City of Light (14 page)

The woman opened her mouth to speak, but Miss Love gave her no opportunity.

“Fine. Toward the end of the summer, I shall arrange for you and your children to enjoy a brief sojourn at one of the delightful farms to the south of our city. There you shall help with the fruit harvest. Your children especially will enjoy this honest labor in the Lord’s own sunshine, among the company of many of their upstanding compatriots, I assure you. This sojourn will also help you and your children to avoid the scourge of tuberculosis. Excellent.” Pausing, Miss Love beamed. “I am certain you will find yourself profoundly satisfied with this turn of events and give thanks to God at your church. Should your priest give you any difficulty about accepting Protestant charity, ask yourself what he has done for you lately.”

The woman’s eyes rounded in horror.

Miss Love laughed. “No, no, I was only joking. I am well-acquainted with all the religious practitioners of this city. We work together now—united for the common good. And when your priest opens a Crèche you may certainly go there with my blessing.”

Miss Love glanced at the laundry hung along the wall. “I’m glad to see you keep up with the washing.” Then to me in English: “No matter what people say about them, Louisa, I have always found that Italian women keep up with the laundry.” Then to Signora Gambuto in Italian: “Now then, we shall provide you immediate assistance by washing the dishes and sweeping the floor, so you may take a moment’s rest from your labors.” Back to English: “Come, Louisa, to work! And stay sharp,” she added,
sotto voce
, “in case there are any bottles hidden away.”

We washed the dishes, made the bed, and swept the floor without finding a single bottle, me feigning the great enthusiasm that Miss Love seemed actually to feel, while the woman and her children watched us as if we were out of our minds. I had to admit that Miss Love was nothing if not practical. I’d heard many a tale of well-meaning charity women who would visit a family like this, give theoretical instruction on how to bathe the children, for example, and then neglect to leave behind the bar of soap with which to do it: Such women simply didn’t realize that some people can’t afford to buy soap. Miss Love, I knew, would never make such a mistake.

“It is example, Louisa, example,” Miss Love explained as we worked, “that these people crave more than anything. Simply by showing them the proper way to make a bed”—which for Miss Love meant very tightly despite the lack of a top sheet and the loose weave of the single blanket—“we have uplifted them.”

She did a final inspection and decided we were finished.

“Well, then, signora, I am very busy and must leave you now. However, you are obviously a woman of refinement who wishes to improve herself. Therefore I will give you my card. If you need help, you may show the card and ask for me personally at the Crèche.”

She handed over the card, which the woman accepted cautiously, holding it by the corner with two fingers and slowly reading aloud, groping with the sounds of English: “Miss—Maria—Love.”

Oh, the joy of it. The sheer thrill to be alive to see such a thing. For Signora Gambuto had said—not “Mariah” Love, which was the proper Delaware Avenue way to pronounce Miss Love’s Christian name—but “Mar
ee
a” Love, as if Miss Love were herself Italian—perhaps even an Italian immigrant! An Italian immigrant about to begin work as a washerwoman!

Miss Love looked utterly abashed. Profoundly surprised and discomfited.

“Signora Gambuto, forgive me, but I must tell you, for your own good, that in this country, names such as mine are more properly pronounced ‘Mariah.’ I’m sure you grasp the difference. Good day to you.”

She turned her back on the unfortunate woman, and moments later we were on the street.

There was much harrumphing before she was able to speak again. “Well, well, all right—I’m willing to forgive her. Apart from that regrettable interlude at the end it was, in fact, a most gratifying visit. How inspiring, to work with a woman who sees so clearly where her best interests lie. They aren’t all like that, I can assure you. Some must be cajoled none too gently on the road to righteousness.” We began walking back the way we’d come. The smell of burning yeast was stronger now. “I told President Cleveland, when I was at the White House in ’94, that some must be cajoled none too gently on the road to righteousness.”

Because Miss Love never let anyone forget, we all knew that during the Cleveland administrations she’d made annual visits to the White House to attend “private” receptions. These private receptions included dozens if not hundreds of similarly well-connected citizens, although Miss Love never mentioned them.

