Decorum (32 page)

“That’s not true and you know—”

“What the hell were you pushing her off on that bastard Tracey for then?”

“That was Maggie’s doing, not mine.” Jerry was in no mood to defend Maggie. A pang of guilt gripped him as he wondered if things might have been different had he shared Shillingford’s discoveries. No, Maggie wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

“Or maybe a bastard great-grandson of an English lord, God help us,” continued Connor, “who’d have swept her off and left her bankrupt. Or some damn rich fool whose whole family hasn’t a worthwhile thought among ’em, who’d bore her senseless. None of them would ever understand what she’s made of.”

“And you do, I suppose.”

“Yes, I do,” Connor said emphatically. “I understand her better than the whole lot of you—and do you know why? Because in the end, we want the same things—to build something that lasts. A name, a family, a reputation. Not just a business or your damned luxury hotel. Businesses can be bought and sold and hotels can be torn down.”

“Reputations can be bought and sold—and torn down,” said Jerry.

“But family and name and doin’ something good that lasts can’t. If you’ve got that, you can keep your damned feasts. You can bolt the door for all I care—but the door is bolted for her just as surely as it’s bolted for me. Maybe not for the same reasons. She has things I’ll never have and I’ve gotten things she’ll never be able to get on her own. But the door is bolted for her all the same. Maybe we can unbolt it—or beat it down together.”

“Why do you want to be one of us if we’re such pious, pompous asses?”

“Sometimes I ask myself that very question. I see how you squeeze people dry, or crush them under your feet, or worse, pretend they’re not there. For all their faults poor people can be nobler than you’ll ever be.”

“I know,” said Jerry, looking into the bottom of his glass. “If you want Francesca so badly, why not court her openly here?”

“If we conduct even the properest courtship here, we’re doomed before we start. You people smother her and treat her like a child. She’s trying to use the brains she was born with, to experience something of life—”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“What would you have me do, show up unannounced and say, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d pop in for a spot of scandal?’—which I could have done, by the way. Look, I’ve made her an honest offer of marriage. She can accept me or reject me. All I’ve asked is that she not reject me out of hand without our getting to know each other. This Banff business is the perfect way to do the least damage to her reputation. At least if we’re engaged by the time we get back to New York, nobody’ll have the pleasure of gossiping without a ring on Francesca’s finger.”

“You still haven’t answered my question about Mrs. Alvarado.”

“Do you think I put the two of them in the same class? Blanche isn’t fit to polish Francesca’s boots. Yes, it’s over with Blanche. I sent her packing the night of the dinner at Sherry’s. I’ve bought her passage to Italy and supplied her with money so she can go and leech off her sister.”

“Oh, God,” said Jerry. He drained his glass. “How do I know—how does Francesca know—that that kind of business is over?”

“She doesn’t. Nor does any woman when she gets married—or any man, come to that.” Connor poured himself another drink, then crossed to Jerry with the decanter. “Would you like to know where half the married men in this town go of an evenin’?” Connor poured. “It might prove quite informative for you to accompany me some night and watch outside selected small hotels and see who the clientele might be.”

“I don’t want that for Francesca.”

“Nor do I. Nor do I want it for myself. I’m tired. I’ve had enough. I just want
her.
”

“What on earth do you expect her to see in you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe I’m not what she wants, but maybe I’m what she needs. Just like she’s what I need.”

Jerry hesitated. “You haven’t said that you love her.”

“I’m not sure I know what ‘love’ means—and I wouldn’t profane the word by using it amiss with Francesca.” He drank. “Do I appreciate her for her intelligence, her ideas? Yes. Do I appreciate her for her talents? Yes. Do I appreciate her for her gentleness and her heart and her soul? Yes. Do I agree with her religion and her mountaintops and her miracles? Probably not, at least not the religion and I don’t understand her mountaintops. But I hope I’m not so stupid that I don’t realize that without those things Francesca wouldn’t be Francesca.”

Jerry didn’t know what to say or think. To give his blessing was out of the question and he had no power to say no. A negative answer would only add fuel to Connor’s fire.

