The Promise (6 page)

‘All right then,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll come for you around two o’clock. If that’s all right with you?’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

Oscar took his pocket watch out from his vest pocket and sprang open the lid. ‘Chores are calling,’ he said. ‘So I best be getting a move on.’ He closed the watch and put it back in his pocket. He smiled, then said, ‘We’ll honeymoon here tomorrow night. Then we’ll go on home Friday morning.’

Eight stories high, Union Train Station was one of the tallest buildings in the city. It was a few blocks from the Central Hotel and in my room on the third floor, I stood at the open windows and watched the station glow in the afternoon sun, the flags on the turrets drooping. Trains arrived and departed, their engines grinding, the whistles shrill and the brakes screeching. On the street below, horse-drawn drays and carriages clopped past. White birds with gray wings swooped and squawked, diving for rubbish near the raised curbs. They were seagulls, similar to the ones at Lake Erie, where my family once had a summer cottage.

I had said goodbye to my mother the day before I left Dayton. In her parlor, the one she had once shared with my father and me, I told her I was engaged to Oscar Williams, formerly of Dayton. Her face had collapsed with relief. She could not remember him, and I did not try to refresh her memory. It was enough that I had solved my problem. ‘Perhaps someday you and Mr Williams will come for a visit,’ she said. ‘Perhaps,’ I had said. Now, as I stood at the hotel window, I considered writing to her to let her know of my safe arrival and of my plans.

I put my hand to my cheek and felt again the sting of her slap. No, I decided. I would not write to her, not yet. Let her wonder.

The washroom was four doors down the hall. There, I filled the claw-foot porcelain tub with lukewarm water. I got into it, ignoring the rusty stain just above the drain, and sank down so that the water was to my shoulders. A hot breeze came in through the awning window near the ceiling. I bathed with the sponge that I had brought from home, washing away the days of travel and the heat of the Galveston sun.

I had met Edward Davis at a family dinner party in Dayton four and a half years ago. I lived in Philadelphia then, but I had come home to spend Christmas with my mother and father. Edward, married to my cousin, sat next to me at my parents’ long, oval dining table, the crystal stemware and bonechina dishes glimmering in the candlelight. His father was one of the founders of a company that manufactured railroad cars, and Edward held a position there. He didn’t talk about his work, though. Instead, he spoke of art, his eyes shining when he mentioned the artistic genius of Winslow Homer.

‘Did he study in Paris?’ I said.

‘For a very short time,’ Edward said. ‘But he’s an American, one of our own.’

The admiration in his voice surprised me. The professors at Oberlin College scorned American artists and composers who did not study abroad. ‘It seems Mr Homer has captured your interest,’ I said.

‘Indeed he has. First his illustrations, now his paintings. It’s his sensitivity to light and color that I most admire. And how he reaches into the heart of his subject and lays it bare for all to see.’ Edward glanced at his wife, Alma, who sat across from us, platters of food and a lit candelabra between us. Although no one spoke of it, her waistline was thick with their second child.

Edward turned back to me, and I was pleased that he did. Art was not the usual thing men discussed while dining. The men of Dayton talked about the innovations of the day: electric lights in every home, mechanical cash registers, automobiles, and paved roads.

‘Winslow Homer isn’t one for portraits, flat and dull,’ Edward said. ‘Nor does he paint saints ringed in halos. He’s better than that. His subject is life, movement.’

‘Movement?’

‘An oarsman rowing a boat, women repairing a fishing net. Movement.’

‘Like music,’ I said.

‘Precisely,’ he said.

Across from us, Alma talked with my mother, who sat beside her. They complained about how difficult it was to keep housekeepers. ‘The Irish girls are the worst,’ Alma said. ‘As soon as they’re trained, they run off to get married.’

Edward lifted his crystal flute a few inches above the table, the champagne a soft yellow. He said, his voice low, ‘To art. To light and to color. And to those who understand.’

Now, in the bathtub, I wrung the sponge, twisting it. I washed my hair, then drained the tub and huddled near the faucet to rinse it. Back in my room, I dried it with a towel and left it loose. Wearing only my summer robe and slippers, I found my sheet music in one of my trunks. I sat on the spindle chair by one of the windows and read the music for ‘Moonlight Sonata’, hearing the sad slow notes as if I were playing them. It was said that Beethoven composed it to honor a woman he loved but who did not love him in return. He wrote it to say farewell.

