Saratoga Trunk (37 page)

“Well, we’ve licked him, anyway.”

“So that’s it!”

“He knows it. He’s been sitdng there like that; they’ve been sending him messages ever since this afternoon. I guess that will show him there are some people smarter than the Gould gang.” Then, “Oh, my God!” The exclamation was wrung from him like a groan.

“For heaven’s sake, what is it! Tell me quickly. I’ve got to go back in there. There’s a musical concert at ten-thirty. Not that I care a damn about those ninnies. Stop staring like that and tell me!”

But shrewd and quick as her mind was in its workings, she could make little of his whispered babble. “They took every station between Albany and Binghamton—”

“Who? Who did?”

He ignored her question. “I didn’t think he could do it—I thought he was all blow and bluster. Pierpont Morgan knew better; he took to him right away . . . Maroon had almost five hundred men . . . Gould’s gang had more . . . but that Texas crowd six feet all of them and made of iron like him . . . engine too . . . the Binghamton locomotive rolled right off the track but they backed their own way down to . . . jumped first. . . if he’s alive but he’s disappeared and the dwarf. . . Morgan sent the telegram a thousand words . . . Morgan says he’s a wonder Morgan thinks he’s the biggest... of course maybe it’s not so bad . . . but they can’t find the little chap . . . only his hat that top hat of his mashed in . . . she’ll never forgive me . . .”

Mrs. Bellop actually shook him. “For God’s sake stop standing there mumbling! I can’t make out what you’re saying; it sounds crazy.”

Here she jumped and uttered a litde scream as an oily voice sounded close to her ear. “Oop, sorry!” It was Bean, the head usher, unctuous, deferential. “They’re waiting for you in the ballroom, Mrs. Bellop. Mr. Thompkins. The concert, you know.”

Mrs. Bellop clapped a frantic hand to her head. “No need to scare me to death with your pussycat ways. Look here, Bean, have you seen Mrs. De Chanfret? D’you know where she is? You make it your business to know everything.”

Bean’s fatuous smile gleamed in the light from the parlor windows. He giggled a little. “I regret to say that I have not set eyes on that fairest of her sex since an early hour this m—”

“Oh, shut up!” barked Sophie Bellop. “Bart, pull yourself together.”

“—orning,” the usher went on, urbanely. “And Mr. Van Steed, sir, your lady mother asked me to request you to come to her side, she seemed much perturbed, if I may venture to say so.”

“Go away, Bean. Run along! Scat!” She eyed the man sharply. “I suppose you were listening to everything we said. Read telegrams, too, before they’re delivered. I’m sure of that. Oh, well.”

Sophie Bellop took Van Steed’s arm; briskly she began to propel him toward the door. “Now pull yourself together, Bart. You’re the color of dough.”

“He can’t be hurt badly, can he?”

“My land, I don’t know. I suppose he’s made of flesh and blood like the—”

“Blood!” echoed Van Steed, and went a pale green.

“Come, come, he’s probably all right, celebrating somewhere with his Texas friends. And the dwarf too.”

“But where is she? Do you think she’s heard and has gone off to find him? Perhaps he sent for her. Perhaps—”

Mrs. Bellop looked serious. “I never thought of that. It’s like her to do that. But this very evening she was planning to come in pink satin. I had planned it as a kind of triumph for her against all those harpies like that precious mother of yours.”

A changed man, he made no protest at this. He had transferred his every emotion to another strong woman. And of her, as had been true before, he stood in fear. “Do you think she’ll blame me? It wasn’t my plan, you know. It was his idea. I didn’t approve, really. I thought it was crazy. I said so to Morgan. He’ll have to admit that himself.”

Sophie glared at him with considerable distaste. “He grabbed your railroad for you, didn’t he? Took it with his bare hands, like—like a hero—or a bandit—I’m not sure which. Anyway, you’ve got it.”

“I know,” miserably. “I know.”

“If she comes down—maybe she’s just overdoing her entrance— if she comes down don’t say anything to her about Maroon being hurt or—well, hurt. Or the dwarf. Not tonight. Tonight is your chance. Now come along. Perk up! Be a man!”

Even this he did not resent.

As they entered the ballroom doorway, five hundred reproachful faces turned toward them like balloons pulled by a single string. The United States Hotel grand ball had bogged down in a morass of apathy. Leaderless, it flopped feebly, lifting first one foot then another, but without progress.

“Really, Mrs. Bellop!” hissed Tompkins, the manager, reproachfully. “Really, Mrs. Bellop! I haven’t deserved this at your hands.”

