by Megan Chance
Gideon said that Barret didn’t have the faith in me that he did, but that we shouldn’t hold that against him. He said that Barret forgets the dreams we had, but he never will, and he hoped I wouldn’t either. Which I never shall!!!
DECEMBER 20, 1871—It’s almost Christmas. Barret sent Mama a note saying where we were staying, but we’ve heard nothing from them. I do not think I shall go even if we do.
Barret is still drunk this morning. He is lying on the end of my bed, curled up like a babe, laughing at what he says is a strange pattern on the rug.
DECEMBER 25, 1871—Christmas Day—I write this very late. It is near two in the morning, and the moon is very bright, so I don’t even need a candle. The snow piled in the gutters is too dirty to reflect the moon’s shine, but at least it’s cold enough that the stink of shit and rotting garbage isn’t as strong as usual. When the horses piss on the street it freezes immediately, leaving little pools of ice to slip on when you cross, and it is so cold that my fingers are still stiff, though we returned to the hotel hours ago.
I find I would rather write about these things than what happened today, but I can’t sleep either and so perhaps writing things down might help.
The day started out well enough. Gideon and Barret came to my room in the morning and Gideon gave me a soft pair of expensive kid gloves—he says he bought them when we were on tour and has kept them for me all this time. They fit perfectly. He helped me try them on, as they are very tight, and when Barret wasn’t looking he kissed the underside of my wrist and whispered that he would give me a proper Christmas kiss later, and I was trembling at the thought of it. For Barret he had a leather wallet “to keep the money in when Sabine sings at the Academy,” and a bottle of brandy “for celebrating,” though we’ve not heard from Maretzek yet. Barret gave me a bag of toffee, which I love, and to Gideon he gave candied orange peel, and I had for them each a knitted scarf that I bought from some old woman who was selling them near the Washington Market—not the best or softest wool, but the colors were pretty: blue for Gideon and green for Barret.
There were none of Mama’s pfeffernuesse or springerle or Papa’s Christmas ale. Just coffee, and not very good coffee at that, and day-old sweet rolls that Gideon fetched from the bakery down the street the night before. I was thinking that the only flaw was that Mama and Papa and the others weren’t with us, when there was a knock on the door, and Papa stood there, come to bring Barret and me to Christmas dinner.
I was very happy, thinking we would all be together, and Papa had forgiven us, but then I saw the way he was looking at Gideon, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of him. When I said I wished to invite him, Papa refused, and Gideon said it was all right, that we should go on. I felt terrible leaving him there, especially as it is his first Christmas without his mother. I asked him had he any other family to spend the day with and he said Barret and I were his only family now, so I felt doubly sad—it doesn’t seem fair that I should be forgiven when he is not, especially when, without him, I would not have a career. I told Papa this as we were walking, and he said if I wished to talk about Gideon then I should go back, as he would not tolerate mention of him.
It felt so good to be home that I forgot Gideon for a while. I had missed it: the smell of beer and smoke and fried fish that has seeped into the walls, so it is always there, like the quiet beat of a drum below a melody; the sound of Mama humming as she cooked sauerbraten and baked apples; Gunther playing with his new Christmas top. The only thing that marred it was Willa, who offered her cheek to Barret and laughed with him, but only gave me a cold stare and said Happy Christmas as if I were a stranger she must be polite to.
Willa has a new beau, Mama said. A German like us, a good, solid boy who will inherit his father’s grocery one day. Mama said Willa was happy, but she said it with a sigh and a sidelong glance at me, as if she thought Willa might never be truly happy again and it was my fault.
