Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  “Ah,” says Butler, with mild astonishment, “look at the time. I have to meet my friends, and I hope you will join me.”

  The two men exchange a look.

  “Of course, if you have other plans . . .”

  “Would your friends mind my intruding?”

  “My friends? No. But I must tell you,” and here Butler leans in, “it’s a bit of a rough place. Your fiancée might not approve.”

  “My fiancée? What fiancée?”

  “Your future fiancée. Or your friend the missionary.”

  “What kind of place is this?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  Casement doesn’t know what he’s thinking.

  “If you can tolerate cannibals, you’ll tolerate this,” says Butler.

  “Now I’m intrigued.”

  “Good,” says Butler. He throws down some bills. “My treat, and we’re off!”

  A short carriage ride later Casement finds himself on a street that is primarily warehouses. Butler jumps out and, after a brief exchange of pleasant argument, allows Casement to pay the driver. The door announces nothing, but Casement sees other carriages pulling up—women and men, but mostly men—and then a nice-looking brougham disgorges several wealthy-looking patrons onto the sidewalk. They look around and one woman lets forth a high-pitched giggle. She looks at Casement and Butler and finds them disappointing.

  An unexceptional door leads to a narrow corridor, and this throat in turn leads to a cavernous hall that is a shock of noise and smoke and greasy light. Butler looks around and Casement does too, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness and cacophony.

  “They’re at the bar,” Butler shouts out across music, because somewhere a band is playing, but Casement can’t see it from where he’s standing. Casement and Butler push around the patrons, dodge through tables—seated at one are two women dressed in dinner jackets like men. Some men are wearing rouge. But it is very dark and therefore easy to assign such ­spectacle—at least temporarily—to poor light. They reach the counter and Butler is greeted by his friends, four of them, and extra bar stools are found, and they sit and are introduced. A Mr. George, with red hair. A Mr. Rourke, who looks instantly suspicious of Casement. A Mr. Smith, who has a firm handshake and strong gaze that seem almost rehearsed. A Mr. Abruzzi, who looks younger than the others, who are all about Casement’s age, twenty-five, or older.

  “Where did you meet this Mister Casement?” asks Rourke.

  “I saw him at the lunch cart on Thirty-Fourth Street. He looked confused.”

  “And is he?” asks Rourke.

  “To look at him,” says George, “he’s less confused by the minute.”

  “One day you’ll find you’ve made one mistake too many,” says Rourke.

  “Your concern is much appreciated, Rourke,” says Butler.

  “One day I’ll end up burying you,” says Rourke. He studies Casement.

  At the distant end of the bar there is a woman in a long, pink dress standing on the counter itself. There she is, stepping around the drinks. She turns and flips up her skirt and whoever is treated to the view laughs out loud. As no one notices, Casement affects not noticing. Her hair is shorn like a boy’s.

  “You need a drink, Mister Casement,” says George. “I suggest you buy yourself one, and one for everyone else, me included. And I’ll have whiskey.”

  Butler shakes his head. “Casement is our guest.”

  “I don’t mind, really,” says Casement. “You did get dinner.”

  “Do you know, Mister Casement, what is the only thing worse than a friend who is poor?”

  “No. What is it?” Maybe this is a joke.

  “A friend that is rich.”

  It is a joke.

  “He never thinks about money, so he never has it,” explains Smith. “Never,” he repeats, looking at George.

  “That’s not true. I’m just a little short on cash tonight,” says Mr. George. And laughter ensues. But Casement is buying the first round, and he’s happy to do it. And there’s nothing untoward happening, not yet, and if it does he can always leave.

  Abruzzi leans in to Casement. He has olive skin, heavy lashes, a narrow face with thin, elegant nose. “Mister Casement,” he says in an accent that he is burying under layers of studied etiquette and genuine grace, “don’t mind Rourke. He’s right to caution our Sammie.”

  “Where are you from, Mister Casement?” says Rourke. His accent announces he’s a Dubliner.

  “Magherintemple,” says Casement.

