Decorum (38 page)

“Sounds fair,” said the gentleman. “And
when I
win, you must come for two months and stay with me at my house in London and must make the rounds of every ball, banquet, and social event the season has on offer.”

The room was still. All eyes moved from Sándor to the gentleman to Connor and back again.

“You will make the introductions,” said Sándor to Connor, “purely as a disinterested party, of course.”

“Of course,” said Connor, relieved at being accorded no greater role.

Finally, Sándor stretched across the table and offered his hand.

“Done,” he said as their hands clasped.

“And done,” said the gentleman.

 

Francesca had avoided all company since breakfast, when the telegram arrived, and had not even taken Vinnie and Esther into her confidence. The better part of the morning was gone before she realized that all her energy had been expended in private tears while Blanche knew nothing. She summoned strength to scribble the note and ring for a boy. He had not come back. He must have found her. Blotchy redness looked back at Francesca in the mirror, but she bathed her face and arranged her hair.

Francesca and Blanche had been saved the angst and embarrassment of direct confrontation and had negotiated public meetings with civility. Their common past held them together in a vise grip while it slashed an enormous chasm between them. Yet Francesca had never really known Blanche. Since Edmund Tracey’s arrest, everyone had been anxious that they should never meet until the law’s proceedings had reached their dismal end. Judging by the newspapers’ near beatification of Francesca, she could only assume that their sensationalist portrayal of Blanche was equally fantastic. In spite of all they shared—or perhaps because of it—Francesca felt compassion toward Blanche while being sensible that compassion can easily humiliate and render best intentions pitiable.

Blanche arrived at the appointed time. Her brisk knock at the door seemed impatient, eager to be done with whatever it might be. Francesca let May answer. Blanche watched as the maid left the suite on some errand, a signal that this interview would indeed be private. Her eyes betrayed a touch of amusement as she relaxed into an easy stance.

“Mrs. Wilson,” said Francesca. “Won’t you sit down?”

Francesca gestured toward the settee. Blanche glanced around a room void of hospitality. The civility of tea had seemed somehow out of place, and stronger refreshment, were it needed, was well within reach.

“Thank you.”

Blanche took a thousand years to cross the room and a hundred more to sit down. She fumbled in her pocket and pulled from it a small gold cigarette case, opened it, and offered it to Francesca.

“No, thank you. I don’t smoke.”

“Pity,” said Blanche as she drew out a cigarette. She looked around for a lighter.

“Allow me,” said Francesca, retrieving matches from the mantelshelf. She drew one out, struck it, and held it while Blanche put the cigarette to her lips and leaned forward to light it. She drew heavily and threw her head back. A jet of smoke shot from the corner of her lips and over her shoulder.

“I’ll come to the point, if I may,” said Francesca.

Blanche considered Francesca before she answered, and then said, “By all means.”

“I’m so sorry there is no easier way to do this.” Francesca returned to the mantelshelf, took a telegram that was leaning against a little porcelain vase of mountain wildflowers, and stood for a moment, holding it and looking at Blanche.

“This came this morning from New York.” She held the telegram toward Blanche. “I wanted you to know as soon as possible. I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else. I’m sorry I couldn’t think of a better way.”

Blanche took the telegram and stared at the addressee, as if the gift of penetrating sight could burn her vision through the paper and draw out its contents without opening it. She dropped her hand that held the unopened telegram to her lap.

“I have yet to communicate the contents to anyone else. I’ll leave you alone. Please take as much time as you need. It’s no trouble.”

As she opened the door, she glanced back long enough to see Blanche’s face drain of color as she turned her gaze from Francesca to the telegram.

 

Connor was having coffee on the terrace with Mrs. West when a hotel messenger interrupted them and handed him a note summoning him at once to meet Francesca in a private parlor. Never in their communications had Francesca used the word
urgently.
He excused himself to Ida. As he crossed the lobby he glimpsed Francesca and quickened his step so that he followed her into the parlor almost before she could shut the door.

“Thank you for coming,” she said in a low voice.

The look of her frightened him. He thought he had seen all her moods—anger, despondency, grace, and calm—though somewhere in the back of his mind he could not recall a hearty laugh. He chided himself for thinking of laughter when she looked so pale and was clearly in some perturbation of spirit. Maybe the extreme made him think of laughter. Now that he was seeing her extreme grief, he hoped that laughter was not far off.