“Now, Louisa, I assume you’ve come to me to discuss the so-called breakfast carts.” Over the years I’d given up trying to figure out how she gathered her information. Perhaps she was simply good at making educated guesses. “There is nothing to discuss. The carts are anathema to all the Charity Organization Society is attempting to accomplish. There is no self-respect or self-discipline in running past a cart, grabbing breakfast, and running into school. If children need breakfast, their families can go to their churches, be properly evaluated, and receive what they need, no more, no less. I find it unfortunate that you find yourself in the position of doing the bidding of Thomas Sinclair. This is what comes of accepting money from unsavory sources.”

We turned a corner. At the end of the street, beyond the tenements and the acres of railroad yards, there was a wall of fire. A grain elevator was burning, which explained the yeasty smell in the air. With the next burst of wind, grain dust floated around us. Dozens of grain elevators lined the sheltered waterways off the main harbor. Because of its location at the eastern end of the Great Lakes, Buffalo received grain shipments from the entire Midwest and led the world in its production of flour. Despite extensive scientific investigation, however, spontaneous combustion remained a constant problem in the wooden grain elevators, and this neighborhood suffered from the consequences.

“Why do you say ‘unsavory’?” I risked. “The endowment is in Margaret’s honor; most likely some or most of the money was hers.”

After staring for a moment at the fire, Miss Love placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned close to my face, her hat feathers flapping in the wind. Behind her, the sky was a smoky gray.

“I know everything that goes on in this city, Louisa. Remember that. If I’d been Margaret Winspear’s grandmother, the girl never would have married him. I gave them both fair warning. Margaret and old Mrs. Winspear, I mean.” She shook her head at the sorry spectacle of two misguided souls ignoring her advice. “And Margaret wasn’t happy, you know. She lived to regret her choice. She should have listened to me when she had the chance.”

“I never noticed that Margaret was unhappy,” I said in the confused, innocent tone I feigned when contradicting Miss Love. “She always seemed happy enough to me. And I saw her … well, almost every day.”

“Harrumph,” Miss Love replied. “Well then. The question you must ask yourself now, Louisa, is what to do with this so-called gift he’s given you. Can you return it, you’re probably wondering.”

That
I was certainly not wondering. I had no intention of returning the money. She, however, considered the option for a good long while as she studied the flaming horizon.

“No,” she finally concluded, turning to me, “money is money, whatever the source. What you want to avoid is undue influence. Happily Sinclair had the wisdom to decline a position on the board. I suppose one must respect him for that, at least: He knows his place. Especially while there’s still this public controversy about the death of poor Karl Speyer—a charming man, I must say; I met him once. I can’t understand why Dexter hasn’t ordered the coroner to release a report. The death was obviously an accident. Obviously.” She regarded me shrewdly, as if expecting me to confirm her opinion or at least offer some new information. After all, I attended the Macaulay board of trustees meetings and she did not. Miss Love might claim to know everything, but some things remained beyond her ken.

Of course I would reveal nothing. I made my expression deferential and expectant: I was young, simple Louisa Barrett, waiting to be enlightened by Miss Love. I didn’t need to say a word to appease her.

“Well, well …” she concluded complacently after studying my face. “Dexter has his reasons, I’m sure. At any rate, Louisa, I shall make myself available to advise you step by step in the coming months.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure entirely.”

She adjusted her hat, as if to say, that’s that, another problem solved. “Now then, if you go down Seneca to Main, you can get the streetcar. I trust you know the way from there. I must say, however, that I sincerely hope you will walk back to Macaulay—much better for the constitution. I must continue on my rounds. Good day to you, Louisa.”

With that she was off, striding down the street into the wall of fire. As I stared after her, I felt a yearning to tell the tale of her “visitation.” To share every detail … her huge handbag; the tightness with which she made the bed, almost ripping apart the blanket; Ma
reea
instead of Mariah. But with whom could I share these details? Not Francesca, enjoying her rounds of gossip. Only Margaret; only she would appreciate every nuance. In my imagination I began forming the words to tell her—before being brought up short by the realization, which still shocked me sometimes, that she was gone forever. As the feathers bobbing on Miss Love’s hat became smaller and smaller in the distance, my aloneness pressed hard against me.

