
There were some things you could not talk about. Garnet did not know what they were. But she had learned today that they did happen.
She had finished wrapping the green bonnet. She put it into the box and glanced up again.
Still facing the mirror, Florinda was untying the strings of her petticoats. She was doing it as serenely as though her hands were normal. But they were not normal. Besides the twisted skin, her fingers were not as flexible as they should have been. Garnet felt an impulse to say, “Let me help you,” but she smothered it with a feeling of shame that she had even thought of saying it. Florinda had learned, no doubt with grim determination, to make her damaged hands do the work of good ones. An offer of help would be cruelty beyond what Garnet could bear to think of.
Florinda had on seven petticoats. Without turning her head, she asked,
“Take off four, you said, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Garnet answered, “four.” She felt glad to have the conversation started again. Tucking some loose paper around the bonnet, she heard the starched petticoats rattling down.
Florinda stepped out of her skirts and gathered them into her arms. “Why Garnet,” she said, “how nicely you’ve packed that bonnet. Now I’ll get these things put away, then I’ll climb into that funeral rig. My dear, how do widows ever get married again, if the gents can’t see them except in scary outfits like that?”
Garnet looked up. Florinda was
half laughing, half scowling at the funeral dress, and as Garnet raised her eyes Florinda stuck out her tongue at it like a bad child making a face at the teacher’s back. Garnet began to laugh. She laughed and laughed, and Florinda laughed too. The tension was broken, and Garnet felt as relieved as if the tension had been a string around her neck.
“They don’t wear black all their lives,” she answered. “After six months they lighten it up with touches of white. Sometimes second mourning is very becoming, especially to young widows with fair hair like yours.”
Florinda piled the petticoats on a chair, and kneeling on the floor again she began folding her taffeta dress. The scars were red as flames beside the whiteness of her shoulders. “I look divine in black,” she was saying. “But not all covered up in it like something out of a haunted house. Throw me that nice big piece of paper, will you?”
Garnet obeyed. “How well you do that!” she exclaimed, watching Florinda tuck paper into the sleeves and smooth it between the folds of the skirt.
“I’m used to it, dearie. There now, pretty thing,” she said to the dress, “in you go.” She scrambled up and set to work on the petticoats.
Garnet felt as if something else had been spoken. It had passed between them clearly. Florinda had kept the scars hidden as long as she could. But she had to reveal them when she changed her dress. So she had done so, giving Garnet a chance to see the scars, and to be shocked by them, and to ask about them if she wanted to ask. But Garnet had not asked, and by now Florinda knew she was not going to. Through her chatter, she had said plainly, Thank you.
“Now then,” Florinda went on, “I’ll turn myself into a weeping widow.”
She changed her silk stockings for the respectable cotton ones. Her pink silk garters looked very odd around the sober cotton tops. This done, she took out her hairpins. Her hair tumbled below her waist in a rippling silver-gilt sheet.
“What marvelous hair you have!” Garnet exclaimed.
Florinda was not modest about her looks. “It is nice, isn’t it?” she agreed. “When I was a little girl in shows I always wore it down, with a blue ribbon. The audiences loved it. They said I looked like a little angel. Where’s my new hairbrush?”
“Here it is.”
Garnet brought the hairbrush to the bureau. She had not put up her hair after taking it down to cut off the locks she had stuck under the bonnet-brim, and as Florinda saw their reflections side by side in the glass she gasped with delight.
“Garnet, look at us! Aren’t we gorgeous together?”
Garnet smiled at the contrast—her own blue-black hair and rosy cheeks, beside Florinda’s porcelain fairness. “We do look pretty, don’t we?”
“Pretty? Hell for breakfast, we’re a sensation! I wish we could do a sister act. We’d bring down the house. I’d dress us—oh, Garnet!” She sighed with ecstasy. “You’d wear white and gold to show off your coloring, and I’d wear black and silver to show off mine. Think of it. Can you sing?”
Garnet laughed and shook her head. “No. I can carry a tune, but my voice is so little you can hardly hear it across a room. Anyway, I’m not an actress.”
“Oh well, it was just a vision.”
Florinda sighed again, letting it go the way of all visions. She screwed up her hair and pinned it tight. Garnet brought her the black petticoat. Florinda giggled as she slipped it over her head.
“Garnet, this thing is simply enormous in the waist. If you ask me, I think it was designed for a woman who was expecting a great blessing. I’ll cross the drawstrings in back and tie them in front, that’s the only way to keep it on. Now help me get into this dress. How do you open it?”
“It opens down the front, stupid, can’t you see? Hold up your arms and let me pull it down over your head.”
Still giggling, Florinda complied. The thin red skin of her scars flashed as she held up her arms. Garnet hated having to look at them.
“Hell for breakfast,” Florinda remarked, as with one hand she gathered the dress at her narrow waist and with the other she began to button it up the front. “Even a most respectable lady doesn’t have to pretend she’s shaped like a watermelon. Why Garnet, it’s nearly the same size all the way up. I can hardly make it meet across the bosom.”
Garnet was looking with dismay at the tightness of the black cloth across Florinda’s breasts. “That’s not decent,” she protested.