  Rourke shakes his head, but he takes the drink that Casement has bought for him. And at the end of the evening, when more drinks have been consumed than can be reasonably counted, it is Rourke who leads the way past the urinals and into the back alley.

  Casement wakes early into the quiet of his room. At first, in the stillness, he hears his breathing and his breathing seems an alien sound, as if his inhabiting of his body is something new—as if he should be of the air. That’s the sensitive thinking that comes after drink. And now the show in pictures of the evening, unbidden, begins. There is Rourke, “I’ll show you the way,” and Casement following him through the tables, Rourke checking over his shoulder to make sure that Casement is still with him. And then the marble urinals in a long row opposite the wooden stalls. And Casement is using the urinal, and Rourke too, although Rourke finishes first. And then Rourke ducks his head down, checking beneath the stall doors, which are all closed. Perhaps a stall is free? But no. And then Casement is buttoned up, thinking they’ll head back to the bar, but Rourke grabs his wrist and jerks his head towards another door. Casement hesitates because he doesn’t know what Rourke is on about and Rourke says, “Fresh air,” and Casement says nothing, just wanders after him and then they’re in the alley. And then Rourke presses his mouth on Casement’s and Casement can feel the man’s stubble. Then Rourke is unbuttoning Casement’s trousers as expertly as he must handle his own and after that. Well.

  At what moment did this happen to him? At what moment?

  Was it when he followed Rourke into the alley? Or the men’s room? Was it when he allowed his affection for Ward to grow? Was it when he chose Africa, a moral vacuum, which is why all the missionaries are drawn—sucked even—to that place?

  Or his time spent in the company of Nina and Gee?

  He doesn’t feel womanly at all. Mayala Swami. No. If anything, he feels completely masculine. This is a life for a man among men. After this moment’s delirious affirmation, it hits. And this miasmic self-loathing, because of the ecstasy of the previous evening, has a depth to it. A coldness. He is alone. He is alone.

  He remembers the woman tripping her way down the bar, lightly, and when this pink-frocked creature drew near, his surprise that it was a boy—maybe sixteen years old. The dress was sliding down the front, showing smooth skin and sparse hair. He was sashaying along. He slipped the neckline off his shoulder and winked at Casement, spun around. He was wearing men’s shoes, brutally beaten up, worn at such an angle on the heels that the shoe leather itself was wearing away on the outer corners. His legs were disarmingly hairy. And the boy’s hands, obviously callused as they clutched the pink fabric, had red knuckles and dirty, rough-cut nails. His hair stood in a blond shock. Butler smiled at the boy.

  “Here you go, Jimmy,” he said, giving him a coin. “And be careful with your skirt. I almost got you with my cigar.”

  “Oh Mister Butler,” said the boy, his voice an incongruous growl. “I am already on fire!”

  Dry toast will do for breakfast. Sarita’s agitated and with good reason. These weeks in New York have been a trial. The previous evening she ambushed her father by the water closet. She’d accused her father of being quiet, because that’s all she could politely do.

  “You’ve been quiet, Father,” Sarita had said.

  “
No, I haven’t.” He’d looked her up and down. “Life is a job,” he said.

  She’d managed some sort of protest, although what she’d said was lost to her, lost in the eruption of incredulity following her father’s last statement.

  Father had raised his hand calmly, silencing her. “Has he talked to you? Because he hasn’t talked to me.”

  And no, Ward hadn’t really talked to her, just chatted, although she knew for a fact that his chat-and-chat-and-chat sprang from different reasons than Brock-Innes’s. Men who didn’t have money were supposed to talk about prospects. Even Ward knew that. But he’d talked about lecture sites, made jokes, played with her cat—done anything to be there in the drawing room without having a real conversation. Ward had no prospects, she thought, although—her stomach sinks—he had talked about his article for Scribner’s. Surely that wasn’t his prospect? Writing for the newspapers? But what on earth can she expect? She met an adventurer who has revealed himself to be a circus performer. And sheep shearer. And prospector. She pushes her plate—toast untouched—away from her.

