He was thinking it smelled like her faint, feminine perfume. “Yes. I saw geese this morning.”
“That’s always a good sign.”
He nodded. A minute went by. “You’re English,” he noted, feeling uncommonly tongue-tied. Odd; he was usually glib with beautiful women.
“Yes, from Somerset.”
“I spent some time in London when I was a student.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Very much.”
Another pause.
“I’ve not been back in eight years,” she said.
“Is that how long you’ve been married?”
“Yes. Eight years.”
He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his toes, staring across the street at the bright entrance to Delmonico’s, as if the sight fascinated him. “I grew up in California. I haven’t been back in a long time, either. My people are all dead.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked away, down the broad avenue. “I lost my mother a year ago.”
He said he was sorry to that. Then, because he was beginning to feel desperate, he said, “She was a duchess, wasn’t she? I think I heard that from someone.”
Unexpectedly, she laughed; the tinkling lightness of the sound was at odds with the melancholy in her face. “I wonder who that might have been,” she murmured, almost to herself. “But as I’m sure you’ve also heard, Mr. McKie, I’m just plain Sara Cochrane now.”
He couldn’t think of a word to say to that. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed when an empty cab came into view then. He whistled it over. Mrs. Cochrane told him her address, although he already knew it. He handed her in, saying, “I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” and she repeated it back to him politely. “I should have some preliminary drawings ready by early next week with the changes your husband asked for.”
“Ah, yes.” This time her smile was genuine. “For the new floor.”
He was wary of smiling back, considering it politic to keep playing the game that Cochrane was a reasonable man, a man deserving of respect. “I can bring them to your house if you like,” he said seriously.
“You’re welcome to do that. But it’s Ben’s approval you’ll need, not mine.”
“You don’t take an interest in the building of your home?”
She smoothed the collar of her coat with her long, thin fingers and seemed to think that over. “But it’s not a home, is it?”
He looked blank. “Sorry?”
“It’s a monument.”
“A monument—”
“To my husband’s accomplishments.” Immediately she looked down, as if regretting her words. “Yes, bring them if you like. Good night, Mr. McKie,” she said briskly, and sat back.
“Good night.” He closed the door and watched her out of sight.
Cochrane and John Ogden came out of Sherry’s a moment later. Alex joined them without speaking, and they walked north a few doors along the wet sidewalk to Canfield’s. Even inside, amid the noise and the adamant gaity, he couldn’t forget the irony in Sara Cochrane’s comely, sad-eyed face for a long time.
Two
“HE’S NOT ASLEEP. If he looks like he’s sleeping it’s nothing but a sham—I caught him with his light on not ten minutes ago.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Drum, thank you. I’ll just tiptoe in and say good night.”
“ ’Tis probably all that hard candy he ate this afternoon. I could hardly credit what all he told me you’d bought him.”
“Yes, you’re probably right. Good night.”
Mrs. Drum hitched her dressing gown belt tighter, sniffed, and went back into her room. Sara stood in the dark hall for another minute, waiting for her irritation to subside. She and Michael’s nanny had disliked each other since the moment they’d met, five years ago. In spite of that, or more likely because of it, Ben had decreed that Mrs. Drum would stay. She was English; she had “class.” But sometimes Sara suspected Mrs. Drum’s true value to Ben was that she spied on her for him.
“Mummy?”
She pushed the nursery door open. Michael was sitting up in bed, clutching the big speckled frog they’d made out of papier-mâché that morning. His flannel nightshirt swallowed him, making him look more frail and bony than he was. The slant of moonlight through the curtain brightened his pale hair to silver. He was so beautiful to her, she could have cried.
“So, it’s all true, then—you’re still awake and too cheeky even to pretend you’re not.” She sat beside him and kissed his temples while he giggled and snuggled back into his pillow. “Did you and Mrs. Drum have a nice evening?”
“Oh yes, there were ladyfingers for dessert.” He was unbuttoning her coat so he could stroke the satin lining inside. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He had to work tonight. He said to give you a big kiss and tell you he loves you very, very much. And—that your present is coming soon.”
