Wild Wind Westward

by Vanessa Royall

  “I didn’t pay attention to my father,” Gustav went on, speaking very slowly, and doubling the belt, “and so I learned my lesson the hard way. Exactly as you must now learn yours.”

  He advanced toward her, raising and swinging the belt.

  “I’ll scream,” she told him, in a level voice.

  He grinned. “I’ve already given money to the hotel personnel who service this floor.”

  “But there are people in the adjacent suites.”

  “Not now. They are downstairs in the dining room, preparing to dine on a feast I have arranged. After you have been sufficiently chastised, you and I shall also descend, and there you will be as perfect and irreproachable as today with Gunnarson you were perfidious and unclean.”

  “You don’t dare to strike me,” she cried, lifting her chin.

  “You shall see what I dare to do. Now you get the beating you ought to have had as soon as we left Lesja. And hereafter I shall have you watched at all times.”

  “No,” she said, her heart sinking. She was not thinking of his belt. She was thinking of Eric. How could she ever flee to him if Gustav had her watched all the time?

  “Lie down on the bed,” he said, “on your stomach.”

  Kristin looked at the bed, looked at him. Then she decided. If he wanted to beat her, let him fight to do it.

  She leaped from the bed and sprang at him, fingers curled and nails ready. He swung the belt with one hand, fended her off with the other. A streak of fire burned across her right hip, but she felt the flesh of his hot neck in her fingers. His thick forearm blocked her assault partially, but he gave a little startled yelp when her fingernails went deep for blood. This would not do. Already his face was scarred, and he was wearing a most unsightly bandage. Downstairs his guests were gathering. He could not meet them with yet further wounds. But this wife of his, whose beauty so entranced him; whose detachment so maddened him, she needed punishment! Why, if those great people of New York now circling around his table in the dining room, if they but knew Kristin had been out driving about in a carriage with an outcast commoner of their homeland, what would they think?

  Kristin had grabbed hold of the belt now, and was trying to pull it away from him. He jerked it hard, and she spun, off balance, onto the floor. He brought the belt down hard across her lovely shoulders, and she shivered but did not cry out. He hit her again, and she sneered at him.

  “Go ahead,” she taunted. “But remember, this is not Norway and you are not great here. You will see.”

  Gustav, the belt lifted to strike again, hesitated.

  “What do you know about it?” he asked. “Greatness is where greatness goes.”

  She laughed at him, in spite of his strength and her pain.

  To Gustav, parvenu that he was, scornful laughter was the ultimate weapon. He could not bear it, especially from Kristin, whose beauty was ever a weapon in itself. Suddenly he was on the floor beside her, trying to take her into an embrace.

  “I shall not strike you again, ever,” he promised.

  “That is the truth,” she vowed quietly.

  “It was just that I was so agitated to see that murdering coward here in the city, and you having traffic with him. Moreover, the driver told me you and he went for a long drive. Thank God he could not ravish you in a carriage!”

  He tried to hold her again, but she pushed him away.

  “Kristin!” He was hurt now, but growing angry again. Oh, how powerless he was emotionally when he had to deal with her, think about her.

  “What did you mean?” he asked coldly. “What did you mean, coming out of the hotel, saying, ‘Eric, I have it!’”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Gunnarson will be captured, you know, sent back to Norway, and hanged.”

  “That I don’t believe.”

  “How did he know where you were staying? How did he know…?”

  “He is a very intelligent man,” she told him, looking straight into his eyes. Gustav’s basic uncertainty about Eric was a weapon for her.

  Gustav could not bear such praise for his enemy. He had already been wondering where and by what means a lowly Gunnarson had come to have such a great coach, such fine clothes. Was it possible that Gunnarson had risen in America? Had come to great station and power? No, he could not countenance such an idea. That was not the way the world worked!

  “Come now, my darling,” he said, getting up, offering his hand to help her to her feet. “We have had a falling out, as sometimes happens between the best of husbands and wives.”

  “You have struck me, and I shan’t forget it.”

