But it was Baby Doe who broke the spell. Without a word, she picked up the silver boat of juniper sauce, which had been served with their bear-steak, and poured it slowly down Charley Harrison’s shirtfront. Charley Harrison stared down at himself apoplectically, unable to speak, scarcely able to breathe. The sauce slid greasily on to his thighs, and between his legs.
‘That sauce is supposed to go with anything,’ Baby Doe said, in an uneven voice. ‘I was just wondering whether it would go with you.’
From the table next to them, where the cement king Charles Boettcher was sitting, there came a delighted yelp of laughter. Then more diners joined in, and there was applause, and the banging of knives and forks on the table; and the orchestra played ‘Where the Columbines Grow’, Colorado’s state song; and with huge fury Charley Harrison rose from his seat and stormed out of the restaurant, quickly followed by the two perplexed-looking men with whom he had been having dinner.
Henry reached across the table and grasped Baby Doe’s hand; and if he hadn’t loved her before, he certainly loved her now. He had never known such a woman; for all of her complicated character, for all of her uncertainties.
‘Keep the ring,’ he said, laying his hand over it. ‘Now you really deserve it.’
Thirteen
When Henry called in at David Moffat’s house that evening, there was a message from Augusta, from Leadville, imploring Henry to return home at once. David, standing at the top of the staircase, his bald head illuminated in a variety of brilliant colours from the $25,000 stained-glass window which he had imported from Tiffany, his hands thrust into the pockets of his quilted satin smoking robe, said, ‘That was all she said. “I beg you to come home at once.”’
Henry picked up the telegraph message, read it twice, and then dropped it back on to the silver tray on the bureau in the hall. He had arranged to meet Baby Doe again tomorrow, and take her to see the Tremont Theatre; and then in the evening to the opera. After that, they were invited to a house-party at the Byers’.
‘Would you care for a drink?’ asked David. ‘I’ve just opened a bottle of Macon. It’s rather fine.’
Henry said, ‘You managed to sort out the theatre?’
‘The papers are ready, if that’s what you mean.’
Henry nodded. He wished to God he didn’t feel so twisted up with guilt. Why should he feel guilty, just because Augusta had asked him to come home? He didn’t feel anything for her, did he? He didn’t love her, he didn’t even like her. And yet the burden of it was that he had lived with her for eighteen years, accepting her dependence; and by accepting her dependence he had also assumed responsibility for keeping her happy; or at the very least contented; and to ignore her now without warning would be cruel, to say the least, and dishonourable, to say the most.
David came down the stairs holding the bottle of Macon by the neck. ‘Here. There are glasses in the library.’
They sat down among the ranks and ranks of leather-bound books, most of them financial, The Wealth of Nations and Das Kapital and the Principles of Political Economy. David offered Henry a half-corona, and they both lit up in silence, filling the room with strata of fragrant srnoke.
‘I expected you back yesterday, of course,’ said David, meaningfully. ‘We had the papers ready by six o’clock.’
‘I don’t think there’s any particular hurry, not now.’
David crossed his legs, and rhythmically flapped the heel of his loose-backed slipper. ‘I suppose you spent the night with Mrs Doe; not that it’s really my business.’
Henry nodded.
‘Is it anything serious?’ asked David.
‘I don’t know. I hope so.’
‘Hm,’ said David. ‘I told you that you were smitten. I could see it in your eyes at the restaurant. You looked as if somebody had struck you in the face with a paving-stone. You still do.’
Henry smiled, and lifted his glass. ‘Here’s to all paving-stones, wherever they are.’
‘You’ll have to be careful, you know,’ David advised him. ‘If Augusta gets wind of this, and decides to divorce you, you could end up paying a very pretty penny indeed.’
‘Augusta won’t divorce me.’
‘You don’t think so? I shouldn’t be too sure. Maybe not straight away, but as soon as she’s found herself a sympathetic man-friend; and there’s no shortage of those in Leadville, not for a good hardworking woman who can cook. She may not be a Baby Doe, not to look at, but there’s plenty of men who prefer their women on the homely side.’
