Saratoga Trunk

by Edna Ferber

  At the head of the ballroom, directly opposite the musicians’ platform, enthroned among the dowagers, sat Madam Van Steed. About her clustered her ladies-in-waiting—the insecure, the jealous, the malicious, the grudging, the envious. They made elegant conversation and they watched the door; they commented on the success or the dismal failure of the costumes which had been devised under the generous rules of fancy dress; and they watched the door.

  “How sweet!” they had cooed at sight of the rose-trellised Mrs. Porcelain. “How dashing and romantic!” on the entrance of the Spanish gypsy. They made stilted talk, generously larded with hints concerning their own lofty place in society.

  “I had a letter today from my cousin, Mrs. Fortesque, of London. She says the Queen is suffering from low spirits. She will take no exercise. Letitia—that’s Mrs. Fortesque—says the dear Queen will go to Italy in the autumn.”

  “I see that Mrs. De Chanfret isn’t here yet. Do you think she’s not coming! Dear me, I hope . . .”

  “Letitia says that the Prince of Wales—they call him Jumbo, isn’t that shocking!—no longer wears a buttonhole flower. . . .”

  “A draft, Clarissa! Dear me, it’s really very warm in here. I don’t believe they’ll want to shut the garden doors, so early . . .”

  “They say it is a diet for corpulency devised by a Mr. Banting. I don’t think it can be good for one’s health, starving oneself. The Banting Regimen For Corpulency it is called. My dear, for breakfast you’re allowed white-fish and bacon, or cold beef or broiled kidney, toast, and tea with milk and no cream, the way the English take it. For dinner some fish and a bit of poultry or game, a green vegetable, fruit. For supper only meat or fish, a vegetable ... for tea . . .”

  “My maid who has a friend who is a friend of a maid who knows Sophie Bellop’s maid happened to mention to me—I didn’t ask her— she just spoke of it the way they do—she happened to mention that she had heard that the De Chanfret woman, or whatever she calls herself, is coming as a French marquise in a powdered wig. Well, really! Couldn’t you die! After all we know ...”

  “I always thought Creoles were colored people. . . .”

  “. . . New Orleans aristocracy—French and Spanish blood . . .”

  “But where is she? Your son seems worried, Clarissa dear. . . .”

  “I see your son isn’t dancing, dear Mrs. Van Steed.”

  “He is worried. It’s about business. I almost had to use force to keep him from going to Binghamton tonight. Something about a railroad. Some railroad trouble. Nothing to speak of. Bart is so clever. He’ll make it come right.”

  Eight-thirty. Nine. Half-past nine. Ten. At half-past nine Mrs. Bellop had sent a bellboy with a message to Clio’s rooms. He had returned with the news that the cottage apartment was in darkness, the door locked, the windows closed. No sound from within.

  “But I felt,” he said, solemnly, “like eyes was watching me.”

  Decidedly the ball was not going well. There was about it a thin quality, as though a prime ingredient were lacking. People danced, but listlessly. Mrs. Porcelain, the ciel tulle somewhat wilted, the rose trellis headdress askew, smiled and cooed unconvincingly, her eyes on the doorway. The rolling-eyed Forosini found that a velvet gypsy jacket for dancing in August was a mistake. The dowagers grouped against the wall were tigresses robbed of their prey.

  “It doesn’t seem to be going, Mrs. Bellop,” complained Tompkins, the hotel manager. “It’s too early for supper. They’ve just stuffed themselves with dinner. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s that Mrs. De Chanfret.”

  “Why, what’s the matter with her? I don’t see her. Has she done something?”

  “No. That’s the trouble. She isn’t here. And they’ve got so used to seeing her and expecting her to do something dramatic that when she isn’t around everything goes stale, like flat champagne.”

  “Well, fetch her then. Fetch her.”

  “I can’t find her.”

  “Nonsense! She must be somewhere. I can’t have the Grand Union saying this ball was a failure. If they do, it’s your fault, Mrs. Bellop.”

  “Oh, run along, Tompkins. Who do you think you’re talking to! A chambermaid! I could make the United States Hotel look like a haunted house in two weeks if I chose. So mind your manners. Where’s Van Steed? Now he’s disappeared, too. Drat the man!”