“Oh, hush your fuss!” snapped Sophie. Nimbly she clambered to the musicians’ platform, she motioned the drum to beat a ruffle for silence. “Ladies and gendemen! Before partaking of the magnificent collation which our genial host, Manager Tompkins, has ordered prepared for us, there has been planned a surprise concert in which the most talented of Saratoga’s visiting guests will favor us. The first number is a bass solo entitled ‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,’ rendered by Mr. Archibald McElroy of Cincinnati. Following this, Miss Charlotte Chisholm will lend her lovely soprano to the musical number entitled ‘Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still.’ . . . Comedy number rendered by Mr. Len Porter, entitled ‘I’ve Only Been Down to the Club.’ . . . Duet by the jusdy popular Pettingiii twins: ‘Wait Till the Clouds Roll By, Jennie.’. . . Seats will be placed by the ushers, following which supper will be . . . and a prize will be given by the management for the most original fancy dress costume in this evening’s . . .”

There followed a spatter of appreciative applause, the buzz of conversation; a fiddle squeaked, a flute emitted a tentative giggle. But their hearts were not in it. “A circus without the elephant,” said Mrs. Bellop to Van Steed. “They’re so disappointed they could cry. Your lady mother looks as if she’d have a stroke.”

“Praw-leens! Praw-leens!” A clear powerful voice sounded from the outer corridor. In the doorway appeared a black mammy in voluminous calico and a vast white apron, a kerchief crossed on her bosom, her head swathed in a brilliant orange tignon. Gold and diamond hoop earrings dangled from beneath the turban’s folds (Aunt Belle Piquery’s jewelry). The teeth gleamed white in the blackened face, the dark eyes flashed, on her arm was a great woven basket neatly covered with a white napkin. The slim figure was stuffed fore and aft into ponderous curves. “Praw-leens! Praw-leens!”

The basket actually was laden with the toothsome New Orleans confections; she was handing out pralines here and there as she made her way through the crowd; they were gathering round her laughing; the adventurous were biting into the sugary nut-laden circlets.

Sophie Bellop stood up, shaking. “They’ll never forgive her for this,” she muttered aloud to no one in particular, “they’ll never—” With amazing agility for a woman of her weight, Sophie scurried through the crowd; she reached Mrs. De Chanfret’s side just as the buxom calicoed figure stood before the anguished Bart Van Steed, just as his voice pleaded in an agonized whisper, “Mrs. De Chanfret. Go home. Please. Please. Don’t!”

She tossed her head so that the earrings bobbed and glittered. “Go ‘long, honey chile, you quality folks, you don’t want no truck with a no-count black wench like me! You jes’ shut you mouth with one o’ these prawleens, Mammy made um herself, yassuh!” She laughed a great throaty Negro guffaw; she actually thrust a praline into his wretched hand and went on; she traveled the leisurely circle toward Madam Van Steed; her rolling eye encompassed the group; her grin was a scarlet and white gash in the blackened face. Recovering from their first surprise, the orchestra now entered into the spirit of the thing. They struck up the strains of “Whoa, Emma!” Clio Dulaine hoisted the basket a trifle higher on her arm, she raised the voluminous calico skirts a little, the feet in the white cotton stockings and the strapped flat slippers broke into the shuffle of a Negro dance as in her childhood she had been taught it by Cupide and Kaka in the kitchen of the Paris flat. Madam Van Steed’s face, the faces of the satellite dowagers were masks of horror as they beheld the shuffling slapping feet, the heaving rump, the rolling eye, the insolent grin.

“Whoa, Emma!” boomed the band.

“Whoa, Emma!” yelled the crowd, delighted. The party had come alive at last.

Clio’s hand, in its white cotton glove, plunged into her basket; she began to throw handfuls of pralines, like giant confetti, into the gray satin lap of Madam Van Steed, into the brocade and sarin laps of the ladies grouped about her. “Praw-leen for sweeten dem sour faces! Praw-leens!” She rolled her eyes, she raised her hands high, palms out, she threw back her head, she was imitating every wandering New Orleans minstrel and cavorting street band she had ever seen, every caroling berry vendor from the bayous; she was Belle Piquery, she was Kakaracou and Cupide in the old carefree Southern days of her early childhood; she was defiance against every convention she so hated. And so shuffling, shouting, clapping her hands, the empty basket now hooked round her neck by its handle and hanging at her back, Clio Dulaine made her fantastic way to the veranda door that led onto the garden and disappeared from the sight of a somewhat hysterical company made up of the flower of Saratoga.