‘David,’ said Henry, ‘I’m not talking about divorce.’
‘That’s all right, then,’ David replied. ‘But in that case, have your fun and have it discreetly, and be prepared for it all to end abruptly, with no recriminations and no tears. Let me warn you, that’s the way it has to be.’
‘What about Audrey?’ Henry asked him, rather too sharply. ‘Is that the way it ended with her?’
David blew out cigar smoke, and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘I’m trying to save you some pain, Henry.’
Henry stood up, and went over to the ashtray, and over-punctiliously rounded the ash of his cigar. ‘No, David,’ he said, ‘you can’t do that. Whatever I’m in for, I’m in for; painful or not.’
David raised an eyebrow. ‘You like her as much as that, then?’
‘I love her.’
‘How can you? You’ve only known her a day.’
‘And a night. And I love her. There isn’t any question about it.’ David blew out his cheeks in soft exasperation. ‘You haven’t told her, I hope?’
‘Not yet. But I will.’
‘I see,’ said David. Then, ‘What’s that on your finger?’
‘What?’
‘That ring. Is that a diamond?’
Henry held out his hand. David took it in disbelief, and stared at the enormous glittering stone with smoke leaking out of his nose and mouth as if he were a deflating hot-air balloon. After a while, he said, ‘It’s real,’ although there was a slight interrogative hint in his voice, as if he would still like to be reassured that it wasn’t.
‘Yes, it’s real. Do you want to see the valuation? I bought it from Ischart’s. I bought another one, too; not quite as big.’
‘Oh, not quite as big. That’s reassuring.’
‘Well, this one if fifty-nine carats. The other one was a little over thirty-two. I gave that one to Baby Doe.’
David was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Jesus.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘You gave Baby Doe a thirty-two carat diamond, and you expect me not to say Jesus?’
‘I told you, David. I love her.’
‘Whew,’ David replied. He shook his head so briskly that his cheeks flapped. ‘Whew, you love her, all right. You sure do love her, something special, I mean it.’
‘Listen, I’m going to see her tomorrow,’ said Henry. ‘I have to, I promised. But then I’m going to go straight back to Leadville, to talk to Augusta. I don’t want to deceive her, Henry, whatever I feel about her.’
‘You’ve already done that, haven’t you?’
‘David,’ Henry protested, ‘Baby Doe walked into that restaurant and from that moment on, it was fate. I didn’t know she was going to be there. I didn’t know that I was going to fall in love with her. I’m trying to do the best I can. You can understand that, can’t you?’
‘Sure,’ said David. ‘Have another glass of wine.’
They stayed up until two o’clock in the morning, talking about business, but again and again the conversation returned to the topic of Baby Doe. For if Henry intended to go on seeing her, his business life could be affected just as radically as his marriage. Eventually, after the long-case clock had chimed in the hallway, David drained the last of his wine, and said, ‘Go back to Leadville, that’s my advice. Think about it.’
‘And supposing, while I’m thinking about it, some other man elbows in and takes Baby Doe?’
‘If that ha
ppens, then she isn’t worth having, especially after everything you’ve given her. And, Henry, don’t give her any more. No more diamonds, no more theatres. Not just for the moment. She won’t respect you any the more for it. And, believe me, it’s very easy to run through a million dollars, when you’re spending it like that.’
Henry said nothing, but helped himself to the last of the Macon. David stood looking at him for a while, and then said, ‘Goodnight, Henry. I hope you sleep well.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Henry. ‘You too.’
The next morning, after a short and heavy night’s sleep, and a breakfast of steak and grits, Henry went to the offices of Kenneth Abrams, the architects, on Arapahoe Street; and spent an hour with Josiah Dunkley, who had the reputation of being the most expensive and most flamboyant designer of luxury residences in the whole of Colorado. Dunkley invited him into a high, bright office, with a distant view of Pike’s Peak wreathed in clouds. There was a vast table of polished mahogany in the middle of the office, spread rather too tidily with drawings and plans and elevations, and in a glass case on the far side of the room there was a scale model of the mansion that Dunkley had built for Roger Woodbury, the silver king, with Doric columns and spires and courtyards.
