City of Ash (7 page)

He shrugged. “Do you wonder at it? But you could be quite an asset to me, Ginny, if you do as you say and make the fresh start you promise. You’re beautiful and clever. You could be the best hostess this city has ever seen. You bring a fortune with you.”

“My fortune.” I laughed shortly. “Sometimes I think that’s the only reason you married me.”

“It has become the reason I keep you,” he said, and the bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.

I turned to look at him, trying to ignore how much I believed that to be true. “Nathan, don’t you remember how we once were? Do you remember how we talked the night away? How we made love—”

“While you flirted with every artist and writer who came into view?”

I said bitterly, “I missed you. You’ve ignored me for months and months.”

“Yes, of course it was my fault,” he said. “By all means, blame me. It was not as if you had anything to do with it.”

“Make a new start,”
my grandmother had said. And my father:
“Nathan knows what’s best.”
I could not fight him over the past, not if I meant to salvage anything at all. I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Nathan,” I said softly, a whisper.

He made a sound of dismissal. “It’s too late for that, Ginny. I no longer care about your regret—if you truly feel any. What I care about is atonement. Can you be the wife I need you to be here? After what you’ve seen tonight, can you keep your promise?”

I met his gaze and nodded. “Yes, I think I can do that.”

“Good,” he said, and left me.

B
ut it turned out that the promise I’d made Nathan was even less easily kept than I’d anticipated. Nathan went to the office and I sat about the house, waiting for the society women of Seattle to pay their calls, and when they did not, I remembered Mrs. Brown’s words about those who did not intend to receive me. I’d thought she must be overstating their reluctance; I could not imagine the women of this outpost would truly spurn the daughter of Stratford Mining, especially if they were made to realize that I was on my best behavior.

But the invitations did not come. Oh, Mrs. Brown was as good as she’d promised to be. Those first weeks, she took us to other suppers, other dances—two public affairs, with drunken merchants and their coarse wives hoping to elevate themselves socially and Nathan greeting some of the business owners as if they were old friends.

“You’ve the charm of a natural politician,” Emery Brown told him with a laugh. I was unused to being in eclipse, and it didn’t matter how I smiled, or what I said, I was given a humoring smile in return, dismissive words, and slowly I came to realize that everyone here meant to keep me firmly in my place, in Nathan’s shadow.

But I accepted it. My father was quick to remind me of my duty with every letter.

My father’s admonition hurt—I was afraid I had irrevocably lost the man I’d so adored. I was determined to atone. I told myself that Papa had never managed to stay angry with me for long, and if I were careful, I would be restored to his good graces quickly, no matter the state of my marriage, which looked to become no better. I kept my letters to him chatty and optimistic, but the truth was just the opposite. Nathan remained so firmly distant that any true reconciliation seemed impossible. He spent hardly any time with me and joined the newly established Rainier Club, which kept him away many nights, hobnobbing among the men he’d made his friends, “Important Men” he called them, men who could help him in our newfound home. I languished in our parlor with only the maid for company. I thought of my salons, of the famous and notorious, of every night filled with something new and outrageous, something to make me laugh or think, and I found myself keeping the maid with conversation, her “yes, ma’am, it is quite cold” instead of
“Hand, heart, or head, Ginny? Which is it that makes art true? And don’t say all three. That’s too easy.…”

I was drowning in memories, in the chatter of my past life, and I knew I would languish there if I didn’t push a little harder. Perhaps Seattle matrons
were
waiting for me to make the first move. I decided to hold a dinner of my own. I invited the Browns and the Porters, of course; but also Mr. Orion Denny, whose father had been one of the founders of Seattle, and his wife, Narcissa; and Henry Yesler, the owner of the sawmill, whose late wife, Sarah, had been rumored to be a spiritualist, so I thought
he would not mind my notoriety. I also sent invitations to the Wilcoxes and the Gatzerts, whom Nathan told me were important. It was to be a small, intimate dinner, and I wished very much for someone from my salons—a writer or actor or artist or two; there was no one better than an actor for making conversation. I checked the papers assiduously for any visiting luminary. There were none, and I supposed that was best. I meant to do as Nathan suggested and start slow. I did not want to alarm them. After I proved to them how congenial I could be, I would provide a philosopher or two. Then perhaps I would hold a ball.

