VOYAGERS

by K. L. Nappier

  "Your father already has," Lawrence snapped, his voice uncharacteristically strong.

  There was a pause. Marshall seemed to realize tears were snaking down his face, their tracks obvious at his smudged jaw line. He dragged his gloved fingers over the salty trials, smearing the ash even more, then looked at the soiled kid leather as though expecting to see blood.

  "Not my father," he said, with a tight voice.

  It was then Greta's mother chose to enter the fray again. "Get out of our house. Get out! If you dare attempt to harass us again, if you dare to lay any claims on us, we will bring a suit of contention against you in court."

  Marshall was gripping his great coat so tightly it was on the verge of tearing. "Do it," he flung back at her, his voice hissing from his throat. "Do it!"

  And he was gone, leaving Greta's family as ruined as the parlor. A frigid draft swirled into Marshall's absence and it was a moment before anyone realized that he had left the front door open. Tess began to sob. Greta's father moved sluggishly from the hearth and walked into the hallway. A moment's pause, and the muffled sound of her father closing the door wafted into the parlor on the remains of the wintry draft. He returned to them, pausing at the parlor's threshold as his gaze fixed on his wife.

  Without preamble, as though neither of his daughters were there, he said, "I never meant to love you so poorly."

  Greta's mother was trembling, her eyes glossy with tears. Her iciness was gone, all gone, but the sight of this melting was not the fantasy Greta had rehearsed so often in her childhood years. She had dreamed of seeing the hard set of Georgia's mouth, creased ever more deeply with age, dissolve into the warmth of a smile that would shine in her eyes as brightly as those tears. Perhaps that would have happened years before. But now, the melting left Georgia's face slack with despair, as though she had not been guarding against loving her children--or even against loving her husband. But rather, had frozen her spirit against this terrible hopelessness, thwarting its arrival year after year, praying the day may come when she would have to guard against it no more. But upon seeing Marshall's face, upon seeing Burgess' malevolence reborn in a more fiendish form, a smoother, modern form, the hopelessness broke through at last. Burgess was with them again, secure in a young body that was certain to outlive her and Lawrence both.

  "Lawrence," she said, her voice weary. "Won't you tell me? Won't you look me in the eyes and honestly tell me?" Greta's father's reddened eyes welled. Yet even now, it seemed he would not reply. "Lawrence. Tell me. Please. I need to hear it from you."

  Then at last, at long last, he said it. "I never saw Marshall as my son. All these years, I saw him as my sin and my shame. Now, whose son is he? What have I done? What have I done to all of you?"

  How painfully well Greta remembered watching her parents gazing at one another like that, as though they were silently plotting what would soon occur, as though telling one another good-bye. And Greta could hardly bear it now any better than she had then.

  She watched her own hands splay pleadingly, as she said, "We'll fight him, Father. Just as Mother said. He can't do this, a court of law can't possibly let him do this."

  She looked at her mother for confirmation. Georgia broke her gaze from Lawrence to face Greta. And she smiled. It wasn't brittle or half-hearted, no. It was warm and loving. Weary, most certainly weary, but it was that smile Greta had longed for all those years. And still more amazement. Georgia walked over to Greta and cupped her daughter's face in her hands, as she hadn't done for much too long.

  "You're so young and lovely." She looked down at Tess and dropped one hand to caress the younger girl's cheek as well. "You and Tess. So beautiful. So strong." Then she looked into Greta's eyes. "I'm so awfully tired. Your father and I. I'm sure we both are." She turned to walk out of the parlor. But she stopped as she came to Lawrence's side, and touched his shoulder. "Will you come with me?"

  It was then, that precise moment, when Greta had forgiven her parents everything.

  Chapter Ten

  The Dance

  Greta became aware again of where she was. Mr. Shane was still seated next to her as though he hadn't so much as drawn another breath.