CHAPTER VIII

I
’ve got a terrible chill.” Just past eight P.M., on the Tuesday, after my meeting with Miss Love, Franklin Fiske wheezed and coughed at my doorway, his handsome features contorted with discomfort. “I haven’t been myself since I went to the Philippines two years ago. My health has been terrible.” Behind him, a heavy, windblown rain filled the night, dampening my face. “I need your help.” He wore a striped scarf around his neck and a soft cap, both soaked and reeking of wet wool. Incongruously he held a large black umbrella propped closed beside him like an elegant walking stick.

“I’m not your mother.”

“No, but you’re the only mother surrogate I have in this city, apart from my landlady, who’s invariably tipsy by eleven A.M. Surely you wouldn’t want me going to her.”

I sighed, none too happily, at the thought of what curious neighbors might say if they saw me inviting a man into my house after dark, but I couldn’t very well turn him away. “All right, come in then.” Katarzyna had left a short while before, and I found myself wondering whether Fiske had watched from across the street, hidden among the trees of the parkway, waiting for her departure before knocking on my door.

After settling him in the rocking chair beside the fire in my study, I went to the kitchen to make him tea with lemon and honey. By the time I returned with the glass in its filigree holder, his chill seemed so improved as to be completely gone. He had stretched his legs toward the warmth of the fire, his hands were folded behind his head, and he appeared to be absolutely comfortable.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Oh, quite. Quite completely better as I bask in the pleasure of your company.”

“What do you want from me, then?”

He sat up quickly. “What makes you think I want something?”

“Compliments like that always imply a desire for … something.”

“You’re simply unused to compliments.”

“That’s true.” I sat down opposite him.

“But now that you mention it, I did have a few questions to ask you,” he admitted guiltily. “And something rather important to tell you. Privately. Away from the so very … heady atmosphere of your ‘saloon.’” Fiske had attended my salon the night before, as indeed he had each week since I’d seen him at Francesca’s, but he’d never attempted to speak to me alone. “My ploy was amateurish, I grant you, but it’s one that’s never failed me.”

“How encouraging. Do you use it often?”

“Yes. Often,” he assured me with clearly feigned innocence.

“So what is it that you wanted to ask me and to tell me?”

Instead of answering, he picked up his glass of tea. Its pale shade caught the reflection of the fire. He turned the glass slowly, rubbing the filigree holder, studying the permutations of color.

“A million dollars,” he said meditatively. “A tidy sum. Simple to pronounce. Congratulations.”

Rain lashed against the windowpanes. Trying not to sound impatient, I said, “Would you get on with it, please?”

“Yes. Of course. My first question, Miss Barrett, is this: Before your presence in the Sinclair home on the evening of Karl Speyer’s death, did you have any inkling that this endowment was … in the works, as it were?”

I forced my expression into impassivity, although I was staggered. How had he learned I was there? My insides knotted in fear of what he would do with his knowledge, and of what he might want from me. “What makes you say I was visiting the Sinclairs that night?”

He sighed. “Well, if you insist on my going through this step by step … I learned through badgering my professional colleagues—my former professional colleagues,” he corrected himself, “that part of Sinclair’s unofficial alibi for the night of Karl Speyer’s
adieu
was that he was at home with his daughter and his daughter’s godmother before the meeting at the Buffalo Club. The scribblers didn’t think the fact newsworthy enough to print, and never pursued it. They were also influenced, I’m proud to report, by their unwillingness as gentlemen to inflict upon an innocent lady the ignominy of seeing her name in the newspaper on anything but the society page. And evidently—remarkably—they seemed not to know the identity of this ‘godmother.’ Just out of curiosity, I asked Cousin Susan, ‘Who is Grace Sinclair’s godmother?’ Well, wasn’t I surprised to learn that she was you! You—the very person I met at the park lake the day after Speyer’s death, studying the crime scene out of concern for the efficacy of the police department.”

