Saratoga Trunk

by Edna Ferber

  “Are you here for the racing season?”

  “I am a lover of horses. But I am here in the hope that the waters and the air will help me. Not,” she hastily added, “that I am ill. I never have been ill in my life. But I have heard that the waters are tonic and I hoped that the fresh bracing pine air and the tonic waters would restore my appetite.”

  His full blond mustache quivered, his pale gold eyes turned to her sympathetically. “I’ve got a delicate digestion too.”

  She thought, grimly, I’ll be bound you have! Aloud she said, “All sensitive people—especially those whose lives are lived in the midst of great responsibilities—are likely to have delicate digestions. Because of his diplomatic duties my husband the Count de—I mean for years my late husband had to have everything purée, almost like an infant’s food, really. Yet he was a man of the most brilliant mentality and marvelous achievement, like yourself.”

  “My mother,” he announced, plaintively, “can digest anything. Anything. Sixty-seven.”

  “How marvelous! But then, she probably isn’t your temperament. Not so delicately organized.”

  “She’s as strong,” he announced with surprising and unconscious bitterness, “as an ox—that is—she’s got great strength and— uh—strength.”

  “How—wond-er-ful!” she cooed in that paced leisurely voice. “And yet, do you know, sometimes these very, very strong wonderful people become sort of annoying to more highly sensitive ones like you and me—I don’t mean your dear mother, of course.”

  He had barely time to say, “No, certainly not!” with guilty emphasis when they drew up before the fantastically columned entrance of the United States Hotel. The three passengers in Bartholomew Van Steed’s equipage stared in stunned unbelief at a sight which could be duplicated nowhere else in America—or in the world, for that matter. Slim columns rose three stories high from a piazza whose width and length were of the dimensions of a vast assembly room. A gay frieze of petunias and scarlet geraniums in huge boxes blazed like footlights to illumine the bizarre company that now crowded the space on the other side of the porch rail.

  “Grand Dieu!” was wrung from Clio Dulaine as she stared in shocked unbelief.

  “Nom d’une pipe!” squeaked Cupide.

  “Mais, bizarre! Fantastique!” muttered Kakaracou.

  Up and down, up and down the length of the enormous piazza moved a mass of people, slowly, solemnly, almost treading on each other’s heels. The guests of the United States Hotel were digesting their gargantuan midday meal. Carriages and buses had already disgorged the passengers who had arrived on the half-past-two train, and these had been duly viewed, criticized and docketed by the promenaders. It was part of the daily program.

  And now here was an unexpected morsel—a delicious bit to roll under the tongue. The vast company goggled, slowed its pace, came almost to a standstill like a regiment under command. En masse they stared with unabashed American curiosity at Bart Van Steed’s carriage and its occupants. Bartholomew Van Steed, the unattainable bachelor, the despair of matchmaking mamas, the quarry of all marriageable daughters, dashing up to the hotel entrance in broad daylight with a woman—with a young, beautiful and strange woman. One could discern that before she emerged.

  Down jumped a midget in livery, gold buttons and all. Out stepped a majestic turbaned black woman looking for all the world like an exiled Nubian queen. Out jumped Bart Van Steed’s groom, then Van Steed threw him the reins and himself handed out the modish figure in gray and mauve.

  A simple day, a crude society. Like figures in a gigantic marionette show the piazza faces turned toward the little procession as Clio, her skirts lifted ever so slightly, swept up the broad steps of the piazza into the vast white lobby. Beside her strode Bart Van Steed, and behind her a stream of satellites. Out rushed a covey of black bellboys and joined the parade, each snatching a hatbox, a case, a bag. The women noted the cut of the stranger’s ottoman silk gown, the fineness of the black French lace so wantonly edging a traveling cape; they saw the sly line of the Lily Langtry hat, the way the gray kid boots matched the richly rustling skirt. The men saw the slender ankle beneath the demurely lifted skirt, the curve of the figure in the postilion cape, the lovely cream-white coloring and the great dark eyes beneath the low-tipped hat.

  “Why, the sly dog! I wouldn’t have believed it of him! He said it was his mother he was going to meet.”

  Out pranced Roscoe Bean, the oily head usher, from his corner under the great winding stairway—Roscoe Bean, who winnowed the hotel wheat from the piazza chaff, who boasted he could tell the beau monde from the demimonde at first glance. A snob of colossal proportions, unctuous, flattering, malicious, he now skimmed toward the party so that the tails of his Prince Albert coat spread fanlike behind him. His arms were outspread, he swayed from the hips, it was a form of locomotion more like swimming than walking.

