A Proper Pursuit (38 page)

I couldn’t seem to reply. But I wasn’t considering his proposal; I was analyzing my symptoms. My pulse seemed disappointingly normal, my palms were dry, I could draw great, hearty breaths, and I didn’t feel the least bit shivery or feverish. A handsome, charming, wealthy man had just proposed to me and … nothing! Even with my corset tightly laced! Maybe there was something wrong with me.

“I’ll give you anything your heart desires,” Nelson said. “Beautiful gowns, jewels, the finest home, dozens of servants …”

Servants. Katya suddenly materialized in the boat with us. Nelson hadn’t hesitated to kiss her before their engagement. If I hadn’t spied on them that night, I might be accepting his proposal this very minute.

“And I promise to give you independence as well,” he said.

“Independence? What do you mean?”

“What you do with your free time will be entirely up to you, Violet. For instance, Potter Palmer’s wife is the director of the Woman’s Pavilion. Mrs. McCormick works for several charities. You could do whatever you wish.”

“Suppose I decided to march with the women’s suffrage movement— in bloomers?”

“Well …” His smile wavered slightly before returning to its place. “As long as you don’t disgrace me by getting arrested, I suppose that would be okay.”

He hadn’t declared his love. Should I ask him if he loved me? Would I believe him if he said that he did? He had dismissed love as unnecessary when I’d mentioned it before. But if he didn’t love me, why was he working so hard to woo me? Was it for money and a position in his father’s business?

I shook myself. What was wrong with me that I was questioning Nelson’s motives? The heroine of every romance novel I’d ever read would have gladly lived happily ever after with someone like him— especially if he wooed her with roses and moonlit gondola rides.

Our gondolier returned us to the dock, and Nelson and I returned to the party. I wondered if he’d noticed that I hadn’t answered his proposal.

He waited on my every whim, charmed me with his wit, and held me close as we waltzed to the glorious music. I saw his grandmother and Aunt Agnes watching us, smiling in approval.

“My friends and I are going to the private casino again tonight,” he said when it was time for us to leave. “I’m hoping you’ll come with me and be my good luck charm again.”

“I-I’d rather not. I really don’t like gambling, and besides, I got terribly carried away the last time.” I continued walking as we came out of the pavilion, following my aunt and all of the others as we headed toward the pier.

“Please?” he begged. “I’m not ready to call it a night yet.”

“It scares me to think that you could lose all your money.”

“But I’ll win if you’re with me. Please stay.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to spoil your evening, Nelson, but I would like to go home. Why don’t you go with your friends, and I’ll ride home with my aunt Agnes?”

“You won’t feel like I’m deserting you?”

“Not at all. It was a wonderfully romantic evening. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. Thank you so much.” I stood on tiptoe and quickly kissed his cheek. “Good night.”

The kiss was a test, of sorts. I had hoped that my heart would send off a few fireworks, but nothing happened. Nor did anything happen when Nelson lifted my fingers to his lips and kissed them.

“Good night, my beautiful Violet.”

I followed the others to the pier and boarded the steamship back to the city. Aunt Agnes pulled me into a quiet corner and sat me down as soon as we left the dock.

“My stars, Violet, why did you leave Nelson? Did something go wrong between you two? It looked like things were going so well.”

“They were … I mean, they are going well. Nelson asked me to marry him.”

“That’s wonderful! So why are you sitting here with the face of doom, twisting your gloves into a knot?”

I dropped my gloves onto my lap and sighed. “I don’t know …”

“You didn’t refuse him, did you?”

“No …”

“Well!” She exhaled. “Thank goodness for good sense! Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, then?”

“Nelson never said that he loved me. I know you don’t think love matters, but I-I want to fall in love. And I want to be loved.”

“And you’re too impatient to wait for it to grow?” She caressed my cheek with her sparkly fingers.

“What if it doesn’t, Aunt Agnes?”

“Listen, it’s probably no secret that Henry and I weren’t in love when we married. But over time, living together, raising our sons, our love grew to become very deep.”

“It did?” I remembered my uncle’s mistresses. “How long did it take? And when did you know?”

“I found out on the night of the Great Fire,” she said matter-offactly. “Sometimes it takes a tragedy such as that one to make us realize how we really feel about someone.”

I immediately thought of my parents, falling in love during the fire. I wanted to hear everything that Aunt Agnes knew about that night. I perched on the edge of my chair and leaned toward her.

“Were you living here in the city during the fire?”

She nodded. “Henry and I had a Terrace Row townhouse, right on Michigan Avenue and Congress Streets. Michigan Avenue used to be on the lakefront, you know, but after the fire they dumped all of the rubble into the lake and created Grant Park and a new shoreline. But anyway, that’s where we lived.”

“Grandmother said that my parents met that night.”

“She would know more about that than I would. Henry and I were sound asleep when our son Michael woke us up at around two o’clock in the morning. He was the only one of our children still living at home at the time.

“ ‘I think the city is on fire,’ he said. ‘You’d better get dressed.’

“All the alarm bells were ringing, and the great courthouse bell was tolling like it was doomsday. Henry opened the bedroom curtains, and the sky to the southwest of us was an eerie shade of orange. It made the lake across the street glow like molten lava. The wind howled around the eaves like a hurricane and rattled the panes. I thought I had awakened in hell itself.

“Henry decided to go out and see where the fire was and in which direction it was spreading. He had important papers and ledgers and things that needed to be rescued if the fire was spreading toward his downtown office. He told me not to worry, but I got dressed and proceeded to pack, just in case.