Dunkley himself was short and loud and round, with wild grey moustaches and a way of squinting at his clients with one eye, as if he doubted both their sanity and their bank balance. He wore a buff day-coat and a violently checked waistcoat, across which was draped a collection of chains and baubles: a gold seal, a monocle, a rabbit’s foot mounted in gold, and a one-inch ruler made of solid silver.
He poured Henry a breakfast bourbon, and then stood facing him with his hands propped up on his hips. ‘When a man comes into money,’ he said, in his thick, whiskey-matured voice, ‘a man wants to show his friends and his neighbours what he’s made of. He does it by dressing lavish; by wearing lavish jewellery—couldn’t help noticing that ring of yours, Mr Roberts—and he does it by riding around in expensive carriages. He buys racehorses. Fur coats. Yachts; and works of art. But all of these gewgaws are secondary to the building of his dream mansion. The house, Mr Roberts, is the embodiment of all ambition. When you step inside a man’s house; by Jiminy you step inside his soul.’
Henry said, ‘I want something very special, Mr Dunkley. I want a house that’s going to stand out. But, all the same, respectable; and in good taste.’
‘Taste? What does taste have to do with it?’ Josiah Dunkley demanded. ‘You’re a millionaire now, Mr Roberts, and you set the style. What you decide, that’s taste. If you’ve always wanted colonnades, then you shall have your colonnades. If you’ve always hankered for towers and battlements, then it’s towers and battlements. And fountains, if you wish. And a suspended staircase that sweeps down like the Niagara Falls on either side of your hallway; can you imagine that? And a marble floor so polished you could drown yourself in it?’
He stepped forward, and grasped the lapel of Henry’s coat. His squinting eye glittered up at Henry like a hawk’s; avaricious and excitable. ‘When I look at you, Mr Roberts, do you know what I see? I see a tall, wealthy man, standing in the grounds of a house that looks like Versailles. Formal, dignified, classical; but lavish, too. Whatever else, we’re talking lavish.’
He pulled open a drawer in a large mahogany plan-chest, and sorted through heaps of engravings. At last he came up with a drawing of the Palace of Versailles from 1668, with its courtyards and orangery and huge flights of steps. Henry studied it for a while, his hand on his chin, and then he smiled and nodded.
‘You see,’ said Dunkley, ‘I thought you’d like it. Your version will have to be smaller, I’m afraid. Louis XIV practically bankrupted France to put this little cottage together. But I’m sure I can draw something up which will tickle your fancy. And I can get you the very best landscape gardener.’
‘And you can build something like this in Leadville?’
‘My dear Mr Roberts, I can build something like this on top of Long’s Peak, given the finance.’
‘Well, I’m returning to Leadville later today,’ said Henry. ‘Perhaps you could come along with me, and take a look around, and see if you can’t pick out a suitable site.’
‘Will your wife be returning with us?’ asked Dunkley. ‘I do like to discuss my plans with the wife. All the domestic offices, and suchlike.’
‘My wife is already in Leadville; you can talk to her there.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Dunkley, ‘I saw you at La Différence last night, with a very striking young lady, and I naturally assumed—’
‘A cousin,’ said Henry, in a challenging tone. But he wished almost as soon as he had spoken the words that he hadn’t. Baby Doe was his lover; his lady companion; his mistress, and his intimate friend. Why didn’t he have the courage to say so? And why had he made an arrangement to take Josiah Dunkley back to Leadville later today when he had already promised Baby Doe that he would take her to see the Tremont, and then to the opera, and afterwards to the Byers’ house for a late-night party?
He was betraying Baby Doe already; in the same way that he was betraying Augusta. And yet somehow it seemed that his betrayal of Baby Doe was worse, because she expected nothing from him but his affection and his trust. She had given herself quite freely and generously to him; that was what he loved about her. Why couldn’t he do the same for her in return?
He shook hands with Josiah Dunkley and left the office with a smile, promising to call him later in the day to fix a time of departure. But down in the street, as he buttoned up his overcoat against the fresh fall wind from the Rockies, his smile quickly faded, and he walked southeast along 17th Street with an expression of worry and perplexity.