So … he knew I’d been at the Sinclairs, but he didn’t know that Speyer had visited too. Therefore he knew nothing.

“To return to my original question: Before your presence on the evening of the … death, I think, is properly objective, of Karl Speyer, had Mr. Sinclair given you any expectation of monetary reward?”

I was under no obligation to Franklin Fiske. I was not required to answer his questions. Who was he, after all, but an art photographer ingratiating himself throughout the city for reasons unknown? This conviction made me bold enough to be silent.

He eyed me speculatively. “Well, how about this: Did anything unusual happen at the house while you were there?”

I wanted to throw him out, but I wouldn’t let myself be that dismissive: I couldn’t afford to make an enemy of Susan Rumsey’s cousin, and besides, he would most likely view any intemperate reaction as a sign that I was hiding something. Noncommittally I said, “You’re certainly forthright, Mr. Fiske.”

“I won’t do you the insult of trying to sweet-talk it out of you,” he said with sudden—startling—anger. From the intemperance of his reaction, I concluded that he was hiding something. “Nor do I have the time. I’ve been here over a month now, with little to show for it.”

Little to show for it … that slip confused me, but also gave me an edge. “Why, Mr. Fiske, haven’t you been working hard with your picture-taking?”

“Whatever you know may have significance far beyond what you can imagine, so why don’t you simply tell me,” he demanded.

He stared at me, waiting. I stared back at him.

He glanced away. Finally he said, “You may be interested to learn that news of the million-dollar endowment was all the rage last weekend when I attended a kind of court-of-Marie-Antoinette ‘informal’ luncheon at the estate of Bronson Rumsey on Tracy Street.”

Bronson Rumsey was Dexter’s older brother. He was well into his seventies and in failing health; he was retired from business.

In an abrupt shift, Fiske continued lightheartedly. “I must admit I’m having trouble keeping those two old Rumseys straight. Bronson and Dexter. I’ve had to invent a mnemonic for them: ‘
D
exter lives on
D
elaware,
B
ronson in
B
eaux-Arts on Tracy.’ It’s not perfect, not as rhythmic as I would like, but it’ll do. Dexter, of course, is the one I’m most interested in, because of his close link to you.”

Again I did not respond. After a few moments of silence, Fiske resumed. “Well, as I was saying, Sinclair’s gift provoked much speculation, beginning with: Who would ever have imagined he had so much money to spare, and for such a worthy cause? This was the view of the ladies, most of them Macaulay graduates, and there was endless discussion about what dear Miss Barrett might do with this donation. The gentlemen were glumly silent on the endowment issue—undoubtedly to deflect any notions that they too might be in a position to give away so much to so worthy a cause.

“Then there was the matter of the reason he gave the money. Did he have a guilty conscience perhaps? For presuming to marry where he shouldn’t have? However, I must say I sensed that Margaret Sinclair wasn’t exactly liked by her peers. Apparently she couldn’t go ‘calling,’ because all her time was taken up teaching English to immigrant brats. Not only that, but she and her husband turned down dinner invitations in order to stay home and dine with their child! Who has ever heard of such a thing? And absolutely terrible for the child too, my lady friends assured me.”

Now that he was using Grace for his verbal flourishes, I had to intervene. “This is not a joke, Mr. Fiske. And furthermore it’s none of your concern.”

Patiently he sipped his tea. He stared into the fire. His face was soft in the firelight, his eyes shadowed. At last he said, “In this case, the ladies may be right: Your goddaughter certainly is a handful, isn’t she?”

“Whatever do you mean?” I demanded brusquely, and he looked at me with surprise.

“I’m just making conversation. Whatever do
you
mean?”

“Oh, people can be so judgmental about children.” I tried to sound nonchalant. “Especially people who spend little time with them. Seeing the worrisome in the normal and then totally missing something that’s actually wrong. Tell me what happened, that made you say what you did.”

