Twain's End (35 page)

His glare dared Katy to criticize him. “What's shameful?”

“Mr. Wark is married,” she said.

“Married?” The King roared. “They got married without me?”

“He's married,” said Katy, “to someone else.”

Time stopped. Or just Isabel's heart.

“Everyone knew?” The King gazed at the servants cowering in semidarkness. He looked down upon his robe for a moment, then up at Isabel. “You knew?”

“I had no choice,” she whispered. She physically felt his trust receding. She knew she could never get it back.

The New York Times,
January 1909

TWAIN TALKS TO DOCTORS.

“Dr. Clemens” Describes Imaginary Medical School at His Country Home.

At the annual dinner of the Directors and Faculty of the New York Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital at Delmonico's last night Mark Twain, a member of the Post-Graduate Corporation, and appropriately introduced as Dr. Samuel L. Clemens, wore his now famous white suit of dinner clothes, and seemed to be comfortable in them. He talked at some length about his celebrated burglars. He declared that he had never lost anything through burglars; on the contrary, he had been a gainer, he declared, because the burglars had frightened away some undesirable servants.

January 8, 1909

Stormfield,
Redding, Connecticut

P
APA HAD MADE THESE
past four months since the burglary a living hell. He'd given Clara no choice but to come down from New York and make her stand. Contrary to what everyone thought, she did not enjoy making scenes. She made them only when pushed to the absolute limit and she had no alternative but to go ahead and have a terrible tantrum. Did people think it felt
good
to injure her hands by tearing up books? Did they think she
liked
to wear herself down to a nub while breaking furniture, or to scream and scream until she was as hoarse as a crow? Clara tried not to crack, oh, dear God, she tried not to crack, and yet people kept pushing her and pushing her until she did.

She was a sweet person, a dutiful daughter, a dutiful sister, but she never got credit for it. Hadn't she sat in a chair next to her mother's bed for months—no, years—watching her own pretty face age in the bedroom mirror, watching her own trim body wither under the dumpy dresses that Papa had insisted she wear, listening all the while to her mother's breath rising and falling as that damn music box jingled—hurrah that Katy couldn't put it back together, try as if her life depended on it, little fool, after the Lioness stole it from Mamma and smashed it while in Italy. Susy never would have been able to have survived all Clara had borne. Susy wouldn't have
lasted one day. And forget Jean. Nobody expected anything from her. She could run around saving animals while the rest of the house burned down.

But did Papa ever give Clara one speck of praise? No. Never. He was too busy sailing to Bermuda with the Lioness or lying to reporters or having tea parties with thirteen-year-old girls. Repulsive! Yet Clara was supposed to always give and give until there was nothing left to her but her name—and even that wasn't hers! Clara
Twain
! She would surely kill the next person who called her that.

Now it was her turn to take a nibble for herself, just the teeniest-tiniest corner of happiness. She wasn't hurting anyone, really, not anyone who didn't deserve it, and yet she was supposed to give up Will. Well, she wasn't. Not without a fight.

Look—there they were in Papa's precious billiards room, his precious
Aquarium,
the raggedy Lion and his Lioness, the pair of hypocrites who couldn't stand for her to be happy even though they themselves were doing exactly what they didn't want her to do. She threw her forty-two-pelt fox coat toward a chair and marched over to give them a piece of her mind. Halfway across the room, when the limp head of the fox on the collar was bouncing against the chair cushion with a
thunk,
she saw the trio huddled on the other side of the billiards table: company.

Damn it! Couldn't Papa live one single moment without company? The man had to have people telling him he was wonderful every moment of every day. Damn that farm boy of a butler for not warning her that they were there. Now she looked like a banshee in front of them.

The man in the group was staring at her. Hold the line. Look at
him.
Wasn't he just the candy? And about her age, too. She cocked her head to give herself more appeal and offered her gloved hand. Papa's little fishies weren't the only ones who could be adorable.

“Have we met?” Clara lowered her head to look up through her lashes.

“I don't believe so.”

Nice voice. Educated. Oh, he was handsome. That chin. So aggressive and firm! Hadn't she heard something about how you could judge a man's equipment by his chin?

Her father pushed a billiards ball across the table to where a kitten was sitting in a pocket. That one was probably hers—Papa stole every cat that she had ever liked. It stuck out its paw and diverted the ball as Papa sauntered over.

“John Macy, this is my daughter Clara.”

“His favorite daughter,” she added. She saw the slight twitch at her father's mouth.
Ha. Got him.
As for the Lioness, she wasn't giving her the time of day. That drove her crazy, Clara knew.

Papa patted the dumpy woman next to Handsome as if she were something special and not just some little frump bursting the buttons of her shirtwaist. “This is Mrs. Macy.”

My God, she was his wife? She was built like a gumdrop. She had to be at least a decade older than he was.

“And this—” Papa brought forward a young woman with the strangest look on her face. “This is Helen Keller, the Helen who makes Helen of Troy look as ugly as a mining-camp cook.”

Oh, the famous blind girl, all grown up. Papa was always making a fuss over her. Evidently, that's what it took to get his sympathy—be deaf, dumb, and blind. Or just be Susy.

Now Gumdrop was galumphing over to Miss Keller's side to spell Papa's outrageous compliment into her hand. Clara's gaze went to the Angelfish pin on Miss Keller's blouse. Oh, dear God. Papa was at it again. He was going to get arrested if he didn't watch out.

Helen laughed. “I am hardly Helen of Troy.”

