Silver

by Graham Masterton

  ‘I’m just giving a word to the wise,’ replied David. ‘It wasn’t meant to be personal.’

  ‘In that case, I won’t take it personal.’

  Just then, followed by murmurs of appreciation and a great turning-around of heads, Baby Doe came across the restaurant, her skirts slightly raised, and approached Henry’s table. Behind her, glowering, his gingery quiff leaping from the top of his head like an angry exclamation point, came Murray Holman, obliged to escort her by the rules of etiquette, but manifestly fizzing with jealousy.

  Henry and David stood up. ‘David,’ said Henry, ‘allow me to introduce Mrs Elizabeth McCourt Doe. Mrs Doe is going to be my very first leading lady.’

  ‘Charmed,’ said David, taking Baby Doe’s hand.

  Baby Doe said, in an affected whisper, ‘We must meet later, Mr Roberts, to talk about the play.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll do me the honour of having dinner with me,’ said Henry.

  ‘Not tonight, I regret,’ she told him. There was a whole encyclopedia of romantic and erotic allures in the way she spoke, the way she held her head, the way her hair curled around her neck, the glistening light on her lips, the faraway look in her eyes. Henry felt almost as if his lunch had been drugged with sticky opium, as if he were heavy-limbed and helpless.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ he asked her; and when she nodded, he said, ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘At the Corona,’ she said, ‘on Broadway.’

  ‘Seven o’clock, then,’ he told her.

  Murray Holman, as he escorted Baby Doe away, leaned forward to Henry and lifted one threatening finger, and said, ‘I won’t forget this, Mr Henry Roberts. You mark my words, I’ll have your scalp for this, and I’ll hang it on my goddamned lodge-pole, along with all the other scalps of interfering amateurs.’

  ‘You’re welcome to try,’ Henry replied, as gently as he could. But he could see Baby Doe stop and turn and smile at him over Murray Holman’s shoulder, and he knew just what it was that Murray Holman was fighting for, and how hard he would fight for it.

  Twelve

  That afternoon, he went out and he spent over $45,000. He went to Ischart’s the Jewellers on 15th Street and bought a pair of matching diamond solitaire rings: one for himself of over 59 carats, and one for Augusta of over 32 carats. Buying the rings was an attempt both to placate Augusta and to defy her. He did genuinely feel that she deserved a reward for all the years of work she had put into the store, and what else did a man give his hard-working wife but a diamond ring? On the other hand, he knew that she would vigorously disapprove of his having spent so much money on something so ostentatious. She would find it more threatening than flattering: a bright and sure sign that their old life was over, that her security had literally been mined away from under her feet.

  The jeweller laid the rings side by side on the dustless black velvet of his display tray, while the afternoon sunlight came softly in through the clerestory windows and illuminated the sapphires and the pearls, the silver and the gilt, a new world of new reflections which Henry wanted to relish to the very utmost. He was rich now, and he wanted to look rich, and behave rich, and live rich.

  ‘There is a legend that this diamond once belonged to Marie Antoinette,’ said the jeweller. He held up the ring, and the stone suddenly flashed, as brightly and as abruptly as a lighthouse on a clear winter’s night. ‘You know that every large diamond has its story. Now, you’re going to become part of this diamond’s story.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ smiled Henry. ‘This diamond is going to become part of my story.’

  ‘Whatever you say, sir; of course.’

  Later, he went to Kilgore’s, and ordered four new suits, as well as a dozen shirts, and fifteen new silk neckties. He went to Reed and Sherman on 12th Street, not far from Cherry Creek, and bought two pairs of ready-made shoes, and had his foot measured so that in future he could order his own handbuilt shoes. He bought a pair of diamond and ruby cufflinks in the pattern of chessboards; and silk underwear; and six cases of French champagne; and cologne; and two English shotguns by Holland & Holland, with silver-engraved sideplates and exhibition-grade walnut stocks.