I planned for that dinner like a general. My trunks had finally arrived from Chicago, and I went through them with a critical eye, the petticoats and underthings, the satin and lace corsets in a rainbow of colors, traveling suits and morning gowns, furs and cloaks. I kept boxed the newest Worth gowns, bejeweled and beautiful, instead pulling out those I had not worn for two seasons or more, those with higher necklines and smaller bustles and modest lace inserts that seemed more in kind to those I’d seen at the Browns’ dinner. I filled the dining room with my own plate, elaborate, gold-trimmed. I decorated expansively with expensive gewgaws to remind them of my status—if charm would not do, I was willing to resort to bribery of a kind. I went over menu after menu with the cook until I finally wore her into tackling some of my favorite French dishes, and I had wine sent from our cellar in Chicago.

And I hardly had time for a breath before the declinations began to arrive.

Mr. and Mrs. Orion Denny, along with Mr. Yesler, regretted to say they would be out of town. Mrs. Wilcox’s refusal was a simple “I will not be attending,” as was the Gatzerts’. Half my dinner party gone before they’d set foot through the door. There were only the Browns and the Porters left, and though their husbands were smiling when my maid showed them into the parlor that night, Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Porter looked pained, as if they’d been told they were going to the opera and been dragged to a bawdy melodrama instead.

I was on my best behavior. I smiled so that it felt my face
might break. I offered wine and sherry. I said nothing when they picked at the unfamiliar French dishes and Mrs. Porter finally put her fork down with a “Sweetbreads, you say? How … unusual.” Instead I thought of how much Ambrose Rivers had adored sweetbreads, and I wanted to cry at how I missed him.

When the men withdrew to Nathan’s study for cigars, I led Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Brown to the parlor, bowing obediently to tradition. The women looked with studied disinterest at all my careful arrangements, and I saw Mrs. Brown discreetly turn a small but exquisitely sculptured nude so she would not have to look at its naked breasts. It had been a gift from the sculptor who’d made it,
“a small token of my gratitude, my dear Ginny, for all you’ve done,”
a man so talented it seemed nothing coarse could come from his hands, and here was Mrs. Brown, refusing even to look at it.

I bit back any comment and instead smiled and offered them both tea, and Mrs. Porter said, “A lovely dinner, Mrs. Langley,” and Mrs. Brown echoed the sentiment, and I said, as casually as I could,

“Unfortunately we were missing half the party. I hope next time to pick a better date.”

They glanced at each other.

Mrs. Brown said, “I hear your husband has joined the Rainier

Club.”

“Yes indeed. He seems to quite like it. He’s been there nearly every evening.”

“They do get involved with their cigars and their talk.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said. “I assume your husbands are often there as well?”

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Porter said.

“Then you must be as bored as I. Tell me, how do you spend your evenings? I’ve looked through the newspaper, but I’ve seen nothing but phrenologists and temperance lecturers at the Lyceum. Oh, and a cat trained to pick up a bottle and carry it offstage.”

Mrs. Brown smiled thinly. “There are plays, of course. At the Regal and the Palace. But we don’t go often.”

“No opera?”

“Now and again at Frye’s.” Mrs. Porter looked a bit uncomfortable. “Nothing like what you’re used to, I imagine.”

“Oh, it seems it’s been so long since I’ve been entertained, I imagine I could get used to anything. Even, I suppose, a trained cat.”

Mrs. Brown’s smile took on a pitying quality. “Our charity work manages to fill the empty hours and then some, Mrs. Langley, though I doubt that would interest you.”

“Charity work? I used to do some of that as well. My father financed a wing for Mercy Hospital,” I said. “And I helped him organize the financing for the Chicago Art Institute. And the artist studios, of course. They had such need for them, you couldn’t imagine. Why, Miles Ashby was working out of a shed! Can you imagine? A genius such as that! He said it was often so cold his paints would freeze before he could use them.”

