Decorum (30 page)

C
HAPTER
37

The manservant showed no emotion as he admitted a soberly dressed, dark-haired, pale man with dark, morose eyes. The news that Edmund Tracey would be executed by a method both modern and horrific made a call on Francesca tricky at best. To present a small tribute might be appropriate or it might be thrown out after him. Resisting his homing-pigeon urge to take in Tiffany’s on the way, he settled on a nosegay of hothouse roses, African violets, and ivy whose only significance lay in sentiment. Connor produced his card.

“Is Miss Lund receiving visitors this afternoon?” asked Connor.

“I will inquire, sir. Won’t you step in? Shall I take those for you, sir?” the manservant said, indicating the flowers.

“No, I’ll hang on to them.”

The manservant gave two quick raps at the drawing-room door, pushed it open, and announced, “Mr. O’Casey, ma’am.”

Momentary silence greeted this news. Braced for dismissal, Connor breathed again at the announcement, “This way, sir.”

Connor surveyed the room. It was not so crammed and cluttered as in many of the houses of their peers, the walls decorated in a plainer paper with a few well-executed paintings in ornate gilt frames. He recognized the vase of flowers from that day at Venables’, situated next to the fireplace. The settees, though severe, were upholstered in green. Belgian lace or tatted doilies covered the piano, tables, sideboard, chairs, and settees. Francesca’s doing, no doubt.

“Mrs. Gray, Miss Lund, Miss Lawrence,” said Connor with a nod to each in turn.

Esther rose, her needlework still in her hand. Vinnie, her surprise evident, remained seated. Francesca was standing with one hand on a mantelshelf crammed with photographs in silver frames. In her pale rose dress and a high neck of cream lace that blended with her hair, she nearly matched the decor of the room. The small cut high on her cheekbone, the one flaw in the otherwise perfect picture, was red and taut and made her look more vulnerable, and more defiant. He would remember this look of her forever.

“Oh, God. What do you want?” Francesca said, in a foul-humored tone Connor didn’t recognize.

“I beg your pardon if I’m intruding,” he began.

“We weren’t expecting you, Mr. O’Casey. I apologize for my niece—”

“Don’t bother apologizing, Aunt Esther,” said Francesca.

“—but I agree with her that this may not be the most opportune moment for a visit.”

“I realize that. It was all in the morning editions,” said Connor. He extended the nosegay to Francesca. “A small balm.”

“Thank you,” said she, taking them from him. “Yes, every gaudy detail,” she said, speaking of the papers, a trickle of venom in her voice. “I thought I had heard everything. It seems I was mistaken. Bloodhounds and leeches, all of them.”

“There’s nothing to be done, it seems,” said Connor.

“No, there’s nothing,” said Francesca. She fixed her gaze on the flowers and crossed to the piano and set them upon it.

“My niece isn’t well, as you can understand, Mr. O’Casey,” said Esther as she stepped forward—like the female Marquess of Queensbury laying down the rules for two pugilists. “Perhaps if you would have the decency to wait a few days before you call again.”

Vinnie preempted her and rose and extended her hand. “I, for one, am glad to see you, Mr. O’Casey. I think it’s very kind of you to give us a little diversion.”

“Thank you, Miss Lawrence.”
Bully for the referee,
thought Connor.

“Francesca tried to see him, you know,” continued Vinnie.

“Lavinia,” said Esther firmly. “I don’t think we need burden Mr. O’Casey—”

“On the contrary, ma’am, I’m here to see if there was anything I could do, don’t you know,” said Connor, closing the drawing-room door behind him. Though he hated that she had made such a gesture to a man he considered a blight on humanity, he recognized that Francesca’s generosity of spirit toward Edmund Tracey was the same generosity he hoped for himself. As long as this was her attitude, he couldn’t very well gainsay it.

“He wouldn’t have anything to do with her, I’m afraid,” continued Vinnie quietly, as she cast a glance over her shoulder at Francesca.

