This Is How I'd Love You (35 page)

Here Harold interrupts. Shaking his head, he says, “I will convey your greetings and your condolences to her, as well. I’m sure she will be pleased to know that you’ve returned safely.”

“Yes, sir. I appreciate that.” Charles holds his hat in one hand, his cane in the other. The sound of a typewriter reaching the end of its line emanates from another office. He turns and pushes Harold’s door closed with the tip of his cane. “Sir, I’ve come to ask for Hensley’s hand.”

Harold’s face twitches. His cheeks flush to a deep red. He fiddles with his pencil. “Look, Mr. Reid, I am honored by your presence and I’m sure my sister will be quite flattered, but she is not . . .”

Charles interrupts. “I know about Mr. Teagan. And her . . . condition,” he says, lowering his voice slightly. Then he adds, “I adore her. I survived everything for this. For her.”

Harold stands, then he sits quite emphatically back down. “You’ve seen her?”

Charles nods. “Last night. Quite by chance. It was extraordinary.”

“Good God, man. I’ve not seen or heard from her since Wednesday. Is that because of you? Have you prevented her from coming to see me?”

“Not at all. I’ve no influence, I’m afraid.”

“Where is she?” Harold stands and lights a cigarette.

“Mending for the circus,” Charles says then watches Harold’s face go crimson. He grips the back of his chair.

Charles stands and walks to the door and back. He taps his cane lightly against the concrete floor. “Your father told me about both of you. Of you, he wrote,
Harold has launched himself into the world with envious certainty of our democracy’s impartiality
.”

Harold clears his throat and nods. “And he remained a skeptic until the very end.”

“He also told me that you were as decent as they come. He said he admired your commitment to your ideals. He knew you to be kind and smart and frustrated by his own impracticality.”

Harold stubs his cigarette into a brass ashtray. “He was maddening.”

Charles allows a silence to stretch out and build their respective memories of Mr. Dench, so that for a brief moment he is very nearly in the room with them.

“I want to marry your sister.”

Harold shakes his head. “I really don’t think you understand. She’s to have his child.”

Charles grimaces. “I do understand.”

“Well, sir, that is a generous offer, but if you’ve heard something about our family fortune, you’ve heard incorrectly. I’m not in the business of selling my sister’s sin.”

“Aren’t you? How else did you get Mr. Teagan to agree to it?”

“Is that what she told you?”

“She didn’t have to. I saw Mr. Teagan for myself. He’s not the marrying kind.”

Harold hangs his head. “I’ve only tried to do what’s right for her. For this dire situation. We’ve not the benefit of an immeasurable fortune. But he was gullible enough to believe she’d come into one. Sometimes men need reasons to do the right thing.”

On one wall of the office, there is a map of Europe, with the western front marked in small red
x
’s. Charles moves toward it. He finds Reims, Rémy, Tincourt. Using his index finger, he traces the red line from north to south. “What the hell do maps show us? Possible routes to move troops? Relative distances between battles? Areas of heavy casualties?”

Harold nods silently.

Charles continues. “The place I lost my leg cannot be found on this map. Sure, I know the coordinates. But it’s just a piece of paper. Here’s the difference: I know the way the clouds looked as the rain began even before dawn that day. I will recognize the slight hills at the horizon, rimmed in a grayish lavender, or sometimes blue, until I die. I know the way the mud feels deep in my boot, squished between my toes. I know the taste of that mud because it was all over my lips. But this map is flat and useless like nobody is living or dying at all.”

“Mr. Reid,” Harold begins, gripping the back of his chair again.

“Please, call me Charles. Forgive me. I don’t mean to pontificate. The point is, Captain, I am one of those people. ‘Immeasurable’ applies to me.” He pauses to be sure Harold understands. Then, with an escalating frustration, he adds, “But it is as useless as this paper map if I cannot make a life with Hensley. I might as well hang it all on my fucking wall and point to it every so often, calling myself lucky.” He realizes that his teeth are clenched and his voice is much too loud to be polite. He takes a deep breath. The weight of his prosthetic is pinching him, making his thigh throb. “Please, Captain, if I can persuade her, give me your blessing.”

