Song of the Spirits (80 page)

Disappointed and helpless, Elaine sometimes cried into Banshee’s or Fellow’s mane on her way home after these visits, while Timothy released his frustrations on the barbells in his room, training all the more tenaciously.

Thus both of them were dreading the solemn Christmas meal to which Nellie Lambert had formally invited Elaine.

“A small party, Miss Keefer. I hope you have something suitable to wear.”

Elaine fell into a panic at once, because of course she had no evening gowns. The invitation had been sent very late, so she had no time to have something tailored, even if she’d had enough money for it.

She tried on one dress after another in desperation until Charlene finally came upon her in tears.

“Everyone’s going to look down their nose at me,” Elaine sobbed. “Nellie Lambert will get to display to all the world that I’m nothing but a barroom girl without etiquette. It will be horrible!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Charlene said, soothing her. “It’s not even a dinner invitation. It’s only to lunch. Besides, the whole world’s not going to be there. She didn’t even invite me, for example.”

Elaine raised her head. “Why should she?”

“As Mr. Matthew Gawain’s official fiancée!” Charlene beamed and twirled proudly in front of the mirror. “Look at me, Lainie Keefer. Here stands a respectable young lady. I’ve already talked to Madame Clarisse: as of today, I’ll still be serving in the pub, but I won’t be taking the fellows upstairs anymore. I’m afraid Matt will still have to pay for that until the wedding, but I don’t want to know the details. At any rate, we’ll be getting married in January! How’s that for a surprise?”

Elaine forgot her troubles and embraced her friend.

“I thought you didn’t ever want to get married,” she teased.

Charlene smoothed out her dark hair and wound it into a tight knot, the way Berta Leroy wore her hair, to see how that looked.

“I didn’t want to become respectable at any price, but Matt’s a foreman. He’ll be sharing the management of the mine with Tim at some point. The two of them have already worked that out. So I haven’t got a pauper’s life in a hut with ten children pulling at my apron ahead of me; I’m really moving up. Just wait, Lainie, in a few years the two of us’ll be leading the church’s charity bazaars. Besides, I love Matt—and that’s made more than one person change her mind, isn’t that right, Lainie?”

Elaine laughed and blushed.

Charlene continued. “Mother Lambert still can’t tolerate the sight of me,” she said as she looked over Elaine’s collection of dresses. “That’s why Matt’s getting the cold shoulder too, and hasn’t been invited to join them. He’s real sore about it.” She grinned. “Here, put this on.” She held up the pale-blue summer dress that Madame Clarisse had had tailored for Elaine when she had first arrived. “And wear my new jewelry with it. Here, look—Matt’s engagement present.” Charlene proudly held a jewelry case out to Elaine that contained a delicate silver necklace with lapis lazuli stones. “I’ve always thought you were more of an aquamarine type, but that all looks very nice. The neckline may be a little low, but it’s summer, so who cares?”

Elaine’s heart was beating in her throat. She lowered her eyes as she extended her hand to Timothy’s parents and wished them a merry Christmas. She gave Timothy, who was sitting unhappily in his wheelchair, an appropriately cool and reserved kiss. He was already sweating in his three-piece suit, which etiquette evidently demanded that he wear to this event despite the high-summer temperatures. Moreover, his mother insisted on covering his legs with a plaid flannel blanket—as though they were something offensive that had to be kept out of sight.

Elaine would have liked to comfort Timothy and make some kind of confidential gesture to show he was not alone. But once more, she felt as though she were frozen—particularly after she was introduced to the other guests. Marvin and Nellie Lambert had invited the Webers and the Billers—since the two families were friends, it could hardly be avoided. This last fact, however, seemed to please neither Marvin Lambert nor Joshua Biller. The two of them had already given themselves a dose of Dutch courage, and their wives would spend the rest of the afternoon carefully maneuvering them so that they would avoid starting a fight over something trivial.

The Webers looked composed and distinguished, though both wife and daughter eyed Elaine’s somewhat inappropriate dress with equal disapproval. They then whispered about it to Mrs. Biller, which resulted in further critical looks. Elaine’s attire was completely forgotten, however, the moment Caleb introduced a real scandal. Nellie Lambert had intended for Florence Weber to sit across from him, but he appeared instead with his supposed “fiancée,” Kura-maro-tini Martyn.

Elaine nearly choked on the champagne the maid had just served her.

“Just keep your mouth shut,” Kura hissed to Elaine as Caleb formally introduced her, and the two cousins halfheartedly clasped each other’s hands. “If you insist, I can explain everything to you another time, but you need to play along today. I’m already sitting on a powder keg.”

Elaine quickly understood who held the fuse. The icy coldness between Kura and Florence Weber was unmistakable—and Florence promptly extended her antipathy to Elaine as well. Since both girls worked as pianists in bars, she assumed they were friends, and Kura’s friends were automatically her enemies. However, to Elaine, Florence’s attacks were completely unexpected. She was just about to hide behind her hair, blush, and freeze as she used to do, but then she looked into Kura’s annoyed face and remembered there were other options.

“So do you also have ambitions for the opera, Miss Keefer?” Florence asked.

“No,” Elaine answered.

“But you are likewise paid to play the piano. And is the Lucky Horse not moreover… how should I put it… a ‘hotel’?”

“Yes,” Elaine confirmed.

“I’ve never been inside such an establishment. But”—Florence cast an embarrassed side glance at her mother as though to be sure that she was not listening—“one is curious, naturally. Are the men very importunate? I know, of course, that you would never, yourself, but—”

“No,” said Elaine.