“I’m not surprised that Miss Lund would try to see him. I’m even less surprised that he wouldn’t want to see her.” All three ladies reacted to his words with gestures of dismay and looks of astonishment.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with you,” said Esther. “I told her it was unwise, especially now.”

“But why?” protested Vinnie. “I should think he would have something to say to her after all this time.”

“What would that be?” asked Connor. “To ask her forgiveness?” Vinnie’s look told him he had guessed right.

“To at least express some remorse—something,” Vinnie said.

“I’m afraid if a man is unaccustomed to asking for forgiveness under the best of circumstances he’s not likely to ask for it when circumstances are at their worst.”

Vinnie opened her mouth to protest again, but Connor continued.

“Think of it from his point of view—a man’s point of view, if I may so put it. He may not have wanted her to see him that way, when all the world appears to be against him, when every hope is gone. He could be torn between wantin’ to see a loved one and wantin’ to spare her—and himself.” Awkward that he was trying to make the man look less like a cad, now that he was as good as dead. He paused and let silence fill up the room, as if the moment had a reverence about it. “I confess I would feel that way—torn, I mean. For instance, I wish I could take back everything I ever did or said in the last few months that may have hurt or offended you. I’m me own worst enemy most of the time. I talk a lot and put off those I care about most. As for Mr. Tracey, he may feel this is the one thing left that he can still control—whether to see you or not. He’s chosen to exercise that control.”

“Control was certainly something he wanted—and never got,” said Francesca, nearly inaudibly.
She’s not crying,
Connor thought,
she’s simply played out
.

“I don’t mean to be unkind, Mr. O’Casey, but I really do think it would be best—” Esther began again.

“Would you like some tea, Mr. O’Casey?” interrupted Vinnie. “Won’t you please sit down?”

“If you’re sure I’m not intruding—” said Connor, though he remained on his feet.

“I believe you are, Mr. O’Casey.”

“I think he should stay, Mrs. Gray,” said Vinnie. “Mr. O’Casey means well. What do you think, Francesca? Milk and sugar, Mr. O’Casey?”

“You can’t have come solely to inquire after my health,” said Francesca, turning to face him. “What other subject could have caused you to make such a tasteless and unfeeling gesture as to come here at this moment? You could have had the decency—”

“Beg pardon, Frankie,” said Connor. The name slipped out, easy and natural. It brought her up short. She stood still and threw him a look of—what was it? Astonishment? Puzzlement? Pain? Another moment, and the look was gone. “Decency wastes time, which I can’t afford. I’d like a few moments alone with you, if I may.”

“Really, Mr. O’Casey,” said Esther. “I hardly think—”

“Mr. O’Casey might be a tonic—” Vinnie began.

“A tonic?” cried Esther.

“As a matter of fact, your health does concern me,” said Connor to Francesca, paying Esther no mind. “I’m relieved to find you’ve not taken to your bed. That’s a good sign.”

“Is it? I wonder.” Francesca dragged herself to a low overstuffed chair on the opposite side of the room and sank into it.

“Of course it is,” said Connor. “You’re up and about. That can only be good.”

“You’re not disappointed that I haven’t suddenly sought consolation upon your manly breast? That I haven’t swooned so that you can minister to me, wretched invalid that I am?”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Connor. “You’d prefer, I suppose, that I make you ten times the invalid you are. I don’t believe that for a moment and neither do you.”

“Francesca, don’t make things worse with these histrionics,” said Esther.

“Exactly,” said Connor.

“I thought you wanted him to leave, Aunt Esther.”

“I never said I thought you should be coddled,” retorted Esther. “It may be the one point upon which Mr. O’Casey and I agree.”

Connor relaxed and looked at Francesca.

“I do want to talk to you—” he began.

“Did you really expect a private interview, Mr. O’Casey?” asked Esther.

“Of all the barefaced impertinence,” said Francesca. “All the unfeeling, stupid—”

“I do understand where this is going,” said Connor.