Harold shakes his head. It appears to pain him as he says it, but he does nonetheless. “There are other girls, you know. Heartbreak is . . . just part of it all. At least that’s what they tell me . . .” He smiles briefly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Charles nods. “Yeah, I’ve heard. They tell me that, too. But they’ve been wrong about so many things. I’m willing to take the risk that they’re wrong about this, too.”

Harold places his hand on his desk, thrumming his fingers several times. “I will have to speak to Hensley.”

Charles nods. “Of course.”

“Mr. Reid,” Harold says, extending his hand.

“Sir,” Charles says as they shake. He leaves his calling card on top of one of the stacks of brown files.

R
arely do the inhabitants of the circus trailers require any assistance before noon. Hensley uses the quiet time to slip out and across town to see Marie. The girls embrace in front of the bakery where they usually meet. Though Hensley has sworn she will not confess anything, Marie squeezes her tightly and Hensley knows she must feel the burgeoning beneath her tunic. She kisses Hensley sweetly on the cheek and says nothing.

Sharing a thick piece of bread spread with butter and jam, the girls sit on the steps of the library across the street. “Marie, I must tell you,” Hensley says, licking her fingers. “I’ve met Mr. Reid. He found me.”

Marie grabs her hand. “Oh, Hen. Is he as lovely as his letters?”

Hensley pushes her foot across a stray leaf on the step beneath her. “More, really.” She blushes, thinking of the stone that is in her pocketbook even now. “But I’m leaving New York. I want you to know. I will send Harold a telegraph when I’m settled. There are other things happening, things that cannot wait. I must disappear.”

Marie sets the bread down on the brown bag beside them. “Hensley, you sound so dramatic! Are you on the run from the law?”

Hensley laughs and Marie leans her head on her shoulder, relieved. “All right, then. You are not a fugitive. What could be so desperate that you have to leave?”

“Mr. Teagan. My brother. They’ve conspired to force me into marrying him.”

“Not Harold. He’s decent. Sweet, even. Why would he want you to marry that creature?”

Hensley shoos a pigeon away with her hand. “For good reason,” she says quietly. When Marie puts her arm around her, Hensley’s eyes fill with tears. For a long time, the girls sit together, not speaking. Hensley wipes at her tears with her linen and a far-off rumble of thunder finally breaks their silence.

Marie lets her hand fall from Hensley’s shoulders. “Where will you go? With Mr. Reid?”

Hensley shakes her head. “No. I would never want him to give up more than he already has. He lost a leg, Marie. The last thing he needs is a scandal. The thrill of actually finding me, or perhaps his sense of chivalry, has made him say he doesn’t mind. But if I’ve learned anything, Marie, it’s to be wary. Our own sympathies can be used against us.”

“Oh, Hen,” Marie says, pulling her shawl closer to her body.

“Let’s walk,” Hensley says, standing up from the step. “The storm is coming. My friend Teresa, from Hillsboro, has written. She is settled in California. Just up the coast from where my mother was born. I’ve a place with her. She’s never been much for convention anyway.”

“When?”

“Tonight. There’s a Twentieth Century Limited. Please don’t tell anyone. At least not for a fortnight. I will write as soon as I’m settled. There will be lots of news, I’m sure.”

They are standing beneath an awning just as the first drops of rain fall. Marie is nodding. “But you love him, don’t you? From the first time you showed me his letters, I could tell.”

Hensley scoots closer to Marie to keep out of the rain. “I’m afraid I lost my chance at love. But you haven’t. So choose wisely, my dear friend. Don’t marry a man for the shoes he can get you,” she says, smiling.

Marie points her toe out from beneath her skirt to show off her new blue leather pumps. She laughs.