“I don’t know what I’ll tell Maggie.”

“Why tell her anything?”

“She’ll find out sooner or later. And she’ll give Francesca hell before she leaves.”

Not knowing what else to do, Jerry prepared to depart. He stood for a moment, running his hand around the brim of his hat, thinking. He looked Connor in the eye. “If you ruin her, if you leave her to face a damaged reputation alone, if you make one false promise or one false move, if you harm one hair on her head, as God is my witness, Connor, I will hunt you down, I will find you, and I will kill you. So help me God, I’ll kill you.”

C
HAPTER
39

“Our researches haven’t been as thorough as they might be,” ventured Connor one day after an investors’ meeting. Everyone had left but Jerry Jerome and John Ashton Worth.

“How do you mean?” asked Worth. Jerry shot Connor a quizzical look.

“I mean, we haven’t really looked at the competition properly, have we?” He drew his notebook from his breast pocket and began to thumb through the pages.

“The competition?” asked Jerry. “I think we’re quite familiar with most of the best hotels in New York—best for the moment, that is. We’re familiar with their service and amenities. There’s the omnipresent notebook”—he gestured toward Connor—“that gives us plenty of particulars on that score. By the way, how many notebooks does this make it? Five?”

“Seven,” said Connor, unperturbed.

“Seven. Precisely. We’ve certainly found out as much as is humanly possible about what the Vanderbilts are up to—and whom they’re scared of and why. And we know what we’re after—simply the best apartment hotel New York has to offer. You’ve been the biggest proponent of the Louis XV business, the decoration and all.”

“Yes, yes,” said Connor. “But have we really looked into how a truly modern hotel is run nowadays? Since we have the luxury of startin’ at scratch as we are.”

“I suppose you have a point there,” agreed Mr. Worth. “We won’t have had to wire an existing building for electricity, if that’s the kind of thing you mean. We’ll have the advantage of the latest plumbing and elevators and such.”

“But don’t you think it goes a bit beyond elevators and plumbing? Don’t you think we should scout out some of the newer places, see what they’ve got goin’ that the payin’ public is excited about and see if we can improve upon it?”

“Surely, it’s only wise to expand our horizons,” Jerry agreed. “The Sacher in Vienna is magnificent, I understand. It’s new and has everything a man could hope for or knows where to get it.”

“Isabel would love it, but I confess we’d easily become bogged down, what with her passion for collecting.”

“We still must look for those Louis XV rooms,” said Jerry.

“Vienna’s all well and good,” retorted Connor, “and certainly the Sacher would cater to the same kind of clientele we mean to attract. But Louis XV or no Louis XV, we should offer a hotel that’s distinctly American in service and modern convenience with the comforts of an established European hotel.”

“So we should be looking on this continent for our inspiration?” asked Jerry.

“It bears investigating. It seems to me that the uniqueness of a grand American hotel should be the draw—no matter where the clientele may come from. If we don’t go further afield in this country, we may be overlookin’ something that could be just what people are lookin’ for. I’m sure we can improve on what somebody else has thought of.”

“Hmm,” said Mr. Worth, beginning to gleam. “You mean perhaps we should choose a few select places on this side of the Atlantic and pay a visit? Check in as guests and put their service to the test? That’s certainly an idea.”

“San Francisco is booming in construction with somethin’ new goin’ up all the time,” said Connor.

“I myself wouldn’t mind seeing what Flagler’s been up to in Florida,” put in Jerry. “Sounds like he means to take a godforsaken place and turn it into a paradise and not unlike what you describe.”

This was the opening Connor was looking for. “Now you’re talkin’,” he said, sitting up straight and inching to the edge of his leather chair. “A paradise in the wilderness, an oasis in the desert. Perhaps that’s the way we should be lookin’ at this hotel.”

“I’d hardly call New York a desert,” Mr. Worth observed.

“You might, if you’re looking for an exclusive place to call home for a few weeks.”

“Is there someplace in particular you were thinking of?” said Mr. Worth.

“There are a handful of excellent possibilities. Jerome’s suggestion of Florida’s a good one—and San Francisco. There’s that place in Michigan, up on an island somewhere, a really grand place, or so they say. That’s it—the Grand Hotel.”