Florinda looked at herself with great amusement. “Well, dear, that’s the way God made me, and this is the first time I’ve ever had cause to regret it. I look damned awful, don’t I?”
“While you’re pretending to be an elegant widow,” Garnet ordered sternly, “don’t swear.”
“I won’t, sweetheart, honestly. I’m going to be so good you wouldn’t know me.”
“And unless you can alter the fit of that dress,” Garnet advised, “keep your shawl around you whenever you leave your stateroom. Now here’s a wedding ring in this little box.”
Florinda slipped the ring over her scarred finger. She picked up the bonnet, tried to put it on, and laughed helplessly as she tangled herself in the veil.
“Please, Garnet!” she begged.
Garnet helped her arrange the long heavy folds. Florinda was choking with merriment. The veil covered her nearly to her knees. Garnet helped her put on the shawl, and arranged the veil outside it.
“Now the rest,” said Florinda. “Black gloves, black-edged handkerchief, black purse. I’m all ready.” She turned back to the mirror, and gasped. “Garnet, you are a wonder. Look at me.”
Garnet looked. As she looked, a pain came up and pressed hard on her throat.
Florinda was gone. There was nothing left of her but a cloud of blackness. Every inch of her was covered. Behind the heavy black veil was a face, but it was shrouded, indefinite, just a ghost of a face. Florinda stared through the veil, laughing at the black bundle of herself in the mirror.
Garnet realized suddenly that the day was nearly over. In a few minutes more, Oliver would be here, and Florinda would go with him to the wharf. How strange it was, she thought. This time yesterday she had not known there was such a person as Florinda on earth. But today she knew her so well. She knew that Florinda had fought a battle with life, and had fought it with a splendid gallantry. And now Florinda was about to set out on a journey with no idea how it was going to end, and she was laughing as though she thought it was funny.
Garnet had heard a great deal of laughter in her life. She wondered now how much of it had been merriment, and how much of it had been a clear shining courage.
Florinda turned from the mirror, exclaiming,
“Say, I’d better start getting used to my costume. Watch me, Garnet. Am I right, the way I do this?”
Florinda knew her trade too well to try to play a scene without rehearsal. She walked around the room, picking up her skirts modestly as she came to imaginary stairs. She raised and lowered the veil several times.
“You’re doing it very well,” Garnet said at length.
“Yes, I think I can manage. The main difficulty is seeing through this black fog. But if I can get away, I won’t mind a stumble or two.”
Garnet looked around. The empty boxes on the floor had an air of grim finality about them. “Is there anything else we should do?” she asked.
“Oh yes, that reminds me—the letter I wrote is in the table drawer. It’s addressed to one of the girls at the theater. Thanks for taking care of it.”
“I’ll mail it after four days,” said Garnet. “By that time you’ll be a long way off.”
“Yes, a long way off.” Florinda paused. She threw back her veil again. “Garnet,” she said, “before I go—I just want to tell you I’ll remember you as long as I live.”
Garnet felt her throat getting choked up again. “I’ll remember you too, Florinda,” she said in a low voice.
“You’re so good,” said Florinda. “I—well, I guess if I was the weeping sort I’d be shedding tears about now.”
Ga
rnet put her hand to her eyes. “I am shedding some. I’m sorry. But I—I don’t want you to go like this!” She pulled out her handkerchief and dried her eyes. “I don’t know where you’re going,” she said brokenly.
“I don’t either, Garnet. But wherever it is, I’ll be thanking you for it when I get there.”
Garnet swallowed hard.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry, dear,” Florinda said gently. “I just wanted you to know.”
“I’m not crying any more,” Garnet said. She twisted the damp handkerchief between her fingers. “Florinda, will I ever see you again?”
“I don’t know, dearie.”
“You can look me up if you ever come back to New York. My father is Mr. Horace Cameron. He lives in Union Square. And Oliver and I will be there again next year. You can find us in the city directory.”
“I don’t think I’m ever going back to New York, Garnet.”
Garnet clenched her black eyebrows and thought hard. “I might see you in St. Louis,” she suggested hopefully. “We’re going through St. Louis on our way to Independence.”
“I won’t be in St. Louis when you get there,” Florinda answered. “I might get off at one of the towns lower down. And even if I go all the way to St. Louis, I won’t stay there. With things the way they are, I wouldn’t feel safe in a river port.”
“No, I suppose you’re right. There are too many people going through St. Louis this time of year.”
There was a long silence. Florinda stood turning her black purse over and over between her black-gloved hands. “Well, anyway,” she said finally, “I’ll never forget you. Any time you happen to be lonesome you can think about me and know I’m thinking about you. Because I will be thinking about you, every day I live.”
They heard a knock at the door. Garnet opened it a crack and saw Oliver.
“Is she ready to go?” he asked.
“Yes, she’s ready. Come in.”
Oliver burst out laughing as he saw the dismal figure in black. Taking Florinda by the shoulders, he turned her around and around, laughing at the way the baglike dress hid her curves. He said a boy was waiting to carry her bags. He’d go and bring him in.
