Decorum (41 page)

“Just remember,” said Ida, calling after her. “He likes his coffee good and strong.”

 

The glowing remnants of a northern summer dusk mingled with thin rays of golden dawn behind Terrace Mountain. Shadows moved in the great portico of the Banff Springs Hotel. Camping supplies, food stores, climbing equipment, and hunting weapons lay in ever-diminishing heaps on the pavement as the packers secured them to the horses. Király’s man, János, went from horse to horse, taking final inventory, ensuring nothing was missed, checking straps and buckles, ropes and knots. Blanche and Sándor Király, heads bent over a map that shone in the lamplight, reviewed the first day’s route with the two guides—a smooth-faced young man of the Stony nation and a middle-aged Swiss whose experience was carved deeply in a weathered face.

Blanche, unaccustomed to early nights and early mornings, had slept fitfully, caught in the anticipation of adventure and the fear that she had forgotten something. Between the ceaseless mental recitations of the contents of every saddlebag and haversack, she recalled with pleasure Chambers’s enthusiastic telegram and the many well wishes she received at the expedition’s champagne reception. How odd to return to her room to find it bare of all but her most essential possessions and to lay the electric-blue silk of evening next to the woolens ready for morning. The long hours of light and the short spate of semidarkness taunted her from behind drawn curtains. The knock at the door at four o’clock had startled her until she realized that her spirit had been ready long before.

Now, in the portico of the Springs, Blanche felt unusually alive to the voices of the men, to her breath in the cold air that mimicked the smoke from the men’s pipes, to the warmth of her body cocooned in layers flannel and wool, to the prickle of her cold fingers around a hot mug of strong coffee.

The canvas-shrouded heap on the pavement was gone. Three hotel bellmen, well used to the predawn demands of life in Banff, emerged with flasks of fresh coffee, packs of the first day’s meals, and full canteens of water.

Blanche broke away from the men and walked to a point where she could overlook the Bow Valley one last time from a safe vantage. She studied every river bend, every ridge, every curve of tree line like the scalloped edging on a dress that finally gave way to a gray-and-purple sheen like silk and finally to a mantle of snow. How different was this departure from the one that had catapulted her across the plateaus and mountains so many years ago, the one that faded from memory with each passing year. As she faced the Canadian Rockies and the adventure that lay ahead, none of it seemed real nor did the part she would soon play.

An old irony struck her—how many times had she encountered beauty in her life that had brought with it only hardship and danger? But what had been the greater danger, beauty or man? For a moment she thought of the human element with disdain and found relief in the notion that for seven weeks beauty, danger, and the peccadilloes of the human element might be more clear-cut. She thought of how far she’d come in spite of her own failings, or maybe because of them, and wondered what Blanche Wilson she might encounter in the mountains. The crunch of boots brought her back to herself. She turned.

“It’s nearly time, Blanche,” said Sándor. “Are you ready?”

She flung the last cold drops of coffee from her cup into the shrubbery and followed him back to the horses. As János and the guides began to mount, three figures walked toward them from the hotel—Francesca in a woolen skirt and cardigan, a shawl thrown over her shoulders, her nighttime braid pinned into a thick coil; Ida in her tweeds; Connor in woolens with a hastily tied muffler over his collarless shirt.

“I’ve been lying awake all night thinking about you,” said Francesca. “We could hardly let you escape without seeing you off properly. I see we’ve caught you just in time.”

Blanche was glad Francesca had not intimated the evening before that she would make this effort, lest she forget her promise, and was gratified by the unexpected kindness.

“Is one of those large leather bags full of paper and pencils?” Ida asked.

“Nearly so,” said Blanche, laughing. “Though I was admonished to pack light.”

“This may be a first, Király,” said Connor. “If you can manage to get any lady to pack light, your expedition will have made a major contribution to mankind.”

“Never!” jeered Blanche and Francesca together.

“Ladies always know how to pack for the occasion, do they not, Mrs. Wilson?” said Francesca.

“Indeed, always,” answered Blanche. “Though I confess that packing for this occasion has been an education.”

“That should be of great interest to your readers,” said Ida. “It should give your ladies back East a whole new notion of what’s essential to meet any occasion.”