“San Francisco is hardly a wasteland either,” said Jerry.

“And therefore a good prospect,” Connor agreed, to smooth the way, “being much like our situation here in New York. There’s St. Louis. St. Louis may not be New York, but being a major crossroads it sees a lot of hotel trade, though maybe not of the apartment variety we’re talking of. It bears lookin’ into.”

“And?” asked Jerry, awakening to Connor’s drift.

“Well, Canada is in much the same fix as we,” said Connor, avoiding Jerry’s glare. “They’ve got their big cities in Toronto and Montreal. Upper-class people must sleep somewhere when they pay a visit. The Canadian Pacific Railroad is sinkin’ a lot of money into makin’ the hotels on the line some of the best. Take this Banff place that Miss Lund is headin’ for.”

Jerry looked ready to shoot Connor.

“I know I made fun of the place when she first introduced the subject, but I’ve been lookin’ into it and her choice may not be so far-fetched as I thought.”

“You mean you’re admitting error?” teased Mr. Worth. “Mark this down, Jerry. A red-letter day.”

“I certainly will,” said Jerry, none too happy.

Connor ignored them both. “Cornelius Van Horn’s been able to make that place the envy of any Continental hotel. The Banff Springs is drawing clientele from all over the world—and doin’ it in the middle of the wilderness, I might add. Makin’ the wilderness itself an attraction from what I hear, the town not having much to speak of as yet. Chargin’ three dollars and fifty cents a room
per day
—and gettin’ it, too.” Jerry and Mr. Worth exchanged glances. “At those prices they must have something to offer. Same idea with Flagler in Florida. Florida’d be just the place for you and Maggie, Jerome.” Connor smiled at Jerry. Jerry glared back. “The perfect place for you to investigate.”

“I don’t know if I could persuade Isabel to a trip to San Francisco,” Mr. Worth went on innocently. “Her biases are so strongly European. Mediterranean, to be precise. Then again, she is the adventurous type. She may surprise me.”

“Then the three of us have chosen the far corners of the continent. If we can persuade Calloway, Gage, and Monroe to pursue three other places, we should have an excellent feel for what we’re after.”

“Perhaps I should be the one heading to Canada,” said Jerry.

“You’ve already expressed an interest in Florida,” Connor retorted.

“Canada would have no appeal for Isabel. You can have San Francisco if you want, Jerry,” said Mr. Worth, musing. “Maggie may enjoy it more. You do mean to take Maggie, don’t you? I can’t see leaving Isabel at home. She might be persuaded to go to Florida.”

“She’d be an asset in any case,” said Connor. “She’s good at pouring oil on troubled social waters, not to mention her eye for decoration.”

“I’ll tell her you said so. She’ll appreciate that.”

“Nothing’s settled, John.” Jerry’s voice was gaining an unusual edge. “Connor just foisted this scheme on us and you practically have us packed and on the next train.”

“Foisted? That’s a bit strong. I suppose I have been carried away by your enthusiasm, O’Casey. It is a sound idea, though. No one ever said that hotel building had to be dull. I think we’re free to choose our own perquisites. Personally, I think we can all do with a little fun. These last few months have been trying, especially for you and Maggie. It would do you good to get away.”

“I’m not disagreeing. I was merely suggesting that because I practically have family going to Banff that I might make the sacrifice and go along.”

“It might do you and Maggie some good to be going in a different direction from Miss Lund,” said Mr. Worth. “You’ve practically been living on top of each other since February.”

Thank God that remark came from a more disinterested quarter,
thought Connor.

“Whose side are you on, John?” Jerry was growing testy.

“Call it enlightened self-interest. You could do with a break. This kind of break would be productive for the hotel and relaxing for you and Maggie.”

“I’d be happy to look after the ladies while I’m there, Jerome.” Again Connor smiled. “Just as you might yourself. You needn’t worry.”

“That’s easier said than done,” Jerry mumbled as he passed Connor.

“There, you see, Jerry. What could be easier?” said Mr. Worth.