Papa gave us some of the Christmas ale he’d brewed and we drank it with springerle that was dry in my mouth. By the time Mama served up the sauerbraten, Barret was so drunk that he dragged his shirt cuff through his plate and knocked over a chair. Papa stared at him with disapproval that only grew worse as the evening went on and Willa looked at me as if that were my fault too. Then, after Barret broke into a loud guffaw over some stupid thing Gunther said, Papa asked him since when had his oldest son become so dissolute, and Barret told Papa that he was old enough to do as he pleased. They said some horrible things to each other, and Barret kept drinking until he could barely stand upright and his eyes were glassy and his nose red and I said it was time we should be getting back to the hotel. Then Willa said to me that she wasn’t surprised Barret had become a drunk, given that he must take responsibility for my bad behavior, and that I was no better than eine Dirne who must have every man she sees and I lost my temper and said perhaps she should look to herself for the reason that Gideon no longer loved her.
Then Papa exploded that he would not hear that name in his house, and I yelled back that Gideon had made my career possible and they should be grateful to him. Papa said, “Grateful? For what? For taking my daughter on a tour that taught her to forget her good upbringing?” He said the daughter he had raised would not have betrayed her own sister or made herself into a whore. I yelled back that none of them understood me at all, and he spat at me that it was true, and that he had no wish to understand a girl who so easily and thoughtlessly sullied her family’s good name. Then he told Barret and me to get out, and I was glad to go.
Mama was crying, and Gunther calling out after us, and it was dark and cold and starting to snow, and Barret could not walk without help. I had to support him while the both of us slipped on the ice and he was laughing and stupid and then he fell on his ass, nearly taking me down with him. He lolled back on a mound of garbage, falling through the layer of ice and snow that disguised it, laughing like some mad idiot. I was so angry I cursed him in German, and he said: “No more German, Bina, remember?” and then he began to sob.
I had never seen him like that. Never so drunk, never so sad. His crying was so gulping and loud that someone opened their window and called out to ask if he was all right and when I said he was only drunk they said to shut him up, he was waking the baby. I tried to grab him and pull him to his feet, but he grabbed my hands instead and I lost my balance and fell into him, and he put his arms around me and held me so tight I could not move, and cried into my hair. He kept saying: “What are we doing, Bina? What are we doing here? This is all wrong. We should be at home.” I told him home was the hotel now, with Gideon, and Barret said we should not stay with Gideon, that he was not what he seemed.
I was very angry with him then. I pulled away and pushed at him so he went deeper into the garbage, and I said coldly that Gideon had done everything for me. Then I walked away, though I knew better than to walk alone at night in this neighborhood.
Barret ran up behind me, falling into me to stop himself, hard, so I stumbled, and as we passed through the halo of a streetlamp, his tears glistened like trails of light on his face. He kept saying he was sorry for failing me, that he meant to take care of me and he would not fail again.
Then we were back at the hotel. He would not come up with me, though I begged him. He said he wanted a drink and went staggering off like a man meaning to fall down at the first comfortable place. I ran up the stairs to Gideon’s room and I pounded on the door like a mad thing until he opened it. His eyes were heavy and he was holding a book, and he looked so beautiful in that moment, so safe, that I launched myself at him, crying into his chest, not realizing until his arms came around me and he pried me gently away that his shirt was open and I had been pressing my face against his bare skin. “What happened?” he asked me. “Where’s Barret?”
I could not tell him everything; I only told him that Barret was drunk and mad, and that Gideon must go after him or I was afraid we would find him tomorrow dead in some ditch, and he threw his book aside and grabbe
d his coat from the hook beside the door and told me to go to my room and stay there, buttoning his shirt as he hurried down the hall.
That is all I know. Neither of them have returned, and I’ve been listening very closely. I have not heard a single step. I have put the gloves Gideon gave me on my pillow, where I can see them and touch them, the softest kid, the purest white. And I intend now to think of them as a good luck charm, because only a lady of society would own such a useless thing as white kid gloves. It means that Gideon has faith that I will be hired to sing at the Academy of Music. It means he thinks everything will work out, and we will be rich and successful and as lauded as I was in Philadelphia and Boston and Chicago. Even Barret was happy then.