The girls embrace once more. Marie lets her hand rest on Hensley’s waist. “Take care of yourself. I’ll miss you dreadfully.”

Hensley kisses her once more before darting out from under the awning into a taxicab.

 • • • 

W
hen Harold visits the circus that evening, he ends up standing in Arty’s trailer, watching the strong man wax his mustache. Hensley has already gone.

“Where? You must tell me where,” Harold says, looking around for some hint of his sister.

“I believe she’s decided to run her own life,” Arty says, choosing an apple from the basket on the counter.

“But what can that possibly mean? She is barely eighteen. Tell me now, or I will have you questioned by the authorities.”

Arty bites into the apple, smiling. “I’ve no idea, Mr. Dench. Your sister is remarkably independent. More than you’d like to think.”

“Did she have any money?”

Arty nods. “We gave her two weeks’ wages. She mended everything within sight.”

“So she’s gone out into the night with a couple weeks’ wages from the circus. I suppose that fills you with confidence?”

Arty picks up a scrap of lace from the floor and places it on the table beside the door. “It did her.”

Harold sighs, clasping both hands behind his head. “Damn it,” he says quietly.

“She’s not reckless. She’s got that baby on her mind, that’s all . . .”

“If she did, she’d be married by now.”

Arty shrugs. “I lost my wife to a lion tamer. It’s a good story. True, catchy, cautionary. But in reality, I’d lost her long before.” Arty takes off his shirt and pulls the overalls up over his bare torso. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Mr. Dench. No denying that. When these muscles get too old, who knows where I’ll end up? I’ve not your station in life, and there’s probably not much we’d agree upon, but marrying a man like that would never have ended happily. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m due in the big top. Good luck to you,” he says and ducks through the doorway out into the noisy night.

 • • • 

A
round her neck, Hensley wears a delicate piece of lace, hand-sewn into a little pouch. It hangs on a piece of black satin cord. She managed to salvage the lace from an irreparable costume belonging to one of the acrobats. Inside, she has tucked the small stone that Mr. Reid found and marked and brought back to New York City. As she stands on the train platform, waiting for the doors to open, she places her fingers on it.

Despite her worries, nobody arrives to stop her. The crowd moves around her, oblivious to her troubles. When the conductor calls out her train’s boarding, she eagerly leaves the platform, afraid that if she’d had to stand there one more minute, she would run back to Harold’s apartment and throw herself at his mercy.

Instead, she settles herself into the sleeping car that she managed to afford with the money her father had hidden in his desk, those crisp bills she carried with her all the way from Hillsboro and handed to the ticket agent without hesitation. She slides the door closed and collapses next to the window, thinking only of the west; those vast, blue skies and brown earth cracked through with a desperate longing.

When they are whizzing through the Pennsylvania countryside in the dark, and the only view in the glass is of her own tired face, she finally closes the curtains. Just as she stretches out on the berth, a piece of mail slides beneath her door.

They’ve not stopped since New York, so it wouldn’t be a telegram. Perhaps it is the next morning’s dining menu. Or a weather report. Her head rests heavily on the pillow; she is too tired to move. A stray tear cascades down her cheek. In an effort to keep her maudlin thoughts at bay, she places her feet on the cool floor and reaches for the delivery.

At first, she does not trust her own memory. But his writing is so familiar—she’d know it anywhere.
H. Dench
is printed in black ink on the envelope. She opens it and sees his slanted salutation.

Dear Hensley,

I, too, have chosen my own path. Would you be willing to join me for breakfast in the dining car?

The train’s motion adds to the feeling that she is falling. Reaching for the wall and steadying herself, Hensley is sure that she is dreaming when another slip of paper skims beneath her door. This one is without an envelope, but it is folded over.

Dear Hensley,

Eight o’clock suits me. I know you’ve no obligation to do so, but it would make the day so nice to have breakfast with you in, what will it be, Ohio or Indiana?