  “Your ladyship!” he began, breathlessly, for his pervasive eye had glimpsed the omnipresent monograms and crests. “Your ladyship!” We didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”

  “Please!” She raised a protesting hand. “I am Mrs. De Chanfret.”

  “Yes, of course. Beg your pardon. Your letter said—”

  She approached the desk. She did not even glance at the tall figure lounging against a pillar just next the clerk’s desk—a figure whose long legs were booted Western style, whose broad-brimmed white sombrero was pushed back slightly from his forehead, whose gaze lazily followed the spiraled smoke of the large fragrant cigar in his hand.

  Even as she signed her name in the bold almost masculine hand—Mrs. De Chanfret—maid—groom—the room clerk, the sub-clerk, the hastily summoned manager and assistant manager wrung their hands and wailed in unison like a frock-coated Greek chorus.

  “But Mrs. De Chanfret! Your letter said the fifteenth. Here it is. In your own hand. The fifteenth! Two thirty-seven and two thirty-eight were to be vacated early tomorrow morning. We were sending a staff of cleaners in to prepare them for you first thing in the morning. We wouldn’t have had this happen for the world!”

  “Perhaps I should have gone to one of the other hotels.”

  “Mrs. De Chanfret! No! We can give you a temporary suite in one of the cottages—”

  “Cottages!”

  “Magnificent suites at the rear—”

  “I! At the rear!”

  “But the cottages aren’t cottages—that is—they’re suites on the balconies overlooking the gardens. Our most élite guests refuse to occupy any other rooms . . . Mr. William Vanderbilt . . . Lispenards . . . Chisholms . . . Mr. Jay Gould himself. . . even President Arthur has . . .”

  She shook her head gendy; she turned away. To his own astonishment Van Steed heard himself saying, “This is preposterous! You must accommodate Mrs. De Chanfret. I myself will give up—”

  The turmoil had now reached a dramatic height exactly to Clio Dulaine’s liking. Behind her stood Kakaracou, an ebony statue, the jewel case clutched prominently in front of her. Cupide, his tiny legs crossed, was lolling negligentiy against a stack of luggage while his froglike eyes made lively survey of the immense lobby. A group of Negro bellboys, their clustered heads like black grapes on a stem, stared down at him, enthralled. Inured though the litde man was to the cruel gaze of gaping strangers, he now was irked by the attention he was receiving. Suddenly he contorted his face into the most gruesome and inhuman aspect, accompanying this with an evil and obscene voodoo gesture unmistakable even to these Northern boys. They scattered, only to peer at him again, eyes popping, from behind a near-by pillar or desk.

  And outside, the piazza-walkers were savoring this unexpected after-dinner delicacy, or dropping into the lobby on any pretext. . . . it’s that countess or whatever she is . . . but I thought she wasn’t coming until tomorrow . . . did you see the midget I thought it was a little boy until I saw his face he looks . . . this morning I happened to meet Bart he said he was expecting his mother on the two . . . well all I can say is that w
hen old Madame Van Steed hears of this she’ll have a . . . rules him with a rod of iron . . . Mrs. De Chanfret . . . they say she doesn’t want to be called . . .

  For this hotel was like a little self-contained town; the piazza like a daily meeting of a rural sewing society made up of gossips of both sexes. Every one of the promenaders longed to be in the lobby now. Yet even they realized that a concerted move in this direction would inevitably result in a stampede. Still, the hardier souls among them would not be denied. Singly or in pairs you heard them muttering a trumped-up excuse as they drifted out of the throng and made for the door that framed the enormous lobby.

  “Well—uh—guess I’ll get me forty winks after all that dinner . . . if I’m going to the races I’d better be starting . . . I’ll go up to the room and see how Mama is. She had one of her headaches and wouldn’t come down to dinner . . . Mr. Gillis said he’d have the information for me at the desk this afternoon so I’ll just drop by and ask . ..”