  She left the listless ballroom, her eyes searching the corridors, the lobby; she sent bellboys scurrying into the garden, the men’s washroom, up to Van Steed’s apartment, out to the piazza; she even tried Clio’s apartment again, in vain. “The bar. He wouldn’t be there. He doesn’t drink anything. Can’t. Well, try it, anyway.” She herself followed the boy; she poked her head in at the swinging door to survey the territory forbidden to females. There sat Van Steed at a far corner table. “Fetch him! Fetch him at once. Tell him it’s important.”

  As the boy bent over him he raised his head, his eyes followed the boy’s pointing finger to where Mrs. Bellop stood in the doorway. Knowing her, perhaps he feared that she was not above coming in and buttonholing him in the bar itself. He rose and came toward her, and she saw that his cheeks had lost their wonted pink and were a curious clay-gray. He had had a drink too potent for the hot night, for litde beads of moisture stood out on his forehead, yet his hand, when she grasped it, was cold. A grin that was a grimace sat awry on his lips. My, he’s taking it hard, she thought.

  “What’s wrong? Are you sick? Has something happened to her?”

  He opened his clenched left hand. In it was a moist wad of yellow paper. Mrs. Bellop had met enough bad news in her day to recognize it at sight. Yet the staring grin baffled her.

  “Not bad news I hope, Bart. No, of course—you’re smiling— that is—not bad news I hope.”

  He looked up from the slip of paper. He stared at her. He wet his lips with his tongue.

  “Where is she?” he said, without preliminaries.

  “I don’t know. I sent over. The place is dark.”

  “Maybe she’s heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “It’s stifling in here. Come out on the piazza a minute, will you? I’m—

  She followed him. The piazza was almost deserted. A few solid couples sat there taking the evening air before their bedtime. A little low-voiced knot of sporting men talking of the day’s races and tomorrow’s possibilities. Van Steed glanced around quickly, seeking a secluded spot. Far off, in a dim corner at the end of the long piazza, there glowed the red eye of a cigar. They could not discern the lonely, meager, hollow-chested figure behind it, but they knew. And the grin came again, fleetingly, into Van Steed’s drawn face.

  “Well, we’ve licked him, anyway.”

  “So that’s it!”

  “He knows it. He’s been sitdng there like that; they’ve been sending him messages ever since this afternoon. I guess that will show him there are some people smarter than the Gould gang.” Then, “Oh, my God!” The exclamation was wrung from him like a groan.

  “For heaven’s sake, what is it! Tell me quickly. I’ve got to go back in there. There’s a musical concert at ten-thirty. Not that I care a damn about those ninnies. Stop staring like that and tell me!”

  But shrewd and quick as her mind was in its workings, she could make little of his whispered babble. “They took every station between Albany and Binghamton—”

  “Who? Who did?”

  He ignored her question. “I didn’t think he could do it—I thought he was all blow and bluster. Pierpont Morgan knew better; he took to him right away . . . Maroon had almost five hundred men . . . Gould’s gang had more . . . but that Texas crowd six feet all of them and made of iron like him . . . engine too . . . the Binghamton locomotive rolled right off the track but they backed their own way down to . . . jumped first. . . if he’s alive but he’s disappeared and the dwarf. . . Morgan sent the telegram a thousand words . . . Morgan says he’s a wonder Morgan thinks he’s the biggest... of course maybe it’s not so bad
. . . but they can’t find the little chap . . . only his hat that top hat of his mashed in . . . she’ll never forgive me . . .”

  Mrs. Bellop actually shook him. “For God’s sake stop standing there mumbling! I can’t make out what you’re saying; it sounds crazy.”

  Here she jumped and uttered a litde scream as an oily voice sounded close to her ear. “Oop, sorry!” It was Bean, the head usher, unctuous, deferential. “They’re waiting for you in the ballroom, Mrs. Bellop. Mr. Thompkins. The concert, you know.”

  Mrs. Bellop clapped a frantic hand to her head. “No need to scare me to death with your pussycat ways. Look here, Bean, have you seen Mrs. De Chanfret? D’you know where she is? You make it your business to know everything.”

  Bean’s fatuous smile gleamed in the light from the parlor windows. He giggled a little. “I regret to say that I have not set eyes on that fairest of her sex since an early hour this m—”

  “Oh, shut up!” barked Sophie Bellop. “Bart, pull yourself together.”

  “—orning,” the usher went on, urbanely. “And Mr. Van Steed, sir, your lady mother asked me to request you to come to her side, she seemed much perturbed, if I may venture to say so.”