I put the music back in the trunk.

I arranged my hair into a pompadour even though it was still damp. Dressed in a fresh white shirtwaist and my green skirt, I went downstairs and had a light dinner of tomato soup in the dining room. After, I went to the small parlor on the second floor and sat on the pink upholstered settee across from a cluster of horsehair chairs. A gray-haired man sat at a desk in the corner studying what appeared to be blueprints. Long shafts of sunlight came in through the tall open doors. Early evening, I thought, and still so hot. I tried to read the wrinkled newspaper that someone had left on an end table, but the news about the upcoming presidential election blurred before my eyes. I folded it and put it back, and that was when I noticed the brown upright piano near the fireplace.

I had never played an upright. The professors at the music conservatory advised against it. Uprights were inexpensive and their tones were inferior. Play nothing but the best, the professors said. Steinways or Sohmers. But now my hands longed for the cool touch of ivory.

I got up and went to the upright. It was a Mason & Hamlin, and there was sheet music on the rack.

‘You play?’ the man at the desk said. I looked at him over my shoulder. His spectacles magnified his eyes and showed his curiosity. I turned back to the sheet music. ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas.’

‘No,’ I said.

Upstairs, my room glowed orange from the setting sun. I closed the door and turned the key in the lock. I pulled the tortoiseshell combs from my hair. A train left Union Station, its engine gaining as it slowly picked up speed. I undressed and hung my clothes in the wardrobe, which smelled of cedar. The floorboards creaked beneath my slippered feet as I put on my nightdress. The rose-flowered wallpaper was loose at the seams, and it shimmered with sweat from the dampness in the air. The light faded, and the room eased into darkness.

I pushed aside a panel of mosquito netting that draped from the bed’s canopy. The mattress was spongy in the middle and had a musty smell. In the hallway, someone hummed as he walked past, and on the street below, a man called out, ‘Robert, I’m coming.’ The white linen drapes lifted slightly in the breeze, but the air in the room didn’t move and my skin was soon sticky as though covered with salt. In bed, I lay on my side, my black crystal earrings on the nightstand beside me.

It was August 29, 1900, the eve of my wedding day.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Central Hotel

A black silk ribbon dangled from the spine of the worn book that Judge Monagan held open in one hand. Oscar and I stood before him in his wood-paneled office. Two clerks leaned against a side wall with a four-drawer file cabinet between them. The taller of the two had his arms crossed while the other man twisted one end of his dark mustache.

This was my wedding, held in a courthouse office and witnessed by two clerks. For them, this was nothing more than an interruption in their work day. They didn’t know that the floor beneath my feet felt slippery or that within minutes, I would step into a world that bore little resemblance to that which I had come from.

The open window behind the judge faced the cream-colored brick wall of another building, and outside, birds cackled. If only there were a breeze, I thought. My navy suit was far too heavy for this climate, but this was my wedding. My pride would not allow me to wear a shirtwaist and skirt. Drops of perspiration ran from the judge’s brow, and my own face was damp, my wool hat with its white plumes another choice dictated by pride.

Beside me, Oscar stood with his shoulders back. He was freshly shaved, and his high collar was starched. His suit jacket was buttoned. This was his wedding, too. His second wedding.

He put his hand on the small of my back, his fingers spread wide. My pulse quickened and for a moment, I felt myself lean into his hand.

Judge Monagan cleared his throat. Oscar dropped his hand, and the judge began to read. His voice boomed as if the room lined with shelves of law books and court records were filled with family and friends wishing Oscar and me well. ‘We are gathered here on this day, August the 30th, 1900, for the wedding of …’ He stopped and pulled out a piece of paper he had earlier inserted into the book. He studied it, then started again. ‘For the wedding of Miss Catherine Wainwright and Mr Oscar Williams.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you, Miss Wainwright, here of your own free will, and do you intend to marry this man?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘A little louder, Miss Wainwright,’ Judge Monagan said. ‘So the witnesses can hear.’

‘Yes,’ I said, and this time it was too loud, my voice startling me.

‘And you, Mr Williams,’ he said. ‘Are you here of your own free will, and do you intend to marry this woman?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Oscar said. ‘I am, and I do.’

One of the clerks laughed. Oscar, his jaw set, gave him a tight look. Both clerks straightened, their smiles gone, and I resisted the sudden urge to take off my crystal earrings. They were a gift from Edward; I should not have worn them.

