The Gilded Years

by Karin Tanabe

  “And how did you come to know this?” asked an increasingly disturbed Anita, suddenly understanding why Lottie was in Cambridge in late December.

  “Lottie told Caroline the whole story in the middle of the senior parlor with the dividing curtains all thrown open. One has to think she did so on purpose. It only took a matter of hours for it to fly through the school like a carrier pigeon. Had you really not heard?”

  “I really had not,” said Anita. “But that sounds like the type of story that Lottie would love. I would think she would be more attracted to the prospect of Joseph after hearing it, not less.”

  “Anita, dearest. Let’s be realistic,” said Sarah, her smooth southern inflection taking her vowels for a ride. “She’s a Taylor! Her father might let her marry a Japanese man from the royal family—though none would ever marry her, their culture won’t allow such a thing—but she would never be permitted to consider a child of a common prostitute!”

  “Are geishas really prostitutes?” asked Anita. “Lottie described them as talented entertainers who—”

  “Anita, you know Lottie romanticizes everything. Joseph’s mother is no better than a brothel woman in New York.”

  “Have you ever heard anything more scandalous?” said Alice. “It’s the gossip of the year, that’s for certain.”

  “It’s amazing that Joseph has managed to remain so popular at Harvard,” said Sarah. “Though I suppose northerners care less about such things. It’s all very shocking.”

  “Lottie has cut off contact with Joseph now?” asked Anita.

  “Of course she has,” said Sarah. “What choice did she have? He is very handsome and as charming as a man can be—he was on my dance card at Phil—but he’s the child of a common whore,” she said, whispering the last word. “The venerable Southworth name means nothing after hearing about such a lineage, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s a pity. He was very handsome and good-humored at Phil,” said Alice. She swatted at the hair falling on to her forehead as if it were a fly and rearranged the expertly cut plaid shirtwaist she was wearing. After Lottie, Alice was the senior with the most expensive clothes, though she didn’t seem to care a thing about fashion. She wore, like all the other girls did, what her mother sent up. Alice was a girl who was happy to follow, even if her soft, measured personality was often stamped out by those bolder and louder than she, like Sarah Douglas. “He was on my card, too,” she added.

  Sarah gave Alice a stern look and then smiled at Anita. Anita could sense that she was thrilled to be the one recounting the story to her.

  “She’ll have no trouble finding a new love interest, though, will she?” she said to Anita after a moment. “She’s Lottie Taylor.”

  “The rich win at everything,” added Alice.

  “Not everything,” said Sarah, who was known to be competitive on every level.

  “Of course, Sarah. I didn’t mean—” said Alice, but Anita, uncharacteristically, cut them both off.

  “So Southpaw, I mean, Joseph Southworth, was really born of Asian parentage? Through his mother?”

  “Yes, Anita. Haven’t you been listening?” said Sarah. “Lottie must be beside herself. She loves to say shocking things, Crown Prince of Japan this and that, but she would never, she could never, marry someone like Joseph Southworth.”

  “I appreciate your telling me,” said Anita, backing away, all her plans for the library forgotten. “I must go and find her.”

  Turning quickly Anita rushed upstairs and checked her shared rooms for Lottie, but they were empty. She walked briskly down the hall to Caroline’s room, which already had her Valentines from the freshmen taped to the door, and knocked loudly.

  When she heard Caroline’s voice, she opened the door and saw her friend sitting in her rocker with a volume of Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir.

  “Is it true what Sarah Douglas is saying about Old Southpaw?” said Anita, still in the doorway. “That his mother was a teenage . . . courtesan?”

  “Yes, it is. Can you imagine? Lottie is in shock,” said Caroline, putting down her book. “Did she not tell you?”

  “Not yet,” said Anita, so worried about her friend that she had even forgotten Porter Hamilton was in Poughkeepsie. “She must be devastated. Is she . . . have you seen her?”

  “She said she was having tea at the Nelson House Hotel. She had permission to leave campus and to miss dinner this evening.”

  “She did?” She had said nothing to Anita. “Was this something she had planned for several days?”