“He’s allowed me a minimum of creature comforts,” said Blanche. “I shall be quite the wild woman.”

“Yes, but I’ve put the notebooks in oilskin,” said Sándor with good humor. “The notebooks will be precious commodities, you know, and must be protected at all costs—not only now when they are empty, of course, but most assuredly when they are full.”

“You’ve got quite an entourage, Király,” said Connor, prompting Sándor to take him and Ida on a brief tour up and down the train, explaining the provisions as he went and leaving Blanche and Francesca to themselves.

“I hardly recognized you,” said Francesca, pointing to the wide-brimmed hat that framed Blanche’s face in a halo of drab wool felt. “It suits you.”

“Does it?” said Blanche. “Sandy insisted on something serviceable—and it isn’t the last thing he’s insisted on. But there, I’m afraid I’ll shock you.”

“Shock me? Why?”

“He was appalled at my first attempt at mountaineering and blamed my ‘impractical and unnecessary modesty,’ as he calls it, in wearing a traveling suit. It was all I had for the purpose, much to his chagrin. On the second attempt he had the unspeakable gall to produce a pair of plus fours and puttees, which I patently refused, arguing that skirts and petticoats are much warmer. Unfortunately, I soon regretted it, to his immense satisfaction, and have now added a set of men’s woolen all-in-ones.”

Francesca laughed.

“So we have struck a bargain,” Blanche continued. “I ride, camp, and hike properly and warmly attired in a skirt. On days we actually climb I subject myself to the humiliation of men’s clothes.”

“You poor thing. At least you won’t be anywhere where women or other men will see you. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to try on men’s clothes,” Francesca mused, a confession that surprised Blanche. “They may not be ladylike, but they must be no end comfortable. I suspect men would be apoplectic with shock and indignation, but women—who knows? A good many of our sex might welcome it.”

Blanche had not pegged Francesca for a rebel and thought with some amusement that Connor’s hands might be fuller than he suspected.

“Nonetheless, the man’s hat suits you,” said Francesca. “You may start a new fashion—in more than one respect.”

Then Francesca’s light-hearted manner changed. Her eye met Blanche’s with a look that gave her words significance.

“You will no doubt learn that a great many things suit you that you never would have realized without this opportunity.”

“Yes, I am aware of that,” said Blanche with some hesitation, “for better or worse.”

“You think it won’t be better?” asked Francesca. “To be given the chance to learn it is a great thing. I’m confident it can be nothing less.”

“Meaning that anything is better than hopeless?” asked Blanche with an edge of sarcasm, then immediately regretted her tone.

“Don’t be silly,” said Francesca, calling her to account. “You’re far from hopeless.”

“So, you think I’m redeemable?” asked Blanche, trying to keep her tone light and looking away from Francesca’s discerning eye. It was a serious question and one for which Blanche was surprised to discover she needed an answer, though she was loath to admit it, even to herself. Francesca seemed to sense what lay beneath.

“Redeemable? Of course, you are. You always have been. I think you know you are. I’ll wager you’ll be a different person when you return.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, too,” said Blanche, somewhat discomfited. No one had ever cut so close to the bone.

“And is he redeemable?” she asked, looking at Connor as he and Ida and Sándor spoke with the guides.

“Connor?” Francesca asked, following Blanche’s gaze. “You may be happy to know that according to the man himself, he’s counting on it.”

“Yes, he would be,” said Blanche.

Francesca looked at Blanche with a start.

“You believe that?”

“That may be the truest thing about him,” said Blanche. “It may be why he’s right for you and not for me. I can see that now. I couldn’t then—or I didn’t want to.”

They stood together awkwardly. Then Francesca reached up and unclasped a fine chain from the back of her neck.

“Take this with you,” she said as she pulled the knotted scarf from Blanche’s neck and secured the golden chain with the garnet pendant. “It belonged to my mother. I want you to have it—a talisman against injury, and to remind you of those who are thinking of you every day.”

The gift startled Blanche. She looked at the garnet and was about to protest with words she was sure Francesca would instantly see through.

“Thank you,” she said, taking refuge in formula. “That’s very kind of you.”