“—unsympathetic, selfish, arrogant, insensible—”

“All right, all right, I do get your drift. But I’m not leavin’ till you hear me out so you may as well simmer down. A private interview would have been preferable, but there’s nothing I have to say that can’t be said in company.” He paused and sighed and collected his thoughts. “I want a chance with you. I’m proposing a way to find out if you can stand me. I’m proposing that I go to Banff with you.”

“What?”
said all three ladies.

“Hold on. It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m proposing that we travel separate-like, and that you go on and be chaperoned by your lady friends, but we’d end up in the same place. I’d get to see you. We could spend time in each other’s company without all of New York breathin’ down our necks.”

“You must be mad.” Her look at him was not unlike the look she gave him that night at the Jeromes’, a knowing look—not disapproving necessarily, but calling a spade a spade.

“I know it may appear that way—”

“Appear that way, yes,” she said.

“But it’s the sanest thing I’ve ever proposed to anyone. Don’t you see? Would the Jeromes ever stand to let you see me unless we had an understandin’ between us? At least if I could see you in Banff we could spend some regular time together. Then, at the end of two or three months, if you think we can’t make a go of it, I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

“Just what do you mean by ‘make a go of it’?” she said.

He squared his shoulders. “Marriage.”

She got up and walked to the piano, picked up the nosegay, and held it to her face, breathing deeply, unable—or perhaps unwilling—to speak. She circled the room and came back to the piano, not looking at him.

“I’m afraid my honesty hasn’t gotten me very far with you up to now,” he said.

“No, it hasn’t, thank you very much.”

“That’s why I wanted to see you. To apologize—and to propose to be at Banff together, to let us start out again on a different footing. Don’t you see? It really is the perfect answer.” He was working up a head of steam.

“Oh, yes? For whom, you or me?”

“For both of us. We can see other daily—”

“I don’t know if I can stand you daily,” she cried, returning to her chair. “My entire purpose in going is to get away from everyone—which includes you, I might add. Every time I see you the encounter turns to absolute bedlam.”

“Now, hold on—”

“They may as well meet me in Calgary with a straitjacket. How am I supposed to find rest? How am I supposed to find peace? You can’t possibly think I can find peace with you?”

“Now, hold on there. Why not? Why not with me any less than anyone else? Not everything between us comes to ruin. We’ve had some good times, have we not? Well, here’s the perfect way to find out whether we can have them more regular-like.”

“I cannot believe what I’m hearing. Your sense of timing is positively breathtaking.” Francesca’s eyes were red and hard. The little furrow tightened between her brows. She leaned back in the chair, feet planted on the floor, a handkerchief clasped in one hand. She had something of the cornered animal in her. “You are the very limit. Here I am at the age of twenty-eight, standing amid the wreckage of my own life, watching as everything I ever cared about or hoped for crumbles under the weight of scandal, not knowing whom I can call friend—and you have the gall to come to me about marriage? What do you think this is, a rescue mission?” She laughed. “Or do you think that my marrying you will make up for two deaths and the misery around them?” she said distractedly. “Or is it three or four deaths? I’ve lost count.”

“You certainly think highly of yourself, don’t you, Mr. O’Casey?” said Esther.

“No, ma’am,” Connor said. “It may surprise you to learn that I don’t think particularly highly of any of it, nor of myself. Don’t you think I wish that none of this awful business had happened to her? Don’t you think that I, above all people, wish that things could have been different? That I could have come to Frankie—to Francesca, Miss Lund—as a plain, honest man from the start? That I could have offered her a reputable, honest name and a life full of beauty and culture and good works and religion and all things that she holds most dear, without the stain or blemish of scandal? Do you think I’ve known her all these months only to know so little about her and how little I measure up?” He turned to Francesca.

“I am what I am, Frankie. I can’t help it. I wish things were different. I wish I were a better man. But that doesn’t stop me from knowing I’m the best man for you.”

She glared at him.

“You are the absolute limit, aren’t you?”

“So I understand.”

“So,” said Francesca, “you have no decency, you’re arrogant, insufferable—”

“Yes, you needn’t cover that ground again.”

“You have no sense of romance, have you, Mr. O’Casey?” Vinnie chimed in.