Kura looked over the table at her, and both girls had to stifle a smile. Elaine could hardly believe it, but she felt something like complicity with her oldest enemy.

The conversation was advancing rather arduously among the other guests as well. Mr. Weber asked Marvin about the reconstruction of his mine after the accident—and when Timothy answered, Mr. Weber stared at him as though surprised that the Lamberts’ invalid son could still speak. Marvin Lambert himself no longer could, after several glasses of whiskey, champagne, and wine, causing Nellie, Mrs. Biller, and Mrs. Weber to take the lead in the conversation. The ladies chattered at length about their ideas for furnishing and English furniture—looking at Caleb as if he were some kind of monster when he naïvely joined in. A man who knew anything about “wallpaper” belonged in the cabinet of curiosities as much as a mining engineer in a wheelchair. Elaine had the greatest sympathy for Timothy, whose countenance expressed both exasperation and exhaustion. Kura, on the other hand, found Caleb amusing. He acted like a scolded child.

And above the fray sat Florence Weber, who chatted with equal poise about lampshades, new uses of electricity, Italian opera, and the efficiency of ventilation shafts in coal mines. The latter appeared to interest her most; however, her interest only resulted in the gentlemen smiling condescendingly and the ladies holding their tongues indignantly.

“I have to get out of here,” Timothy whispered to Elaine as she pushed him into the study after the meal. Nellie had actually asked her husband to do it, but Marvin would hardly have been able to manage
without ramming Timothy into the furniture. Timothy had given Elaine such an urgent, imploring look that she had quickly interceded. Accidents with this wheelchair were painful and not without their dangers. A few weeks before, Dr. Leroy had treated Timothy after his mother had succeeded in overturning the chair, as heavy as it was unstable, with Timothy in it.

“What do you want me to do?” Elaine asked desperately. She could hardly maneuver the chair forward on the Lamberts’ thick rugs. “We could say we were going out to the garden, but I’d never in my life be able to get this thing out there. Where’s Roly anyway?”

“He has the day off,” Timothy said, gnashing his teeth. “It is Christmas after all. He was here this morning, though, and he’ll come back this evening. That boy is as good as gold, but he has family of his own, you know.”

At these last words, Timothy furrowed his brow as though he thought a family no more worth striving for than a toothache. He went quiet when Caleb approached.

“May I assist you, Miss Keefer?” the young man asked amiably and without a hint of embarrassment. “I think an after-lunch constitutional in the garden is a capital idea. If it would please you, Tim.”

Caleb took hold of the wheelchair’s handles without hesitation and pushed Timothy—for whom this was anything but pleasing—out of the stuffy rooms and into the roaring-hot summer day. Elaine thought Caleb was being very considerate. He raised the wheelchair carefully over the steps and cautiously avoided bumps on the garden path.

Kura followed, casting nervous glances over her shoulder.

“Freedom,” she remarked, catching up with Elaine. “We’ve successfully escaped Florence Weber. Probably only for a few seconds, but one must be thankful for small blessings.” She flung back the luxurious hair that she was provocatively wearing down. Kura’s neckline was also too low and her burgundy dress cut too alluringly to really be ladylike, but she nevertheless looked breathtaking.

“Still, at least now I understand why she behaves like that,” Kura expounded, falling into step very naturally next to Elaine. “For weeks now, I’ve been asking myself what drew her to Caleb. She had
to realize that he doesn’t give a fig about her. But now I see that she wants his mine—whatever the cost. She would probably give her life to inherit from her own dad, but she’s ‘just a girl’ after all. Caleb, however, would be wax in her hands. If she gets him to the altar, the Biller Mine is hers. Tim Lambert would also be an option, of course. Better not leave him alone with her.”

Coming from Kura’s mouth, that advice struck Elaine as a little hypocritical, but, to her own surprise, she couldn’t help laughing.

“You’re the expert after all,” she remarked pointedly—and observed to her astonishment that Kura looked struck. She even seemed to have tears in her eyes. Until that moment, she had always assumed that Kura had left William. Was it perhaps the other way around? Elaine decided to speak with her cousin sometime.

It was late afternoon before most of the guests finally left. Nellie Lambert threw herself immediately into overseeing the cleanup work while Marvin retired to his study with one last drink.

Elaine was torn. On the one hand, they were surely expecting her to likewise take her leave. On the other, Timothy looked so weary in his chair that she could not bring herself to go. Earlier, he had chatted enthusiastically with Caleb about the Biller Mine, but he had hardly said anything else in the last few hours. It looked as though he had to muster all his strength just to hold himself upright. Not that his father, Joshua Biller, or Mr. Weber had seen him anyway. They didn’t even bother to offer him a glass of whiskey or a cigar when they all disappeared into the study to partake of those indulgences. Florence, who had followed the men into the study, was the one who finally gave Tim a glass and a cigar. Apparently, she could no longer stand chattering about curtains and bathroom furnishings. The talk about coal marketing held considerably more allure for her.

Elaine had peeked jealously into the study through the open door and noticed Florence exchanging a few words with Timothy—probably because the rest of the gathering was ignoring the two of them
equally. Timothy’s heart, however, was not in it. Elaine recognized with concern the agitation of his hands on the wheelchair’s rests. He had tried repeatedly to change his position on the overly soft cushions, and winced in pain every time he did not succeed. Now he was sitting by the window, staring ashen-faced into the garden and looking as though he were waiting desperately for the sun to sink below the horizon.