The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish (8 page)

The
Call

N
o
sooner had Mary Mabel been introduced to the evangelists than they were interrupted by visitors. “It’s the Three Stooges,” Floyd whispered. “Don’t give them your name, or there’ll be trouble.” She decided to trust his advice: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

“If it isn’t the gentlemen of the press,” the evangelist called out. “What brings you boys out on a 3:00 a.m. constitutional? The Londonderry air? Or are you after some London derrière?”

“I’d ask the same of you,” the youngest snorted. “Who’s the doll?”

Floyd grabbed her by the elbow. “Why, Mr. Doyle, this is a vagrant we caught on a tip.”

Mary Mabel took her cue. Imagining herself the ruined heroine of
The Fallen Shopgirl
, she went knock-kneed. “Is you me Daddy?” she asked, clinging drunkenly to his lapels.

“High on turpentine,” Floyd confided.

Clucking tongues and shaking heads. How exciting! Mary Mabel decided to go all out. “I’ve been a bad girl, Daddy,” she pouted. “Take me home and spank me!”

“I’m not your Daddy, child.”

“We can purr-tend,” she hiccuped, and threw her left arm open to the newsmen. “Which one-ov-you wants to be my Daddy?” She batted her eyes.

They took a step backwards, half-interested, half-afraid.

“No takers?” she sobbed prettily. “Then I’m all alone in the big bad world, and me with a bun in the oven.” She shook her fist at the moon. “Curse you Billy Bounder!”

Floyd stepped hard on her instep. “Shut your trap. Your Daddy’s in the county jail! And that’s where you’ll be headed too, soon as we raid the tent!”

At word of a raid, the newsmen perked up. Floyd turned to his partner. “Lead the way, while I guard our potted Petunia. En route, you can regale the lads with your conversion stats.”

That was all the encouragement Brother Brubacher needed. Despite his wired jaw, he puffed his chest and led the scribblers away with a spirited, if incomprehensible, account of his ministry.

“Let’s make tracks,” Floyd whispered to Mary Mabel. Lickety-split, they did.

“How did I do?” she asked, once clear of the park.

Floyd laughed. “Lord love us, you peddle more ham than a meat market.”

“Thanks, but you shouldn’t have stopped me before I’d made my speech about Billy Bounder. He’s the cad who ruined Agnes Boyle in
The Fallen Shopgirl
, chapter six.” Before Mary Mabel knew it, all the words that had been bottled up in her head since leaving the Academy came flooding out. She told him everything: about her books, her puppets, her papa, Miss Bentwhistle, and Academy theatrics. She even told him about being in “Auntie” Irene’s
Midsummer Night’s Dream
for the Milwaukee Little Theater Guild. “I was the fairy Peasblossom,” she babbled. “Bits of my wings kept falling off, but the grownups said I was very good just the same. I love play-acting. It sure beats scrubbing toilets for Miss B. Oh, I’m talking your ear off. You’ll be thinking I
am
high on turpentine. Where are we going?”

“To the Thompson twins, to find you a bed.”

“The Thompson twins?” Mary Mabel was over the moon. To meet the Twins was too delicious. She’d heard their tale when she was little, on a drive with Miss Bentwhistle and her papa. The Twins, one-time classmates of Miss B., were the spinster daughters of Mr. Ezekiel Thompson, a local pooh-bah whose cane had had a mind of its own. Despite much abuse, the Twins had devoted their lives to his care. “On his ninetieth birthday, the doctor pronounced him good for ninety more,” Miss Bentwhistle had confided. “Imagine the shock when that very night he got booked for the boneyard after tumbling down three sets of stairs and hitting his head with a shovel.”

Financial hardship followed. Despite lives of service, Misses Millie and Tillie were left nothing but the family home, their father having bequeathed the rest of his estate to St. James, since “The Lord God can put it to better use than a couple of old maids.” Now living in poverty, they made ends meet by running a bed and breakfast that served visitors produce cultivated in their front garden.

Floyd confided that because of their circumstances, the Twins suffered chronic sleep apnea. “You mustn’t worry if you hear strange noises in the middle of the night,” he said. “I’m frequently called upon to perform resuscitation.” He told Mary Mabel to crouch among the tomato plants while he knocked, on the excuse that he’d forgotten to discharge his bill when he’d left the past morning, and wanted to make amends before making introductions. As it turned out, the Twins were more than forgiving, until they saw Mary Mabel emerge from hiding.

Floyd assured them that everything was above board: the girl had been abandoned by her father; he, a Good Samaritan, was looking for a home in which she could take refuge; as for the moment, he’d appreciate the use of their sitting room for a pastoral consultation.

And so, with the Twins in the adjoining dining room chaperoning over a game of two-handed euchre, Floyd and Mary Mabel had tea. He inquired after Timmy Beeford’s resurrection, grilling her at length. “I trust you won’t take offense, but how much pretend would there be in all this?”