CHAPTER 7
Seattle, Washington Territory—March 1881
It took longer than Mrs. McGraw had predicted for Mr. Clemmons to leave. After three weeks, he still wasn’t gone, though Mrs. McGraw said he kept promising he would go. “I’ll have that room for you yet, Miz Rainey,” she said, and Charlotte gave me a troubled glance that had me reassuring her that I didn’t mind.
Truthfully, I didn’t. I had grown used to her; the sound of her breathing, the warmth of her, as much a part of the room as the rickety bureau or the faded calico curtains. At the Palace, we were as separate as two women could be; I barely spoke to her there. I still hadn’t told Johnny or Duncan that she was staying with me, and I tried to ignore her. Having favorites only made me vulnerable. But at night I felt myself drawn to that settledness in her, and though I never said it to her or anyone else, I found it hard in the morning to wake, to be separate again.
March had come in mild—the lamb instead of the lion—and the Mountain showed itself more often than not, as did the Olympics across the Sound—the mountain range standing stark and white and blue, craggier than the Cascades that Rainier belonged to, older still.
The first real sunny day after the long, gray winter had a restorative effect on everyone. When I went to the Palace that afternoon, my arms full of new gowns that had been altered by the seamstress, the girls were smiling and bright. My own mood was good as well, but it had little to do with the sun, and much more to do with the pile of dresses I carried.
Johnny was in his office, but Sally was lolling about at the bar, and when I said, “Time to get ready, Sally.” She gave me one of the smug looks that had become more frequent, a look that said she didn’t have to do anything I said because she was fucking Johnny.
“I’ll be there in a bit,” she said casually.
I smiled back at her. “You just take your time.”
She frowned, but I kept walking, pushing open the door to the dressing room with my hip. The room was small and crowded, especially now, when all the girls were here and getting ready for the evening’s entertainment. They sat about on the rough benches, powdering themselves and brushing their hair and rolling up their stockings, leaning over one another to see into the single, spotted old mirror. Today they were laughing and joking, which was rarely the case; another reason to thank the good weather.
“New dresses!” squealed Jenny as I came inside, and Lil and Annie spun around from the mirror to see. I glanced at Charlotte, pinning up her hair, and felt warm when she smiled.
I let the dresses fall onto a bench in a rustle of satin and cheap silk and lace and fringe, and the girls swarmed around me like bees. “No new ones until the old ones are in my hands,” I directed as I disentangled the gowns. “I’m taking them to be cleaned and mended.”
They surged away, grabbing up gowns and pantalettes from the benches, all trying to shove them into my hands at once, and I laughed.
“Here’s a pink for Jenny,” I said, taking her old green.
She snatched the pink from my hands, pressing it to her chemise-clad breasts. It made her cheeks look flushed and pretty, a good color for her. There had been some strain between us since the incident with her lover, and this was my way of making it up to her. When she looked up at me with shining eyes I knew she’d accepted my tacit apology. “Oh, thank you, Marguerite!”
“It will look good on you,” I said, and then they were all crowding around again.
“Could I have the blue?”
“I’ll take the purple!”
“Oh, Marguerite, thank you! Thank you!” As if the dresses were diamonds. Still, I smiled at how well they loved me at this moment. Benevolently, I handed out the others, including the one I’d had altered especially for Charlotte, a bronze silk with lace added to the sleeves to lengthen them so they covered her scar, and her nod of appreciation was worth the pains I’d taken.
They were all dressing in their new finery—if it could be called that—when Sally deigned to enter the dressing room. There was one gown left, one I’d bought with her in mind, and it had taken some effort to find a yellow in such an unappealing grayish mustard. I could not imagine who had created the color, because I could not imagine a complexion it would favor. There wasn’t a girl in the Palace who would look good in that yellow, but Sally, with her pale skin and hair, would look especially horrible in it.
“This one’s for you,” I said, holding out the silk, trying not to smile when she drew back in dismay.
