Saratoga Trunk

by Edna Ferber

  A kind of frenzy of exhilaration filled the three—Clio, Kakaracou and Cupidon. They had an unconscious sense of release, of impending adventure. None of them had felt really secure or at peace in the New Orleans to which they had been so eager to return.

  “Now then, my children,” Clio announced to Kaka and Cupide, “we are going to have a bonfire and to the tune of music. Not one thing will be left that people can finger and gloat over and point at and say, ‘See! That belonged to Rita Dulaine. There is the mark.’ Cupide, you will take the hammer and you will pull apart the big bed and the couch and the dressing table and the armoire, and you will roll up the carpet in the bedroom. You will burn all these, a litde at a time, in the courtyard.”

  “No,” screamed Kaka, in real pain. “No!”

  “I say yes. The marked glass you will throw against the brick wall of the garçonnière so that it breaks into bits, and then you will gather it into the dust bin to be thrown away. The center of the courtyard, Cupide. Smash up the fountain first.”

  There was something dreadful in the sight of the glee with which the little man went about his task of destruction. Ghoulish, powerful, grinning, he rent and pounded, hammered and smashed. Now the massive hand-carved posts and headboard, the superb mirror frames, the delicate chair legs went to feed the fire that rose, a pillar of orange and scarlet destruction, at the rear of the Rampart Street house. The heat was dreadful, though the fire had to be fed slowly, for safety’s sake. The mahogany burned reluctantiy. Cupide’s face became soot-streaked; he pranced between house and courtyard, between fire and wall. Crash, tinkle. Crash, tinkle, as the glass was hurled against the brick wall by his strong simian arm. Then another load of wood on the flames. Begrimed, sweating, filled with the lust for destruction, he was like an imp from hell as he worked, trotted, smashed, poked, hammered. The day was New Orleans at its worst—saturated with heat and moisture, windless, dead. Fortunate, this, or the Rampart Street house itself might have taken part in the holocaust. Perhaps Clio had hoped it would.

  “More,” she urged Cupide. “More. Everything. I will sleep on the mattress on the floor these next few days. Nothing must be left.”

  The telegram came from the Texan, and then, as speedily as might be, his letter, written in his schoolboy hand, round and simple and somehow touching.

  DEAR CLIO (it began, formally enough)

  Honey I miss you something terrible. I thought I was used to being alone but it seems right queer now and lonesome as the range. This place beats anything I ever saw. Hotels pack jammed and you talk about style and some ways rough too all mixed up the old days in Texas couldn’t hold a candle to it. The United States Hotel is the place to stay which is where I am as you see. The biggest gambling place is called the Club House it was built by Morrissey he is dead. You ought to see it, the carpet alone cost $25,000 they say, there is a colored woman housekeeper runs the kitchen and so on her name is Mrs. Lewis I found this out and thought that Kaka could get friendly there. Honey you ought to see who all is here. This is a bigger lay-out than we figured on. William Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Whitney, Crocker, Keene, Bart Van Steed, why they are all millionaires fifty times over besides a thousand who are just plain rich with only a million or so in their pants pocket. Jay Gould sits on the front porch he is here at the United States and rocks a soft-spoken quiet-stepping fellow I wouldn’t trust him with a plugged dime. I nodce he’s got a bodyguard since they tried to shoot him a while back. They call it the Millionaires’ Piazza. The turnouts would take your breath away. A four-in-hand is nothing out of the ordinary. Vanderbilt drives a pair I would give anything just to get my hands on they are Maude S. and Adelina, the horses I mean, the prettiest team I ever saw and the fastest pair in the world. Bart Van Steed drives a pair of big sorrels to a dogcart with a footman sitting up behind like a monkey. We got acquainted through my bays racing him on Broadway. They are as fine a pair as there is in town except of course Vanderbilt’s if I do say so.