Helen's unusual speech lifted Clara's gaze from the pin. She had never actually heard Helen Keller talk. It was more of a honk, wasn't it?

“Just don't go abducting our Helen like that fool Paris did to that lesser Helen,” Papa said to Mr. Macy. “There would be hell to pay.”

Mr. Macy snorted. “Ha. No, I won't.”

Clara gave him a double look. Handsome was uncomfortable
about something. All those years of watching Mamma deal with Papa had given her a sixth sense about these things.

Helen Keller seemed unaware of the men's exchange; the Gumdrop did not relay it to her. “Poor Helen of Troy!” she exclaimed. “How must she have felt, being the cause of so many men's deaths?”

Oh, please—she actually believed Papa's bunk.

“I doubt if Helen of Troy cared,” Handsome said lightly. “Not everyone has your sensitive nature. I have seen our Helen cry when I play the violin for her.”

The Gumdrop's fingers, Clara noticed, stayed still.

“So nice to meet all of you,” Clara lied. “Papa, I would like to borrow you for a moment, if I could, please.”

“Being the cause of such trouble would have been a torture,” said Helen. Her sigh was sort of a yodel. “I feel so much.” She turned her empty face toward Papa. “Mark, do you think it is possible to feel too much? You're a writer—you must be a lightning rod for the emotions of those around you.”

Oh my God.
“Mark” was going to be insufferable. “I think my father might be more the lightning than the lightning rod.”

Papa acted like he couldn't hear her, but Clara saw the corners of his mustache splay in a grimace. “If only I had your gift, dear,” he said to Helen. “How much more clearly you see into other people's hearts than we sighted fools can, distracted with the lies our eyes and ears are telling us. You probably know what I'm feeling, clear across the room.”

The Gumdrop spelled his words to Helen, making Helen smile. “I don't know about sensing it across the room, but if I could touch your face, I think that I might know what you're feeling.”

“Come on over,” Papa said. “Mrs. Macy, take away your hand so that you don't give her a clue.” He settled back against the billiards table as Miss Keller approached. The Lioness was watching like a cat at a mouse hole—surely she wasn't believing this bunk. The Lioness was a lot of things, but she wasn't stupid.

Helen put her hands to his face and held her breath, as if to catch sensations from the great Mark Twain.

“What, then, dear?” he asked.

Clara wasn't waiting for any more of this hokum. “Papa, I do need to talk with you now.”

“Impatient,” Miss Keller announced. “You are feeling impatient.”

Papa grasped the blind girl's fingers, then kissed them before putting them to his lips for her to read. “I don't know, Helen. I think you've got my wires crossed with my daughter's. Now tell us Mr. Macy's mood.”

The Gumdrop turned an unhealthy red as Miss Keller searched her husband's face. When Helen took away her hands, Mr. Macy smiled at her as if she could see him. He kept that grin on his face just a little too long.

“Impatient,” Helen said, “as well.”

“Helen, dear, it seems your compass is stuck.” Papa tried to act as if he couldn't see Clara. “How about your teacher? How about divining what she's feeling?”

Mr. Macy glanced at his scowling wife. He hesitated, then spelled the question into Helen's hand. She stared in that blank way of hers, then, sucking in her breath, went to Mrs. Macy. When she didn't immediately put her hand on Mrs. Macy's face, Mrs. Macy gripped her hand and put it to her lips herself. She glared at Helen as if demanding her to speak. Handsome turned toward the fireplace and made as if to warm himself.

This was obviously a strange situation. Well, Clara didn't have time for them to get ahold of themselves. “Papa, I really need to talk with you. Now.”

Helen dropped her hand. Mrs. Macy returned Helen's hand to her face, her own pigeon breast heaving. Helen struggled to remove it, but Mrs. Macy wouldn't let her.

The Lioness's voice was too bright. “How is the weather outside, Clara? Maybe our guests would like a look around the grounds by torchlight. Stormfield is beautiful, even in the winter.”

“It's cold,” Clara said brusquely. She scooped the kitten from the billiards table pocket: hers. “I'm going downstairs. Papa, I will see
you in the kitchen. Miss Keller, Mr. and Mrs. Macy, it was very nice to meet you.”

Clara was halfway to the kitchen when she realized that she'd left her coat. Damn it. She'd have to send Katy up to get it before the Lioness stole it. She kissed the kitten on the head—it smelled like cigars—and went on.

January 8, 1909

Stormfield,
Redding, Connecticut

B
RINGING MISS KELLER AND
the unhappy Macys back down to the library for their tea was a bad move, Isabel realized. She should have kept them in the billiards room when The King left to squelch Clara's fireworks, letting them pet The King's cat Tammany, who'd crawled out from under a sofa when Clara made off with the kitten. Helen and Mr. Macy seemed awfully taken with the cat, stroking it together as Mrs. Macy stood by, plucking at a frizzy ringlet at her neck. Truth be told, Isabel hated the billiards room. She spent too much time in there already, watching The King teach his Angelfish to handle a cue (a waste of effort), or show off for actresses, or waiting for him to finish “one last game” with Ralph as he drank “one last sip of whiskey” when he could be taking her in his arms. Billiards were an obstruction that he threw between them, as were the Angelfish, the eternal round of visitors, the dictation of his autobiography—anything to keep her at arm's length. She understood why. It was payback for losing his trust by keeping Clara's secret, trust she had fought so hard to win. She wasn't sure how much more she could bear.