Before Francesca could reply, Sándor, Ida, and Connor came up to them.

“We must delay no longer, Blanche,” Sándor said and turned to shake hands with Connor. “Good-bye, O’Casey, my dear fellow. Perhaps I shall book an extended stay at your new hotel when I return. Ida, my dear,
bonne chance.
” He turned and kissed her on both cheeks.

“Bless you, Sandy,” she said. “Take good care of yourself—and this lady here.”

“I will do my best,” he replied. He took Francesca’s hand and kissed it.

“Miss Lund, it has been a pleasure. I hope to see you again as well.”

“I hope so, too—Sandy,” said Francesca.

As Király and Blanche made for their horses, Connor laid his hand on Blanche’s arm, arresting her step. This was one encounter she had hoped to avoid, but now that it had come, she found her courage rising.

“Blanche,” he said, “I know the time for speeches is long past. I want you to know that I wish you the best of everything—truly. No one can be gladder than I to see you finding your way.”

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then extended his hand toward her. When she took it, he clasped his other hand over hers.

“Good luck, Blanche.”

For a fraction of a moment, words caught in her throat, but she regained herself.

“Thank you, Connor,” she said. “Take care of yourself, won’t you?”

He merely smiled and stepped back. Francesca came forward and, with her hands on Blanche’s shoulders, kissed her cheeks.

“God bless you, dear Blanche, and Godspeed.”

“You think he’ll find me, there in the mountains?”

“He never lost you.” Francesca released her. “Good-bye, Blanche.”

Like a bird whose cage had been unexpectedly left open, Blanche was released. With something like joy she mounted her horse and she and Király took their places at the front of the train with the Swiss guide with whom Sándor chatted away in German. The guide from the Stony nation and the packer urged on the pack horses as János kept order bringing up the rear. With calls of farewell, they pulled out from the portico and made their way to the gravel path that led to Banff town.

As they made their descent, Blanche turned to look behind her and saw the three move down the path behind them, following the train to watch until the bend in the path cut them off from sight. She turned face forward and put her mind to her task as Király drew her into conversation with the guide or pointed out some detail or instruction. When she looked back again, they were gone. Of course they would be going in for breakfast, she thought, and she chided herself for the disappointment she felt. The sun was clearing the mountains when they came to the place where they would catch the last good view of the Banff Springs Hotel. Király raised his hand to draw them to a stop.

“One last look at this magnificent place for seven weeks, my dear Blanche,” he said as he turned in his saddle and looked toward the Springs. “Who is that waving up there on the terrace?”

Sure enough, in the distance a fleck of white inscribed a wide arc over a tiny figure. Francesca, it seemed, had made her way to the terrace, the solitary sentinel on watch. Blanche took the long scarf from her neck and held the ends together in one hand and waved it over her head. The little figure stopped a moment, then waved the answering semaphore. Király raised his hat and waved it as the rest of the party followed suit.

“It must be your friend,” Sándor said, as the party returned to the business at hand.

“Yes,” said Blanche, tapping the horse’s side with her heel. “It is my friend.”

C
HAPTER
50

The suite door opened and shut again.

“Jamie! It’s about time you got back. Bring me my dressing gown, would you?”

Connor sat relaxing in the claw-footed tub, nearly shoulder high in steaming water, his arms resting on the tub’s edges, a folded newspaper in one hand, a whiskey glass in the other with a cigar notched between two fingers. He was shielded behind the half-drawn curtain of the shower-bath. The door to the adjoining bedroom was closed. The marble washbasin and porcelain commode stood against the wall across from the bathtub. Freestanding near the foot of the tub was a cheval mirror and between it and the tub, a small stool, bearing the whiskey bottle, a cigar cutter, and a box of matches.

“Jamie!” Connor bellowed. “What about that dressing gown?”

Blast the man,
he thought. Jamie was taking an unconscionable long time for the simple act of fetching a robe.

A hesitating step approached from the bedroom, unlike Jamie’s quick, businesslike gait, accompanied by an unmistakable rustling of fine fabrics. A soft rap upon the bathroom door followed.

“Which one do you want—the dark blue silk or the jacquard flannel that looks like a blanket?” said a soft mezzo voice through the door.