  Within the hotel the apologies and explanations behind the desk now rose to a babble through which could be heard a single word emerging like a leitmotif. Maroon. Maroon. Maroon. Colonel Maroon’s occupying those rooms, but by tomorrow he—

  Now the tall figure that had been so indolendy viewing this scene from the vantage point of the near-by pillar uncrossed its legs, came forward with a slow easy grace and, removing the white sombrero with a sweeping gesture that invested it with imaginary plumes, bowed before the elegant and somewhat agitated figure of Mrs. De Chanfret.

  “Excuse me, Ma’am, but I couldn’t help hearing what you-all were saying. My name is Maroon, Ma’am—Clint Maroon. Texas.”

  Clio Dulaine looked up at him, she turned a bewildered face toward Bart Van Steed, then quickly to the men at the desk, “Well, really, gentlemen! This is too—”

  “No offense, Ma’am,” drawled Maroon.

  Bart Van Steed now found himself not only aiding beauty in distress, but playing the defender of injured innocence: “Look here, Maroon, you can’t address a lady you’ve never met.”

  “Listen at him! Introduce us, then, and make it legal. I’m aiming to help the little lady. She can have the rooms she wants right now. How’s that, Ma’am!”

  Grudgingly Van Steed went through the form of introduction. Again the Texan bowed with astonishing courtliness. Clio Dulaine held out her little gloved hand. He took it in his great clasp, he clung to it like an embarrassed boy.

  “But I couldn’t think of turning you out of your rooms, Mr. Maroon.”

  “Make nothing of it, Ma’am. It’s thisaway. I’m just occupying two thirty-seven, thirty-eight and thirty-nine for the hell of it. Shucks, Ma’am, excuse me. I didn’t go for to use language.” He came closer. He still held her hand in his. She did not retreat. “No sense in my having it. I just like to spread out and be comfortable. I’ll go get me my stuff and you can move in right now. I never really used those two extra rooms, anyway.”

  “How good of you, Mr.—”

  “Maroon,” he prompted her. “Clint Maroon.”

  “What a delightful name! So American.”

  “Texas, Ma’am.”

  “Texas! I should love to see Texas.”

  “Play your cards right and you will, Ma’am. No offense, Mrs.— uh—”

  “De Chanfret.”

  “De—uh—yes. Well, I meant that was just an expression we use. I sure would like to be the one to show you Texas.” He raised a hand toward the clerks behind the desk. “I’ll mosey along and be out of there in two shakes. You-all can come on along right now, if you’ve got a mind to.”

  This surprising suggestion was seized upon by Mrs. De Chanfret with alacrity. “Kaka! Cupide!”

  The room clerk, the manager, the assistant manager, the head usher, relaxed beaming. “Madame is wonderful,” cooed Roscoe Bean, “to accommodate herself like this.”

  Clio graciously murmured something about being a woman of the world. Cupide, a gargoyle come alive, bestirred himself among the bags. Kaka moved to her mistress’s side. The little procession formed again, now taking on the proportions of a safari. Bells were tapped smartly. Orders given. A squad of chambermaids and scrubwomen summoned. Clint Maroon did not precede the party. He waited. Clio turned to Batholomew Van Steed.

  “How can I thank you! You have been so kind, so friendly. I feel, really, that we actually are friends.”

  Caution settled like a glaze over Van Steed’s face. The quarry scented the pursuer. “I am happy to have been of service.” He bowed rather stiffly. “I trust that you will be comfortable.”

  “And I hope,” Clio said, all sweetness and light, “that your dear mother’s telegram will soon be followed by her coming. But I can’t help being selfish enough to realize that her failure to arrive was my gain. Good-by, Mr. Van Steed.” She half turned away.

  Caudon fled. He took a step toward her. “I shall see you soon, I—that is—we shall meet again soon, I trust—guests under the same roof, naturally—”

  She bowed, she smiled, she moved off with her entourage; she had given him a swimming glance intended to convey fatigue, gratitude, aloofness. Incredibly enough, she actually managed all three. But even as she turned away she paused a moment. “Who is this gentleman,”—she indicated the tall figure of the Texan strolling toward the elevator—your friend in the white hat? He is the real figure of an American. Who is he?” Her words were quite clear to the attendants at the desk.

  Van Steed eyed him obliquely. “Maroon? Why—uh—Texas cattle man, I’m told. Some such matter. He’s no friend of mine.”

