by Karin Tanabe
She held out her hand to him and introduced her companions.
“Ladies, it is my pleasure to make your acquaintances,” said Wallace, with a strong lisp. His opera tuxedo, waistcoat, and white tie were crisper than the air outside. “Louise is always surrounded by such beautiful women.”
“Yes, I do pride myself on the company I keep,” said Lottie, trying to bat Wallace away with her fan. “And the company I don’t keep. Do tell me, Wallace, how is your mother?”
“She is most well, indeed, thank you for inquiring, Miss Taylor. Now, am I wrong in thinking that you should be at school? Up in Poughkeepsie?”
“Yes! I should be. In fact, I must be getting back. Ladies, let us go at once,” said Lottie, standing up.
“Lottie!” said Caroline, shocked. “She’s such a wit, isn’t she?” she said, glaring at Lottie, who finally sat back down. Caroline turned to their new companion, whose light hair was worn center-parted to show off his natural wave, and explained that they had taken leave for a long weekend.
“Then you are all students at the college?” Wallace said with interest.
“Yes, of course they are,” snapped Lottie. “In fact, you will find Miss Caroline Hardin of most interest to you as she spent her entire childhood as a prisoner in Syria and you are so passionate about the Phoenicians. I do remember hours of conversations with you about antiquities where I had to amuse myself by staring at the wallpaper.”
“A prisoner in Syria!” Wallace stuttered, nearly pushing Anita over the railing to move closer to Caroline. “How ever did you escape?”
“You’ll have to do her chemistry for the next week to make up for that lie,” Anita whispered to Lottie, who could barely repress her glee.
“I don’t mind. Did you see his expression? Imagining poor Caroline locked away in a dungeon. Besides, now the pest is busy, and we still have ten minutes until curtain. Let Caroline swim in his sea of saliva for a change. I’ve done my part.”
Belle edged closer to them, and Lottie sat up, visibly pleased to be holding court again.
“Who is that gentleman there?” said Belle, looking straight across at a man with jet-black hair who had been gazing their way since they arrived.
“That one, there?” asked Lottie, taking her glasses. “I believe that’s, oh, of course, that’s Marchmont Rhinelander. Whatever is he doing here? It’s shocking of him to attend.”
“Why?” asked Anita, squinting to see him. “Should he be off living in exile?”
“You can live right in New York and be in exile,” said Lottie. “I imagine the New York exile is the worst kind of all. But no, Mr. Rhinelander should not be in exile, exactly. I’m just surprised to see him at the opera, as he very recently jilted Lucretia Schotenhorn’s homely daughter, Estelle. She has the face of a horse and no personality to speak of, so it wasn’t surprising when he broke their engagement, but it was only a month ago. It’s in very poor taste for him to appear in public so soon.”
Lottie put her lorgnette back on her lap and said, “Ladies, we can do all we want now, there won’t be one inch of room in that newspaper column of Force’s to talk about a thing but Marchmont Rhinelander’s appearance. How impertinent of him to come! Maybe he isn’t such a bore after all.”
“I think he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” said Belle. “I’ve been taken by his profile since we arrived. He looks like a Spanish dancer.”
“Luckily for your parents, he’s nothing of the sort. He hasn’t worked a day in his life. Perhaps we can make introductions after this interminable performance is over,” said Lottie. “Anita, what language is this dreadful opera in?”
“Italian,” said Anita, smiling. “Four hours in Italian.”
“Do wake me when it’s finished,” said Lottie, closing her eyes.
As the lights dimmed, Wallace Peters stood up and said his goodbyes.
“Leaving us so soon?” said Lottie. “And I was just starting to memorize the wall coverings. Do give my fondest to your mother. Tell her I will call on her soon.”
“Does he not catch on that you’re ridiculing him?” asked Anita, after he had left.
“Not everyone is as clever as you, Anita Hemmings. I think he truly believes that I feel passionately about wall coverings.”
The four hours of opera, including two intermissions, passed, and Belle and Anita, the music lovers, were in tears when it concluded.
