Lawless (61 page)

G.

“E
LEANOR.” WILL TUGGED
her skirt as she fussed in front of the mirror. “Eleanor!”

“Will, for heaven’s sake. Quit that or you’ll pull my bustle out of place. Oh, this pesky, ridiculous hat!”

She couldn’t get it on at an angle that satisfied her. Will ignored her plea and gave another yank. She swiped at him with her fist. He ducked back, laughing. Her cheeks turned scarlet. Brothers could be the most infuriating creatures in the whole world.

What had come over him this evening? Why had he chosen to act up tonight, of all nights? Most of the time he was quiet and unassertive, afraid to make a peep around the house. Eleanor knew she was the only person to whom he dared show any natural enthusiasm—but blast him, he had no sense of timing. She was in a frightful rush, and all he did was pull her skirt, or leer.

“Who are you meeting at Martina Whittaker’s, Eleanor?”

“The Latin tutor, you ninny. Same as last week.”

“Oh, fizzlejig.” He stuck out his tongue to show his skepticism. “I’ll bet it’s some boy. Girls don’t get that het up over Latin. Every Tuesday you start acting dizzy by the middle of the afternoon.”

The hat still wouldn’t go on properly. She smacked it against her skirt. “Listening to you blab is going to make me later than ever, Will Kent. You know the tutor gets to the Whittakers’ at seven. It’s already seven—I heard the hall chimes. Mills is waiting and I still don’t look halfway decent—”

Will made another face. “I’d never fix up for some old Latin teacher. Girls are stupid.”

This time it was Eleanor who stuck out her tongue. Will retaliated by poking his thumbs in his ears, wiggling his fingers, crossing his eyes and making rude noises—all at the same time.

“Oh, you’re a frightful boy. A brainless brat!” she cried, though without any real animosity. Since her father had returned from the opening of the Centennial Exhibition two weeks ago, things had taken a new turn at home. Papa had with him an armload of souvenirs for each of them. Jewelry and lace for her, toys and a small lead model of the Corliss engine for Will. He’d brought presents for Mama as well, though she’d barely thanked him, and had put them in the closet almost immediately.

Still, Papa seemed to be making a special effort to be kind to Margaret. To all of them, in fact. He was almost his old self, sitting in the evening with Will on his knee and Eleanor at his feet as he described the sights of the exposition. He’d even started singing again—rousing choruses of “O Susanna,” or renditions of “My Old Kentucky Home” in which he and Eleanor feigned great sorrow, and laughed uproariously afterward.

Eleanor didn’t completely understand the change in her father’s behavior, but she knew it had something to do with a book project for which he expressed great enthusiasm. Uncle Matt, whom Eleanor had never met, was involved in the project too—or would be if Papa received the right sort of reply from London.

Uncle Matt was becoming a well-known painter in Europe. Eleanor felt a powerful sense of kinship with him. Her father tolerated her interest in the theater, but she didn’t think he really understood it. She felt Uncle Matt would understand perfectly. He was an artist. In the past year or so, he’d become a kind of dream hero to her. She imagined him as very wise. Unfailingly kind. Good-humored. Tolerant of others. And of course daringly Bohemian.

For more than one reason, she fervently hoped her father would get the reply he wanted. If he did, Uncle Matt would come home and she could meet him. And the book project might keep Papa in a good mood. It had certainly made a big difference the past couple of weeks. Most evenings he was around the house instead of down at the
Union,
although tonight he’d rushed back after dinner because a messenger had arrived to report a breakdown in one of the huge presses.

He hadn’t wanted to go, though. He’d said that when he kissed her cheek just before he hurried out. She thought he was sincere. He seemed like a changed man. He’d even promised several times that the family would travel to Philadelphia to see the exhibition. Mama was the one causing a delay now. She couldn’t make up her mind as to when the trip should be scheduled.

Another thing brightening Eleanor’s world was what she liked to think of as the Tuesday scheme. She’d concocted it with the help of Charlie Whittaker. At first she’d felt she just couldn’t deceive her mother. Then practical considerations took over, and she reminded herself that if Margaret actually knew where Eleanor was going every Tuesday evening, she’d automatically withhold her permission. So in the face of certain rejection, Eleanor had resorted to a whole collection of untruths.

She was getting punished for them, though. She went through torture every time she was forced to fib to one or both of her parents.