His enormous blue eyes widened in delight. “What is it?”
“Well, I couldn’t tell you that, could I?”
“Is it as nice as yours?”
“Mm, you’ll have to be the judge.” She’d given him roller skates and a magic lantern. “Now, off you go to sleep.”
“I’m not sleepy. I’m seven now. Tell me a story, Mum. Where did you go tonight? Did you see any fire engines?”
“I went to Sherry’s and ate dinner with your father and two architects. There wasn’t a fire engine in sight.” They had a running joke about fire engines, for as a very little boy Michael had been convinced that the smoking, sparking engines went around setting fires, and that if one ever stopped at his house he would have to give the alarm.
“What’s an architect?”
“Someone who builds buildings.”
“A carpenter, then?”
It never paid to be imprecise with Michael. “No, sorry, a carpenter builds the building after the architect decides what it’s going to look like. Ahead of time. He draws pictures of it so the carpenter will know what to do.”
“Oh, I’ve got a picture for you,” he exclaimed, remembering. “On the table, see it? It’s a present.”
Sara went and got it. “What is it, love? I don’t want to turn on the light.”
“Turn it on, turn it on!”
“Honestly, darling,” she grumbled, switching on the light, and in the sudden brightness she looked down at a crayon drawing of two—women, she supposed they were, one of them very tall, holding hands in front of a crowd of little black dots. She exclaimed over it with great enthusiasm while Michael scrutinized her face for signs of disingenuity.
“What is it?” he asked at last, calling her bluff.
“Why, it’s two beautiful ladies. In a sort of snowstorm, I think, with—”
“No, no, no.” He shook her arm, laughing uproariously.
“What, then?”
“It’s you and the Statue of Liberty. See? And these are all your immigrant people.”
“Well, of course! How perfectly lovely. I adore it, I’m going to put it on the wall in my—no, I’m going to take it to the settlement house and hang it up for everyone to see. Shall I?”
“All right,” he muttered, shy. “Let’s read our book, Mum.”
“Sweetheart, it’s so late.”
“Please? Please?”
“Don’t beg, darling, it’s unseemly. Very well, but just for a little while, and only because it’s still your birthday.”
She unbuttoned her shoes and slipped them off while Michael plumped his pillow and settled the covers over himself tidily, tucking them under his chin. She found the place in their current bedtime book, the Morte d’Arthur, and began to read. Merlin was Michael’s favorite, more so even than Gawain or Lancelot, but tonight the magician’s adventures weren’t enough to keep sleep at bay for longer than ten minutes. Even as she read, and watched him struggling to stay awake with all his might, Sara knew she would need to read everything over again tomorrow night, when he would insist he’d never heard it—which,
indeed, he hadn’t.
She laid the book aside and tucked his blanket around him—a needless attention since he was a neat sleeper and frequently woke up in almost the same position he’d gone to bed in. His face in sleep always undid her, for then his pale, exquisite beauty was purest. It hurt her heart and filled her with a sharp, nameless anxiety.
Ben wanted to give him a gun. A gun. “Never,” she said aloud, softly. He’d have to shoot her with it first. God! The anger surfaced suddenly, quickly, familiar as bitter medicine to an invalid. She thought of how he’d coerced the two men at dinner tonight into taking his side. John Ogden’s capitulation hadn’t surprised her very much, but for a little while she’d expected better of Mr. McKie. Why? She’d heard of him before, though little more than society gossip— that he liked women a great deal and was considered to be quite a “catch.” She pictured his clean, strong features, too handsome for his own good, and the silky-looking mustache he wore over his wide, rather eloquent mouth. It wasn’t hard to see why a man who looked like Mr. McKie would enjoy cordial relations with a great number of women.
But he’d caved in when Ben had pressed him about Michael’s present, merely to safeguard his fat architect’s commission. He’d regretted it afterwards—she’d seen that in his face—but that didn’t change what he’d done. She couldn’t like him for it.