“What’s happened?” he replied without ceremony. “Have you been crying?”

Her eyes pleaded with his for a moment, then she looked away.

“Edmund’s gone.”

Before he could think what to say, her knees gave way and she crumpled against him. As she gave a little cry, he pulled her to her feet and guided her to the settee, where he set her down and himself next to her and held her. He leaned against the back and felt her whole weight rest against him. Her frame contracted with every sob.

Her crying gave him time to think. So, why him? Why was she not alone in her room, or pouring out her feelings to Vinnie or Esther? Perhaps it was not sympathy she sought. Sympathy could be damnable. That she could be so thoughtless as to choose him at this particular crisis only drove home to him her distress. Francesca would be mortified to think she had caused anyone discomfort. Besides, if they were to have any kind of life together, he should wish that she could come to him for any reason. He may not have chosen this one, but he acknowledged that in choosing Francesca he was relinquishing his right to choose for what reason she might come to him. Her grief was the issue, not its cause. If detachment and not sympathy was what she needed, he would supply it.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, he hardly noticed when her sobs subsided and her breathing had become calm. She lay against him, her ear to his chest, her hair brushing his face. His deep sigh seemed to bring her to herself and she sat up and without looking at him blotted her face with the thick folded handkerchief he offered her. He waited.

“Jerry sent a telegram this morning—it arrived at breakfast time.” She blew her nose. “I’m sorry to be making such a fuss.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “What did it say?”

“Something about ‘No appeal. Auburn business concluded. Letter to follow. I’m sorry.’ Auburn was where it was to take place.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Only Blanche.”

“Blanche?” He frowned. “Oh, yes. Of course. Blanche had to be told.”

“I was afraid one of her New York connections might tell her in some ghastly way. I wanted her to have some privacy at least. She’s in my room now—or was. I left her there with the telegram and came to find you. Are you sorry I did?”

“That you told Blanche? Or that you found me?” He sat forward, took her hand, held it briefly, and with a squeeze he let it go. “Never mind, I’m glad of both.”

He sensed that she was not finished. He waited for her to signal in some way that their interview was over.

“Connor, I’m sorry about this—all of it.”

“All of what?”

“I feel as if I’m the cause of so much unhappiness—”

“Nonsense.”

“No, please listen. Please understand that it isn’t just regret over Edmund.” She gazed at her own hands and worked the handkerchief between them. “It’s that all this unhappiness, all this desperation was so unnecessary, so wasteful. I’m as culpable as anyone. I go over and over in my head how I might have said or done something differently, how I might have chosen a path that might have had a different outcome.”

She paused. He wanted to speak, but checked himself and watched her face. She swallowed hard and he thought another torrent might be coming, but she was calm.

“I also think about what you said about having no regrets. I don’t know if I can do that. At least not now, not for a while. I don’t want regret to haunt me, to follow me into whatever decisions I should make in the future, Connor. But I’d be lying to you if I said that I expect the future to be easy, that I could simply show regret the door.”

When she finally looked up into his face, he realized how greatly he had been caught off guard. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Connor?”

Though he had never known her eyes to be anything but frank and open, they now bore through him as if to grasp some part of his being and hold it firmly. It dawned on him that in holding him thus, he was glimpsing what a life of commitment to her would mean. At its heart this was not about Edmund Tracey at all. She was not simply asking him to be honest with her, but to be honest with himself.

“Deceit and selfishness have wrought all this misery. Until deceit and selfishness are shown the door, regret can’t follow—and forgiveness can’t enter. Do you understand?”

He took his time and let himself feel her uncomfortable scrutiny.

“Yes, Frankie, I believe I’m beginning to.”

Francesca sighed and sat up straight. She reached a hand up to her hair and felt for hairpins and combs, more from habit than necessity, he thought.

“I’d better go and find Blanche,” she said.

“She may not want to see you.”

“Then I’ll let her tell me. I’d rather let her know that she doesn’t have to be alone if she doesn’t want to be.”

“Do as you wish,” he said. “I must go and find Ida. She’ll be wondering what’s happened to me.”

Connor stood and offered his hand to help her to her feet.

“I’ll treat this confidentially, of course,” he said as they made for the door.

“I doubt that Mrs. West will have heard about Edmund in any case.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Connor. “It’s surprising what she manages to glean along the way. She’s not a busybody but she does like to know things.”