“I’m no angel,” she replied, “but every word I’ve said is true. Standing up for that truth has cost me my home and family. You can believe me or not, I don’t care two pins. Now, if you’re through with the insults, I’d like the Misses Thompson to show me to my room.”

“Hold on,” he said. “I’m certain of two things. First, you believe what you’re saying. Second, you have a calling.”

Mary Mabel let out a hoot. “I have nothing, much less a calling.”

“As God is my witness,” Floyd persisted, “I want you to be a partner in a new travelling revival show. I’ll produce, Brother Percy will sermonize, and you’ll be the star attraction.”

The thought thrilled her. Nonetheless, she’d read about producers. “I can look in a mirror. I know what looks back. I’m nothing special, so don’t try to seduce me with my vanity.”

“God doesn’t care about the wrapping paper. It’s the gift inside that counts. Yours is the gift of miracle. I want to help you bring that gift to the world.”

“I was blessed with one miracle. I may never have another.”

“I’m not asking for any. All you need to do is step on a platform and tell your truth. You’ve no need to be scared.”

“I’m not,” she lied.

“Yes you are. You’re afraid to fail, to be laughed at. It’s a fear born of sin! The sin of pride. Take courage! Pure hearts prevail! As for the jitters, your turn for the press proved you have nerves of steel. A life on the boards is yours if you’ll have it. Your food and lodging’ll be taken care of, and there’ll be money for as many books as you can read.”

Mary Mabel bit her lip.

“Picture Miss Bentwhistle’s face when you’re famous,” Floyd tempted. “Picture Clara Brimley and the other Academy brats as well. Your papa, too — he’ll come crawling, you mark my word, begging for you to take him back.”

Mary Mabel barely realized she’d stopped breathing.

“We live in a wasteland, Miss McTavish. Despair roams the land. Folks want a miracle to change their lives. You’re living proof that anything is possible. Join with me. Through our ministry we’ll offer hope. Dreams. The chance of a new start. Whadeja say? Will you give it a shot?”

Mary Mabel prayed very hard. Her mama filled her head: “Say yes,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Mary Mabel gulped.

Floyd slapped his knee. “I’ll write up a contract to legalize our venture.”

“That’s very kind.”

“One little thing.” He hesitated. “When you talk about your resurrection, don’t mention your mama. Feel free to keep her in your heart, but give the glory to God.”

“Why?”

“We don’t want folks thinking you’re crazy. Don’t get me wrong. I believe you. But it’s a cruel world.”

“He’s right,” her mama told her. “Besides, it’s the truth. I’m your guardian angel. And who sends guardian angels if not God?” She had a point.

“Have your papers ready for me in the morning.” And with that, Mary Mabel shook his hand and joined the circus.

The HEARST PRESS

The
Chief

W
illiam
Randolph Hearst lay very still, staring up at the velvet canopy over his oak baldachin bed in the Gothic Suite of his castle at San Simeon. It was the middle of the night. His forehead glistened. Heart pounded. Was he awake? Was this a dream?

Someone else was in the room. Millicent? No, his wife was in Manhattan, stowed away among the antiques in his three-floor apartment at the Clarendon. Marion? He slid his hand under the covers to her side of the bed. Empty. Of course — Marion was on a shoot with his Cosmopolitan Pictures in Burbank, wouldn’t be back till tomorrow. So who was in the room?

He heard breathing. “Who’s there?” Was that a whisper in the air? He brushed his ear. A glimmer of moonlight slipped through the half-closed curtains casting a shadow by the Persian vase. Was it the stranger? Hearst sat bolt upright and yanked the chain on the lamp next to the headboard. The shadow vanished in the light. He peeked under the bed. Nothing. He was alone. The only eyes staring at him were the eyes from the photographs of his deceased parents, Senator George and Phoebe Apperson Hearst, and of the fourteenth-century Madonna by Segna sitting on his chest of drawers.

He’d keep the light on. There’d be no getting back to sleep. If he was awake. If this wasn’t another of his damnable dreams.

He checked his watch. Four in the morning. Best to work. To keep busy. That was the way to keep those dreams at bay. To keep that shadow out of sight. With the size and grandeur of his estate’s other fifty-six bedrooms, he knew folks wondered why his own was a measly eighteen by twenty feet. He never told them, but the truth was that the bigger the room, the more nooks and crannies there were for shadows and bogeymen to hide in.

Hearst wrapped his thick terry-cloth dressing gown over his toasty, cream flannel pajamas, slipped his feet into his lined lambskin slippers, and called his secretary from the desk phone.

Joe Willicombe answered on the third ring.

“Can’t sleep. Off to the study. About the papers —”

“Still laid out, W.R. Would you like me to join you?”

“No, I’m fine. Restless, that’s all.” God bless Willicombe. “Sorry to wake you.”

“Any time.”

Hearst hung up. He’d reward Willicombe for his patience. Maybe get him an inlaid sandalwood box to display his favourite shells. He lumbered his solid frame across the hall to his pink marble bathroom, splashed his face with cold water, watched the water empty down the gold-plated drain pipe, patted his face dry with a towel monogrammed in gold thread, and padded his way to the study, taking care to turn on each of the tall, delicate
torchères
along the passage, each refitted as floor lamps with shades created from the pages of Gregorian chant books.

