Remembering the Titanic (16 page)

“I feel fine. It’s this
dress
that makes me look ill.”

“Mother, you do
not
look ill. Excitement has turned your cheeks quite pink. It’s very becoming. In fact, you look amazingly healthy.” As Max had pointed out, more than once.

“I
am
amazingly healthy.” Nola twirled once more, like a child trying on her first party dress. This time she looked a bit more satisfied with her appearance. “I believe I might even dance tonight, if I can find a partner who is the tiniest bit interesting.”

“Dance? Mother, are you sure? Has Dr. Cooper said you might?”

“Darling, I’m not going to hop about the room doing that disgusting turkey trot. So vulgar. But I was thinking, a nice, slow waltz might be lovely.”

“You really should check with the doctor first. Is he coming tonight?”

Nola looked shocked. “My physician? Heavens, dear, one doesn’t invite one’s physician to one’s parties.”

Elizabeth hated the way her mother used the word “one.” It sounded terribly artificial. “Sorry, Mother. I can’t think what got into me. Perhaps my sanity has been affected by so many hours of shopping.” She got up from the bed to depart for her own room.

Nola was not amused by her daughter’s tone of voice. “Wear the white,” she ordered before Elizabeth closed the door. “We mustn’t clash when we toast our guests, and green goes well with absolutely nothing
but
white.”

“I could wear red,” Elizabeth teased. “After all, red and green
are
great holiday colors. Everyone would be so impressed with how far we were willing to go to decorate for the holidays.” She closed the door on Nola’s comment, “I shudder to think how garish that would be.”

Laughing softly, Elizabeth went to her room to dress.

She wore the white.

But at the last second, in a small gesture of defiance, she wound a deep-red velvet ribbon around her throat, fastening her grandmother’s gold cameo pin in the center. Why should Nola be the only Farr woman boasting holiday color?

If Nola was annoyed by the ribbon, she kept it to herself. Guests were already arriving when Elizabeth came down the wide, circular staircase into the foyer. Nola seemed so relieved to see the white gown, a red ribbon probably seemed inconsequential in comparison to an entire garment of red, which, as anyone with taste knew, only women of ill repute wore.

To Elizabeth, the party was only a stepping-stone to Max’s apartment, his unveiling, and his party. She couldn’t wait. When her mother’s guests told her she looked “lovely,” she thanked them and thought, Perhaps Max will agree. As waiters her mother had hired passed her with trays of canapés, she took one and thought, I wonder if Max will be serving food. When the orchestra began playing holiday music, she wondered if Max would persuade Bledsoe to play his guitar, as she’d been told he sometimes did at get-togethers. She’d also been told he played poorly, but at a party, who cared? And when she walked into the ballroom, nearly every square inch of its walls and ceiling draped with garlands, the huge, festooned tree looming over the festivities, she wondered if Max had had time to buy a tree. She had been missing him so … hadn’t seen him since the night he’d told her about the unveiling, though they had spoken on the telephone every night.

Tonight … tonight she would see him. After the toasting was finished, she would slip away from this lavish party and go to a simpler one, the one she really wanted to attend.

But while she was at this one, she intended to keep a close watch on her mother. There would be
no
turkey-trotting in the Farr home, that much was certain. But with a heart condition, perhaps even a waltz could prove dangerous. And her mother had been doing far too much recently.

If only Dr. Cooper had been invited, she could take him aside and ask his advice. He could also be of assistance in keeping Nola calm. She was definitely in a party mood. Stunning in the deep green (which Elizabeth noticed matched almost perfectly the color of the enormous tree at the front of the room, behind the orchestra), she flitted from guest to guest, laughing, making conversation, urging all to eat, drink, and have a marvelous time.

Why, she’s actually
flirting
, Elizabeth realized, shocked, as her mother smiled up at a tall, handsome man, who in response, bent to kiss Nola’s hand. Elizabeth didn’t recognize him, but she decided he had to be European. New Yorkers didn’t kiss hands. Which of Nola’s many European friends was visiting the city now? Certainly no one would be willing to travel all the way across an ocean to attend a party, not even one of Nola’s.

“Your mother looks beautiful,” Claire Loomis said as she joined Elizabeth. They had gone to school together. Claire, who had lost no one on the
Titanic
, had made her debut as planned and was now engaged to a banker. She was a sweet girl. Elizabeth had always liked her.