“Don’t tell me that this nonsense brought you two to this state!” said Lottie, looking at their pink faces when the lights came up.
“Lottie Taylor, you have no appreciation for the arts,” said Belle, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. “Anita and I have more elevated minds than you.”
“I prefer my art on paper,” said Lottie. “It doesn’t take as long to appreciate it.”
After the four had stepped daintily out of their box, they were helped into their coats by the footman and moved with the small crowd downstairs.
“There is that man again!” said Belle, spotting Marchmont Rhinelander entering the box holders’ lobby, where patrons were waiting for their carriages. The girls followed her gaze, and Lottie pinched her.
“Belle, you have all the subtlety of a foghorn. One false move in this company and you will be a headline for a week.”
“You should invite him to Founder’s,” said Anita, watching him cross the room.
“A man like that at Founder’s Day!” said Belle. “But he must be nearly forty years old, Anita. He would never bother himself with one of our little school dances.”
“It’s not just any dance,” said Anita, “It’s famous. I’m sure he’s familiar with it, since it makes the Times every year.”
“It would do him good,” said Lottie. “At least he would be in the newspaper for something other than jilting old pony-face.”
“Let’s speak to him,” said Belle, moving forward. Anita watched her admiringly but stayed where she was.
“Why not?” asked Belle, seeing her friends stuck to the floor like houseplants. “No one else is. It’s terribly sad to see him alone.”
Lottie sighed and motioned for them all to catch up with Mr. Rhinelander before he left the building. She reached him first and placed her hand on his arm, her fingers stroking the sleeve of his cashmere coat.
He stopped and looked down at Lottie and her pleasing face. “Miss Taylor. What a welcome surprise. Aren’t you kind to come and say good evening?” Marchmont removed the hat that had just been brought to him. “None of the other young ladies in attendance would dare.”
“It’s not that they don’t desire to,” said Lottie. “It’s that their mothers don’t want them to. Or not quite yet. The brush-off you gave Estelle made a stir that’s going to keep on stirring until another scandal trumps it. If I were you, I’d pay off one of these men to do something unforgivable. Preferably in the presence of Mr. Force and his venomous pen.”
“Now there’s a grand idea,” said Marchmont, smiling for the first time that night.
“Why did you come this evening?” asked Lottie after she had introduced her guests. “If you don’t mind my speaking so. You looked quite a sad sight all alone in your box like a ghost. It will obviously cause a sensation.”
“Quite honestly, Miss Taylor, I wanted very much to see Mefistofele. It just came here from Italy. That’s truly the reason. Art beckoned me to my death. And between you and me, I’ve stopped caring about the rest of it.” He indicated the patrons around him.
“I found it wonderful,” said Belle, blushing at the sound of her own voice.
“Belle is quite a talented singer herself,” said Anita, as Marchmont nodded, though he was looking at Anita rather than Belle.
“Miss Hemmings, did you say it was?” he asked. “Have we met before and I’ve rudely forgotten? Your face is familiar to me.”
“I don’t think so,” said Anita, nerves sweeping over her. She looked down and tried to recall if they had ever met.
“She is from Bosto
n,” Lottie offered, to Anita’s annoyance. “From which part, Anita?”
“I am—I—I’m from the Back Bay,” said Anita, damning herself for her flustered hesitation.
“That could be it,” Marchmont said, smiling. “I do quite a bit of traveling up and down the coast. Perhaps I was introduced to you or passed you on the street and never forgot.”
“Perhaps,” said Anita shyly, thinking of the people she had walked through Boston with. If he had seen her there, and if she hadn’t been alone, it was certain she had been in the company of a Negro.
“Belle, I would like to hear you sing one evening. Lottie will help arrange it,” Marchmont said, recovering his manners. “Now, I must be off before these other women have me shot for social impropriety.” He put his hat back on and escaped through the crowd.
“He’s fascinating, isn’t he?” said Belle giddily, watching him climb into his carriage. “I would love to marry a man just like that.”
