Twain's End (30 page)

Later that January 1907

21 Fifth Avenue, New York

M
R. CLEMENS'S DRAWL FLOWED
as slowly as cold honey. “Who's in for another game of hearts?” He watched Isabel pour him another glass of Carnegie's whiskey, then signaled for her to pour one for their guest, Ralph Ashcroft, Mr. Clemens's new business manager. It had to be well past midnight. Isabel could feel the otherworldly stillness of the city outside parlor windows sealed against the piling snow. Oftentimes at this late hour, as she waited for Mr. Clemens to finish his endless billiards or played him at games of cards, she had the lonely sensation of their being the last living creatures on a planet that had died. But tonight, a week after their return from Bermuda, the ticking clock held no terrors. She attributed it to Mr. Ashcroft's jolly presence, or Mr. Carnegie's liquor.

“What is this now?” Ralph asked around his pipe stem. “Our one-hundred-twenty-second hand, or one-hundred-twenty-third? A person has not experienced cards until he has played with Samuel Clemens.” His Liverpudlian accent, usually locked away when he was sober, had been liberated by drink, converting those lines into something like “A pearson has nought ex-pear-ienced cards until he has played with Samuel Claymons.”

“We aren't done,” growled Mr. Clemens, “until you bow to my superiority.”

“Never.” Ralph cocked a dark eyebrow. “Deal them, Miss Lyon, now there's a good girl.”

Isabel scooped up the cards—a bit sloppily, she suspected. Carnegie's whiskey was hitting hard. She liked Ralph Ashcroft. Young, goateed, witty, as dark-haired as Mr. Clemens was light, he was the man who had conceived of the idea of turning Mark Twain into a company, forcing cigar merchants, toy manufacturers, playing-card makers, and the like, to pay Mr. Clemens for the use of his name. The rights to Mark Twain's image now flashing by on the cards she was shuffling had brought in enough money to invest in more Plasmon stock, making him the majority owner of the nutritional powder in America, and for three more white cashmere suits in which to do his investing, a fact that made Mr. Clemens more than a little gleeful. Indeed, Ralph Ashcroft was his newest obsession.

Isabel wondered how long it would last. In her years with Mr. Clemens, she had seen him pick up a new friend, charm him incessantly and dominate his life until, worn out from days on end of ten-hour billiard matches or twelve-hour card games, the boon pal slunk home, every ounce of platonic love wrung from him. Mr. Clemens would turn to fresh blood until his abandoned pal begged for his company and it started up again—or didn't start up, to the anguish and confusion of the formerly beloved. She'd seen Mr. Clemens use up the likes of Henry Rogers, William Dean Howells, Reverend Twichell, his priggish biographer Albert Paine, and several editors in this way, although they were the lucky ones who continued to enjoy renewed vogue when The King was good and ready for them. She'd heard of others not so lucky, like Bret Harte and Mr. Clemens's nephew Samuel Webster. Although she'd not seen it, she'd heard from Clara that no one could do as thorough a job of exorcising someone from his life as Samuel Clemens. Isabel hoped she'd never see it.

Mr. Ashcroft caught her looking at him. Smiling, he puffed on his pipe.

“No fair,” she said, her brain furred from the whiskey. “I want to smoke a pipe.”

“Do you now?” he said.

She grinned at the stupidity of her request. She hated smoke. She hated pipes.

Ralph took his pipe from his mouth, wiped the stem on his vest, and held it out. “Try it.”

“No,” growled Mr. Clemens.

“Why not?”

“Because she's a lady.”

Be it from the drink or stubbornness or watching Mr. Clemens entertain college presidents, writers, and little girls in Bermuda for the remainder of their time there—anything but to be alone with her—Isabel told Ralph, “Here.”

Elbows on the table, Ralph leaned toward her. “Put out your hand.”

She did so. He placed the smooth wooden bowl in her palm. “Put it to your mouth.”

When she obeyed, the stem was warm where his mouth had been. She closed her lips around it.

Ralph struck a match and cupped his hand under hers. Not taking his sights from her, he held the flame over the bowl. “Now suck it.”