  Well, honey they call me White Hat Maroon. I am playing up Texas like you said. Peabody of Philadelphia has a pretty team of dapple grays he drives to a landau. The races are just beginning. Better get you one of those new trunks they call Saratoga trunks big as a house and it will hold those fancy dresses of yours I haven’t seen anybody can come within a mile of you for looks and style though they dress up day and night like a fancy dress ball. It beats anything I bet even Paris France. The girls are all out after Bart Van Steed and even yours truly they say their mamas bring them here to catch a husband. And a lot of the other kind here too, bold as brass. The race when it comes to looks and clothes and bows is between a Mrs Porcelain from the East somewhere and Miss Giulia Forosini her pa is the banker from California she drives three white mares down Broadway with snow-white reins, it’s as good as a circus. Well honey sweetheart that gives you some idea. Van Steed is a mama boy they say afraid of his ma, she isn’t here yet but coming and he is trying to make hay while the sun shines they say if he looks at a girl his ma snatches him away pronto. Bring all your pretty dresses. My room number is 239 at the front of the house there are rooms at the back on the balconies facing the garden very expensive they call them cottages which they are not but too quiet for my taste. Try to get 237 and 238 bedroom and sitting room they are vacant I paid for them for a week I said I wanted plenty of room and talked big. You make up a good reason for wanting them specially and I’ll be a little gentleman and give them up when the manager asks me to. There is something big here if we play our cards right. Hurry up and come on but let me know everything about it as soon as you can. You drive to the lake for fish dinners and catch the fish yourself if you want to as good as New Orleans or better—black bass, canvasbacks, brook trout, woodcock, reed birds, soft shell crabs, red raspberries. You won’t even remember Begue’s with their kidney stew they make such a fuss about. They give you something called Saratoga chips it is potatoes as thin as tissue paper and crackly like popcorn. Everything free and easy, plenty of money, not too hot and big shady trees and you can smell the pines. This is bigger than I thought. I wish there was some way I could get at the big money boys I am studying how I can do it. I hate them worse than a cow man hates a sheep man. Well, if the cards run right and the horses run right and the little ball falls right we ought to clean up here. And if I do honey I’m going to buy you the biggest whitest diamond on Fifth Avenue New York. Only hurry away from that stew-kettle down there and come up here to,

  Your friend,

  WHITE HAT MAROON.

  P.S. Crazier than ever about you I don’t like you being down there alone old Kaka and Cupide don’t count.

  Clio Dulaine’s reply to this rambling letter was characteristically direct and astute.

  CLINT CHERI:—

  It has been very queer here. All things. But I am well and I am safe and I shall arrive in Saratoga on July 14th at half-past two. Do not meet me. Be at the hotel desk when I enter. The hotel will expect me on the 15th. Find out immediately, as soon as you have read this letter, if Van Steed’s mother is arriving in Saratoga before that time. Telegraph me at once. This is important. If she is not there he will receive a telegram sent by me en route at the last minute to say that she is on the train and that he is to meet her. It may not work but I shall try. Remember, you do not know me. I think this will not be a little holiday with perhaps some luck at cards and horses. This is the chance of a lifetime. I am bringing Kaka and Cupide of course and eight trunks besides boxes. A bientôt chéri, Big Texas. Remember we are business partners. I have written the hotel.

  CLIO DE CHANFRET.

  Her letter to the United States Hotel was as brief and more to the point.

  MY DEAR SIR:—

  My physician Dr. Fossat has advised me to go to Saratoga for the waters following my recent illness due to my bereavement of which you doubtless have heard. I shall require a bedroom and sitting room for myself and accommodations elsewhere in the hotel for my maid and my groom. Many years ago my dear husband occupied apar
tment 237 and 238 in the United States Hotel. It will make me very happy if you can arrange to give me this same apartment. If it is difficult I shall be happy to recompense the hotel for its trouble.

  One thing more I must ask of you. Though I am the Comtesse de Trenaunay de Chanfret I wish to be known only as plain Mrs. De Chanfret. I want to remain quiet while at Saratoga. I wish no formal ceremonies. I must rely completely on you to comply with my request to remain incognito.

  I shall arrive on July 15th at half-past two o’clock.

  I remain,

  Sincerely yours,

  COMTESSE DE TRENAUNAY DE CHANFRET

  (MRS. DE CHANFRET please!)