“Yes, she does. But I’m worried about her. She’s too … too excited. She’s not well, you know.”

Claire looked incredulous. “Your mother? Why, she’s the very picture of health. What’s wrong with her?”

Elizabeth lowered her voice. “It’s her heart. She collapsed last summer. Dr. Cooper says —”

Claire interrupted. “Not Fenton Cooper?”

Surprised at her rudeness, Elizabeth nodded impatiently. “Yes, he said —”

Another interruption. “Oh, Elizabeth, don’t you know about Dr. Cooper? I thought everyone did.”

“Know what?”

“Dr. Cooper makes a practice of treating only wealthy society people who crave attention and pampering.” Claire lowered her eyes in apology, or perhaps embarrassment. But she went on, “He’s almost always called in by the patient herself. Then he tells their families that the woman … or the man, in some cases … has a heart condition. Nothing life-threatening, of course …
if
the patient gets plenty of attention and care and is never left alone for too long, never agitated or faced with any unpleasantness.” Claire raised her eyes to meet Elizabeth’s. “He
did
say your mother has a heart condition?”

Elizabeth could only nod.

“I thought so. That’s what he always says.” Claire hesitated, then asked, “Is that why you never went off to Vassar? I heard you’d been accepted, even offered a scholarship. But I never heard that you’d actually gone.”

Another stupefied nod from Elizabeth. Then, rousing herself, she said slowly, “My mother really
does
have a heart problem. She wouldn’t lie about something like that.” But … but there was that letter from Vassar, and then Nola, who had never been truly ill before, had collapsed. Then there was the second letter to Vassar, declining … and now Nola was the “picture of health,” as Claire had pointed out. “How … how do you know about Dr. Cooper? Why didn’t I know? Who told you?”

Claire flushed scarlet. “I … well, I don’t know, Elizabeth, it’s just common knowledge. Everyone knows. He’s very popular in our mothers’ crowd.”

“
I
never heard about him,” Elizabeth countered. “That strikes me as odd. As if … as if people were keeping the information from me on purpose. Everyone knows he does this, and yet when he began treating my mother, no one
told
me? That seems very odd to me. Unless…” Her eyes moved away from Claire to search the crowded ballroom for her mother. When Elizabeth found her, laughing in a small cluster of impeccably dressed and groomed friends, she stayed focused on her. She looked healthier than anyone else in the group. “Unless,” Elizabeth finished, “someone made certain I wasn’t told about Dr. Cooper.”

Claire said nothing.

Keeping her eyes on her vibrant, glowing mother, Elizabeth said distinctly, “I would like you to tell me exactly who first told you about Dr. Cooper. I mean, how you found out about this practice of his of scaring family members into caring devotedly for the demanding mothers and aunts and grandmothers in their lives, and perhaps also the fathers, uncles, and grandfathers.” She laughed harshly. “After all, he probably doesn’t care what gender the patient is as long as his bill is paid.” She tore her gaze away from her mother, fastening it on Claire instead. “
Who
told you about him, Claire?”

Claire’s flush deepened. She had no wish to hurt anyone. But Elizabeth was her friend, and wasn’t it sad that such a bright, clever girl hadn’t gone to Vassar as she might have? And as far as Claire knew, Elizabeth was not even engaged. There was no husband waiting in the wings to care for her. It was really too tragic.

“Your mother.” Her voice was a near whisper. But Elizabeth heard her clearly. “It was your mother who told me about Dr. Cooper.”

E
LIZABETH STARED AT
C
LAIRE
. “My mother? When?”

“Last spring. At one of the
Titanic
memorial ceremonies. You were off talking to Max. I was standing with your mother when Marcia Newman walked by. She’s Marcia Carter now. You remember, she was engaged to that lawyer, Peter Carter? Her mother disapproved. She thought a lawyer wasn’t nearly good enough for Marcia. She had planned to take Marcia back to Europe after her debut, maybe find a title for her to marry. When Marcia insisted she was going to marry Peter, her mother collapsed. Just like your mother. And Fenton Cooper was the doctor who treated Mrs. Newman. He told Marcia he’d discovered that her mother had heart trouble, that she mustn’t be upset or get excited about anything. So Marcia broke her engagement, remember?”

Elizabeth did. She’d felt bad for Marcia, knowing how much in love she and Peter were.