In the hall, the clock struck ten. She smoothed back her son’s silver-blond hair and kissed him, whispering an endearment, then switched off the electric light and tiptoed from the room.
On the bureau in her own room, the housekeeper had left her a message. Miss Hubbard had called on the telephone at seven this evening; would Mrs. Cochrane please call back at her convenience? Sara would have loved to talk to Lauren, to tell her about Ben’s “extra floor”—that would make her laugh—and to find out if her new art instructor was still as brilliant and fascinating as she’d thought a week ago. But Lauren lived with her parents, and ten was a little late for them. She would call her tomorrow.
She undressed in front of the wardrobe and put on her yellow nightgown and flannel robe—for in spite of Mr. McKie’s prediction about the imminence of spring, it was chilly in her room tonight and the flannel dressing gown was welcome.
The maid had turned her bed down; it looked inviting in the lamplight, her book beside the pillow, sewing basket on the table. But she felt restless. Even though she was tired, she suspected this would be one of those nights when she wouldn’t sleep. They had been coming more frequently lately, and she didn’t know why. “What are you thinking about when you’re just lying there?” Lauren had wanted to know when she’d told her about her insomnia. She honestly couldn’t answer. She worried about Michael, of course, but not incessantly. She worried about the settlement house on Forsyth Street because the suffering and injustice she saw there every day went far beyond her puny ability to ameliorate. But it seemed to Sara that her sleeplessness arose more from a dearth, not a wealth, of life-concerns. Still, sustained unhappiness manifested itself in many subtle ways, and insomnia was probably one of the less alarming ones. No doubt she ought to count her blessings.
So. How would she occupy herself tonight? She had no letters to write; her book didn’t really interest her. Then she remembered that Paren Matthews, who ran the Forsyth Street Settlement, had asked her to help him draft a request for aid from his alma mater, Dartmouth College. “You write so much better than I do, Sara,” he’d wheedled; “you’ve got that English flair for the rhetorical.” “You mean I tell lies better than you do,” she’d countered. She smiled as she opened her writing desk in the alcove between the windows and sat down.
Her draft took much longer than she’d expected, but when it was finished she thought it was rather good. They ought to do much more of this. As it was, the settlement scraped by on desultory contributions from churches and charities. Who else could they dun? Companies, other universities. Social clubs. Why not Tammany itself? She started to make a list.
It was after midnight when she closed her desk, and a moment later she heard footsteps on the stairs. She rose to go to her dressing table and began to unpin her hair. The steps came nearer, along the hall now. She paused to listen, arms up, then started in dull surprise when the door to her room swung open. Ben stood in the threshold, swinging a dripping umbrella, still wearing his hat.
“Saw the light,” he said, and came all the way in.
“I was just going to bed.”
He sat down at the foot of the big four-poster and leaned back on his elbows, watching her in the mirror over the dressing table. The message from Lauren lay by his side. He picked it up, read it, made a sound of disgust, and sailed it across the room. “What’s your anarchist friend want this time?”
Sara pulled a long blond hair from the brush and examined it under the lamplight. If she didn’t answer, he would start a quarrel, and she was too tired to fight with him now. “I don’t know, I didn’t speak to her,” she said levelly. Even from across the room she could smell the alcohol on him, and under it the hint of a woman’s cologne.
“What did you think of McKie?”
She answered noncommittally. It wasn’t a question anyway, it was a formality, a conversational lead-in to preface his own opinion.
“Seems all right to me, maybe a little stuck-up. Can’t hold his liquor worth a damn.”
She looked up. “Did he get drunk?”
“No, he just quit drinking. Just stopped.” He took off his hat and shook water from it onto the coverlet. “His firm’s the best, though. They built Mark Workman’s house on Bellevue.”
“Cottage,” she corrected dryly. “That marble Renaissance palace is called a ‘cottage’ in Newport.”
He barked out a laugh. “That’s right! A cottage!” It tickled him. “A cottage, can you beat that?” Then he sobered. “You’ll have to spend the summer up there.”