Mr. Clemens grasped the arms of his chair. “Wait a minute.”

Isabel rolled her gaze up to him.

“You don't want a damn
used
pipe,” he said slowly. He pushed himself up, ambled over to his bookshelf, and fetched a polished box. He dropped it on the table with a bang.

Isabel jumped.

“For you.”

Ralph sat back as Isabel lifted the lid. Inside was a yellow-bowled meerschaum.

“I was waiting to give this to you at the right time.”

Isabel was too dull with drink to question the truth of that. She threw her arms around him. He was slow to release her.

“Pack it, Ashcroft.”

Isabel thought momentarily that he meant for Ralph to leave, until the younger man reached for the pouch of tobacco. Ralph loaded the bowl with tobacco and lit it.

“Draw in,” Mr. Clemens growled, “but for Christ's sake, don't inhale it.”

Isabel was puffing and laughing while resolutely not inhaling when Katy came in, wrapped in a pink robe.

Mr. Clemens sat back. “If it isn't Katherine the Librarian. You should have seen the job she did in arranging my books,” he said to Mr. Ashcroft. “What the hell are you doing up?”

“I heard a bang, sir. I feared that an intruder had—” She broke off, her gaze on Isabel with the pipe in her mouth.

“Don't tell me that you want a pipe, too,” said Mr. Clemens.

“Absolutely not, sir.”

“Don't be jealous, Katy.”

Katy sniffed. “I'm not. You gave me a much better gift, back in my day. A music box is much nicer than a pipe. No one is going to take that back from her.”

When he stared at her, she said, “I don't deny Miss Lyon her pleasure. If a pipe makes her feel better, let her smoke. She's missed out on a lot in life.”

Ralph burst out laughing.

“Good night, Katy,” said Isabel, a little nauseous.

Mr. Clemens, puffing his own pipe, waved her out.

Katy stared at Isabel. “If I were you, I wouldn't laugh. You're lucky Mrs. Clemens isn't around.”

“Oh,” Isabel said lightly, “I know.”

Katy smiled grimly, then, pulling her robe tighter, left.

“What was that about?” asked Ralph.

Isabel rose, too woozy to think. “We need some music.”

“No,” said Mr. Clemens. “Come here.”

Ralph struggled to his feet. “I can do it.”

“Play the Orchestrelle?” Isabel went to Mr. Clemens, who slung an arm around her waist. “Do you know how?”

“Nope.” Ralph went over and sat down heavily on the bench. “Don't need to. The keys can work like a regular piano, yes?” He proceeded to play and sing. “ ‘Comin' through the rye, comin' through the rye—' ”

“Sounds Scottish,” Mr. Clemens called to him. He massaged Isabel's back. “I thought you were a limey.”

“We limeys know the songs of all the countries we dominate.”

“You haven't even dominated a puppy, Ashcroft.”

“Nope.” He sang louder, his gaze on Isabel.

Mr. Clemens grasped her tighter. She pulled from him, causing a surge of dizziness, and then broke the rest of the way free. Laughing, she waved her hand and foot in a Highland fling.

“Damn it, Lioness,” said Mr. Clemens, “you're Scottish, too?”

Ralph picked up the tempo, whistling at Isabel as she danced.

“Nope!” She laughed and danced, head thrown back, and then jigged over to Mr. Clemens, glowering at the table. She pulled him from his seat, knocking the cards from his hands. Dozens of his images tumbled to the floor as she waved her hand in the fling. “My lord, will you dance with your humble subject?”

He grabbed her hand. She stopped dancing.

She was not afraid of him. “You are my King, you know. I'm going to call you that.”

“Go ahead.”

“Hail—to my King.”

They stood face-to-face, Ashcroft's jaunty music ringing around them. Her gaze roamed his hard face, his tousled hair, his shining, intelligent eyes. She wanted to swim right into them.

The music stopped. Ralph stood up. “This is where I leave.”

She was hardly aware of Ralph closing the door.