  “I think so,” said Caroline, shrugging. “Perhaps she’s already found a replacement for Joseph. You know Lottie: she doesn’t mourn for long. Or at all.”

  Anita nodded her thanks and backed away from the door. A replacement. No, she thought to herself, it was impossible. She ran back up to her rooms and opened the door to Lottie’s bedroom. She opened the drawers of her nightstand and went through the papers, but found nothing but letters from her mother and father. She closed the drawer carefully and looked through Lottie’s desk and in her wardrobe. She had gone through every coat pocket, looked under her mattress and behind pillows, but it wasn’t until she reached Lottie’s favorite school dress that she found what she feared. She pulled the thin duplicate of a telegram out and searched for the recipient’s name. It was to Porter Hamilton.

  WRITING ON BEHALF ANITA. IN NO STATE TO RESPOND TO YOUR LETTER. DISTRAUGHT. HER DECISION FINAL. MEET ME FRI. FEB. 12 POUGHKEEPSIE LOBBY NELSON HOUSE HOTEL 4 P.M. WILL EXPLAIN ALL. MUST CLOSE HEART TO HER. IS ONLY SOLUTION. L. TAYLOR

  Anita combed through the rest of Lottie’s things frantically, but she found nothing else. Where was Porter’s letter to her? Had Lottie hidden it? Could she have destroyed it? Not knowing what else to do, she plucked her coat from the hook on the back of their parlor door, took the elevator down, and hurried out of Main toward the Lodge. With her leather boots heavy from the slush and snow, she rounded the corner to Market Street, aware and uncaring that she did not have permission to leave campus or to miss dinner.

  The building across from the Nelson House Hotel on Market Street housed Smith Brothers, where just a few months ago she had joined Frederick for afternoon tea. She thought of how happy she had been when she first saw her younger brother, of the warmth of being able to speak with someone from home who knew her every secret, who had to love her. Then she remembered his warning about her conduct. Should she have listened to him then? Had she been wrong to let her feelings for Porter escalate? She stopped to catch her breath and looked in the restaurant window, which was fogging slightly at the corner from the windy February day. She put her hand on the pane and looked at the table where she had sat with her brother. No, she thought, she hadn’t been wrong.

  Anita removed her hand and crossed the street to the hotel. She hadn’t been inside it that year, but its name, printed in large white letters on the brick façade, was a familiar sight to all the Vassar students. The double doors were opened for her and she walked in, immediately stepping to one side of the heavily draped room, behind the commotion of the front desk.

  “Excuse me, miss. May I be of service?” said one of the men at the desk, and she shook her head, embarrassed. “I’m waiting for my mother,” she said, hoping that would deflect further queries. She stepped even closer to the oak-paneled wall and looked carefully around. There were ten separate seating areas in the lobby, full of men and women engaged in tête-à-têtes or taking refreshments.

  In the middle of them all were Lottie Taylor and Porter Hamilton.

  Anita put her hand over her mouth, desperate to scream Porter’s name, to run to him and explain that there had been a horrible misunderstanding. She wanted to tell him she had been forced to write what she did and that she had never received his letter in return. That she didn’t want to call off her engagement. That she loved him.

  She let herself steal another glance at Porter sitting in the middle of the room. His light eyes were full of emotion as he spoke to Lottie,
who was leaning toward him familiarly as she listened. It couldn’t be the first time they had been alone together, Anita thought suddenly—their intimacy was palpable. She watched them, uncaring about the strangers around them, succumbing to their senses like they were alone in the world. Perhaps what Porter had said in his letter to her had been expressions of relief. Or a confession of his true feelings for Lottie over his muted ones for her. She watched them again, their bodies, leaning over the table into each other, blind to the periphery, looking nowhere but into each other’s concerned faces. No, this friendship, this more than friendship, must have been building for weeks, even months.

  She looked as Lottie put her hand on Porter’s, ungloved and for all to see, and he did not pull away. He looked emotional, but Anita interpreted that as a display of his feelings for Lottie. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. She had made a terrible mistake. Porter may have been interested in her at one time, but not the way he was with Lottie. Not like this.