What could he do? Augusta had urgently asked him to come back to Leadville, and he was after all her husband. Yet he wanted more than anything else he could think of to stay here in Denver with Baby Doe. He stood on the corner of 17th Street and Champa, while the horse-drawn trams jangled past, and the wind whipped up rubbish in the entrance to Womack’s Hardware & Tools. An old woman with voluminous skirts was struggling down from a cab, and so he went over to help her, and then asked the cab to take him to the Corona Hotel. The old woman said, ‘Bless you, sir. You have the face of a fortunate man.’
Baby Doe was waiting for him in the Ladies’ Parlour at the back of the hotel, dressed in a dark blue high-necked gown with a large bow tied at the side. Her hair was drawn back with combs and she looked both severe and elegant, but devastatingly pretty. Henry took her hands as she came out of the parlour, and kissed her, and said, ‘You look exquisite.’
‘Did you see the architect?’ she asked him.
He nodded. ‘I’ll have to take him out to Leadville to look for a suitable site. He showed me one or two ideas. But, within reason, I can have anything I want. If I’ve got the money, I can even have anything without reason.’
‘When will you be going?’ she asked him, as they walked through the Corona’s crowded lobby.
He said, ‘I’m not sure yet. It’ll have to be soon; I have to get back to the mine. And, well, there’s the store, too.’
‘And Augusta?’
He gave her a smile that wasn’t really a smile at all. ‘You have a way of making my marriage sound like a particularly unpleasant disease.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.’
‘No, I know you didn’t,’ he told her. ‘I can’t help being married to her, that’s all. And I do have certain responsibilities, whether I like her or not.’
‘I’m sorry, I spoke out of place,’ said Baby Doe. She took his hand, and squeezed his fingers. ‘Henry...please don’t think that I’m trying to make things difficult for you. Because if I am, I’ll just go, if that’s what you want. I won’t be a burden to you.’
He stopped, and turned, and held her shoulders, and looked straight into her eyes. ‘My darling, I don’t want you to go.’
‘But your business, Henry; and your reputation, and everything.�
��
‘Hang my business. Hang my reputation.’
‘What are you saying? You can’t say that.’
Henry swallowed a breath, and looked around him, and then looked back at Baby Doe, and said, in a quiet and level voice, ‘I love you. That’s what I’m saying.’
Baby Doe stared at him; and suddenly her eyes sparkled with tears. She pressed her dark blue glove over her mouth to stop herself from sobbing out loud.
‘I know it’s ridiculous,’ said Henry. ‘I know that nobody can fall in love in a day and a night. I know all of that. It’s nothing more than infatuation, that’s all. A rush of blood to the head. The last desperate fling of a middle-aged man, almost twice your age. If I were you, I’d ignore it. I’d pretend you hadn’t heard, if I were you. I’d keep on walking out of that door and forget to come back. Put me out of my misery as quickly and as kindly as possible. You said I was sentimental. A heart on one sleeve, and tears on the other. Well, that’s all it is. Sentimentality, and the world has quite enough of that already.’
Baby Doe bowed her head forward so that her forehead was pressed against his coat, and he was almost suffocated in the plumes of her hat. She wept silently; and all that betrayed her weeping was the shaking of her shoulders. Hardly anybody in the hotel lobby paid them any attention; they looked like nothing more unusual than a couple exchanging an affectionate embrace.
At last, however, she looked up; and her eyes were smudged with crying. ‘Henry, I love you, too. Not for the diamond. Not for the theatre. For you, that’s all. Just for you.’
Henry held her tight for a moment. Then he said, ‘You go bathe your eyes. I have a call to make. Then we’ll go down to the Tremont Theatre and take a look.’
While Baby Doe returned to her room, Henry went to the Corona’s front desk and asked to use the telephone. He called Josiah Dunkley’s secretary, and left a message that he would be unable to return to Leadville today; but that he would call again later and make a definite appointment for the weekend. And could Mr Dunkley remember that he would need his furs when he visited Leadville; it was always colder than Denver.
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