  “Go away, Bean. Run along! Scat!” She eyed the man sharply. “I suppose you were listening to everything we said. Read telegrams, too, before they’re delivered. I’m sure of that. Oh, well.”

  Sophie Bellop took Van Steed’s arm; briskly she began to propel him toward the door. “Now pull yourself together, Bart. You’re the color of dough.”

  “He can’t be hurt badly, can he?”

  “My land, I don’t know. I suppose he’s made of flesh and blood like the—”

  “Blood!” echoed Van Steed, and went a pale green.

  “Come, come, he’s probably all right, celebrating somewhere with his Texas friends. And the dwarf too.”

  “But where is she? Do you think she’s heard and has gone off to find him? Perhaps he sent for her. Perhaps—”

  Mrs. Bellop looked serious. “I never thought of that. It’s like her to do that. But this very evening she was planning to come in pink satin. I had planned it as a kind of triumph for her against all those harpies like that precious mother of yours.”

  A changed man, he made no protest at this. He had transferred his every emotion to another strong woman. And of her, as had been true before, he stood in fear. “Do you think she’ll blame me? It wasn’t my plan, you know. It was his idea. I didn’t approve, really. I thought it was crazy. I said so to Morgan. He’ll have to admit that himself.”

  Sophie glared at him with considerable distaste. “He grabbed your railroad for you, didn’t he? Took it with his bare hands, like—like a hero—or a bandit—I’m not sure which. Anyway, you’ve got it.”

  “I know,” miserably. “I know.”

  “If she comes down—maybe she’s just overdoing her entrance— if she comes down don’t say anything to her about Maroon being hurt or—well, hurt. Or the dwarf. Not tonight. Tonight is your chance. Now come along. Perk up! Be a man!”

  Even this he did not resent.

  As they entered the ballroom doorway, five hundred reproachful faces turned toward them like balloons pulled by a single string. The United States Hotel grand ball had bogged down in a morass of apathy. Leaderless, it flopped feebly, lifting first one foot then another, but without progress.

  “Really, Mrs. Bellop!” hissed Tompkins, the manager, reproachfully. “Really, Mrs. Bellop! I haven’t deserved this at your hands.”

  “Oh, hush your fuss!” snapped Sophie. Nimbly she clambered to the musicians’ platform, she motioned the drum to beat a ruffle for silence. “Ladies and gendemen! Before partaking of the magnificent collation which our genial host, Manager Tompkins, has ordered prepared for us, there has been planned a surprise concert in which the most talented of Saratoga’s visiting guests will favor us. The first number is a bass solo entitled ‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,’ rendered by Mr. Archibald McElroy of Cincinnati. Following this, Miss Charlotte Chisholm will lend her lovely soprano to the musical number entitled ‘Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still.’ . . . Comedy number rendered by Mr. Len Porter, entitled ‘I’ve Only Been Down to the Club.’ . . . Duet by the jusdy popular Pettingiii twins: ‘Wait Till the Clouds Roll By, Jennie.’. . . Seats will be placed by the ushers, following which supper will be . . . and a prize will be given by the management for the most original fancy dress costume in this evening’s . . .”

  There followed a spatter of appreciative applause, the buzz of conversation; a fiddle squeaked, a flute emitted a tentative giggle. But their hearts were not in it. “A circus without the elephant,” said Mrs. Bellop to Van Steed. “They’re so disappointed they could cry. Your lady mother looks as if she’d have a stroke.”

  “Praw-leens! Praw-leens!” A clear powerful voice sounded from the outer corridor. In the doorway appeared a black mammy in voluminous calico and a vast white apron, a kerchief crossed on her bosom, her head swathed in a brilliant orange tignon. Gold and diamond hoop earrings dangled from beneath the turban’s folds (Aunt Belle Piquery’s jewelry). The teeth gleamed white in the blackened face, the dark eyes flashed, on her arm was a great woven basket neatly covered with a white napkin. The slim figure was stuffed fore and aft into ponderous curves. “Praw-leens! Praw-leens!”

  The basket actually was laden with the toothsome New Orleans confections; she was handing out pralines here and there as she made her way through the crowd; they were gathering round her laughing; the adventurous were biting into the sugary nut-laden circlets.