  Why had she let herself think of their life in Chicago together? That word. Modern. It had let her dream about a romantic pairing with him that society labeled as unnatural, ungodly. Even her own brother was horrified by it. She had made herself believe that Porter was different, that even if she did reveal her race that he would love her, but she had let her emotions cloud reality. He had clearly never loved her like he did Lottie.

  For the first time since Anita had been observing them, Porter let his eyes drift away from Lottie, and Anita turned around quickly, thankful she had worn a hat and a simple, unrecognizable black coat. She stood there, staring at the wall for several minutes, then allowed herself the quickest of glances back at them. Porter was looking into his lap, and Lottie was speaking to him gently, encouragingly, both still unaware of Anita’s presence.

  Her heart raw, she rushed out of the hotel and steadied herself against the building. It was only thirty degrees that afternoon, but the newspapers had announced that spring was arriving early in the Hudson Valley and soon the world would be alive and blossoming again.

  Anita was sure everyone was wrong. The bleak, frozen landscape would never thaw. How had she been such a fool! Falling in love with Porter Hamilton, who had probably never even entertained the idea of a true engagement with her—he had just wanted to kiss her in her bedroom. More than kiss her. And Lottie! She couldn’t be the friend Anita had assumed she was, the friend she had loved. Anita had just been a convenience for her, too. Someone she was happy to cross whenever it pleased her.

  “A fool,” she said under her breath. “I am such a fool.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and walked slowly back to school, pausing in front of the handsome red-brick gate and looking down the long dirt road to Main. This was why she was here, she scolded herself: for her mind, not for romance or friendships. She hadn’t asked to be part of the Gatehouse group, or for Lottie Taylor to take to her as she did.

  It was only four months until graduation, and she would not be embarrassed again. She would not mention what she had seen to Lottie or Porter. She would back away from both of them, leave behind this new sought-after, self-assured Anita Hemmings, and return to the one she had been for the first three years at Vassar: studious, reserved, and determined not to be remembered.

  CHAPTER 19

  Anita was wrong about the world not coming to life again. It did, for everyone, including her. In mid-March, when Lottie finally confessed to exchanging letters with Porter, even to seeing him in Poughkeepsie, Anita told her she was free to act as she wished. By Lottie’s surprised face, she was sure she was displaying the equanimity she hoped to, but inside her chest, everything burned against Lottie. She had decided not to confess to her roommate that she had found the telegram duplicate, or that she knew about Porter’s letter to her. Their faces at the hotel made that confession unnecessary. They desired each other—and because of who they were and who she was, they could have whatever they wanted. It was quite clear that neither of them was bothered about her happiness. But since the day she read Lottie’s lying words, she was filled with a skepticism and mistrust that she doubted would ever diminish.

  “But it’s awful!” said Lottie as the two walked by the lake. The lake that had been frozen two months before was alive with small silver fish darting in bright layers over each other. “I’m too impulsive and terribly selfish. I wish someone in my life had kept me from being that way, but I was spoiled from the moment I sprang to life in my mother’s womb.”

  “We are all selfish,” said Anita, thinking about her own choices. “We sometimes set singular goals, and we do everything we can to achieve them, even if it means hurting people along the way.”

  “But no!” said Lottie, stopping abruptly. “You must understand. Porter Hamilton was never a goal of mine. His letter came to me soon after our return from New York. He was naturally upset about your ending the engagement, and we started a correspondence. I know I shouldn’t have responded to him, but I was still in shock about the news regarding Old Southpaw. I think my ego was crushed and I needed male reassurance. I’m much weaker than you are. No one ever voted me the class beauty.”

  “But your ego shouldn’t have been crushed upon learning the news about Joseph. It would have been his that was,” said Anita critically, her heart cracking like old china as Lottie continued to lie.

  “I suppose his was, too,” said Lottie. “But I’m sure I’ll never know. He wrote three or four letters after I alerted him that I knew the truth about his disgraced family, but I threw them into the stream on the farm, unopened.”

  “The stream on the farm?” said Anita, thinking about all the torn-up letters to her mother that she had let disintegrate in that water, unsent.