He wished Marion was home. He could sleep then. She made him feel young, not like an old trout set to wash up on some riverbank. Dear Marion. What did she see in him? Not the money. She’d made her own dime with Ziegfield and the silent flickers. Hearst wished her career was doing better, but the joy of her company was one advantage of the recent slowdown. Louis B. Mayer, that fat toad, said her stutter didn’t work in talkies. What did he know? Jack Warner had been only too happy to have him move Cosmopolitan Pictures onto the Warner lot — Marion’s twenty-room dressing room, servants, and daschunds along with it. She’d be the nation’s top star yet, no two ways about it. He — Hearst — would see to it. All she needed was the right property. The right part.

At the entrance to his study, Hearst paused to catch his breath, enjoying the burnt oranges, rusts, and reds of the antique Spanish ceiling; the intricate grillwork of the Florentine bookcases filled with rare treasures spined in silver, ceramic, and ivory; and of the Camille Solon arches with their murals of Biblical and mythological tales. He removed his slippers. These wouldn’t be needed on the warm Bakhtiari carpets.

It was time to begin his ritual. Laid out across the study’s carpets were the latest editions of the hundreds of newspapers in his publishing empire. He’d already been over them with Willicombe. He’d go over them again, turning their pages with dexterously boney toes, scanning the headlines, the placement of the photographs, searching for that special detail to make his day complete.

He remembered the excitement of the old days. His reporters had doubled as amateur dicks, dishing up sleaze for a public keen on private dirt. His favourite stories? That trip with Sarah Bernhardt to the opium den in Chinatown. Or the one about the masseur of a Turkish steam bath found bobbing headless in the Hudson. Or the lollipop who broke marriages when she leapt naked from a pie at the Pooh Bah Club.

Above all, he relished his dispatches on the sinking of the
Maine.
Sure, his stories should’ve been filed under fiction. But they started a real-life war with Spain that had left America the sole power in the hemisphere and propelled Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill to the White House. Starting wars and electing presidents: if that didn’t prove the power of the press, what did?

But where were the stories now? Where was the power they gave him? Since the Crash it was nothing but grim Depression, enlivened by dance marathons and the funnies. Papers were turning into billboards, just another space to place an ad. What was the point of that? No wonder he felt old.

A chill ran down his spine. Someone else was in the room. “Willicombe?”

Silence.

“Who’s there?”

A high, girlish laugh like his own, came from the mustard wingback at the far end of the mahogany conference table. The wingback faced the wall, its occupant hidden from view. “You own the world, but I own you.”

Hearst swallowed hard. “Who are you?”

The wingback rotated. Seated before him was a young man who looked exactly as he had looked over fifty years ago: a young man with a lean face, hair slicked and parted in the middle, a lush mustache waxed at the tips.

“I’m dreaming,” Hearst said. “This is a dream.”

The young man smiled. “What’s real and what’s not? Sometimes things can be real and not real at the same time. Sometimes things that aren’t real can
make
things real. ‘Remember the
Maine
!’”

“I’m going to wake up now.”

“Are you? Maybe you’ve fallen asleep and you’re never waking up again.”

Hearst pinched his hands. He slapped his cheeks. “I’m waking up. I’m waking up!”

“You own the world, but I own you.” The young man smiled, and suddenly he had no eyes, no skin, no hair. He wasn’t like young Hearst at all. He was a gaping death skull.

Hearst screamed. The next thing he knew, he was alone in his study, sprawled on the floor where he’d fallen asleep reading yesterday’s
Journal-American
. The phone was ringing in the alcove by the wingback. Hearst stopped screaming. He lay on his warm Bakhtiari carpets unable to move, gasping for breath. The phone continued to ring.

Someone was running up the stairs, now, too hurried to wait for the elevator. “W.R., are you all right?” It was Willicombe.

“I’m fine,” Hearst called out. He scrambled to his feet, made it to the phone, adjusted his robe, and slouched in the wingback as Willicombe hit the study. “What’s the matter, Willicombe? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I heard screaming.”

“Oh?” Hearst laughed. “And here I thought it was the telephone.” He motioned Willicombe to a chair, and picked up the receiver. “The Chief here. What’s up?”

The call was from one of his syndicates,
King Features.
Hearst listened as the senior editor told him about a young staffer, name of Doyle, who’d just confirmed a whopper. Apparently some Canuck gal had resurrected the dead.

“What?”

“Exactly what I said. Some tyke from Kansas. Tell it to Toto, I says. But Doyle, he swears he talked to the kid, a preacher, and others. They’ll swear to the deed on a stack of bibles.”

Hearst’s heart skipped a beat.

“So what do I do?” asked the editor. “Run it? Bury it?”

Hearst gripped the phone. His voice spiralled into the stratosphere. “Front-page banner. You hear me? Every day. All week. And more! Get me more! I want more!”