  “Yes, you shall. This is a new, grand adventure for us. We will be rich and more powerful than even I have dreamed. We will have children.”

  Kristin, getting to her feet without his aid, now realized that, in making love with Eric this morning, she had not used her formula of frankincense, olive oil, and oil of cedar. She had not thought to use it, and had not thought about it afterward either. Everything had seemed natural, perfect, preordained.

  “I shall have no child of yours,” she vowed. “No matter what. How often you have tried! But it must be something in my body, or my spirit, inimical to your seed.”

  “Do not say that.”

  “I have already said it.”

  Gustav stood there, powerful but powerless, angry but hurt, a conqueror yet all undone. Someday he would manage to interpret and explain this woman. Someday he would make her totally his, tame her, blot out from her mind even a fleeting trace of the memory of her plowboy lover. But now time was running, and guests waited.

  “You need not come down to dinner with me,” he said. “Affairs of business will be discussed, and you would not find them interesting.”

  “No, husband,” Kristin replied. She believed it was important to know as much about Gustav’s affairs as she could. The knowledge might be valuable someday. But she did not wish to tell him this. “I shall go mad if I must dine in this hotel room. Anything is preferable.”

  Even your company, she thought.

  Kristin was not without respect regarding her husband’s instinct for and talent in self-promotion. Prior to his leaving Norway, his many letters had put him into contact with a great number of New York’s most powerful men. Gustav was bringing to America the financial backing of Lord Soames, and that was excellent backing indeed. It made Gustav far more than just a legitimate entrepreneur; it made him a prospective mercantile prince. And, if he succeeded, could he not help others on the way up?

  This evening, for the entertainment of his guests and potential allies, Gustav had hired the grand ballroom in the Madison Hotel. The dance floor shone like glass, reflecting the thousand lights on three great chandeliers that hung on huge silver chains from the ornate ceiling, forty feet above. Tables circled the ballroom floor, covered with sparkling white linen, glimmering crystal, and the finest gold plate. Gustav had spared no expense. Nor would his guests find wanting the crabmeat canapés, the lobster, the new asparagus, or the tenderloin of beef. Cases of French Champagne had been acquired to lend spirit to the evening, to titillate palates and stimulate wits.

  Gustav held Kristin’s hand tightly as he moved from guest to guest before the dinner commenced, giving the appearance that he and his sweet wife were also the closest of lovers, but actually—Kristin thought—to assure that she would not somehow find a way to escape, duck out of his life forever, and be gone. She found herself introduced to the Astors, the Lands, Sydney Vanderbilt, the Wainwrights, the Westmorelands, a funny-looking little man named Carnegie, a handsome couple named Van Santen, and another odd duck, unaccompanied, whose name was Percy Phipps.

  “He is an artist of some sort,” Gustav whispered. “Did you see how he stared at you?”

  Kristin had noticed. Percy Phipps’s stare had been almost reverent.

  “Well, don’t worry.” Gustav snickered. “Mr. Phipps is not i
nterested in women in any direct sense.”

  “Rather like Lord Soames’s friends, Rob and Pierre and Vitas? Is that what you mean, husband?”

  Gustav colored deeply, stammering, “It…it was something I…I had to do…”

  By the time dinner was served, Kristin was actually enjoying herself. The handsome people in their fine suits and gowns, the splendid ballroom, and a few glasses of champagne had put out of her mind the sordid struggle with Gustav, had enhanced the wondrous union with Eric in the morning. Then, too, the American men were being very gallant and solicitous, and little Percy Phipps hovered adoringly, although he had as yet been too shy to speak to her.

  When they were seated, the Rolfsons shared a table with Mr. Phipps, the Van Santens—Hector and Isabel—and beaming, bandy-legged little Carnegie, who looked so benign and inconsequential in this assemblage that Kristin wondered what he was doing there at all. Hector Van Santen seemed thoroughly upright and sober, but Isabel was bright and effervescent. She was also ravishing: a tall girl with deep breasts, long legs, and the most luscious red hair Kristin had ever seen.