  Twenty-four hours after the arrival of this letter everyone in Saratoga knew that nobility was coming incognito. Saratoga made much of its train arrivals in this, the height of the season. The natives themselves flocked down to see the notables and fashionables as they stepped off the train. The bell in the old station cupola added its clamor to the pandemonium of train bell, whistle, screech; the cries of greeting or farewell; the shouts of hotel porters and omnibus and hack drivers; the thud of heavy trunks; the stamp of nervous horses’ hoofs. Landaus and dogcarts and phaetons and even a barouche or two were drawn up at the platform’s edge. There was a swishing of silks and bouncing of bustles and trailing of draperies. Bewhiskered and mustached beaux in midsummer suits of striped seersucker or checked linen, horsey men in driving coats of fawn color or buckskin made a great show of gallantry as they bowed and postured and twirled their mustaches and took charge of the light hand-luggage and gave authoritative masculine orders regarding the disposal of trunks and boxes.

  Clio Dulaine had lingered and dawdled in the train so that she was almost the last passenger to step onto the depot platform. The confusion was at its height. Bells clanged, whisties tooted, horses plunged and reared, the hotel runners shouted, “Grand Union bus here! Take your bus for the United States Hotel! Clarendon! Congress Hall this way!”

  As she stepped off the train at Saratoga Spa it was characteristic of Clio Dulaine that she was not dressed in the utilitarian black or snuffy brown ordinarily worn for traveling by the more practical feminine world. She was wearing gray, sedate yet frivolous, the costume of a luxurious woman who need not concern herself with travel stains and dust. The litde gray shoulder cape of ottoman silk was edged with narrow black French lace and its postilion back made her small waist look still tinier. Even her traveling hat (known as a Langtry turban) was relieved by its curl of gray and mauve ostrich tips nestiing against the black of her hair. A traveling costume de luxe; a hint of half-mourning whose wearer has long since dried her tears.

  As she stepped off the train she looked about her in pretty bewilderment, her expression touched with the half-smile of expectancy. The noise and confusion were at their height as passengers were swept off into waiting carriages or buses; then the whistle, the clangor and the slow acceleration of the engine’s choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choo-choochoo as the train drew out. The noise reached a crescendo, died down, became a murmur. Sheriff O’Brien’s sorrels whirled him off in his dogcart, the Bissells’ long-tailed bays were twin streaks of red-brown against the landscape, the Forosini landau rolled richly off, the coats of the blooded blacks glinting like sadn in the sunlight. Cupide had trotted oft” to wrestie with the pyramid of trunks and boxes. And still the slim gray-clad figure, drooping a little now, stood on the station platform. Behind her, a sable pillar of support, was Kakaracou. But Clio’s speech, incisive though whispered, belied her attitude of forlorn uncertainty.

  “Yes, I was right, Kaka. He’s the one who has been running up and down like a chick without its hen-mother. That must be his carriage with the sorrels and the groom. Look! Now he’s rushing into the waiting room. Quick, fetch Cupide, never mind about the trunks, when he comes out we must be standing near his cart, the three of us, put on your gloves, fool! Hold the jewel box well forward. Cupide! Quick! Here!”

  She maneuvered the little group so that they stood between the waiting-room door and the team at the platform’s edge. When he came out he must pass them. And now Bartholomew Van Steed emerged, a somewhat frantic figure. A final searching look up and down the station platform—a look that included and rejected the group of three as being no part of his problem—and he sped, dejected, toward the waiting groom and horses. As swiftly Clio intercepted him.

  “Pardon, Monsieur!” He stopped, stared. “Can you tell me where I may find a carriage to take me to the United States Hotel? Please.”

  “Uh—why—” He waved a vague arm in the direction of the public hack stand, for he was full of his own troubles. He now saw that the space was deserted. Frowning, he looked back at her, into the lovely pleading face, seeing it now for the first time. His gaze traveled to the black woman behind her, to the strange little man in livery, then returned to her, and now her lip was quivering just a little, and she caught it between her teeth and clasped her gray-gloved hands.

  “I was to have been met. Naturally. I cannot understand.” She turned and spoke rapidly to Kakaracou in French, “This is terrible. I don’t want to embarrass this gendemen. Can we send Cupide somewhere, perhaps—” Her appealing look came back to Van Steed. And now for the first time he seemed to see the striking group as a whole—the richly dressed young woman, the dignified Negress, the dwarf attendant, all surrounded by a barricade of hat-boxes, mono-grammed leather cases, fine leather bags, all the appurtenances of luxurious travel.