“It’s so hard to choose which things are important and which ones aren’t when it comes to fleeing for your life. I didn’t really believe that the fire would spread all the way to the lake. It seemed to be across the river. But I decided to take precautions.

“Henry was gone for a very long time. He came back with a cartload of documents and descriptions of the inconceivable damage he’d seen—the courthouse was burning, as was the main post office and several grand hotels, including one that Henry owned. The fire seemed to be spreading out of control, heading toward his office building and all of the others on LaSalle Street. I couldn’t imagine it. But I could see how badly shaken Henry was. He described the panic in the streets, all the frightened people running in every direction, carrying their belongings—the silliest and saddest things: an oil painting, a birdcage, a chair. Others dragged screaming children by the hand as burning cinders rained down from the sky. I asked Henry if we needed to evacuate.

“ ‘No,’ he assured me, ‘the fire seems to be heading in the other direction for now. I believe you’ll be safe here.’ But he took Michael and they went back to retrieve more things from his office.

“The servants and I continued to pack everything of value, and we piled it all in the foyer. Every time I looked out the window, the sky seemed brighter with flames. I could hear the wind howling and whipping ashes and cinders against the panes as if we were in a sandstorm.

“Hours passed. I became sick with worry for Henry and Michael’s safety. I could see that the fire was moving closer and closer, and I feared we would soon lose our home. I decided to haul our belongings out of the house and across the little parkway that was on the other side of Michigan Avenue to the beach. Our neighbors were all doing the same thing. It proved extremely difficult. All manner of vehicles and panic-stricken people jammed the avenue, trying to escape the flames.

“The servants helped me save a great deal of our furnishings and household goods and valuables. We rescued most of Henry’s books. Our eyes burned and watered and stung from the smoke, and our faces turned black with soot.

“Believe it or not, there were unscrupulous men who took advantage of the disaster to help themselves to our personal effects through the open door. One neighbor had an entire wagon full of his salvaged goods driven away by a stranger, never to be seen again. I found a thief in Henry’s dressing room, helping himself to his clothing and cigars. He laughed at my outrage and said, ‘Go ahead and holler for the police, lady.’

“We continued to work, trying to empty the house, while fear for my husband and son grew with every passing hour. The approaching flames seemed to ride through the sky in the clouds. It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been so horrifying. And the noise! I could hear rumblings and explosions as buildings crumbled in the distance. And always, the roar of the flames and the sound of screaming.

“When the heat became too strong and we’d carried the last load that we dared to the beach, I sat down on my pile of belongings and watched my home burn. The flames leaped to the roof, then spread down through the interior, hollowing it out and devouring everything inside until only a blackened shell remained. Everyone on the beach was weeping, but I felt little sorrow for my home compared to the terror I felt for Henry and our son. They had been away for too long. I wept for them, not our home.

“That was when I knew how very deeply I loved Henry—when I was faced with the prospect of losing him. We weren’t in love when we married, of course. But we’d lived together all those years, raised our family, built a life with one another—and I couldn’t bear the thought of living without him.

“Meanwhile, Henry and Michael had been forced to take a wild, circuitous route back home in order to avoid the flames and the mobs of fleeing people. One of the drawbridges they’d tried to cross had to be raised just as they reached it in order to allow several ships to get out of harm’s way. Henry walked for miles and miles and made it home in time to see the rear wall of our townhouse topple to the ground. He had been terrified for my safety as well and had been trying desperately to escape the fire’s relentless path and return home for me. All the while, he’d had to fight the current of humanity fleeing in the opposite direction.

“When we were finally reunited, we stood on the lakeshore clinging to one another for a very long time. Henry’s face was black and tear streaked, his clothing stank of smoke, his entire body trembled from all of the horrors he’d witnessed. But he held me tightly and whispered, ‘I love you, Agnes.’”

My aunt Agnes paused as her voice choked. She wiped away the tears that had rolled down her cheeks. Her story had moved me deeply, and I couldn’t speak. I took her hand in mine.

“Henry and I lost our home, several other properties, and his brand-new office building. But we had each other, and that was all that mattered.

“Love will grow, Violet. It comes from mutual respect and from building a life together, one day at a time. Romance is fine when you’re young, but you can’t always trust the emotions that seem so strong in the beginning. Those feelings often fade, and you wake up one morning to find you have nothing in common with each other. Marriage is about maturity and creating a future together. It’s not about romance.” I nodded, thinking about my parents.

“Yes, Henry’s family was wealthy when I married him. But I helped him prosper and gain stature in Chicago. I played hostess for his business and social contacts. I volunteered in countless charitable causes to help build his good name. We are Mr. and Mrs. Henry Paine, and that’s so much more important than fleeting feelings of romance.”

She met my gaze for a long moment; then her voice grew very soft. “I know that Henry loves me. His dalliances don’t mean anything, Violet. They allow him to believe that he is still young and indestructible. I’m the one who shares his name and his home—and his life.”

I nodded, too moved by her confession to speak.

“Nelson Kent is a fine young man from a lovely family. In many ways, he is still young and unformed. You could be the woman behind the man. With your grace and intelligence and wit, you could help him make a name for himself and find his rightful place in this city. Every man needs a good woman to believe in him. And in time, love and affection will follow.”

I thought of Nelson’s passion for new inventions. I could encourage him, cheer him on, and be his source of inspiration. As my aunt had said, Nelson could make a name for himself and find his place in life.

But what about my name and my place? I would no longer be known as Violet but as Mrs. Nelson Kent. If I joined my life to his, would I find myself—or become swallowed up in him and lost?

I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to accept Nelson’s proposal. But if my father forced me to choose, I would rather marry Nelson Kent than Herman Beckett.

Chapter

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