  “How was your crossing, darling?” she asked Kristin.

  “Uneventful. But the weather was excellent.”

  “The North Atlantic can be difficult at the best of times.”

  “Do you sail often?”

  “Far less than I would like. We were in Paris last year, and London two years ago. But lately the war has hampered travel, and besides, Horace has been so much involved in business.”

  The men, except for Percy Phipps, were already discussing tariffs earnestly.

  “What business is your husband in?”

  “He supplies coal and iron ore for Mr. Carnegie.”

  Kristin shot a glance in the direction of the beaming little man. To her surprise, watching him talk about commerce, she found his eye hard and shrewd.

  Her own surprise must have been evident, for Isabel laughed delightedly. “Many mistake what he is,” she whispered, “which is probably the richest and quite likely the most ruthless businessman in America.”

  Isabel gave Kristin a long look, then a glance of scrutiny and examination, as if trying to decide something.

  “Not that many people yet understand how important oil will be,” Hector Van Santen was saying. “I have a feeling that he who controls oil will control the future of business in America for the next fifty years.”

  “No, it’s steel,” Carnegie maintained, championing the enterprise in which he had risen to wealth and prominence. “Steel is king, and shall always be.”

  “I have done much study on oil,” said Gustav, making an attempt to appear modest and thoughtful, “and I would say there is a future in it. Has either of you gentlemen”—he ignored Phipps entirely—“visited the region around Titusville, Pennsylvania, where the first oil wells are being worked?”

  Hector Van Santen shook his head. “My men have,” Carnegie said. “It is primitive. Production is minimal, and no one has as yet determined how best to refine the crude, or, more importantly, how to bring it here to the eastern markets.”

  “Anyone specializing in that problem as yet?” inquired Gustav, seeming only mildly interested.

  “The business is too new,” said Van Santen. “No one knows where it will go.”

  “There is a man in Cleveland who visits the oil fields regularly,” Carnegie added. “A young man. Rockefeller by name. But he has little money, and cannot hope to do much. He is, at present, clerk in a produce house in Cleveland.”

  “Clerk in a produce house!” Van Santen guffawed.

  “But my men tell me he is very determined about oil,” Carnegie said.

  Gustav stored the name Rockefeller in his memory, remembered his manners, and turned toward Mr. Phipps.

  “I am told that you are a very fine artist,” he remarked in an oily manner which implied that art of any kind was suspect at best and worthless at worst.

  “If that is what you have heard, I am pleased,” said Phipps shyly.

  Isabel Van Santen came to his defense. “Percy is the greatest portrait artist America has yet produced,” she maintained. “It is only a matter of time until his talent is recognized by all the world.”

  “I should settle for recognition here in my own country,” said Phipps, his eyes on Kristin again. “But it is more than a matter of time. It is also a question of the perfect subject.”

  “And you have found such a subject?” Isabel prompted, her eyes going from Phipps to Kristin and back again.

  “I think I have,” the painter murmured shyly.

  Gustav caught the drift of the conversation. “You want to do Kristin?” He was pleased. “Why, by all means!”

  He was thinking that sitting for the portrait would give Kristin something to do. He was thinking that a portrait by a competent artist—he did not imagine that Phipps could be very good; the man was simply not strong enough to be good—would add luster to the Rolfson reputation.

  “Would that be all right with you, Madame Rolfson?” Phipps asked.

  Gustav interrupted. “I make her decisions,” he announced, not harshly, but with a kind of amused arrogance that made his comment all the more blatantly offensive. He did not notice this, however. “Yes, you may do the portrait. It will afford her some entertainment, I am sure. We men must look out to keep our women amused, is that not so?” he demanded of Hector and Carnegie, who murmured and smiled neutrally.

  They went back to discussions of business as the dinner progressed, course after succulent course. An orchestra began to play quietly at one end of the ballroom; there would be dancing later. Phipps studied Kristin even more closely now. “I shall do a wonderful likeness of you,” he promised shyly. “But I fear my studio does not have the light required for the effect I wish to create.”