  Sophie Bellop stood up, shaking. “They’ll never forgive her for this,” she muttered aloud to no one in particular, “they’ll never—” With amazing agility for a woman of her weight, Sophie scurried through the crowd; she reached Mrs. De Chanfret’s side just as the buxom calicoed figure stood before the anguished Bart Van Steed, just as his voice pleaded in an agonized whisper, “Mrs. De Chanfret. Go home. Please. Please. Don’t!”

  She tossed her head so that the earrings bobbed and glittered. “Go ‘long, honey chile, you quality folks, you don’t want no truck with a no-count black wench like me! You jes’ shut you mouth with one o’ these prawleens, Mammy made um herself, yassuh!” She laughed a great throaty Negro guffaw; she actually thrust a praline into his wretched hand and went on; she traveled the leisurely circle toward Madam Van Steed; her rolling eye encompassed the group; her grin was a scarlet and white gash in the blackened face. Recovering from their first surprise, the orchestra now entered into the spirit of the thing. They struck up the strains of “Whoa, Emma!” Clio Dulaine hoisted the basket a trifle higher on her arm, she raised the voluminous calico skirts a little, the feet in the white cotton stockings and the strapped flat slippers broke into the shuffle of a Negro dance as in her childhood she had been taught it by Cupide and Kaka in the kitchen of the Paris flat. Madam Van Steed’s face, the faces of the satellite dowagers were masks of horror as they beheld the shuffling slapping feet, the heaving rump, the rolling eye, the insolent grin.

  “Whoa, Emma!” boomed the band.

  “Whoa, Emma!” yelled the crowd, delighted. The party had come alive at last.

  Clio’s hand, in its white cotton glove, plunged into her basket; she began to throw handfuls of pralines, like giant confetti, into the gray satin lap of Madam Van Steed, into the brocade and sarin laps of the ladies grouped about her. “Praw-leen for sweeten dem sour faces! Praw-leens!” She rolled her eyes, she raised her hands high, palms out, she threw back her head, she was imitating every wandering New Orleans minstrel and cavorting street band she had ever seen, every caroling berry vendor from the bayous; she was Belle Piquery, she was Kakaracou and Cupide in the old carefree Southern days of her early childhood; she was defiance against every convention she so hated. And so shuffling, shouting, clapping her hands, the empty basket now hooked round her neck by its handle and hanging at her back, Clio Dulaine made her fantastic way to the veranda door that led onto the
garden and disappeared from the sight of a somewhat hysterical company made up of the flower of Saratoga.

  The length of the curved veranda, down the steps to the floor below, running along the veranda tier and into her own apartment, the heavy basket bobbing at her back. A wild figure, her eyes rolling in the blackened face, she stood in the center of the little sitting room, laughing, crying, while Kaka divested her of the ridiculous garments— the full-skirted calico, the padding that had stuffed bosom and hips, the brilliant tignon, the dangling hoop earrings.

  “Their faces, Kaka! Their silly faces with their mouths open and their eyes staring, and those stiff old women in their satin dresses. And Mrs. Porcelain with her trellis! Kaka! Kaka!” Tears streaked the blackened cheeks.

  With cream and a soft cloth Kaka was cleansing the girl’s face and throat, and as she worked she kept up a grumbling and a mumbling, as though to herself.

  “Somepin fret me . . . maybe now we come away from here but where at is Cupide where at is Cupide I got a feeling deep down somepin fret me ... I know you turn out like your mama ... no luck with menfolks . . . plan and contrive but no luck with menfolks . . . you fixing to marry a millionaire but all the time you crazy in your head for that vacher he leave you . . . just like Mister Nicolas he leave . . .”

  With the flat of her hand Clio slapped the woman full in the face. But Kakaracou caught her hand and kissed it and said, “Now! That is better. Now will you put on the pink satin and your mama’s diamonds and Kaka fix your hair à la marquise!”

  “Yes,” said Clio, laughing. “Yes. Why not! Quick! Quick! I could marry him yet, if I wanted to.”

  The black woman’s fingers were lightning. Powder on the piled black hair; the pink satin and black lace springing stiff and glistening from her slender waist, the necklaces, bracelets, the pendants, the parure, the flashing earrings; the rings with which Nicolas Dulaine had loaded his mistress. “There! Now, Kaka, you’ll come with me, my attendant, all very proper, since I have no man now. I really do look beautiful, don’t I! Am I as beaudful as my mother was? I am! I am!”