“Oh, not that! I’ll just wear the old one.”
I shrugged. “As you wish.”
“I’d rather. Yellow makes me look sallow.” She shuddered and went to her peg, lifting her gown from it.
I folded up the yellow very slowly.
Her gasp was loud enough that the other girls looked up. Sally held out her old dress. There was a huge, gaping rip in the bodice, a clean cut nearly severing the gown in two. “Look at this! Who did this? It’s ruined!” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “You did this, Marguerite, didn’t you?”
I gave her my best innocent expression. “Why would I ruin a perfectly good gown?”
“Because you’re jealous of me. You hate me with Johnny. Admit it, you do!”
“I don’t have any claim on Johnny,” I said coldly. “He can fuck who he likes. But I will say his taste has got worse over the years.”
“You bitch!” She lunged at me, her eyes flashing.
Charlotte stepped in front of her, grabbing her arm. “Careful, Sally.”
“Get out of her way,” I snapped at Charlotte. “Let her try to hurt me. Then we’ll see who Johnny really favors, won’t we?”
The other girls went silent. Charlotte glanced at me, and then she dropped Sally’s arm and stepped back. Sally was breathing hard, her face mottled with anger.
I held up the yellow. “I guess you have no choice, Sally, do you?”
She made a sound deep in her throat, a muffled, aborted scream, and threw the ripped gown on the floor. “I’m going to tell Johnny!”
“You do that,” I said calmly.
She stormed from the room, letting the door slam behind her, and I looked at the other girls and said, “Hurry up. It’s nearly four.”
Then I followed Sally out. The bar was starting to fill; Jim Ryan and Lee Blotsky were already at their tables, shuffling their cards. Billy was leaning against the bar before he went upstairs to the piano—from the looks of it, he was already drunk. Johnny stood talking to Duncan. When Sally screamed, “Johnny! Johnny Langford!” he turned with an irritated expression.
“She’s making me wear yellow!” Sally screamed.
Johnny frowned and looked past her to me. “Margie? What’s this about?”
I stepped up to the bar. “Sally doesn’t want to wear the new gown I bought her.”
Impatiently, he said, “I don’t got time for this, Sally. You do what Margie says.”
“You always take her side!”
Johnny gave me a look. “Margie, take care of this.”
“I’m trying,” I said sweetly.
“I can’t wear the yellow!” Sally threw herself at him. With little effort, he grabbed her by the shoulders to hold her away. “It’s ugly! I won’t wear it!”
“Then don’t. And you can
get the fuck out of here while you’re at it.” There wasn’t a person in that bar who didn’t hear the danger in Johnny’s voice, and Sally was no exception.
She looked at him, and then she looked at me, and I saw the helplessness come into her face, and then the hatred, but I didn’t care. When she said mulishly, “I’ll wear the damn yellow,” and marched past me, I had to hide my smile.
Johnny said, “Damn whores,” and turned back to Duncan.
As I went back to the dressing room, Charlotte stood at the door, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t fathom. When I passed her, she said, “She’ll be lucky if anyone looks twice at her in that dress.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s always someone too drunk to see straight.”
“Christ, Marguerite, she was right: you are a bitch.”
The word startled me coming from Charlotte, and the way she said it brought both shame and anger, and because I hated the shame, I let the anger swell. “Next time she’ll think again before she crosses me.”
“How’d she cross you? So she takes on airs once in a while because she’s fucking Johnny. What do you care?”
I glared at her. “It’s time Sally understood who’s in charge around here. Do you need the same lesson?”
She didn’t back down. “Didn’t you ever learn to share? You got everything and she’s got nothing. She don’t even got Johnny; everyone knows he belongs to you.”
“I’ve got everything?” I laughed in disbelief. “Is that what you think?”
“Don’t you?”
“Go to hell. You don’t know anything about me.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But that ain’t for lack of trying. I never met anyone who keeps everything so close as you.”