  “Yes, quite dramatic, I am aware.” Lottie shortened her stride and looked out at the stone wall that kept them safe inside. “I wish I was more like you, Anita, I truly do. You’re my friend despite it all, aren’t you? Say you are. I’d be heartbroken without your friendship.”

  “Of course I am,” said Anita, biting down her anger. “And I’m actually glad I’ve been able to devote myself to my studies again. I really would like to travel abroad after school and to earn another degree. I lost sight of those goals in the last few months with Porter, but I’m now looking single-mindedly ahead to graduation and an academic life.” The truth was that Anita had not lost sight of her academic goals when Porter was in her life. She was sure that a man like Porter would have let her pursue her career while building a life at home. Perhaps she would have taught in Chicago rather than at Vassar, but that was something she was willing to sacrifice for marriage. But her dreams of a life with him were nothing now. All she had to look forward to was the expansion of her mind, no longer her heart. It was the more important of the two, she told herself, the reason she pursued Vassar, and took so many risks in the first place. But it didn’t make the reality less painful.

  “Miss Macurdy has recommended me for a scholarship to travel to both Italy and Greece in August,” Anita explained. “After that, I will look into graduate programs. Perhaps Yale, so I can be near New York. Or Cornell, like Frederick. That is all I care about now, a continued education.”

  School was what she could have so she was going to throw herself fully behind it. She needed to work twice as hard as she had that year so that she was certain to obtain a scholarship. Then she must prove herself with her work abroad so that the coed graduate schools did not see her as just another college woman who wanted to go into teaching. She would be more than that.

  “Anita, it’s perfect for you, it really is. You’ll graduate from here a cum laude, I’m sure of it,” said Lottie excitedly. “It would be such a shame for an intellect like yours to be wasted on marriage. You should travel and continue your studies. I’m thrilled for you, I really am.”

  “And you? Will you still go to Japan?” asked Anita.

  “Of course,” said Lottie, smiling. “I’ll just try to stay out of the geisha houses.”
/>   CHAPTER 20

  It was always at the end of March, when spring could be felt arriving in the valley, that the Vassar campus was at its most joyous. One exam period felt long past, the next was a long way off, and the outdoors was fragrant and welcoming again. It was in that spirit that Lottie, Anita, Belle, and Caroline found themselves quite drunk one March day when they had promised each other they would have only apple cider, brought to them by their hallmates who had hiked to the nearby cider mill.

  “Hand me the apple cider, will you, Caroline dear,” said Lottie, her eyes glazed. “I’m going to mix it with this half-drunk glass of champagne. It will help me see straight again.”

  “How diplomatic of you!” pronounced Caroline, handing her the jug from the side table in Lottie and Anita’s parlor. “That’s not really the correct word, is it? How levelheaded of you. Responsible.”

  “She is not responsible,” said Anita, laughing. “She’s intoxicated.”

  Caroline swatted at the bottom of her green silk dress. “This thing is terribly in the way. Anita, do you have any scissors? I am going to cut this skirt off.”

  “You should have worn my basketball costume,” said Belle, laughing at the sight of Caroline trying to rip apart her skirt. “You would be much more agile in bloomers.”

  “What I would be much more agile in is a dress that did not weigh ten pounds. I detest being a woman sometimes.”

  “Why on earth?” said Lottie. “All men ever talk about are themselves and the weather.” She refilled Anita’s glass and suggested she drink it all at once. “Makes your nose fizz. Very pleasant.”

  Anita sneezed and thanked Lottie for the advice.

  “Anita, I have never heard you sneeze before,” said Belle. “You must have superior nostrils, it was such a quiet sneeze.”

  “No, it’s definite,” said Caroline, speaking over Belle as her hem gave way. “I loathe being a woman.”

  “Why ever so?” asked Lottie again, languidly, as she looked out at the gatehouse with her monocles. “The Gatehouse group,” she said aloud. “I like our name. I should thank whoever gave it to us. It has a much more glamorous ring than those other groups. The Nine Nimble Nibblers. The Gobblers. What dreadful names for eating clubs. They sound like turkeys. And the society of the grandmothers club. That one is the very worst. Dead before their time.”