  “And what effect is that, Mr. Phipps?” Isabel asked.

  Phipps smiled for the first time that evening. On any other person it would have been a smile of holy exuberance. He was too restrained to show his excitement, but it was there.

  “She is a goddess!” he cried. “You see the beauty! Everyone can see the beauty! But beneath, oh, beneath, there is steel of such strength even Mr. Carnegie has not dreamed. Yes, she is a blond Viking goddess.”

  He gestured indeterminately, unable to describe in words what he meant to do with paint and brush and canvas.

  “I have a suggestion,” Isabel offered. “Why don’t you use my home for the sittings? You know, Percy? The sitting room next to the garden? I’m sure it would be…”

  “Splendid,” agreed the little artist.

  “How long will you be stopping here at the Madison?” Isabel asked.

  “I do not know,” answered Kristin, with a slight edge to her voice. “My husband makes all such decisions.”

  Isabel smiled. She understood. “I think we should have a long talk very soon,” she said. “A private talk. I believe I might be able to help you…in certain things.”

  Kristin smiled gratefully.

  Later, when they were dancing, Gustav could not contain his excitement. “I’m going to get in on the ground floor of the oil business,” he boasted. “Even Carnegie has no idea of the millions to be made. I shall take these American businessmen and stand them on their heads!”

  “But what about this man they mentioned? Rocking-fellow? It seems to me that he is laying some groundwork of his own.”

  “Rockefeller? A clerk in a produce company? Don’t be absurd. It is a pity that a man of my standing must do business with such low-caliber people. But Hector and Andrew”—how quickly Gustav had assumed familiarity—“have convinced me that the man knows more, theoretically, about oil than anyone in this wild country. So I…we shall journey by rail to this city of Cleveland. I shall take Rockefeller’s measure, and use him for as long as I need. He requires money, they say. I have money. Yes, my darling, it will all be easy now.”

  “Just as you say, husband.”

  He ignored her detachment t
his time, and drew her close to him. She could feel his excitement, and suppressed a shudder.

  “Soon the dance will be over. I will take you into bed, and give you delight that will make you forget the mischance that befell us earlier today.”

  Danger. The musk of Eric was still on her body, within her body.

  “I am regretful, husband. But it is the wrong time.”

  Gustav looked disappointed, but only briefly. “Let me make a vow,” he said, holding her to him more tightly still. “Let me vow that this is the last such time you shall have for many months. Nine, at least. If it does not…proceed, I think it will be time that a doctor examined you. I want my son now, so that he may grow as my American empire grows.”

  “Yes, husband,” Kristin said.

  Even though she was traveling with Gustav, Kristin was having a marvelous time.

  They left New York by locomotive on May 3, 1863, striking northwest toward a city called Buffalo that, Gustav told her, was almost five hundred wilderness miles away. There they would change to a steamship, and go farther west on Lake Erie, until they reached Cleveland. New York had been thrilling to Kristin, but that excitement was surpassed once the train left the city behind and headed out over the vast, green countryside. Born and bred in the mountains of Norway, Kristin at first could not believe that the earth was this rich, this vast. What a country! Did it ever end? For a long while the train rocked along the broad Hudson, then cut westward across the Appalachians, so green and dark they evoked for her memories of stories about past centuries, the forest-heavy darkness, with brigands in the trees, sojourners far from home, adventure behind every trunk, every bush, or leaf. Then, beyond the mountains, rolling westward, ever westward, were vast fields at which farmers worked, planting their crops.

  She wished that Eric were with her, seeing this! What a paradise! Was Pennsylvania, too, like this? Perhaps it was better still.

  At each stop, when the train halted to take on water and wood, by which the engine was fueled, Kristin, in her fine European traveling clothes, climbed down out of the coach—always under Gustav’s watchful eye—and eagerly sought conversation with the people. They looked askance at first, those country people seeing for the first time a beauty like Kristin, descending like a dream from private car to country backwater, but they saw in a moment that she was extraordinarily delighted to be there, to be talking to them.