  He intended to buy himself a new carriage, too, but by the time he had left Manning’s Shotguns, the sun was already well down behind the cold purple frieze of the Rockies, and he was feeling tired and in need of a drink. He went back by cab through the brightly-lit streets of Denver, feeling both elated and unreal. Every now and then he raised his hand, and turned it from side to side, so that the huge diamond on his middle finger caught the flare from the gas-lamps and the glitter from the shop-windows that flanked the street. The evening was sharp and clear and dry, a fine Denver evening, and the stars prickled high above him, diamonds in their own right.

  ‘You’re going to wear it now, sir?’ the jewellery salesman had asked him, momentarily disconcerted, even though he was obviously used to the eccentric ways of the suddenly wealthy.

  ‘Anything wrong in that?’ Henry had replied.

  ‘Nothing at all, sir, except that you haven’t insured it yet.’

  Henry had admired the ring sparkling on his finger, and said, ‘Well, if I lose it, I can always buy another.’

  He had intended to go straight back to David Moffat’s house, where he was supposed to be staying the night. But he kept finding himself thinking again and again about Baby Doe; and he was reluctant to spend the evening small-talking to David about money and investments when he still hadn’t had time to churn over in his mind the dramatic way in which she had affected him. He kept glimpsing her face, again and again, in his mind’s eye; he kept thinking about her hair, and how it strayed in those soft and wayward curls around the nape of her neck. He kept seeing her eyes, and the deep warm shadow between her breasts; and somehow those images became intermingled with memories of Nina, balancing athletically over his bed, and even further back, to Doris, and that summer’s day in Carmington, so long ago now that it seemed to have shrunk to the size of a tiny animated picture, in which the characters spoke in tinny, barely distinguishable voices.

  Thinking about Baby Doe made him think about the tragedy of his own life. It was not a tragedy in the theatrical sense; even though he was now the owner of a theatre. It wasn’t a King Lear or a Macbeth. It was simply the plain tragedy that affects those ordinary people who are never lucky enough to find someone who inspires them, either to love and be loved, or to realize the best out of themselves; but although it is an ordinary tragedy, the kind of tragedy you meet with every day, it is no less heartrending, no less dramatic, and the sadness of it cuts no less deep.

  Instead of David’s house, he directed the cab to the Corona Hotel, on Broadway between 8th and 9th, on Arlington Heights; a small stocky building in the Queen Anne style, from whose upper windows the lilac sunlight was still reflected so that it looked like nothing more than a decorative facade, the shell of a building through which he could see the sky. For one unbalancing moment, Henry was reminded of the time when he had gone back to Council Bluffs to find Annabel and Edward McLowery, a time when past and present had overlapped, like two voices speaking at the same time. Standing over Edward McLower’s grave-marker, closing Annabel’s door, it had seemed to him that only a few minutes had passed since he had first met them; that time had somehow closed itself like a folding mirror. For one moment, he saw the Corona Hotel as a skeleton of itself; and was sharply reminded of the mortality both of buildings and lovers. You never get time for a second chance, he thought to himself. You have to seize your time and seize it tight; and that was why he was here on Broadway at the Corona Hotel looking for Baby Doe a day earlier than he was supposed to.

  ‘Mrs Doe?’ he asked the desk-clerk. The man’s face was as smooth as beeswax. He picked up the telephone, and said, ‘I’ll inquire. Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Say, the new owner of the Tremont Theatre.’

  The desk-clerk stared at him for a moment, but then picked up his telephone, and wound the handle w
ith a tight little whirl, and said, ‘Mrs Doe? There’s a gentleman here in the lobby. Yes, he wishes to see you. The new owner of the Tremont Theatre. Does that make any sense?’

  There was a pause; then, ‘Yes, it seems to make sense, sir.

  Please go up. Mrs Doe’s room is on the third floor, number 313.’

  She was waiting for him at her open door as he came quickly along the carpeted corridor. She was already dressed for dinner, in a low-necked silk dress of dark dove-grey, with lace-frilled cuffs, and a beribboned bustle tied up with bouquets of small grey-and-white silk flowers. Her hair was drawn up tightly, into shining brunette curls, and pinned with tortoiseshell combs. Her perfume was distilled from gardenias. She said, ‘I didn’t expect you,’ and her voice was as soft as the lilac evening air.