For a moment, Connor was nonplussed—but only for a moment. The situation was not oft-repeated, for he considered himself a modest man, but that a woman should catch him at any point on the continuum of dress or undress did not faze him. That the woman should be Francesca—ah, that was a different thing. The possibilities presented themselves in wide array through his imagination. He smiled.

“In view of the company, I’ll take the blue silk, thanks,” he said, setting the glass precariously in the soap tray and taking a puff of the cigar.

Another moment passed. He heard her cross the room and pictured her calfskin-slippered feet upon the carpet as she retrieved the silk robe that lay across the bed. Through the cheval mirror he watched, amused. She pushed the door open and stood in the doorframe, peering in as if ready to avert her gaze. His movement as he took a sip of whiskey drew her eyes toward the curtained tub and her expression turned from caution to relief. Her hand was upon the doorknob and the blue robe over her arm, an ermine stole in her other hand. The evening frock of ice-blue-and-silver moiré hugged her figure, a watery-blue silk swag encircling her hips. The wide neckline left her shoulders bare, her long gloves nearly meeting the cap sleeves. Even in the mirror he could see the deep décolleté and the little well between her breasts—or did he conjure it, knowing it was there? He adjusted the glass in the soap tray and drew on the cigar.

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t stand.”

At this she saw his movement in the mirror and an amused smile graced her lovely face.

“What a picture you are,” she said, beginning to laugh. “I thought only ladies indulged in this kind of decadence. Reading, drink, cigars. My, my. Is this your usual state when bathing?”

She extended the arm that held the robe.

“I’ll just toss it in your direction and leave you to it, shall I?”

“And have it end up in the bath? I’d rather not if you don’t mind,” he said. “You’ll have to bring it in.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“I am rather,” he said. “By the way, how do you come to be in this predicament?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” said Francesca. “I thought I might catch you before we all met for dinner.”

“I see. You have my full attention, I assure you.”

“This is hardly the interview I expected.”

“No doubt.”

“It’ll keep until later. I’ll leave the robe on the rug just here.”

“I’d rather that you didn’t strew my belongings all over the floor. You can put it on the stool there,” he said, indicating with the cigar. “Besides, I thought you were one of these modern, unflappable women.”

His smile was returned with a challenging look in the mirror as she walked past the tub without looking at him and draped the robe across the stool. She turned and fastened him in a look of defiance.

Maintaining his air of nonchalance as best he could, he let the newspaper drop onto the floor, reached for a large sponge at the end of the tub, and floated it over his middle, at the same time drawing on the cigar in his other hand and blowing out the smoke toward her.

She burst forth in peals of laughter he never had thought possible in her. A gloved hand to her mouth, she threw back her head and rocked with pure mirth. Her eyes, at first wide in amazement, drank in the scene and closed tightly, as if all her attention were concentrated in merriment.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Aren’t you treatin’ the gravity of this occasion a bit casual?”

In fact, the gravity was all on his side. Whether she laughed from embarrassment or his ridiculous posture, he was awestruck by her abandon. Not a feminine titter nor a childish giggle, but a ringing out from the center of her being, as if the form, cinched and restrained into womanly outlines, had finally taken leave to pop like champagne and froth over.

The day she told him about Tracey he thought the possibility of her ever laughing again had vanished—that some misplaced sense of decorum would prevent her from abandoning herself to joy. Moreover, he had feared that Tracey’s handsome ghost would follow them through a lifetime of grief and self-reproach. At times he had wondered whether he could bear it, even for Francesca. To see her nearly helpless with mirth awakened the hope that he might someday make her happy. Whatever it might take to give her that laugh again and again over a lifetime, he vowed to himself, he would do it.

Her hair grew fuzzy in the steam and the flush in her cheeks made her face glow and her eyes dance. Connor thought he’d never seen her look so beautiful. He reached forward, grabbed her skirt, and drew her by silken handfuls closer and closer to him.

“Oh!” she cried. “Oh! Oh, no!” and tugged away from him—not very hard, he thought, or was it his imagination? With one last pull that nearly raised him to his feet he reached for the swag round her hips, threw her balance forward, and upended her feet. She landed across his body in a deluge of soapy water.