The length of the curved veranda, down the steps to the floor below, running along the veranda tier and into her own apartment, the heavy basket bobbing at her back. A wild figure, her eyes rolling in the blackened face, she stood in the center of the little sitting room, laughing, crying, while Kaka divested her of the ridiculous garments— the full-skirted calico, the padding that had stuffed bosom and hips, the brilliant tignon, the dangling hoop earrings.

“Their faces, Kaka! Their silly faces with their mouths open and their eyes staring, and those stiff old women in their satin dresses. And Mrs. Porcelain with her trellis! Kaka! Kaka!” Tears streaked the blackened cheeks.

With cream and a soft cloth Kaka was cleansing the girl’s face and throat, and as she worked she kept up a grumbling and a mumbling, as though to herself.

“Somepin fret me . . . maybe now we come away from here but where at is Cupide where at is Cupide I got a feeling deep down somepin fret me ... I know you turn out like your mama ... no luck with menfolks . . . plan and contrive but no luck with menfolks . . . you fixing to marry a millionaire but all the time you crazy in your head for that
vacher
he leave you . . . just like Mister Nicolas he leave . . .”

With the flat of her hand Clio slapped the woman full in the face. But Kakaracou caught her hand and kissed it and said, “Now! That is better. Now will you put on the pink satin and your mama’s diamonds and Kaka fix your hair
à la marquise!”

“Yes,” said Clio, laughing. “Yes. Why not! Quick! Quick! I could marry him yet, if I wanted to.”

The black woman’s fingers were lightning. Powder on the piled black hair; the pink satin and black lace springing stiff and glistening from her slender waist, the necklaces, bracelets, the pendants, the parure, the flashing earrings; the rings with which Nicolas Dulaine had loaded his mistress. “There! Now, Kaka, you’ll come with me, my attendant, all very proper, since I have no man now. I really do look beautiful, don’t I! Am I as beaudful as my mother was? I am! I am!”

But Kakaracou shook her head. The two fantastic figures, the girl in her powdered hair and her pink satin hoops and her blazing jewels, the stately black woman in her turban and stiff silk, swept down the cottage balcony stairs and were halfway across the garden when a distracted figure stumbled toward them. His face was in shadow, but the light from the ballroom windows was full on the two women.

“Clio! Clio!”

“Oh, Mr. Van Steed, how you frightened me! I was just coming to have a litde peek at the ball. The music sounded so enticing.”

“Clio!”

She slipped her hand in his arm, she pulled him round with quite a hearty jerk. “Will you be my escort, since Colonel Maroon could not return in time?”

“Clio, I must talk to you. How could you—”

“Not now. Later. Who is that, singing? How sweet! How very sweet!”

They stood together in the ballroom doorway. On the platform Miss Charlotte Chisholm’s soprano warbling wavered, faltered, went bravely on. Clio did not enter; she did not take advantage of a chair indicated by a dazzled usher; she stood there with the wretched Van Steed; she shook her lovely powdered head; she put a finger to her lips for quiet and glanced toward the platform; and if Miss Chisholm had been turning cartwheels, uttering the notes of a Patti meanwhile, no one in that crowded room would have seen her or heard.

The singer finished, lamely. Clio applauded delicately and said, “Charming, charming!” She smiled across the room at the glaring Madam Van Steed, she waved to Sophie Bellop, who was waddling toward her, making her way through the crowd with astonishing swiftness.

“Clio, will you come into the garden for a stroll? I must talk to you. Now.”

“Wouldn’t it look strange?”

“No. No.”

But Mrs. Bellop was upon them. “Well, young lady, you must have taken leave of your senses!”

“Why, dear Mrs. Bellop!”

“A pretty how-d’you-do! It’s sure to be in the New York papers. They’ll never forgive you, those—”

Clio laid a hand affectionately on the arm of Saratoga’s social arbiter. “Dear, dear Mrs. Bellop, don’t scold me! And you, too, Bart. The party seemed so dull and stuffy I thought I would liven it up a little. It was in fun. I am so sorry. Tell me, have you heard news of Colonel Maroon? He was to have been my escort, the naughty man.” A lightning look leaped between Sophie Bellop and Bart Van Steed. But swift as it was, Clio caught it. The day’s vague unrest, the fear that had held her all evening, now became a terrible certainty. “What is it? You two. What’s happened?”

“Nothing. Run along into the garden. You’ve made trouble enough for one evening.”

Clio’s face hardened into a dreadful mask of resolved fury. “Tell me. Tell me what you know or I shall do something dreadful. But really frightful. I shall tear off my clothes and scream. I shall beat you with my fists. I care for nothing. Tell me! Tell me!”