“Just marry that one then,” said Caroline as they headed to the Taylor carriage.
As Anita tucked the carriage blanket around her, she chided herself for the freedom she had felt in Boston over Christmas. She had walked all over the city with her darker-skinned sister, Elizabeth, and hadn’t thought a thing of it. She needed to remember that all roads led back to the world of Lottie Taylor.
“Do take the newspaper for the train, Louise,” said an exhausted Mrs. Taylor from her perch in the drawing room the next morning as the girls were preparing to leave. “You are mentioned, which is astonishing considering the appearance of Mr. Rhinelander. How impudent of him.”
“What does it say about me?” asked Lottie, taking the Times from her mother’s hand.
“It says you were asleep, dear,” said Mrs. Taylor, her face in her teacup.
“Does it really?” said Lottie, holding the paper in two fingers as if it were poisonous.
“No, it does not, but I know you were. Nothing will change you, not even that college. Mr. Force compared you to a gardenia. Or was it a cactus? You’ll just have to read it for yourself.”
Lottie tucked the paper under her arm and gave her mother a kiss. “It could be worse, mother. Let’s try to remember that.”
“Who was Mr. Rhinelander with, dear?” asked Mrs. Taylor. “The one night I leave the box to you I miss the most scandalous event of the season. I am very surprised Mr. Force did not mention it in his column. I suppose it was the discreet thing to do, but Mr. Force and discretion tend to go together like your brother and sobriety.”
“He was alone, Mother,” said Lottie. “Sitting in the Rhinelander box very much alone.”
“Scandalous,” said Mrs. Taylor, waving goodbye to the group. “Just scandalous.”
The four returned to Vassar on Monday evening, three of them confiding in one another that the visit had opened their eyes to a new, appealing world. This, they decided, could be what awaited them after college. Not the opulence—only the very few could obtain that—but the activism, the conversation, the art. They did not have to turn into their mothers, because many in their mothers’ generation wanted to turn into them.
CHAPTER 18
When Lottie joined Anita and the others for breakfast the following morning, their senior table was decorated with twisted pink streamers, elaborately inscribed name cards, and large balloons. It was tradition to decorate the hall for birthdays, the labor done by the students who shared a table with the honoree. The decorations, this time in honor of Hortense Lewis’s birthday, would stay up for lunch and dinner, too, and a party was planned in Caroline and Belle’s wing of the senior hall after classes and chapel.
On that festive morning, Anita felt closer to Lottie, Belle, and Caroline than she had all year. The trip to New York—seeing the city from the Taylors’ carriage, hearing Nettie Aldrich speak about her work, taking in the opera—had left her with the conviction that these women would be her lifelong friends. She would always have Bessie, but now she felt that she wouldn’t only have Bessie. She wasn’t as afraid of life after Vassar. She wasn’t even afraid of losing Porter Hamilton. She felt a reassurance that she hadn’t felt since she received her Vassar acceptance letter. If she made the right decisions—difficult, but right for her—she could have what Caroline, Belle, and Lottie were looking forward to: a career, intellectual stimulation, a husband and family who supported her, the opportunity to make a difference in society. She was sure she could find a way to enter that world—with them, with Porter—while also holding on to some part of her true identity.
During the days that followed, tension mounted at the school as the students began preparing for the midyear examinations at the end of January. Lottie and Anita agreed that their minds had benefited from their taste of freedom in New York, and both passed their tests easily.
It was in the early February lull that Lottie let her academic studies go in favor of a life of hobbies. She had taken up ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arranging, and had stems sent in by the dozen, turning their parlor into a living preamble to spring. But Anita clung to her books. She may have disobeyed Frederick by traveling to New York, but she would not let her grades go anywhere but up. Studying also proved to be the only way she could stop herself thinking about Porter and the fact that he had not yet responded to her letter. She understood his anger and had penned numerous follow-up letters, but she did not dare send them until she had word from him first.