“What?”
“Supervising the work.”
She turned around to face him. “But—I thought you would want to do that.”
“Oh, really? When?”
She spread her hands. “I don’t—”
“I couldn’t get up except on weekends, for Christ’s sake, and not even that half the time. McKie wants somebody there the whole time, to okay things. So you and Michael can rent a house or take rooms in a hotel for the season. It’ll be good for us.”
She knew he meant socially. She thought of the plans she and Paren had made for the summer at the settlement house—a young women’s social club that would meet in the evenings, a children’s theater group, a sewing class. How arrogant she had been to imagine that she was indispensable to any of them—she knew that, and yet she’d worked so hard to organize the programs and she wanted to know how they turned out. And she would be letting Paren down.
But she knew better than to say any of that to Ben. He despised her work, ridiculed it at every opportunity. As far as he was concerned, her only legitimate occupation was advancing the Cochranes socially. That was what he’d paid for, that was the deal—although she hadn’t known it was the deal until after she’d married him. No matter. She knew it now.
“Maybe I’ll buy a steam yacht,” he was saying. “Vanderbilt’s got one, parks it in the bay like a goddamn rajah. It’s not like I can’t afford one as big as his. Who the hell is he?” Sara didn’t answer. “Minnie says to go slow, sometimes it’s years before you ‘take’ in Newport.”
She looked at him then. “When did Minnie say that?” she asked, icily calm.
He had the grace to prevaricate. “Long time ago, I don’t remember.”
Liar. Minnie Russell had been his mistress— one of them—for nine years. They were ‘protégées,’ he’d told Sara when he’d introduced them, long ago. In a way, she had Minnie to thank for her marriage, for it was she who had advised Ben all those years ago to broach New York society by taking a titled, aristocratic bride. Disastrous advice, as it had turned out. What Minnie was to him now, Sara wasn’t sure, but despit
e his denials she knew he still saw her and still listened to her counsel.
“So, anyway,” he pursued, incapable of staying on the defensive for long. “You’ll go up with Michael next month and take care of things.”
“Very well, if that’s what you want. But I’ve never even seen the plans for this house, you know.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Shall we not speak of fault, just once?”
He grinned nastily. “Sure.” A moment passed. He stood up slowly and moved toward her.
She stiffened with premonition. By reflex, she spun back around to face the mirror. “I want to talk to you about Michael’s birthday present,” she said quickly.
Sly triumph flashed in his big, fleshy face. “What’s the problem?” He put his surprisingly small, hair-covered hands on her shoulders. “The boy’s old enough to learn how to shoot.” He slipped his fingers inside her robe. “Don’t worry, Sare, I’ll take care of him. He’ll be fine.”
She fought to repress a shudder. “Ben, he’s not. He’s so little, and he’s fearful, he’s not like—”
“That’s it, that’s it exactly. He’s a mewling little milksop.”
“No! He’s—”
“You’ve turned him into a coward. He’s a sniveling little—” He pushed her down when she tried to jump up, and his hands slid around to cover her bare breasts. He leaned over and spoke in her ear. “I think I’ll take him on a hunting trip as soon as I get back from Chicago. We’ll go to Long Island, out to Montauk, maybe, and shoot some birds. Ducks, rabbits, whatever we can find.”
“Damn you,” she whispered. Tears burned behind her eyes.
“You want to talk about this?”
“Damn you—” She broke off; he was pinching her nipples lightly, threateningly. She held very still.
“Want to talk about it some more? Do you?”
She nodded slowly, not looking at him.
Abruptly he released her. “Good. Let’s talk.” He unfastened his tie and whipped it out of his collar with a violent jerk, smiling at her. “I’ll be in my room. Don’t be long, Sare.”
She heard the door close and glanced up. The sight of her face in the mirror appalled her; she hadn’t seen that look in a long time—months. What had made her think he was finally through with her? What madness had made her forget that he loved to toy with her, to lull her into the illusion of well-being just before he sprang the trap? And always, always, he used Michael for the bait.