“But six weeks later,” Claire continued, “Marcia and Peter eloped. I hadn’t heard what happened, so when Marcia passed by that day, I asked your mother how Mrs. Newman was. Had she had a second collapse when she heard about the elopement, I asked. Your mother laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ she said, ‘there is nothing whatever wrong with Dolly Newman’s heart. There never was.’ Then she laughed and added, ‘Dolly knows when to give in gracefully. What else could she do, with her daughter already legally wed? She is now the very picture of health. Of course, she does suffer from indigestion whenever her new son-in-law comes for Sunday dinner.’ And she laughed again.”

Elizabeth had been stricken speechless. Her mother hadn’t really collapsed? She had no heart trouble? “I remember thinking it odd last summer,” she told Claire, “that Marcia’s mother, rumored to be so seriously ill, had recovered so speedily and so completely. But it had never occurred to me that Dr. Cooper had made a phony diagnosis to keep Marcia from marrying Peter.” Elizabeth tried to think clearly. If Dr. Cooper would do that for Dolly Newman, why not for Nola Fair? Not, of course, to keep her daughter from marrying, since that wasn’t the problem. To keep her from leaving the city to attend college in Poughkeepsie. To keep her from leaving at
all
.

“Just to make sure I was understanding her,” Claire continued, “I asked her straight out. I said, ‘Mrs. Farr, are you saying that there are some people in Manhattan who are believed to have heart conditions when they really don’t? Because of Fenton Cooper?’ And she gave me this look as if she’d just realized she wasn’t talking to one of her friends and said, ‘Now, Claire, I never said that.’ Then she actually tweaked my cheek, can you imagine, as if I were two years old, and said, ‘Let’s just keep this conversation between us, shall we? At any rate, I believe you completely misunderstood.’ Then she left to go find you. But I didn’t misunderstand, Elizabeth. And I have to tell you, when we heard that you’d been accepted at Vassar and would be leaving shortly, my mother said, ‘Nola will never let her go. Never.’ And then we heard about her collapse. I should have put two and two together. I can’t think why I didn’t.” Claire’s eyes filled with regret. “I am so sorry that I didn’t telephone you and tell you what she’d said to me that day last spring, Elizabeth. Maybe if you’d known, you’d have figured it out. And you’d have gone to Vassar after all.”

Elizabeth reached out to pat the girl’s shoulder. “No, I wouldn’t have, Claire. Don’t blame yourself. I would never have believed it. The only reason I believe you now, and I
do
, is, I’ve been watching her carefully the past couple of weeks, getting ready for this party. Such boundless energy! Not that of a woman with a heart condition, that’s for certain. Not once did she seem short of breath, or lightheaded, or weak. Her cheeks were always flushed with color, not the pallor of a patient. Oh, Dr. Cooper came regularly, saying he was here to ‘check up on her,’ but I suppose that was a plot cooked up between the two of them. I’ve been watching her tonight, too, flitting around from guest to guest, dancing, rushing to and from the kitchen. She’s the healthiest-looking person here. It is so obvious to me now that she isn’t sick. I feel like such a fool. Why didn’t I suspect she was faking? It’s a wonder people aren’t coming up to her to congratulate her on her miraculous recovery. How could anyone here think of her as someone who isn’t healthy?”

Staring in disbelief at Nola, now waltzing in the arms of the handsome European, laughing up at him, her face suffused with the healthy pink of excitement, Elizabeth had never felt so stupid in her life.

Before she could think how to react to the devastating information Claire had given her, Joseph, doing double-duty as butler for the party, arrived at her side to say, “The entertainer is here, Miss Elizabeth. Name of Kathleen Hanrahan and her agent, the woman Florence Chambers. They’re waiting in the foyer. Shall I send them in, or do you wish to greet them yourself?”

Elizabeth needed to escape the ballroom and the sight of her undeniably healthy mother having a wonderful time. “I’ll go, Joseph. You can tell my mother they’re here.”

Walking as if in a daze, Elizabeth left the festivities. Concerned with her friend’s pallor and the look of shock on her face, Claire went with her.

“Why, I
know
you,” Elizabeth said when she came upon the two women standing just inside the front door gazing around in awe. Elizabeth was addressing Katie, who looked lovely in a simple green gown, her red hair waving loosely about her shoulders. “You … you were on the
Titanic
. I remember you. You had those two children with you, and Max put them into a lifeboat. I knew you’d survived. I saw you on the
Carpathia
. You’re a singer?”