  "Father followed Mother up to bed. He remained with her that night. I think it must've been the first time in years they shared one room," Greta said, by now unashamed of such an intimate revelation. The next words caught, making her throat hurt. "It was also the last. When Father awoke the next morning, Mother didn't." Greta looked at the empty tea cup setting on the table before her, hoping her voice would remain steady if she could keep her gaze so. "If you will yourself to die, is that the same as suicide? What happens to your soul if you will yourself dead?"

  Mr. Shane watched her, as if he understood something about her question that Greta did not. "Your mother didn't commit suicide, Miss Roscoe."

  Greta's eyes began to burn. She blinked quickly, glad for the relief Mr. Shane's conviction gave her, but embarrassed to have become so vulnerable.

  "Thank you for your kind words," she said. Her voice was stiffer than she intended, but she was growing more uncomfortable, now that her tale was nearly complete. She left the divan and pretended to explore the parlor as she spoke. "Father was ... well, you can imagine. His grief was inconsolable." She looked back at Mr. Shane, and joked poorly, "At least he stopped drinking." The minister neither smiled nor replied and Greta felt more foolish than ever. "He sank evermore deeply within himself. He managed to cling to some form of consciousness until Mother's funeral. The following day, though, he was gone; completely gone. The doctors call it catatonia. The only difference between he and Mother is that they are on opposite sides of the grave."

  Greta found herself standing at Aridite's magical cabinet. She rubbed her thumb across the golden, ornate woodwork. She wondered about stopping her story there. But Mr. Shane's silent attention pressed upon her neck. If only he would tell her, "No more, I can see how this pains you." Damn him, why couldn't he share his father's apathy?

  She swallowed hard, and said, "The legal battle against Marshall was a farce. You may well imagine. In very short order I had to decide to care for Tess and Father or to sacrifice what few assets we had continuing the fight against Marshall." Greta leaned her head back and laughed bitterly. "And, too, I thought surely the court wouldn't allow us to be rendered paupers."

  "But it did," she heard Mr. Shane state.

  Greta pulled away from the cabinet and faced Mr. Shane. "No, no, the court was very concerned about us," she said, glad for the shielding sarcasm. "A broken old man, two 'defenseless females'. It seemed right in its eyes that Father's only male heir should be our guardians." Mr. Shane seemed genuinely stricken. "Oh, you're beginning to piece it together. Neatly done, all the way through, wasn't it? He's a sly one, my darling baby brother."

  Mr. Shane's stricken expression melted into something more speculative. "This is much too incredible," he said, almost to himself.

  Greta bristled. "Incredible as in amazing, or as in unbelievable?"

  Mr. Shane looked up at her as though she had jolted his thoughts. "No, of course I believe every word. It's simply that I don't understand Mr. Fielding's motives."

  "What is there to not understand?"

  "Well, why? I can't help wondering why. Why appear as he did, why lay claim to your assets, by your own admission, quite modest? As your legal guardian, the expenses of attending to the three of you would certainly wipe out any financial advantage in that. Indeed, with your father sheltered at LaFontaine..."

  "Do you honestly think I went along with their judgment?" Greta snapped. "I told Marshall what I thought of his so-called guardianship. I was equally clear when I addressed the judge. My language in those days was much more delicate for the most part, but not on that day. Much as we loathed it, Tess and I packed up what was still legally ours and moved Father out of the house. Marshall could have interfered, but he didn't. Our refusal of him left him with no obligations whatsoever. Don't you think he was countin
g on that?"

  He was watching her cautiously, as though weighing several answers in his mind. Then he seemed to change the subject, when he asked, "What did you do? Where did you go?"

  The thought of that agonizing year dampened much of her anger's heat. Greta took a deep breath, but didn't let her defenses stray far. "To the factory tenements. My experience at the chandlery was a godsend, at least, and I was certainly not afraid of work. I was employed as a clerk by Mason Sanders in the business of boxes and crates. Not so far to walk from the third floor flat we could afford to rent.

  "He was a fair man in the beginning. He understood my family's crisis and hired me on at top women's wages. Tess did what she could to care for Father, the darling, but she was so young. Sooner or later she would panic over something and send for me. Off I'd rush to the apartment. Mr. Sander's seemed to understand.