On the Friday before Valentine’s Day, as she tried not to dwell on the holiday that the campus was planning to celebrate with gusto, Anita headed to the library, where she planned to stay until the dinner bell rang. She was hurrying, eager to find a good corner table, but she slowed her steps when she saw Sarah Douglas and her roommate, Alice Sawyer, in the hall outside the library entrance. They both looked at her with interest as she approached.
“Anita! What are you doing here?” asked Sarah when Anita was in close enough range that she did not have to shout. “Didn’t I see Porter Hamilton disembark at the Poughkeepsie station this afternoon? I was sure he was coming to see you. Did he leave already?”
Anita couldn’t hide her confusion, and both girls knew immediately that Anita did not have plans to see Porter. He must have been in town to visit another girl.
“Are you sure it was he?” asked Anita. “Porter Hamilton from Harvard?”
“Absolutely,” said Sarah. “He’s not one you miss, is he? I was on the three o’clock train from Albany. I was in the capital visiting Mary Mumford. Perhaps you remember her from the class of ’94? Beautiful red hair, a bit darker than Caroline Hardin’s, and president of the Shakespeare Club during her days here. She is teaching near Albany now, making quite a name for herself at the Emma Willard School in Troy.”
Anita looked at her blankly and said nothing.
“But I am going on about something you have no interest in,” Sarah said, collecting herself. “It was certainly him. I recognized him from Phil Day. Porter Hamilton. The rumor at school is that you and he are engaged. Is that not the case?”
Anita looked into the library at the clock. It was almost five. The dinner bell would ring in an hour, and she did not have permission to miss the meal.
“Do you have an idea why he came to Poughkeepsie?” Alice asked Anita.
“I don’t,” she said honestly, though it must have been to see her. Maybe he had tried to surprise her with a visit, to plead his case, but none of the maids or students could find her when he came to the visitors’ parlor. She had been in the chapel earlier that afternoon practicing her solo for the Easter concert. Perhaps no one had thought to look there.
“I imagine he has come to see me,” Anita said. “I must have missed a letter or telegram from him saying as much.”
“Of course he has,” said Alice, kindly. “You are lucky in love.”
“And much better off than your roommate,” said Sarah. “For all her money and that pretty face, she does seem to find an incredible number of scandal-ridden suitors.”
“Lottie does?” asked Anita, every comment from Sarah more bewildering to her than the last.
“Of course, Lottie,” said Sarah. “Can you believe the news about Joseph Southworth?”
“They’re engaged?” asked Anita.
“Engaged!” she said putting her hand on her chest and laughing. “Anita! Have you been ill? They are anything but engaged. Have you not spoken to her at all this week?”
“I suppose we’ve both been rather busy with midyear examinations,” said Anita, hoping her excuse sounded plausible. The truth was that she and Lottie had been inseparable that week, and had been ever since their return from New York.
“It is high time you had a little chat with her,” said Sarah. “She confided in Caroline Hardin that the story Joseph Southworth told about his mother being a deceased Japanese geisha is true, the deceased part being the exception. Benjamin Southworth, Joseph’s father, paid thousands of dollars to get Joseph’s mother, who was sixteen at the time, out of her contract in the geisha house in Kyoto because he was madly in love with her. Then he married and impregnated her! Hence Joseph Southworth’s arrival, not on American soil, but Japanese. Yes, he was born there. Sounds terribly dangerous, doesn’t it? Of course the Southworth family was outraged, so Benjamin fabricated some story about this woman’s death and brought Joseph back to the United States. Lottie told Caroline that she had tea with Joseph at the very end of Christmas vacation in Cambridge and that’s when her feelings for him truly developed. But then, when the two were speaking about his family in Japan, Commodore Perry and all, he told her this story! She didn’t believe him, of course, but Lottie’s father did a little prying, and it turns out it’s all true. The geisha woman is still alive, and Benjamin and Joseph make routine trips to the Orient to see her. Joseph even admitted that when his American grandparents die, his father plans to bring her to America.”