Will continued to make faces, but he prudently stayed out of her reach. She struggled with the hat until she had it in a position that was acceptable. Then she picked up her reticule and rushed into the upstairs hall.

She nearly collided with her mother. She stepped aside just in time. Will came rocketing out the bedroom door, an impish gleam in his eyes.

“I’m gonna yank your bustle again, Eleanor. I’m gonna yank—”

He saw Margaret’s open hand flashing at his face, but not soon enough to pull back. Her palm struck loudly. He cried out.

“I’ve told you a hundred times, Will Kent. You are not to make that kind of noise in this house!”

Instantly, Eleanor was her brother’s partisan. “If he can’t make noise in his own house, Mama, where can he?”

“Keep out of this, young lady.” Her wrathful gaze turned on the boy. He shrank against the wall. “Any more outbursts like that and you’ll be locked up in your room for a week, do you understand?”

All the sparkle had faded from his eyes. Very faintly, he answered, “Yes, Mama.”

Eleanor would have defended him again, but she knew it would do no good. Her mother was in another of her moods. She’d been wearing the same dress for the past three days. Strands of hair hung down near the outer corners of her eyes. She reeked of the so-called tonic she kept in an unlabeled brown bottle in her pocket. When she wasn’t visiting the regular liquor cabinet, she took sips from the bottle—right in front of anyone, including the servants—and said in that hoarse, slurry voice she’d acquired that it was medicine prescribed by the family doctor.

Eleanor fretted as her mother’s brown eyes drifted toward her and attempted to focus.

“Where are you going?”

“It’s Tuesday evening, Mama.”

“Tuesday?” Margaret shook her head. “Is that suppose to mean something?”

Eleanor thought her mother was being difficult on purpose. Then she looked into Margaret’s eyes again, and saw how pathetically vacant they were. Her spine crawled. She felt like crying, but she managed to say, “Yes, Mama. Don’t you remember I told you Martina Whittaker and I were both having trouble with Latin declensions?”

“No. I don’t recall that.”

Eleanor bit her lip. “You don’t recall the Whittakers hired a tutor? And that every Tuesday evening I go over to their house to work with him, and with Martina? I didn’t go last week because I had that touch of influenza, but we’ve discussed the tutor I don’t know how many tim—”

“This is the first I’ve ever heard of it,” Margaret interrupted. “The very first.”

Frustrated and conscious of the rush of time, Eleanor let her voice grow too shrill. “You’ve forgotten. Mills has driven me to Martina’s on three different Tuesdays. He drops me off at seven o’clock and calls for me at ten-thirty.”

Margaret stepped toward her. “Eleanor, don’t dispute me. No one has told me anything. Not you, not your father—I know
nothing
of these sessions.” In the gloom beyond her mother’s weaving figure, Will watched from the door of his bedroom. He was round-eyed and pale.

“You told your father but you didn’t tell me,” Margaret continued with exaggerated self-pity. Tears sprang to Eleanor’s eyes. Margaret’s shoulders slumped suddenly. “Gideon’s just keeping things from me again—”

Then, with a small, resigned shrug, she turned and wandered away down the corridor, passing right by her son as if he didn’t exist. Eleanor’s stomach hurt from pity and fright.
Why
did Mama have to be in such misery all the time?

Margaret stopped at the last door on the right—her room. Just a few steps beyond, her bedraggled figure was dimly reflected in a tall window at the end of the corridor. She reached into her pocket, fumbled and produced the key to open her constantly locked door. Once Margaret was inside, Eleanor heard the lock click again.

“Eleanor?” With a listless step, Will approached. She wiped her eyes as he asked, “What’s wrong with Mama?”

There was agony and confusion in her soft answer. “I wish to heaven I knew.”

Will shook his head in a baffled way. “She acts like we don’t even belong to her, like—no one loves her and she doesn’t love anyone back.”

There it was again. That hateful word. The source of so much misery. Eleanor was more determined than ever that love would never entangle her. She wanted no part of the sorrow it caused.

The situation in the household was still dreadful, and she’d deceived herself into thinking otherwise. That made her angry. She began to search for a target for the anger. A certain logic led her straight to Gideon. She was furious that he’d fooled her so completely.

“I thought things had gotten better since Papa came home from Philadelphia,” Will said. “He’s laughed a lot, and sung songs the way he used to. He’s been extra nice to Mama—”

Scathingly: “When we’re around. When they’re alone, he must be acting horribly. Things must be worse than ever between them. And he must be the cause.”