  The brusqueness of perplexity now gave way to his natural shyness. He blushed, stammered, bowed. A tall man who appeared short perhaps because of his own inner uncertainty, perhaps because he stooped a little. Side whiskers and a rather ferocious mustache that did not hide the timidity of the lower face; a fine brow; amber eyes with a hurt look in them; a strong, arrogant hooked nose—the Van Steed nose. Clio Dulaine saw and weighed all this swiftly as she looked at him, her lips parted now like a child’s. Something of a dandy, poor darling, she thought, with that fawn-colored coat and the sans souci hat like that of a little boy playing in the Luxembourg Garden.

  “Madame,” he began, “that is—Miss—uh—”

  “I am the Comtesse—I mean I am Mrs. De Chanfret. I am sorry to have troubled you. It has been such a long and tiring trip. I had expected to be met. I am not fully recovered from—”

  Two great pearly tears welled up, clung a moment to her lashes; she blinked bravely but they eluded her and sped down her cheeks. She dabbed at them with a tiny lace-bordered handkerchief.

  “But Mrs. De Chanfret! Please! Uh—allow me to drive you to the United States Hotel. I am stopping there myself. I am Bart Van Steed, if I may—”

  “Not—not Bartholomew Van Steed!” He admitted this with a bow and with that air of embarrassment which, oddly enough, seizes one when confronted with one’s own name. “But how enchanting! Like being met unexpectedly by a friend in a strange land. It is a strange land for me. But perhaps you are meeting someone else—”

  At this his worried look returned, he glanced right and left as though the possibility still remained that he might have overlooked a passenger on the little depot platform. “I was expecting my mother. She telegraphed me that she would be on this train.”

  Clio was all concern. “And she didn’t come?”

  “I can’t imagine what happened. Maybe she’s on another train. But she never misses a train. And she never changes her mind.”

  “Perhaps someone was playing a joke.”

  “People do not play jokes on me,” said Bart Van Steed. “I shall send a telegram as soon as we reach the hotel.” He waved her toward the waiting carriage. “Lucky I drove the phaeton. Mother won’t ride in the dogcart. But I’m afraid there isn’t room for all—”

  “You are so kind. This will do beautifully—for all of us.” The groom had jumped down, had handed the reins to Van Steed, and now was barely in time to hand Clio up, for her foot was on the step and she was seated beside Van Steed before he had well a
djusted the ribbons. “My woman can sit back there with your groom—she’s very thin. And Cupidon can stand on the step, if necessary. . . . The bags just there . . . So . . . Kaka, have you my jewel-case? . . . That large bag here at my feet. I don’t mind. . . . The hotel porter will see to the trunks. . . . Cupide! There, on the steps . . . You see he’s so very little you will never notice he’s... It’s not far, I suppose ... This is wonderful! So kind! So very kind! I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t appeared like a shining knight. . . .”

  She leaned a little toward him, she smiled her lovely poignant smile. She sighed. She thought, well, lucky I know how to manage, we’d never have been able to pile in. Not with this weak-chinned one.

  Away they whirled. White-painted houses. Greek revival columns. Gingerbread fretwork. Ancient wine-glass elms. Smooth green lawns. “Oh, I like this! This is very American!” Clio clapped her hands like a child, and for once she was not acting. “Charming!” She turned slightly to call over her shoulder to Kakaracou, speaking in French. “Look, Kaka, look! This is America—but the real America!”

  “ Tiens!’’’’ said Kaka, putting incredible sarcasm into the monosyllable.

  “I gather that you have not visited Saratoga before,” said Bart Van Steed, weighdly. “I—uh—I speak some French.” Then, as she turned to him, eager to express her delight in the language with which she was most at ease, he added, hastily, “But only a little. A very little. I—uh—read it better than I speak it. You haven’t been here before, I gather.”

  “I haven’t been anywhere. I am discovering America. It is amazing! So big! So new! All my life I have lived in France.” She was having a fine time being very French; little Gallic gestures; her hands, her inflection, the cooing note in her voice. He had noted the crest on her luggage, the initials on the filmy handkerchief, the tiny jeweled monogram on her reticule. The letter C was entwined with vines and fragile leaves and spirals.