  ‘Didn’t you? Didn’t you think that a man who cared about you enough to buy you a theatre would want to pay some attention to you at the earliest possible opportunity?’

  She lowered her head, but he could tell that she was smiling. ‘Don’t tell me that you’re going to see anyone so crucially important that you can’t put them off until tomorrow,’ Henry went on.

  ‘You’re awfully direct, Mr Roberts,’ she said. ‘I scarcely even know you; for all of your attentions.’

  Henry rested his hand against the lintel and watched her in amusement and appreciation. ‘In that case, I shall do everything I can to make sure that you do. Especially since you’re going to be my Ophelia.’

  She looked up at him with those slanting, hypnotic eyes. ‘You assume that I’m going to be your Ophelia.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you? Whatever Murray Holman offers you, I’ll offer you double.’

  ‘Murray Holman’s furious. I mean he’s really, really furious. He kicked a newsboy on the way out of the restaurant.’

  ‘Then I shall pay the newsboy double, too.’

  ‘You’re funny.’

  Henry shook his head. ‘No, I’m not funny. I just appreciate a jewel when I see it; and want to have it for myself.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’ she asked.

  ‘Not even slightly. You will be my Ophelia, won’t you?’

  ‘Do you know what kind of girl Ophelia was?’

  Henry said nothing. His father had read him some of Shakespeare’s sonnets and part of Titus Andronicus, but that was all the Shakespeare he knew. ‘Why, there they are both, baked in that pie, whereof their mother daintily hath fed, eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.’

  Baby Doe said, ‘Ophelia was fey, that was what Murray said.’

  ‘Fey? What does that mean?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Precious, I guess; something like that.’

  There was a silence between them; one of those awkward but eager silences between two people who don’t know each other well enough to be able to carry on a fluent conversation; and yet like each other enough not to want to say goodnight.

  Baby Doe said, ‘We were supposed to be having dinner with the Cheesmans.’

  ‘Can’t you call Murray on the telephone, tell him you’ve suddenly developed a headache? He’d understand, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Baby Doe. ‘It really means a lot to him, this dinner. The Cheesmans are putting up most of the money for Hamlet. And I did promise.’

  ‘How much did you promise?’

  ‘Cut my throat and hope to die; go to Hell and hope to fry.’

  ‘That much?’

  Baby Doe smiled. ‘Well, nearly that much.’

  Again, that silence, relished as slowly as clear molasses. Then Baby Doe opened wide the door of her room, and immediately walked away from him, into the foggy lilac light of the early evening, her shoulders and back a bare white triangle, as bare as ivory, as white as Star-of-Bethlehem flowers, her head turned so that he could see her profile, the light touching her lashes; and he felt then that he entered the room on a wave, rather than walking, a wave that surged him forward until he was standing close beside her.

  ‘Will this make up for breaking your promise?’ he asked her, and he took out of his pocket the small navy-blue ring box which contained Augusta’s ring; although he didn’t open it. Baby Doe stared at him, and the evening light on her lower lip was an angel’s-bow, just as Doris’ had been; and then she reached up and clasped Henry’s wrist.

  ‘You mustn’t spoil me until you know me,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t get to know you unless I spoil you.’

  ‘I’m a woman, that’s all.’

  ‘I know. But you’re a dream too. And even dreams have obligations. Especially to the people who dream them.’

  ‘No,’ she said, and walked a little further away, towards the grey chaise-longue, her grey skirts rustling. The windows suddenly lost their light: the sun had gone down over the mountains, and Denver was steeped in the shadow of its greatest glory. Baby Doe looked up at Henry, and there was a complicated expression on her face; an expression which the twilight made almost malevolent. She was gentle, and she was beautiful; but she was very strong, too. And that was what she wanted him to know.

  ‘I’ll order something to drink,’ she said. ‘Is there anything you like?’

  ‘Whiskey’s very acceptable, thank you.’

  ‘Hm. I would have thought rum, looking at you.’

  ‘Do I really look that uncouth?’