As the silk and linen layers submerged and covered him, she laughed like a drunken thing. He turned her and held her with one arm while he lifted her face to his and stopped her laughter with his mouth. Francesca’s dripping skirts cascaded water over the side of the bathtub as she moved herself to cross him breast to breast. She propped herself against his chest and looked him in the face, then dropped her head as laughter overtook her again. He drank in the scent of her perfumed hair and reveled in the soggy, silken chrysalis that enfolded him. When she looked up he embraced her with his arms and with his lips.

The suite door again opened and shut. A knock came at the bathroom door.

“Mr. O’Casey, sir?” said Jamie’s sheepish voice, as the manservant stood frozen in the doorway, staring into the mirror.

“It’s about time you got back here,” said Connor over Francesca’s head. “Would you please go to Miss Lund’s maid and ask her, with my compliments, if she would please come and bring her mistress a new set of evening clothes?”

 

“Miss Martin,” said Jamie to May, as the latter sat with Rosemary in their room, working at some mending. “If you please, there’s been a slight mishap and Miss Lund requires a whole new set of evening dress.”

“She hasn’t called,” said May, curiosity written on her face. “What have you to do with the matter, Mr. Lynch?”

“Well, you see,” said Jamie, stepping inside and closing the door, “she’s in Mr. O’Casey’s suite.”

Rosemary snorted a suppressed laugh and bent over her mending.

“I don’t understand,” said May, feigning ignorance and doing a poor job of it.

“If you please, May, there’s no time to waste. Miss Lund requires a full set of evening dress—from the skin out, so to speak, and shoes and all. Perhaps it’d be best if you bring Miss Corcoran with you.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Rosemary, wrapping her mending and laying it on the bedside table.

“The devil of it is, begging your pardon,” said Jamie, “we’ve got to get it all up to Mr. O’Casey’s room without drawin’ any attention, if you take my meanin’.”

Rosemary hooted and instantly composed herself.

“This is serious,” pleaded Jamie. “We’ve got to go quickly. They’ll be late enough for dinner as it is.”

“We can wrap the dress in an overcoat and put the underlinen in a satchel,” offered Rosemary.

“Best make it two satchels,” said Jamie, “We’ll need an extra allotment of towels.”

 

The servants arrived to find Connor in the sitting room, nearly dressed, his tie hanging at loose ends and his cuffs without links, the mother-of-pearl cufflinks on a side table and his tailcoat lying across the back of the settee. He nodded to the maids as they bobbed slight curtseys, passed without looking at him, and followed Jamie through the bedchamber, where he motioned them toward the closed bathroom door. Permission granted to admit the maids, Jamie hastened back to Connor, closing the door that joined the sitting room to the bedchamber. Mixed expressions of horror and glee emanated from the bathroom.

“Oh, my God, miss,” said May’s voice to a fountain of giggles from Rosemary.

“Shhhh,” Francesca admonished. “We’ve got quite enough to attend to.”

The two men bent to the serious business of administering the cufflinks, not daring to look each other in the face, but each with an ear cocked toward the bathroom.

Rosemary appeared at the bedroom door.

“If you please, sir,” she said, looking at Connor, then to Jamie, “Mr. Lynch, we’d be obliged if you could find us a bedsheet for wrapping the wet things. And if you’d be so kind as to deliver them, or see that they’re delivered, discreetly, to our room while everyone’s at dinner, we’d be most grateful.”

“I’ll see to it,” said Jamie. As Rosemary returned to the matter at hand, May’s voice again rang out from the bathroom.

“Oh, my God,” exclaimed May again. “What are you going to do, miss? You’ll have to marry him now.”

“Shhh. That’s enough.”

At which, the two men looked at each other. Connor smiled and Jamie decorously dropped his eyes and helped Connor on with his tailcoat.

Connor tugged at his shirtsleeves, smoothed his lapels, gave himself one last look in the glass over the fireplace, and went to rap upon the bathroom door.

“Yes,” said Francesca’s voice in some surprise.

“I’m going out now. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Jamie’s leaving, too, so you ladies’ll have the place to yourselves.”