  "Tess tried to help our finances by taking in a little sewing. But where we could afford to live, most women who'd pay for the luxury wouldn't dare send their help. And Tess couldn't go to them. She had to stay with Father."

  Greta moved away from the cabinet altogether, but didn't approach Mr. Shane. Instead she made her way to the chair opposite him and sat restlessly.

  "Things were very bad. We were barely able to keep sheltered, clothed, and fed. I worried about Tess' future. I did what I could to tutor her, but she needed formal education if she were to escape the wretched fates of our neighbors. The Sisters of Charity ran a school for the poor, even had a modest studies program for girls. The conditions weren't ideal, but they were better than what I could do and required no tuition. But how was she to attend even that school? Again, who would care for Father? The solution would've been to shelter him. But, have you ever been to the city asylum?"

  Mr. Shane shook his head, listening so intently it was as though he were aware of something Greta was saying beyond her words. Greta shook her head, too, remembering her revulsion.

  "They call that maze of dungeons an 'asylum'. I never set foot in the actual dormitories, but I glimpsed from a distance the fate of my father. As I was led from Reception--a laughable usage of the word--to the Head Physician's office, that glimpse is more than I will ever want of the place. The things I heard... smelled... just traversing through that dank hallway. I turned on my heel and left before the nurse had gotten me halfway to the interview." Greta laced her gloved fingers together, leaning her elbows into the green satin of her lap. "She caught up with me. Despite her hard features--who wouldn't be hardened in such a place--she was a concerned soul. She understood my revulsion. She thought she had a solution and never realized the cruelty of it. You see, I was dressed in my best for the interview. Tess had kept our clothes in excellent condition. I'm sure the nurse didn't mistake me for a woman of means, but neither did she realize I was living a block away from the piece work factories. It was she who told me of LaFontaine, newly built just beyond St. Louis' boundaries. She told me it was just now accepting patients, as though it were more hospital than asylum. A noted alienist--a trained physician that treats the insane--headed a staff that was exploring the latest theories.

  "My heart seemed to pound in my ears, my hopes rose so. Even as she spoke I was planning Tess' future. Modest at first, but with Father in the care of a descent asylum she could study in the morning with the sisters and travel to a seamstress' shop in the afternoon. If we could get a hold, just a narrow grasp, earn a little extra, begin building her dowry...I left posthaste, the nurse having written directions to LaFontaine."

  Greta unlaced her fingers and lowered her hands. Mr. Shane looked at her as though he could see the very place on her soul that had taken the deciding blow.

  "When did you realize it was out of reach?" he asked.

  "I knew it even before the taxi had reined away. I simply didn't want to know it. The ride to LaFontaine alone had meant we would be eating turnip soup to the end of the week. I couldn't bring myself to accept I'd gambled and lost. Not yet. But looking up at the twin granite buildings...when I set foot on the shiny gray floors of Reception, saw the glossy white walls…before I even spoke to the nurse my heart was already beating 'can't, can't, can't', 'hopeless, hopeless, hopeless'." She drew a deep breath for the finish. "Fifteen hundred dollars a year, Mr. Shane. Fifteen hundred. Through all the pain, all the turmoil my family endured, I had never felt such despair as I did walking away from LaFontaine. I admit, for several days after that I considered calling on Marshall, to beg him to take Tess in. He had the means to care for her, if nothing else. Even old Burgess fed and clothed his legal heir, after all. But I could not bear to imagine life without my sister. So, as I saw it, the only option left to me was the dance halls."

  The confession shamed Greta so, she had to look away from Mr. Shane. She was surprised, too, at her embarrassment. She hadn't felt humiliation over the subject for far too long.

  She was quick to make clear, "But you understand, at that point, the only contact I had with men of that ilk was dancing. Strictly that; 10 cents a turn. True enough, I received only three cents of that, but the real money was in the tips. I could endure a good 30 dances a night. I was very popular. I was...out of the ordinary there."