“I leave that to your discretion,” said Francesca.

“Will you come to luncheon with us?” he asked in a tone that suggested he expected a negative.

She hesitated. “I think not, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” he said. “I’m glad you sent for me. Truly. I hope you know I’m at your disposal at any time.”

“Yes, I do know that. Thank you.”

 

Blanche had indeed left Francesca’s suite. The telegram was on the settee. May was at work in the bedchamber. A fire was burning in the grate. Francesca took the telegram, tossed it into the fire, and watched the letters of the script turn deep black and then glow white against the graying paper before it broke into ashes and died. She shuddered.

She undertook a modest toilette and changed her blouse before she sought out Blanche and tried to think what she would say upon finding her. An automaton in Francesca’s form walked down three corridors before she came to Blanche’s room and knocked on the door. A reluctant step approached, then seemed to turn and walk away.

“Blanche,” said Francesca through the door. “Blanche, please. It’s Francesca.”

The steps came back and the door opened a hand’s breadth.

“Please, Blanche, let me in for just a moment. Then I’ll leave you alone if you want.”

Blanche said nothing, but opened the door wide and stepped aside to let Francesca pass, but she stayed planted at the door and left it ajar, her hand still on the knob. Francesca saw her own grief mirrored in Blanche’s face.

“I won’t insult you by asking how you are,” Francesca began. “I came to see if you’d like to have some lunch with me in my suite,” she said, taking Connor’s last offer as a cue. “No doubt that sounds like utter gall to you, but there it is.”

“I don’t think I cou . . .” Blanche began, looking at the floor.

“Don’t be silly. Neither of us should be alone and both of us should eat. We needn’t say anything to each other if we don’t feel like it. Besides, it causes gossip to drink alone.”

“I’m afraid I’m already ahead of you,” said Blanche, nodding toward the decanter and glass on a side table.

“I didn’t mean you,” said Francesca. “I meant me. Let’s get something to eat.”

C
HAPTER
47

The brilliant late morning sunshine flooded the Bow Valley in a golden glow. Wildflowers tossed in the light breeze as if turning each side to luxuriate in the strong rays. The crystalline river bubbled and rushed and surged through its rocky trough.

To distract herself, Blanche bent her energies to her work and had persuaded Sándor Király to walk with her down to the town. How a man with such a small frame could achieve such long strides she attributed to the hiking and climbing that dominated his waking hours. He strode out about a half a pace ahead of her and, to her great annoyance, carried on their conversation over his shoulder.

“Why won’t you let me record your exploits here in Banff?” she asked, trying to control her exasperation. “I’m sure my readers in New York would adore learning about mountaineering.”

A story—better yet a series—on exploration of any kind would go far in stemming the flood of telegrams from New York demanding a story with guts. With exploration and the conquest of unknown parts the current rage, Sándor Krisztián Filip Király seemed heaven-sent. Though he loved to talk about climbing with those who shared his passion, she was doubtful whether his patience could withstand the pumping for minutiae her stories would require. With scenery aplenty to fill in the blank spaces of her mountaineering knowledge she might captivate an ordinary reader’s attention, but scenery soon would wear thin with her editor. Hitherto Király’s conversations with her had been less than enthusiastic—though whether from her lack of knowledge, her true lack of interest, or the fact that she was a woman, she could not tell. He always seemed to taunt her—no, not taunt her. He challenged her, as if he knew what fears lay behind her defenses and was happy to use a walking stick or an ice axe to batter them down.

“You would become so well-known to all of New York society,” offered Blanche.

“I have been to New York and have seen your ‘society’. I am already well-known where it is important to me. I can get into the papers without your help if I want to.”

“Well, pardon me,” said Blanche, offended. “It may not matter to you, sir, but did it ever occur to you that there may be some people who, for whatever reason, are unable to share in adventure except by reading about it? That is one of the many things the
New York World
promises its readers.”

She was casting her journalistic bread upon a frozen lake. She could almost predict where his remarks were headed and she did not like it.

“Yes, I read about your Nellie Bly,” he said, “a very resourceful woman.”