“I see.” Mrs. Porter’s expression was so purely blank it could have been a slab of untouched marble. “Who is Miles Ashby?”

I laughed; for a moment I thought she was teasing. When I realized she wasn’t, I managed, “Why … you mean you haven’t heard of him?”

“No,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’ve more pressing concerns than artist studios here. The Relief Society has never been so overwhelmed. Orphans starving, women beaten, men who cannot feed their families … I’m sure you can imagine.”

I felt myself flush with embarrassment and felt a stab of anger for it, which I quickly tamped. “It is true I was more concerned in Chicago with my father’s art patronage. But what better help can we offer the world than to support those who give us truth and beauty?”

Mrs. Porter said, “I myself believe that truth and beauty are better appreciated on a full stomach. The starving and downtrodden must rather concern themselves with surviving. What good are artists if there is no population to see them?”

Again my anger flared. I reminded myself of what I wanted: a fresh start, friends, though I knew already that Mrs. Porter was unlikely to be one. Still, she was here. She had attended a pariah’s dinner, and she was willing to be seen with me, and regardless of the fact that it was no doubt because of her husband’s position
in Stratford-Brown Mining, she was an ally when I had too few. I forced myself to say, “Why, I’ve never looked at it quite that way before. Do you suppose … could the society use my help?”

Her glance to Mrs. Brown was quick and a bit panicked. Mrs. Brown said smoothly, “We should hate to impose, Mrs. Langley—”

“No, not at all,” I said quickly, and sincerely. Such charity work was not what I had in mind, but it was a start. At last here was something I might do, a way to fit in. And Nathan would be pleased at it—he could find no fault with homeless women and orphans. “And you did say the society was quite overwhelmed. I’d hate to have it be so, when I’m here and quite at liberty.”

They looked at each other. Mrs. Brown cleared her throat. “We would love to have you, Mrs. Langley, you understand, but unfortunately Mrs. Porter and I are not the ones who decide such things.”

“Who is?”

Mrs. Porter said, “Mrs. Wilcox and Mrs. Gatzert.”

The two women who had, in unison, declined my invitation to supper.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, I see.”

Mrs. Brown took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Well, then, when is Mrs. Wilcox’s calling day?”

Mrs. Porter’s glance was faintly pitying. “Before you go calling, Mrs. Langley, I wonder if you should ask yourself just how strong is your desire to ladle out soup to the downtrodden.”

“You don’t think me capable of such feeling?”

“Mrs. Wilcox is unlikely to receive you,” Mrs. Brown said bluntly. “She has stated publicly that she won’t.”

“Mrs. Gatzert then. Mrs. Denny.”

There was silence.

A little desperately, I said, “They cannot mean to snub me forever.”

“I think you’ll find they have impressive staying power,” Mrs. Porter said quietly.

“I mean to make Seattle my home. What must I do to convince you I am not what the rumors make me?”

Mrs. Brown said, “Are the rumors true?”

“I suppose … some of them.”

“You see the difficulty?” Mrs. Porter asked.

And I did. Very well. They wished me drowning in shame, humbled and contrite, and they could not know that the evidence of those things was the very fact that I was here now, that I had held this dinner, that I volunteered for charity work, that I was so desperate for friendship I was willing to offer myself for Mrs. Wilcox’s consumption. Public self-flagellation would have suited them, I realized. But my pride was all I had left. I would not give them that.

The problem was that it was the only thing they wanted.

“Yes, I understand,” I told Mrs. Porter softly. “But I have to try, don’t I?”

But trying was easier said than done. As the weeks passed, I began to feel as if I were disappearing. My favorite days became the ones where the city was socked in with fog, because on those days there was no world beyond the one in my parlor, and it was strangely comforting to think there was nothing to miss. I read a great deal. Poe and Hawthorne, Whitman and Coleridge and Browning. The world inside my head took on vibrant life and melodrama. But as far as the world outside … I felt myself wrapped in cotton, a dull automaton.