We Five

by Mark Dunn

  “Who isn’t curious to know such a thing?” returned Molly. “But I cannot spare another moment. Mrs. Colthurst will wonder what has become of me.”

  “I will tell her you were helping me—that I sprained my foot and my basket was so heavily laden with vegetables and eggs that I simply could not hobble home without assistance.”

  “And that would be a falsehood. I do not tell falsehoods, Jemma—as a rule.”

  “As a rule, no. But as an exception, you have been known to dissemble without the tiniest scruple—such as the time when we were girls and found the kittens and their mother in my father’s barn and made a nice nest for them and brought little kitchen scraps for the mother each morning before school, because we knew she could not be both a successful mother and a successful mouser under the circumstances. We kept the secret together, did we not? For we both knew that Papa would drown the little ones if he should ever find out about them.”

  “That was an exceptional situation, Jemma. The lives of five kittens hung in the balance.”

  “But this is equally exceptional. My last reading was quite disconcerting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I cannot say. Not until we hear what the future holds for you by way of comparison.”

  Molly sighed cheerlessly. “Jemma, you’ve become tiresome.”

  “Do come. It’s very important.”

  “Yet you will not tell me why.”

  “I cannot. Not just yet.”

  Molly thought for a moment, her brow knitted in annoyance. “My dear cousin, there is a reason the children in our town make up little rhymes about you.”

  “I am different, I’ll admit. But this hardly resembles the times I climb the roof of my father’s cottage wearing wings fabricated from chicken feathers to fly myself off and away to London for the season.”

  “When did you do this?”

  “I’d rather not say,” replied Jemma, whilst brushing a chicken feather from the left gigot of her frock.

  “I will warrant, Jemma, that there are extremes to your behaviour, and by comparison this request does seem very nearly reasonable.” Molly sighed. “So let us go quickly to hear what the gispy woman says, and I should hope very much that she will not foretell how I am to be cashiered by Mrs. Colthurst for shirking my responsibilities at the shop.”

  Molly had never seen a woman so burdened by troubled thoughts as the scarf-headed Madame Louisa. Jemma responded to the old woman’s expression of worry by delivering soothing pats to her shawl-draped shoulders. Madame Louisa answered Jemma’s thoughtful enterprise by producing an appreciative glimmer of a near-toothless smile, which showed bravery in the face of apparent desolation.

  “It has happened again,” confided the old gipsy in a low tone. “Three times, in fact, since your last visit, Jemma.”

  “Three times out of how many?” asked Jemma. She was now patting the old woman with a much stronger hand, for it seemed required.

  “Out of three,” the woman answered glumly. “For after these I shut my door and locked it tight. I only admitted the two of you this morning for I have decided that I must have someone to whom to confess my fears. And they are dark and terrible fears, indeed.”

  “And how did the three react when they heard what the stars foretold for them?”

  “I confess—I could not bring myself to speak the truth as the cards conveyed it to me.” Madame Louisa took pause to blow her nose into her handkerchief and to dab at her tear-glistening eyes (and in that order, although a different order would have been tidier). “I told each of the three that which came most conveniently to mind, for if I had said what I actually saw upon the cards—what they had to say about the town at large—I should send them into a similar state of despondency, and I did not wish to be so cruel.”

  “And what did these new readings reveal?” asked Jemma, cringing in anticipation of the answer.

  “The same as was revealed for you, dear girl. The same, no doubt, as we should see if I were to lay out the cards for your young cousin. Which is why I will not do it, for this would make five, and what is already a certainty will only be a superfluity.”

  Jemma thought this over, whilst Molly sate quiet and confused and not wishing to intrude, for the look on the warty face of the old gipsy was frighteningly wretched, and she knew not what she could say to contribute aught of value to the interview. Finally, Jemma spoke: “Yet, perhaps, Madame Louisa, there is still the glimmer of a chance that if you will but deal the cards for Molly, they may speak only to her own circumstances and not to the fate of the town at large. Could that not be possible?”