She’s not
my
Nellie Bly,
thought Blanche. Blanche, however, had shown no scruple in using Nellie Bly’s example to hammer home her argument with the
World
’s editor to give her a job. What could boost the
World
’s sales more effectively than to have another enterprising woman to ferret out stories in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies? Even as the words left her mouth she hadn’t a clue what those stories might be, but she had confidence that inspiration would strike once she got there.

The editor, Julius Chambers, had been dubious. Other women had proposed a variety of stunts and expeditions—staged at the paper’s expense, of course—and had been promptly dismissed. Blanche’s notoriety had gotten his attention. The Ryder murder? Intimately acquainted with the killer himself? Already possessed entrée into society? Traveled widely? Lived in South America? Though her qualifications shot her to the top of the list of female candidates—and the paper was hardly squeamish about scandal—Chambers was not sure that even Blanche’s publicity was of a type that would help the
World.
Why not let her write under her maiden name? she suggested. By the time a reader might equate Blanche Wilson with Blanche Alvarado, she would have brought home the goods and the additional publicity would do her no harm. The ability to persuade, seduce, bully, and brazen her way through the last ten years were qualifications she preferred not to catalogue in his presence, but she used them all, short of seduction. Blanche had herself a job on condition that she could produce a story that would make Nellie Bly but a distant memory.

“Are you not as resourceful as she?” asked Sándor.

Another challenge.

“Certainly I am,” said Blanche. “I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t.”

“Good, then perhaps you should come along.”

“Come along? You mean with you? Up the mountain?”

“Yes,” was his matter-of-fact reply. “What could be better than a first-hand account of a female reporter who has climbed the Canadian Rockies?”

For a moment, Blanche’s resolve failed her as she gazed at the peaks that surrounded the Bow Valley. Very well. If he would push her, she would push back.

“Rockies—plural?” she asked.

Blanche took three steps to Király’s two and faced him, halting him before her.

“Are you expecting to climb your way to Vancouver?”

“Perhaps,” he said, standing at ease and casually holding his walking stick at both ends. “However, it is not my reputation that is in question here.”

“I beg your par—”

“How can you claim to write about mountain climbing when all you’ve done is view them from a safe distance? Do you think I will sit on top of a peak and write down for you everything I see—every bird or wildflower or bit of lichen that sticks to a bit of rock, knowing you are sitting by a warm fire at the Springs while I do all the work?”

“When I came to Banff I expected to write about society,” said Blanche, her indignation rising, “not the exploits of some arrogant Hungarian adventurer.”

“Then perhaps you should stick to society. You will have no further need of me.” He went around her and proceeded along the path.

“You have proved one thing already,” he called over his shoulder.

“And what might that be?” Blanche called to his back.

“That you are afraid of a little discomfort, of being on horseback day after day—in any weather—and perhaps fishing for your dinner or shooting it and preparing it on the spot.”

Afraid? What gall even to suggest it. Blanche silenced the retort on her lips. No, it wasn’t fear, only a sickening distaste. The prospect of unending days on the trail conjured up ghosts she thought were long since laid to rest. The interminable weeks of struggle over the Argentine plateaus and into the mountains, through wilderness as beautiful and unforgiving as any on earth, and privations, cold, and hunger reared up before her like a ghastly specter. She had survived the humiliation of her husband’s suicide and ruin and her flight from creditors in lawless country, entering remote village after remote village, bartering away her few possessions for bread, risking starvation on days when hunting for game failed, depending on her few friends to form the tenuous lifeline over South America. Even when she reached the relative safety of New Orleans, what she had to do to keep herself alive was sooner forgotten.

How could she tell Király all this—that in her own way she had probably covered more of the earth’s map in her escape than he ever had in all his adventures? More than once she thought she might die of exposure and she had eaten things that Sándor Király probably couldn’t look at. Was it any wonder that she should prefer the warmth and luxury of the Banff Springs Hotel, drinking champagne, and rubbing shoulders with all manner of society? How could she explain what it had cost her to transform herself from a fugitive into the refined, womanly image she thought would be the making of her? She thought of the toilette case in her room, full of the unguents of deception, and what she might revert to on the trail without them. In traveling through the mountains with Király she risked reliving the most painful episode of her life.

Blanche came to herself and was aware of Király’s scrutiny. No doubt her silence had arrested his attention as much as her words. He had stopped and turned and was again at his ease, but he was watching her.