  “Aren’t you hungry, dear?” asks her mother.

  She looks at her mother’s plate that is heaped with bacon and jam and eggs and bread—all untouched.

  “No, I’m not,” she replies.

  And then, announcing himself as always with a flap of the paper and that dark chuckle with which he takes his first look at the financial page, here is Father. Sarita looks over at the maid who, bored out of her brains, is staring at the ceiling. “Coffee, please,” she says. The maid stirs into motion with a bland look on her face, pouring the coffee well. Mother likes this one because her hands are nice and small, unlike her predecessor, who has been “promoted” to some role in a dark corner of the house so that Mother isn’t assaulted with her manly paws. Sarita can still remember the early days in Buenos Aires, her mother sewing their drawers out of rough cloth on a borrowed machine.

  Father tosses the paper down on the table and takes his seat. “Any New Year’s invitations?” he asks Sarita.

  Sarita gives her father an inscrutable expression.

  Mother answers, “Three so far.”

  “Well, that’s three more than last year,” says Sarita.

  “That’s a good thing,” says Mother.

  “When is your sister getting here?” asks Father. “She’s such a pleasant girl.”

  “Is that why you’re in such a good mood, Father?”

  “One reason. And then,” low chuckles, “there’s always the state of the Argentinean stock exchange.”

  Something in his chuckle bothers her. He must have a deal going down that’s not quite aboveboard. Father gets particular joy from bilking the establishment.

  “Anything from Mister Brock-Innes?” asks Mother.

  Mother had sent Paz to the drugstore earlier that day, meaning that she was short of some medication, which might account for her sudden interest in life. “Mister Brock-Innes has gone hunting with some friends in Scotland.”

  “I hope there won’t be any young ladies there,” says Mother.

  “Somehow, I doubt it,” says Sarita. Father is hidden behind the Wall Street Journal. “I did get an interesting letter from Mister Ward. Apparently, his lecture in Boston was sold out. Based on that, they’ve booked a larger venue here in New York. And there will be tickets for all of us held at the door.” Ward is still lecturing in Canada, or some such place.

  “Mister Ward is becoming quite the celebrity,” says Mother. She’s unsure whether or not that’s a good thing.

  “I suppose he is,” says Sarita.

  “A little celebrity is all right if you don’t mind work,” says Father.

  What is Father on about? “He lived with man-eating savages for five years,” she counters, which was meant to prove something but, as Sarita thinks about it, only proves exactly what it states. “Are you using the carriage, Father? I’m supposed to meet Garnet for lunch.”

  “Where is she?”

  “On the Park, at Sixty-Second.”

  “Take the carriage. I’ll walk. Looks like a nice day.”

  “Who’s getting Ettie?” says Mother.

  “I am, Mother. The train gets in at seven.”

  “And who’s going to get the trunks?”

  “They have porters there.”

  “What if they steal everything?”

  “Mother, this isn’t Buenos Aires. You don’t need to bring your own porters.” Sarita hears herself. She sounds like an eighteen-year-old, even though she’ll be thirty this August. Mother is right. Father is right. She is right. She needs to get married, if only to stop being a daughter. Of course she’s getting Ettie. And she goes over the weekly accounts with Baxter. And she supervises the hiring of new maids, the shutting down of the house after the winter season, the booking of steamer tickets. She’s incredibly useful. “More coffee, please.” Maybe Father won’t let her get married. Maybe she should elope. But that doesn’t usually end well. She thinks of poor Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights, manipulated, unloved, ankle deep in mud, the driving wind blowing greasy hanks of hair around her shivering shoulders. But if Sarita stays here, she’ll lose her mind. And if she marries Brock-Innes, she’ll lose her mind. And Mr. Ward has such a short attention span—even if he loves her now (does he?)—who knows what he’ll be thinking in another six months, when he’s done lecturing? When he’s a journalist, or a painter, or . . . What is left? A fireman? A magician? Her hands fly up to her temples and she knocks the coffee pot out of the maid’s well-shaped hands.