Judge Monagan continued. ‘Is there anyone here who has a reason why this couple may not be lawfully joined?’

He looked up and over his eyeglasses, his gaze going back and forth between Oscar and me, and then to the witnesses. The room was thick with silence.

‘Mighty fine,’ he said. ‘No objections.’ He made a twirling motion with his forefinger. ‘You two turn and face one another.’ We did, my movements jerky, the toes of Oscar’s broad boots now just a handful of inches from the tips of my narrow shoes. A thin crack splintered the top of one of his boots, but the leather, I saw, was buffed to a high shine.

I looked up. Our eyes met and all at once, everything – the desk stacked with papers, the judge, the witnesses, the cackling birds outside – fell away. Oscar frightened me, I realized all at once. Not that he would harm me, it wasn’t that. It was the way he looked at me, drawing me in, my composure lost.

‘Miss Wainwright,’ Judge Monagan said.

My thoughts snapped back into place.

‘Repeat after me.’

I nodded.

He said, ‘I, Catherine Wainwright.’

I echoed the words, my sense of disquiet heightened.

‘Take you, Oscar Williams,’ I heard myself say, my gaze fixed on Oscar’s jacket lapels. They were too wide; the fashion had changed a few years ago. Then, ‘To be my lawfully wedded husband.’

‘Good,’ Judge Monagan said. ‘Now you, Mr Williams.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Oscar said, and again the phrases filled the room, spoken once by the judge and then repeated by Oscar.

I steadied my breathing. The judge licked his finger and turned the page. He said to Oscar, ‘Is there a ring?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Oscar unfastened the top button of his jacket and took out a wide gold band from his vest pocket. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger. The judge gave him a look of approval and then told me to take off my glove. I did so, my hands all thumbs, my cloth purse with its drawstrings swinging from my right wrist.

Oscar took my left hand. I watched as he slid the wedding band along my ring finger. The band in place but feeling a bit loose, his fingers began to close around mine.

‘Good,’ Judge Monagan said. ‘Very good.’

Oscar released my hand.

‘Now then. In front of these witnesses, this couple has declared their intention to join their lives in marriage.’

A declaration, and I belonged to Oscar. As he belonged to me.

‘You may kiss the bride.’

Oscar leaned toward me. My breathing turned shallow and fast. Not in this office, I wanted to say. Not with three men watching. He put his hands on my upper arms and all at once, my eyes closed and my chin lifted. He bumped my hat as he kissed me, a light brush against my lips, quick, but long enough for the smell of him to envelop me.

Soap. Tobacco. And fresh-cut hay.

‘Ten minutes past four,’ Oscar said, the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes. He put the watch back into his vest pocket. We were on a bench in the shade of an oak tree in front of the courthouse. ‘More than likely the Jerseys are having themselves a little siesta right about now.’

‘Jerseys?’

‘My cows.’

I didn’t know what to say to this man who was now my husband. I was dazed by the quickness of the wedding ceremony and by the hearty congratulations from the judge. I felt rearranged and marked as though the people walking past us could see by my features that I was a different woman, a married woman.

‘All right,’ Oscar said. He took out a matchbox and a pack of cigarettes from a pocket in his jacket. ‘It’s a powerful habit,’ he said, referring to the cigarette he held now between his thumb and forefinger.

‘My father said much the same about cigars,’ I said. My father had never smoked in the presence of ladies but Oscar had no such reservations. The cigarette between his lips, he struck a match. The flame flared. He lit the cigarette; its tip burned red. He flicked the match and the flame went out. His chin raised, he inhaled.

Water bubbled at a nearby marble fountain and splashed into the circular basin. It was a lighthearted melody but it did not soothe my nerves. The Central Hotel was blocks from here. Earlier, Oscar had met me in the parlor and from there, we walked to City Hall for our marriage license and then on to the courthouse. The walk had seemed endless, block after block in the sun. Now, as we sat under the oak tree, a noticeable space between us, I imagined our return to the hotel. His hand would be on the small of my back as we’d step through the open door and into the modest entrance. There’d be arrangements to make with the desk clerk: a change in the registration, a line drawn through my name, and a new combination of names – Mr and Mrs Oscar Williams – written in the narrow space above. The desk clerk, a knowing look in his eye, would hand Oscar the room key.