O’Casey had warned her often that she was not good at hiding her thoughts and feelings. She hoped that she had caught herself in time to erase whatever veil of pain her eyes might reveal. She looked at the mountains again and tried to assume an aspect of calm. When she looked back at Király, she felt as if the whole of her character and experience had been laid bare. His look startled her until she realized that in it was no judgment—no reprimand as O’Casey would have shown her—only knowing.

“If you are afraid of what you will look like in the morning,” he said as if to divert her attention from her own true thoughts, “no doubt you will have heavier concerns than these. I don’t look so good myself, if that gives you any comfort—and I am—how do you call it?—grouchy, and not fit to speak to until I’ve had my coffee. If you should forget this, I should certainly remind you with my grouchy-making.”

He crossed the few feet of ground that separated them and smiled and considered her for a moment.

“You are not afraid of grouchy men, I think,” he said more softly, but still with the edge of challenge in his voice. “I can assure you that though I may be grouchy, I am conscious that others are not to blame for my grouchiness. I simply find the mornings to be a more contemplative time and am apt to resent any intrusion into the quiet inner sanctum. I realize other persons are not so and enjoy the vigor of the morning and can be quite loud about it. Even in the mountains, however, I try to observe the decorum of a gentleman, though you understand there will be times when our safety may depend on my judgment or that of my guides not being contradicted. No, in truth, I think there is not very much you would be afraid of.

“I will make the
New York World
a proposal that may perhaps help them to forget their Nellie Bly for a moment,” he said, his tone changing to business.

Blanche threw another barricade of protest before him, however easily he might see that it was made of straw.

“Oh, yes? And will you be looking for backing from the
World?
”

“Not at all. I’m perfectly capable of backing my proposal, though you yourself will need clothing and equipment for which you may wish to acquire from your paper the necessary funds. No, I’m not here to make money off your newspaper.”

“That will be a refreshing change for them,” said Blanche, finding it an effort to restrain her sarcasm.

“I propose for you a big story,” he continued, and with both hands sketched the gesture of a headline. “
Seven Peaks in Seven Weeks
. Of course, I would have to consult my guides to ensure that such a feat is possible and something you could accomplish with us.”

The title’s force lit a flame of excitement in Blanche that nearly made her gasp, the type of stunt that certainly might capture Chambers’s attention.
That you could accomplish with us
was the part of which Blanche was less sure. Yet Király was right—it was the very part that gave the whole enterprise veracity. His own adventures might sell papers, but to have the
World
’s female reporter accomplishing these feats herself was as good as a guarantee. Her cheeks felt warm and her breathing stepped up a little faster.

“A large consideration is the travel time between our targets,” he continued. “If we could begin locally here near the hotel, even beginning with this little Tunnel Mountain”—he pointed to what looked like a comparative bump on the landscape—“and perhaps Terrace Mountain here”—he gestured with his walking stick toward the much larger peak that faced the Springs—“they would help you get used to scrambling and to using equipment. It will take careful preparation. We shall have to consult Hector’s and Palliser’s writings and good local guides and maps. Whatever we do we must be able to accomplish it with good credibility for you and your paper—and of course for us. It will serve none of us if you don’t succeed.”

Blanche could hardly take it in—“succeed.”
Success
was a word from an alien vocabulary whose meaning had been barred to her. Success belonged to a land where other people traveled, a destination for which she held no ticket. Until now the only significant variable in the equation of success was represented by the bank balance of the man to whom she was tied. Never had she thought of success in terms of liberty from such men, that success might be redefined on her own terms. Yet this man, this arrogant and irritating man for whom the word
success
was as commonplace as a table or a teacup had used the word and equated it with her. Moreover, he was willing to teach her the language and lead her into this strange new land himself. His confidence frightened her in a way that had nothing to do with mountains. The hope it awakened in her left her breathless.

“We should certainly consider many of the well-known peaks that the public may recognize—Cascade Mountain perhaps, if we save this for August and the clearer weather. Castle Mountain would be a challenge for you, but not out of the question if we ascended from the back side on the northeastern slopes. Of course there are still many unnamed mountains, but they don’t have to have a name to include them on our itinerary.”

“You’re assuming I’ll agree, then?” she said, playing for time to collect her thoughts.

“Indeed you must make up your mind soon or we lose any advantage of the summer months. Shall we say by dinnertime tomorrow night you will give me your answer?”

“My editor will have to agree.”