  “A pity. In Paris he would be the rage.” Bart Van Steed’s pale golden eyes widened in surprise. How annoying those white eyelashes are, Clio thought, even as she smiled sweedy in farewell. Then the slender gray-clad figure moved off with a soft susurrus of silks, followed by the discreeter rustle of the majestic black woman’s skirts. He was still looking after her as the elevator with its grillwork, its groaning ropes and clanking cables, lumbered heavily upward and bore her from his sight.

  A little pink-and-white figure, pretty as a Dresden china shepherdess, approached the desk, paused a moment in passing and gave an extremely bad imitation of surprise at the encounter. “Your mother didn’t come, Mr. Van Steed? What a disappointment for you!”

  “Oh, howdy-do, Mrs. Porcelain! No—uh—that is—no.”

  “I do hope nothing’s wrong,” she cooed. “Saratoga isn’t Saratoga without her.”

  A momentary gleam lighted his eye, then faded. “Nothing’s wrong,” he replied, as though thinking aloud. “The telegraph company must have made the mistake. Mother never does. I’m sending her a telegram now. The funny part of it is that I thought she was up in Newport at my sister’s house. Mrs. Schermerhorn. She’s expecting a—uh—she isn’t well, that’s why Mother—but her telegram was sent from New York.”

  Mrs. Porcelain wagged a coy forefinger at him. “Now, now! You’re not playing a litde joke on us, are you, Mr. Van Steed? You didn’t drive down to the depot to meet a Certain Somebody Else? I just happened to be on the piazza taking a little constitutional when you drove up.”

  For years Madam Van Steed, that iron matriarch, had checked relentlessly on his every coming and going. His solicitude when she was present only testified to his guilty inner hatred—a hatred which occasionally brimmed over into a fury of resentment. So now he was seized with the seemingly unreasonable rage of the hag-ridden male.

  “My dear Mrs. Porcelain, am I to understand that I am obliged to cloak my actions or explain my behavior to a lot of harpies on a hotel piazza!”

  “Harpies!” The round blue eyes, the round pink mouth showed her shocked surprise, but the social training of years triumphed. “You’re quite right, Mr. Van Steed. We do become like small-town gossips here in dear little old Saratoga, don’t we?” She managed an arch smile. “She is really lovely.”

  “But I tell you I don’t know the lady!” he almost shouted.

  But Mrs. Porcelain was not to
be diverted from her purpose by mere insult.

  “You must introduce me some time soon. I should so love to meet her.”

  IX

  Clio Dulaine stood in the middle of the sitting room, surveying the suite with its grim and rigid furnishings. Black walnut chairs, mustard walls, a vast cuspidor. Through the open door of the bedroom she glimpsed the carved black walnut bed, the livery marble-topped table, the boxed-in washstand. Beyond that was the dim cavern of the bathroom with its zinc-lined tub. Bellboys were raising windows, lowering shades, muttering about ice water. Clint Maroon was standing discreedy in the outer hall doorway under the chaperonage of Roscoe Bean’s eye.

  “Looks like we’re neighbors, Ma’am,” he said, genially. “Seeing how I’m right next door.” He waved his hand toward the closed double door.

  “So kind of you to give up your rooms to me, Mr.—uh— Maroon. I really feel quite guilty.”

  “No call to. I never used ‘em. Well, I’ll be moseying along. Good day, Mrs. De Chanfret, Ma’am.”

  With considerable ostentation Roscoe Bean glided to the large double door between the sitting room and the bedroom just now designated by Maroon. “I’ll lock the door on this side, Your Lady— that is, Mrs. De Chanfret—if you’ll kindly turn the lock on your side, Mr. Maroon. It’s a double lock, you see, both sides. Mmmm.” His murmur conveyed a nice sense of the proprieties. He proceeded to turn the lock with precision and snap.

  “Good day, Ma’am,” Clint Maroon vanished from the doorway. Clio Dulaine waited. Roscoe Bean waited. Kakaracou waited. Cupide, grinning, cocked his impish head. A bolt shot into place, a key grated. “Ah!” sighed Roscoe Bean. Then, briskly, “The chambermaid and the scrub-woman and the housekeeper will be up at once. Have you had your dinner? Is there anything? Would you—”

  Already Kaka was going about her duties with the utmost efficiency. She had immediately vanished into the bedroom to poke the mattress with an investigating forefinger. Now she was opening boxes, hanging clothes in the wardrobe, laying out toilet things, shooing the loitering bellboys. “Allez; allez! Go! Carencro! Congo! Dépêche toi!”