  ‘No, not uncouth. Just—I don’t know—homespun, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Homespun? You’re the first person who’s ever said that.’ Henry felt peculiarly inadequate, and embarrassed. He didn’t expect women to criticize him so directly, and yet so lightly. She wasn’t being insulting; only accurate, and somehow that hurt all the more. It hurt, too, because he liked her so much. He thrust his hands into his pockets, and went to the window, and lifted the curtains, and looked out at the lights of Denver, like lanterns drowned in a lilac lake, 15th Street and Broadway and Capitol Hill, which had once been Brown’s Bluff; all sparkling now with electricity, and spun with telephone wires.

  Henry said, ‘I suppose you’d better go. Murray will be waiting for you.’

  Baby Doe hesitated, and then replied quietly, ‘I don’t have to, you know. I’m my own woman.’

  Henry let the curtains fall back. On the opposite wall, there was a large melancholy lithograph of Wind River, during a thunderstorm; and on the black walnut sideboard just below it, a brass domed clock ticked, almost six hours wrong. Somebody next door flushed a noisy lavatory, and down in the street there was a rumble of wheels on the paved roadway.

  Henry said, ‘I didn’t think that anybody could say that they were completely their own, whether they were man or woman. Everybody has obligations, after all, if only to be peaceable to his friends and neighbours, and nothing else.’

  In reply, Baby Doe asked, ‘Show me what you have in that box.’

  ‘Do you really want to see? Or are you teasing me?’

  ‘Perhaps I’m teasing you; perhaps I’m not. But show me. You can’t offer it to me and then take it back again, without my having seen it. You’re not cruel, are you, as well as sentimental?’

  ‘I didn’t say that I was sentimental.’

  ‘You didn’t have to. You have it sewn on your sleeves. A heart on one side, and tears on the other.’

  Henry took out the ring box again and approached her across the room. It was so dark now that they could scarcely see each other, yet neither of them had proposed lighting a gas-mantle (the Corona was still awaiting belated conversion to electric light). He stood in front of her for a moment, and then he placed the ring box in the palm of his right hand, and opened up the lid, and held it out for her to look at as cautiously as if it were actually dangerous; which in a strange way it was.

  ‘Look,’ he said; and she picked it up.

  It caught the dimmest of lights, and concentrated them all into one violent lilac spark. Then, she slipped it on to her middle finger, and it was dark again, suppressing its fire until the morning.

  ‘It�
�s flawless,’ said Henry, in the darkness. ‘Thirty-two carats, from South Africa, guaranteed.’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ said Baby Doe. She clasped her hand over it, as if it were a bird or a crystallized butterfly that might escape. Then she asked, ‘Why? Why did you give it to me? I’m only an actress; not even that yet, not properly. I’m nobody special.’

  ‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’ said Henry.

  There was another pause, and then Baby Doe said, ‘No. But I’d really like to.’

  ‘You must go,’ he told her. ‘What time is your dinner?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not going now. What on earth could happen tonight to compare with this?’

  ‘Dinner with the Cheesmans? Mrs Cheesman makes a wonderful dish of scrambled eggs and calves’ brains.’

  Baby Doe reached across and held Henry’s hand. ‘You wouldn’t call for me, would you, and tell them I’m sick? A sudden headache. You could always pretend that you were the hotel doctor.’

  ‘And then what?’ said Henry.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t take you out to dinner, could I, in case you were seen by anybody who knew the Cheesmans, or Murray Holman.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Not to you, perhaps, but it does to me. Walter Cheesman’s a big noise in Denver, and I don’t particularly want to upset him; not for the sake of a dinner, anyway.’

  Baby Doe hesitated for a long while, and then she started to stroke the back of Henry’s hand with a gentle, insistent, circular motion, around and around, and the lightness of her touch and the closeness of her perfume and the warmth of her presence in the darkness made him close his eyes and feel for one strange lightheaded moment as if he were completely contented; as if this was all he ever wanted to do for the rest of his life.

  ‘I was born in Oshkosh, in Wisconsin,’ whispered Baby Doe; ‘and when I was only young I married Bill. Well, William, that was his name. William Harvey Doe. He could never make money at anything, so in the end we sold everything we owned, which wasn’t much, and came West to Central City, to mine for gold. Bill never had any luck, but all the miners liked me, and called me “baby”; and that was how I got the name of Baby Doe.’