  Madame Louisa considered the prospect as she drew a slice of apple from a plate set before her and popped it into her mouth. “Apple slice?” she said, proffering the plate to the two cousins.

  As the gipsy looked too much like the crone in the fairy story who offered the poison apple to Snow White, Molly declined with a shake of the head, though Jemma took a slice and bit into it appreciatively. Molly noted that Jemma was quite carefree and casual in her society with the gispy. Perhaps, thought Molly, the woman served as a preferential surrogate for Jemma’s mother, as Molly’s aunt was severe and uncommunicative and demonstrative of so little affection for her oldest daughter. And Jemma’s father was not very different in this respect from his wife. It was a home with little love within—or at least the kind of love with which Molly was most familiar: one which dwelt in sweet union betwixt her father and herself. In that moment, Molly felt a little sorry for Jemma. And who could not also feel sorry for the miserable Madame Louisa who wore pain upon her face in every corner and wrinkle?

  Subsequently, Molly was compelled to say, “Whether the reading should apply to me alone or to the town of Tulleford, I should like to know what the future holds. Perhaps we will be lucky and the spell will be broken and all will come out well in the end.”

  Madame Louisa turned to Jemma, her lips compressed with censorious displeasure. “What is this fool girl saying?”

  “She’s saying that she’d very much like to have her fortune told.”

  “Very well, then. We will all rue it. Yet I will do it.”

  The fortune was told through the laying down of the gnarled, colour-faded, dog-eared cards upon the rickety-legged deal table.

  And it was not good. Not good at all.

  But there was a small compensation. “Ah, this is most interesting,” said the gipsy, as she closely examined the cards she’d put down before her in the configuration of a cross. “At least we know now roughly when the tragedy will occur: in two weeks’ time. Or sometime thereabout.”

  “A tragedy? What manner of tragedy?” asked Molly, leaning forward in her chair.

  Madame Louisa did not lift her eyes from the cards. “We do not know the nature of that dire thing which is in store for the townspeople of Tulleford. We know only that it will occur. Many will be touched by it. Some—perhaps many—will die. This is the death card, you see—this centre card. Its propinquity to the cards above and below magnifies the portent. You will note that this aspect of the cards’ configuration has not changed in each of the five readings. It is the calendrical cards, which now appear—it is these which give us a fixed time frame for supposition.”

  Jemma shook her head with regret. “I should never have pushed you to read for Molly. You knew what to expect and I didn’t believe you.”

  Madame Louisa reached out first to stroke Jemma’s hand and then to give her another apple slice in consolation. “It is good that we’ve given the cards leave to speak once more, for as it turns out, they did have something else to say.”

  “Perhaps,” said Molly, wishing to be helpful, “if we were to read the cards yet again, further intelligence pertaining to the forthcoming tragedy—as you have put it—may be gleaned, and this would help us to better prepare for it.”

  The gipsy woman shook her head dismissively. “The cards have said all they intend to say. With the passage of a fortnight something most dread
ful will befall the town of Tulleford and everyone who lives herein. I advise the both of you to leave this place—go abroad for a period—to save yourselves from it. This I intend to do myself at my earliest convenience. That will be six pence, Jemma, and I should also like one of those stalks of celery from your basket, if you are willing.”

  It took not five minutes for Molly to change her thinking about what she had just heard and observed, and to change it in a most drastic fashion.

  “A fine thing,” bolted out Molly, as her cousin Jemma walked along with her to the dress shop, “having a laugh at my expense!”

  “What do you mean? Did you see either of us laughing?”

  “I detected a smirk on that old hag’s face as we left.”

  Jemma shook her head. “It was no smirk. She has a mouth tic. It cannot be helped.”

  “Stuff and nonsense! The two of you set all of this up to make the fool of me. I’m fortunate to have come to my senses as quickly as I did.”

  “It is no one’s good fortune that you have changed your mind about it,” said Jemma with a fretful look. “The thing was neither a joke nor a lark, for I should never be so heartless. You did at one point believe it; I saw it in your face. What I find difficult to contemplate, dear cousin, is the fact that you now do not.”