Despite my effort at detachment, he appeared worried. “Well, as I told you, I was over at the Bronson Rumsey estate for a luncheon. It was some sort of birthday party, although I’m not sure whose. An infant’s, I think. Don’t be upset that you weren’t invited, it was all family—which I am, of course,” he added wryly, “although I must say the family seems overextended: Miss Maria Love was in attendance. Did you know that she’s related to that lovely couple Dr. Charles and Evelyn Cary?”

“Yes.”

“How exactly are they related again?” For a moment, brow knit, he attempted to figure out the complex genealogy of the Carys and the Rumseys, who were forever intermarrying.

“I won’t illuminate you on that now. About Grace Sinclair?”

“Oh, yes. Did you know that the Pan-American Exposition was once a three-hundred-fifty-acre cow field for the grazing of the prized Rumsey herd? Special Holsteins, I think. Or maybe it was Herefords. Short-horned, I believe I was told. Or was it long-horned? Whatever it was, it was supposed to be the first herd of its kind in the United States. Did you know that?”

“Yes, Mr. Fiske. I dare say everyone around here knows about the Rumsey herd.”

“And the money they must be making from the rental of the land to the exposition committee!”

Good grief, he nosed his way into everything. “I dare say, Mr. Fiske.”

“Did you know that the Rumsey money originally came from the tanning business? That means they made leather.”

“I know what tanning means,” I said impatiently.

“You must forgive me my constant curiosity and enthusiasm, Miss Barrett. I find the ins and outs of this so-called Queen City of the Lakes to be quite mesmerizing. The city is a true microcosm of the world, and I love a microcosm.”

“You were saying about Grace Sinclair?”

“Ah. Yes. Grace Sinclair was there, at this indoor family ‘picnic,’ as a guest of Cousin Susan’s daughter, Ruth. Soon there arrived a veritable gaggle of other little Rumseys, from all the Rumsey houses around the estate. Apparently Mr. Bronson owns a preternaturally large plot of land and has kindly built a separate house on it for every one of his many progeny. There were enough grandchildren to—well, to stage a dramatic tableau from
Macbeth
in the conservatory, which is exactly what they did.”

“Ruth and Grace are reading the play in school this year,” I explained. “It seems to be seeping into many areas of their lives.”

“An odd choice, for little girls.”

“You’d prefer to keep them occupied with
King Lear?
Or perhaps
Coriolanus?”

“I’d prefer to keep them occupied wherever I’m
not
. At least the preparations kept them busy for a while—a full hour, during which I could enjoy the crowd. There was one nonfamily entry: our friend Mr. Krakauer, J. Pierpont Morgan’s man, snoozing in a chair in the corner. I’ve noticed that Krakauer never elicits conversation with anyone, although he is charming when approached—as he frequently is, bearing as he must the burden of the reflected glory of the magnificent Pierpont. Miss Love went to speak to him, unleashing her own inimitable charm.”

“And the performance?”

“Oh, yes. Exactly what one would expect. The witches’ brew, with more witches than scripted. Masses of giggles. I followed Mr. Krakauer’s example—a Morgan-endorsed example, one must assume—and snoozed the time away. What was interesting came afterward. Cousin Susan, being an affectionate type, went to hug her daughter by way of complimenting her on the blissful pleasure brought by her performance. Then she turned to hug Grace too. But Grace turned stiff as a board, as they say, and shouted, ‘You’re not my mother, get away from me, my mother’s dead and I wish I was too.’ Or words to that effect. All the time she was saying this, she was pounding her leg with her fist, which I must admit was disturbing. Then she ran outside—without her cloak, as one worthy matron noted in shock—and hid out there among the fountains and gazebos and half-naked statues. After a minute little Ruth ran out to find her—with her cloak on, I’m glad to say, and Grace’s slung over her shoulder. The other children followed shortly, like a mass migration of cloak-clad little antelopes. Meanwhile the other adults continued their luncheon festivities as if none of this had happened. Sometime later a nurse or a nanny or a housekeeper—whatever these women are called—came to get Grace, but by then she was inordinately happy about some apparently excellent tree-climbing she and Ruth had undertaken and all was well.”