  Greta hadn't intended to fall back into the potent recall of memory. But she wanted for Mr. Shane to fully comprehend her motives; her desperation. Much as she hated to admit it, especially to herself, she wanted to trust her companion. His opinion of her mattered. So, she allowed the visions to unfold before her once again, until the shabby facade of the dance hall was as vivid in her mind's eye as it had been every humiliating night she had had to pass through its doors.

  During the daylight hours, the Mississippi Pharaoh Dance Hall reflected the same seedy pragmatism as any other pleasure business built near the river landings. Dust clung to it when the weather was dry and mud spattered it after a heavy rain. The landings' warehouses blocked all but the faintest river breezes from reaching the dance hall district, but the stevedores and the pilots and crews of the merchant riverboats breezed in every night.

  Shabby it may have been, but the Mississippi Pharaoh was still the better of its ilk. It was the only dance hall that had a boardwalk, gray and warped though it was, and it led right up to the creaking double doors without interruption. The facade walls were every bit as weather-weary as the boardwalk, but the proprietor, Big Bear Sullivan, made sure the dance hall's name was elaborately painted over the doors. The letters' blocky, vivid white over maroon was easy to see no matter how dark the night may be.

  Inside, the dim glow of the gas lamps and tarnished chandeliers concealed the furniture's need of a thorough cleaning and mending. Little tufted chairs huddled around chipped wooden tables near the dance floor. But there were only a few, designed to be sat upon by the working women more than for the customer's leisure. Big Bear thought this gave his establishment a little panache, having 'his girls' sitting about like real ladies until they were dancing...or otherwise engaged. And perched on one's assigned chair was where one was expected to be when not on the dance floor or the second floor, where the rooms were. If one of Bear's girls was standing at the liquor bar she had better be in the company of a customer.

  Greta avoided the bar for the most part, easier to do than she would have thought. Paying a woman to dance discouraged most customers to spend more on them at the bar. In general, the men were liquored up long before they swaggered toward the women, anyway. As for the rooms above Greta's head, she never saw them and had done everything in her power since coming to work at the Mississippi Pharaoh to make sure she wouldn't. Of late, however, a dull horror was growing in her stomach. Only now was she beginning to realize that if she stayed, sooner or later she would have to climb that stairwell.

  She had boldly walked through the dance hall's doors exactly 33 nights before, perfectly aware of its true nature. But Greta, still retaining a peculiar naivete, had been certain she could avoid it. She had reasoned, time and time again, that all she need ever do was dance with those sots. Endu
re. Until some opportunity, anything of the slightest improvement, were to make itself known. Her life had become a series of deceptions.

  Deceive Tess. Tell the girl she had taken on a secondary job as a night maid, though she doubted Tess really believed her. Greta was, after all, bringing home quite a bit more money than what she would have earned as a maid. And she could have met Tess' eyes every night before leaving if that had been true.

  Deceive Mr. Sanders, her daytime employer. Mr. Sanders was a decent man, well connected among the business community. Her clerking responsibilities were worth the top wages he paid her (worth every bit as much as a man's wages, for that matter). But Greta knew what her worth would be to him if he discovered this covert life.

  It wouldn't matter how valuable she'd become to his business. It wouldn't matter that the dance hall was the fastest way Greta could manage to build Tess' dowry and still retain some scrap of dignity. Society allowed no excuses, no matter how profound or desperate, for debasing oneself. She understood this harsh reality; she had felt that way herself, once. It was the only way people knew how to ignore who they really were.

  During all this deception, Greta had only lately come to realize she had been deceiving herself foremost. Every night, so certain that all that was required of her was to muster some sort of smile, seem reasonably interested in the drunk that was pushing coins in her hand, be quick to avoid his groping as he stumbled her around the dance floor. Each night, however, had become an escalating war of persuasion and threats between her and Big Bear Sullivan. Whomever Greta thought she was deceiving, she was no longer among them.

  Looking upon this memory, watching herself being shunted about by a dandified gambler, Greta almost wondered aloud to Mr. Shane how she had convinced herself for so long and so thoroughly. Desperation, she supposed. Deep, dire despair. Ah, the things one can think in order to stomach the doing.