Somehow she hated making the assertion. But how could she deny the evidence of her senses?

Will hated to hear it, too. “Oh, Eleanor, don’t say—”

“Look at them!” she broke in, her hands in fists again. “Look at Papa. Then look at Mama. That tells you which one’s hurting, and which one’s causing it.
That
tells you who’s in the wrong. Now leave me alone. I’m late!”

She rushed past Will and ran down the stairs.

Mills drove to the Whittaker town house at breakneck speed. The Whittakers lived on London Terrace between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Streets on the West Side. It was another fashionable enclave of new money, the residences occupied mostly by merchants and other types of businessmen.

The Whittaker town house always had an exotic aroma, a blend of the various nostrums Charlie’s father sold in wholesale lots. There were always free samples to be had of Dr. Helmbold’s Extract of Buchu, or Drake’s Plantation Bitters, or Radway’s Ready Relief, or Dr. Bellingham’s Stimulating Unguent, which Mr. Whittaker enthusiastically claimed had helped President Lincoln grow his beard.

“See you at half past ten,” Eleanor called as she jumped out of the calash. Mills drove away and she hurried up the steps. Charlie yanked the door open before she reached it. He snatched her hand and practically dragged her inside.

“You’re nearly a half hour late! You
know
how long it takes to drive to Irving Place. And tonight we’re going to read the play from the stage!” He paused long enough to look into the parlor. “Goodbye, Mater, goodbye, Pater.”

Eleanor called a quick greeting as Charlie dragged her on. The elder Whittakers answered with a cheerful hello. Charlie’s mother and father knew nothing of the deception being practiced on Gideon and Margaret. They thought Eleanor came over every Tuesday evening just so Charlie could escort her to the meeting of the Booth Association. It was only proper that she have an escort, New York being as rough as it was after dark. Margaret never encountered the Whittakers socially, so there was little chance of exposure that way. Eleanor was thankful she didn’t have to stumble through weekly lies in front of Charlie’s parents, whom he now affectedly called
Pay-
ter and
May
-ter.

In the Whittaker carriage racing back across town, Eleanor did her best to explain the reason for the delay. The explanation calmed Charlie’s melodramatic wrath and brought forth a sympathetic “How awful. Why is your poor mother so distracted?”

She drew a breath, a bit hesitant to tell her friend so much that was personal. But she wanted to share her anguish with someone.

“I can only guess Papa treats her abominably when they’re alone.”

“I’ve just met him once, but he didn’t seem like the sort.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Eleanor admitted. “On the other hand, there’s one thing you learn from the theater. Some people are very good at pretending. There just can’t be any other explanation for Mama’s condition. Not any that I can understand, anyway. Sometimes I think Papa must have a mistress.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“No, it’s just a guess. But it would explain a lot.”

“Mmm.” Charlie rubbed his chin. “You could be right. I’ve heard newspaper people practice free association the way actors do. I imagine I’ll have a mistress by the time I’m twenty or twenty-one.”

That depressed her even more. “You won’t fall in love with her, will you?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’ll feel wretched if you do. Love hurts people, Charlie. But it’s never going to hurt me.”

Her vehemence shocked him. He quickly sought another topic.

“Before I forget—you have an unpleasant surprise waiting for you at the Association. Last week, when you were laid up, a new member showed his face. You’ll never believe who it is.”

“Who?”

“Remember that Jew we saw pushing a broom at the Academy of Music?”

“Yes!” He frowned at her surprising enthusiasm. An image of a handsome, cocky face flashed into her mind. Unexpectedly, she felt a tightness in her breasts. She was ashamed of the sensation. It was uncontrollable, and it contradicted the declaration she’d just made to her friend. “I thought you told me the Association didn’t admit Jews. I think that’s silly, but—”

“Oh, they admitted
him,”
Charlie interrupted. “Last week he walked in and announced that he’d heard the Booth Association was the best amateur club in town, so that’s the one he was joining. I found out afterward why Donald and Percy”—they were the Association’s president and vice president—“practically begged the rest of us not to blackball Goldman when he stepped out of the room and we voted. If you can
conceive
of this, Eleanor, Mr. Goldman of Hester Street—
Hester
Street, the
worst
slum in New York—spoke to Donald and Percy in private. He said he’d hold the two of them responsible if he wasn’t admitted. He said he’d bash their faces in. They claimed he wasn’t testy about it, just very—factual. Did you ever
hear
of such a thing?”