Tenderly, The King brushed a lock from her brow, then reeled her in until their bodies met. His heat, his solidness, made her cry out softly. He groaned when he kissed her.

He pulled back.

She pursued him greedily.

He took her hands from his face. “No.”

“Why? Sam, I love you. I can hardly bear how much I love you.”

“I can't.”

“Why?”

“God, I wish I'd known you when I was young.”

A loud thump shook the ceiling. “Ralph,” she said absently. “He must have fallen.”

“It wouldn't be much of a marriage.”

“Marriage,” she breathed.

“But if that's what you want.”

“I didn't say that's what I wanted.”

“Isn't that what all women want?”

“I just want you. And I want you to want me.”

He kissed her deeply, then he took her hand. Through his scattered images staring up from the floor, he led her to the sofa.

“Well,” he growled, “I do.” He pulled her onto him.

April 1907

21 Fifth Avenue, New York

I
SABEL'S MOTHER LOOKED OUT
the window of Mr. Clemens's parlor, took a drink of lemonade, repositioned the dress draped over her lap, then reattacked with her needle. Whoever thought that the former Georgiana Van Kleek would become such a little seamstress? Well, she enjoyed it. Producing the tiniest, most even stitches, shaping flat cloth into form, enhancing what needed to be enhanced on a woman's body while hiding what needed to be hidden—why, it was an art. Who knew that creating something could be so satisfying for the soul? The irony was when she had come upon her maid Poppy stitching away in her little attic room in Spring Side the evening she had dismissed her, she had actually looked down on her for sewing. Young, beautiful, dripping with five pounds of Van Kleek pearls and wedged within the vast bustled yardage of her brocade gown, she had dragged her peacock's tail upstairs to tell Poppy that she was discharged, and seeing the woman bent over her work, she'd felt an angry rush of superiority.
You, poking away with your little needle, dare to steal my husband from me, one of the Hartford Van Kleeks?
And to think now that the nimble-fingered woman might not have envied her as much as she had imagined.

Well, it didn't bear thinking about. Mrs. Lyon had a crisis on her
hands. Her daughter was on the verge of netting a world-famous figure. There was no time to be crying over the past when Mrs. Lyon could be knitting the seine with which her daughter could catch him.

Take Mrs. Lyon's word for it: something wonderful was happening between them. Who would have thought it when Isabel had come back from Bermuda? In truth, one look at Isabel's glum face upon her return from the Happy Island, and Mrs. Lyon had flown into panic. Thirty-six more pincushions she had whipped up that evening, her hedge against imminent ruin.

And Mrs. Lyon had such high hopes for that trip! How her spirits were dashed when Isabel came home empty-handed, save for a gaudy yellow dress. Mrs. Lyon had promptly canceled her trip to Tarrytown. Why subject herself to the Garden Club when there was no good news to share?

But one never knew when one's luck would turn. Only one week later, Isabel was cheery and gay and asking Mrs. Lyon to help her sew a new wardrobe—Mr. Clemens wanted to see her in colored silks—and Mr. Clemens, for his part, couldn't keep his eyes off the girl.

If new clothes were what it took to snare the beast, then Mrs. Lyon would make them. She'd do anything short of ransoming a Vanderbilt if it would do the trick. Heaven knew that Isabel hadn't the time to put her hand to needle and thread, what with managing Mr. Clemens's affairs. Goodness, he was busy! Celebrities traipsed through his house as if it were Central Park. The man spoke at more dinners than Mr. Tiffany had lamps. He had even been invited to go to England this summer for a degree to be conferred on him by Oxford University, the English equivalent of Columbia. Let the Tarrytown crowd look down their noses all they wanted:
her
future son-in-law had been invited to take tea with the English king.

The front door opened. Mrs. Lyon could heard her daughter's and Mr. Clemens's voices in the hall. Isabel sounded happy, like she used to as a child. Mrs. Lyon's heart swelled at the memory. How sweet it had been to have little children in the house.

They were coming in her direction. “You really must stop leading Miss Johnson on,” Isabel was saying. “She thinks she has a chance with you.”