  “I will own she was good. Quite good—the both of you. Then when I stepped out into the bright light of day, I came straightaway to see through your comical scheme, as if I were waking from a terrible dream.”

  Jemma grew quiet as the two cousins walked along. Finally, she said, “Oh, Molly, I don’t think I should be able to bear it alone, knowing there isn’t a single person here in Tulleford—once Madame Louisa has fled—who knows what I know and dreads what I dread. The next two weeks will be so frightfully lonely and so frightfully frightening.”

  Molly stopped upon the spot. She put her hands together and applauded her cousin for what she perceived to be a fine performance. “Brava! Brava! But I cannot commend the little play entirely, cousin Jemma, for you have left out an important point of plot. Just what is supposed to happen? On this point the cards fall conveniently silent. At any rate, the curtain has come down, you’ve had your bit of fun for the morning, and there’s the end to it. Run along now, Jemma, and leave me to my terrible fate. You may go, if you wish, and climb once more to the roof of your family cottage and become a flying chicken. Mind you don’t forget to send me a letter upon your aerial arrival in London.”

  With that, Molly Osborne resumed her march, quickened her step, and left Jemma standing silent and quite unhappy on the side of the road.

  Molly was determined to think no more of all the nonsense that had delayed her return to the dress shop.

  Except that she could not help herself. After the curtains had been drawn, the candles snuffed out, and the darkness of the night had settled upon her bedchambers, she thought of it so much, in fact, that she did not sleep a wink. She pondered over what it might be—that most horrible thing from which she, like Madame Louisa, should flee in wild-eyed panic. And if she fled, what would become of her circle-sisters? What would be their fate?

  Nonsense! Nonsense!

  And yet.

  Chapter Twelve

  San Francisco, April 1906

  To Tom Katz, the agency account manager responsible for Pemberton, Day & Co.’s summer advertising campaign, fell the enjoyable task of deciding which of the most picturesque spots in Golden Gate Park would make the best backdrops for the full-page advertisement he wished to present in the guise of a photographic essay: “Tramping in Taffeta; Aestivating in Lace.” More to the point, it fell to Mr. Katz, assisted by his agency colleague Will Holborne, the delectable duty of deciding where the five young women who had won the modeling lottery might best show off Pemberton’s summer lines while showing themselves off to the five young men whose responsibility it was to shepherd and/or superintend them.

  To that end, both men, equipped with “slide in ‘n’ shoot” Hawkeye cameras, had visited the park a few days before. They had selected three sites for the all-day Friday photography session: the Dutch windmill, Sweeney Observatory at the top of Strawberry Hill, and the Japanese Tea Garden, with permission granted by the Stow Lake boathouse proprietor for use of one of its rooms for costume changing.

  The day of the “shoot” having now arrived, a casual bonhomie quickly developed between We Five and the ad-men, who either furtively or manifestly could not take their eyes off them. Miss Colthurst was pleased to see the day proceeding so smoothly and everyone getting along so well. Miss Dowell had remarked that the models had been chosen wisely. The manager of the Ladies’ Departments had agreed with her assistant, whom she had brought along with her to the photography session, and dismissed the murmuring plaints of the five rejected finalists back at the store that “something didn’t smell right.” (Although there was, to be sure, some truth behind this suspicion, since Miss Colthurst had made it clear to Katz whom her particular preferences had been, “for whatever my suggestions are worth.” A great deal, as it turned out.) During those periods in which Katz and Holborne went about setting stops and focal lengths, posing their subjects this way and that, and waiting for those moments that offered the most aesthetically illuminative marriages of sun and cloud, Molly found herself in comfortable colloquy with the youngest Katz agency ad-man, Pat Harrison. It was Harrison’s job to escort the models to and from the boathouse—but only after Miss Dowell, as dresser, gave each of We Five a last-minute prink and primp and “spin-around-once-more-for-me-dearie-thankyoueversomuch.”