  “Sarita!” says Father.

  “Well, I’ve probably had enough coffee,” she says, getting up from the table. The maid is scrambling to wipe the up the rug and several assistants have been conjured from the paneling to assist in this. “I am sorry,” she says to the maid.

  “Quite all right, Miss,” says the maid.

  “Sarita,” her mother calls to her as she’s leaving. “If it’s nerves . . .”

  “I’m fine, Mother. I just need some air.”

  Sarita takes the carriage to Garnet’s house, which is a grander residence with a marble vestibule, curving staircase, and an odd little Juliet balcony that Sarita doesn’t quite understand. Maybe for puppet shows? Or perhaps it’s one of those architectural pieces that Garnet’s father brings back from Italy, although this one would do better stuck somewhere in the house in Newport, which—on account of its size—absorbs such eccentricities. Sarita hands her hat and gloves to the maid, slips out of her cloak, nods in a polite way, and soon—appearing on the crazy balcony, red hair ­flowing—is Garnet.

  “Sarita!”

  “Garnet, what are you wearing?”

  “It’s Japanese, of course,” says Garnet.

  Of course. It looks like a bathrobe—made out of high-quality furniture brocade—and on Garnet, as with everything, is stunning.

  “Come up,” says Garnet. “And hurry. I am simply dying to find out what’s happening in England.”

  In the parlor, Garnet kicks off her slippers and collapses into a couch. To sit close, Sarita takes the piano bench.

  “Tell me everything,” says Garnet.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” says Sarita, not intentionally lying, but just because that’s what she usually says. “And where’s Wallace?”

  “Of course, he’s at the bank. But you would forget that, because you’ve been in London, where no one works. How’s the new house?”

  “A bit bare. The location is very good. You’ll have to visit.”

  “I wish!” Garnet closes her eyes. When she opens them, it is with profound, dramatic gravity. “I can’t travel for a while.”

  “Really?” says Sarita.

  “That’s the bad news.”

  “And the good news?”

  “I have a progressive doctor who says I should wear whatever I
want and avoid headaches.”

  Garnet is pregnant. “Congratulations. That explains everything.”

  “It explains the state of my hair. But if you’re ever getting rid of Paz, let me know.”

  Paz is known for her skill at executing the latest styles. “You’d have to learn Spanish,” says Sarita. “Does this mean you’re not going to any of New Year’s balls? Because if you’re not going, I’m not. I’m calling in sick.”

  And that’s what she feels about her whole life right now. Could she call in sick? Garnet prattles on and on, divulging intimacies that would no doubt make Wallace very uncomfortable, but everything as communicated by Garnet becomes funny. “Did you know that could happen to men?” says Garnet, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

  “No,” says Sarita, and they laugh like schoolgirls and only later does Garnet say, “I’m terrified of the baby coming. I’m terrified of blood and pain and you know I never knew my mother. And everyone says I look—and am built—just like her.”

  “You could get lucky,” says Sarita. “The baby could have Wallace’s head,” which comes to a point like a pencil and has been the subject of fun ever since Garnet met him. And Garnet laughs, but her terror is real. The sun cuts through the clear December air and floods the room, catching gold in Garnet’s hair. “Don’t worry, Gar. It will all be fine.”

  “Easy for you to say. Or say now.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “You had a shipboard romance.”

  “You can’t believe everything you hear.”

  “Unless it’s from Mabel.”

  Mabel is Garnet’s maid, who is good friends with the cook, who—having lived in Cuba—speaks Spanish and is friends with Paz. “I met an interesting man.”

  “He’s African.”

  “Not that interesting,” says Sarita.

  “You must be scared,” says Garnet.

  “Of what?” says Sarita.

  “I bet he’s an animal.”

  “Why?” says Sarita. “Because he was in Africa?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  But this is Garnet’s fantasy. Wallace is nice but boring. She whispers in Sarita’s ear. “It will be much larger than you think.”