  As for Carrie, she had spent a good part of the morning avoiding the interested gaze of Mr. Holborne, who, as often as not, was framing her most particularly in his photographic sights. He knew what she was doing and she knew what he was doing, and it became an amusing little game of wordless cat-and-mouse until Katz, taking notice, ordered his photographer to “knock it off.”

  Maggie, in the meantime, while changing from a blue and white shirtwaist and golf skirt into a pink, lace-sleeved tea gown, made a confession to her friend Jane, who was changing from striped shirtwaist and cloth skirt into a lavender silk house dress. She admitted that she very much liked the look of the one named Castle, whose job it was to keep onlookers out of camera range, which he did with such commanding and nearly martial authority that Maggie was given to tingle, admiringly, in his presence. “You may have your Mr. Castle,” confided Jane. “I’m far more interested in Mr. Katz, and have been since we first met last week. He’s quite the gentle general. Did you notice how deftly he arranged each of us upon the bridge above the waterfall—adjusting our arms and heads this way and that with such tender attentiveness?”

  “All I noticed,” returned Maggie with a sly smirk, “was a modern-day Pygmalion falling in love with his statue. But as for the rest of us, we were merely items of still life to be shifted and shoved about, with little show of respect at all.”

  “You’re being quite ridiculous, Mag. Although I’ll admit that Katz does seem just a little more interested in me than he is the rest of you.” Jane leaned in, addressing Maggie through the sheer fabric of her chemise, which she was in the process of lowering over her head and shoulders. “In fact, only moments ago he asked me to have dinner with him next week.”

  “And what did you say? Will you go?”

  “Of course I’ll go. A girl’s got to eat, doesn’t she? And I can’t think of any finer company—I mean, of course, company of a different gender.” Having answered Maggie’s question frankly, Jane turned to Miss Dowell, who was serving as human clotheshorse, Jane’s silk dress draped at the ready over her arm. “Miss Dowell, these clothes reek of benzine!”

  “It cannot be helped, Miss Higgins. The agency wanted them crisp and clean for the photography session. But I sympathize fully, my dear. I am nearly to the point of asphyxiation myself.”

  The tall, spectacled member of the Katz contingent wandered through the morning accoutered with pencil and pad, taking note
s from which he would draw inspiration for the advertising copy that would accompany the photographs. Ruth followed him about at what she thought was a safe and respectful distance until that point at which he finally decided to engage her, and in doing so discovered she too was a writer (of sorts—hence her fascination with his peripatetic scribbling) and took the opportunity to solicit her opinion as to what in the world could be said about five young women standing before a very Low Country–looking windmill, themselves looking not very Low Country at all in their tasteful drawing-room lounging garments—looking, in point of fact, like the very young women they could not help being: five modern female residents of the very modern American city of San Francisco.

  “It’s certainly a conundrum,” admitted Ruth. “I thought the same thing while Mr. Katz was posing me—that a bucolic windmill was an incongruous thing to place within a city park. To my knowledge, Central Park in New York hasn’t a single one.”

  Cain Pardlow nodded. “If Katz had been smart, he would have jettisoned the windmill and jettisoned Strawberry Hill—everyone’s so tired of pictures from that blasted hill—as if San Francisco hasn’t got hills and lovely scenic views in dozens of other places—and limited our pictorial presentation to the Japanese garden alone.”

  Ruth smiled. “But wouldn’t we have found ourselves in a similar fix? I mean similar to our situation with the windmill. My fellow models and I don’t look very Dutch, but then again, we don’t look all that Oriental either.”

  “True,” said Cain. “But Miss Colthurst has an idea which Katz also subscribes to, of putting the five of you—at least for one of the photographs—into summer kimonos. She says that Mr. Pemberton really wants to push the store’s new line of silk kimono-style wrappers, and the setting is perfect for that purpose.”

  “Yes, that may very well work, so long as we don’t look as if we just tumbled out of bed. I’ve never seen a woman in a kimono who didn’t appear a little, well, frowzy.”