The Promise (5 page)

I couldn’t stay there, I thought. It was too fine; I could not afford even one night. ‘Mr Williams,’ I started to say, but before I did, two women came out of the hotel. They were young, perhaps in their very early twenties. Everything about them was fresh and carefree: their pale pink and yellow skirts, crisp white shirtwaists with sleeves that came to their elbows, and straw boater hats. Unlike me, I thought, wilted in my plum-colored skirt and long-sleeved cream shirtwaist.

They didn’t notice. It was Oscar who caused their chatter to pause when we drew nearer, the two of them under the canopy, the doorman off to the side now and standing in the sun. It was Oscar who they assessed when he gave the brim of his hat a quick tug, his way of acknowledging them. Oscar nodded to the doorman as well, who then tipped his own hat in return, saying, ‘Sir. Ma’am.’

If Oscar noticed the hints of admiration in those women’s glances, he didn’t show it. We turned at the corner and crossed to the other side. Here, the street was sand and dirt, and buggies were parked face in at the high curbs. We continued on a few more blocks, following other pedestrians as we passed more banks, more merchants, and a three-story building with a clock. Oscar glanced up at the clock. His hand went to his vest pocket as though he might take out his watch to compare the time. Instead, he patted it and nodded toward the building on the corner.

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘The Central Hotel.’

CHAPTER THREE

Oscar Williams

The Central Hotel was a four-story clapboard building with a pitched roof. The sign above the open double doors had a simple black band around the border and the print did not have the first curlicue. If I kept my meals light – something that would not be difficult since I had lost my appetite months ago – I believed my seven dollars might cover two nights.

I nibbled at my lunch, or as Oscar called it, dinner. He and I were in the hotel’s narrow, small dining room. Its ceiling was high, and the walls were white plaster. Every table was filled, and the diners, all men, had unbuttoned their suit jackets so that their vests showed. Their voices competed with the clatter of cutlery and with the waiters in white shirts and long black aprons who rushed in and out of the kitchen, the swing door slapping. They held their trays high as they wove between the tables, responding to orders, the pungent odors of fish and steak making me queasy.

Oscar sat across from me with his napkin tucked into his collar and his elbows on the small square table. Hatless, his pale forehead contrasted with his sun-browned cheeks and nose. He picked up a shrimp from a platter. ‘Fresh from the gulf,’ he said.

I could barely bring myself to look at it. It resembled a pinkish-white worm but with a claw on one end. Oscar twisted the claw and tore it off, then peeled the thin clear shell from what remained.

He put the shrimp on a small plate. ‘Give it a try,’ he said, passing it to me.

I steeled myself. I pierced it with my fork and swallowed it whole, needing several quick sips of my hot tea to remove the cold spongy texture from my mind.

‘How about an oyster?’

‘Thank you but no, I couldn’t possibly.’ They were on a platter next to the shrimp, each oyster in its own half shell. I was accustomed to oysters mixed in stuffing so that their appearance was disguised. These oysters, though, were without pretense. They were slick rubber-like brown sea creatures, raw and primitive. ‘I’m afraid I’ve not acquired a taste for oysters,’ I said.

‘It can take some doing,’ Oscar said. ‘But these come from here; they’re not store bought.’ He picked up a shell and held out to me. ‘You sure?’

‘Quite.’

His grin was quick. He was laughing at me. ‘Well then,’ he said. He put the shell to his lips and tipped it. The oyster slid into his mouth.

Only a suggestion of a breeze drifted in through the doors that faced the street. The two men at the table to my left discussed the price of cotton and the recent heavy rains. To my right, the talk centered on the need for more warehouses at the wharf. I once prided myself on being able to hold a conversation with any man. Ask a flattering question – ‘My goodness, how did you ever find this charming restaurant?’ – and most would talk for ten minutes. Failing that, there was always the weather. But I could not find a thing to say to Oscar.

He cut a piece from his steak and ate it, the muscles along his jaw working. I had a bite of my own. It was tough and stringy.

I should ask about his son. I knew so little about children apart from giving them piano lessons. The boys were often restless, their shirts coming untucked. Lessons were usually their mothers’ ideas and many did not like to practice. Some of the boys stared at the keyboard, swinging their legs as I spoke about flats and sharps, measures and beats.

I said, ‘I’m looking forward to meeting your son.’

‘He’s a good boy,’ Oscar said. ‘For the most part.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, he’s five.’

‘I suppose that can be a rather energetic age.’

Oscar peered at me as though I had just said something peculiar. The two men at the table to my left pushed their chairs away from their table, the shrill scrape of their chair legs against the wood floor heightening my nerves. Oscar ran his forefinger around the rim of his beer mug. Small white scars crisscrossed the backs of his broad hands, and his fingers were long. Calluses ridged the insides of his palm. These were the hands of a farmer, a man who used his hands hard.

Oscar said, ‘Well. Now that you’re here.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He had a little more of his beer, then wiped his upper lip with his forefinger and thumb. His fingernails were clipped and clean, all traces of coal dust were gone. He said, ‘Tomorrow afternoon, after I finish up with the chores, I’ll come for you, take you to see my boy and the house. I figured you might like to do that.’

‘Yes, thank you, I would. But the day is early yet. Perhaps I could see your home this afternoon?’

‘I’d like to do that, I would. But I can’t. It’s a while getting there and then there’d be the trip back to the city. What with chores and all, well, it’d run me late.’

‘How far away is your home?’

‘From here, three miles. As the crow flies.’

‘And if you aren’t a crow?’

‘Closer to four miles. Takes an hour, give or take, depending on Maud and Mabel, my horses, how cantankerous they are.’

It took me a minute to absorb this. I said, ‘I didn’t realize Galveston was so big.’

‘Twenty-seven miles from end to end.’

‘That’s quite a city.’

‘It’s not all city,’ he said. ‘Just this part here. We’re down the island. We’re outside of the city limits.’

Oscar drained the last of his beer, and the waiter stood ready with the second one on his tray. Oscar nodded to him and the mugs were switched. A thin layer of white foam bubbled at the rim of the fresh mug, threatening to overflow.

‘Miss Wainwright?’ Oscar said. ‘You all right?’

Nothing was all right. I had stepped off the train just over an hour ago, and I was still stunned by the crowds, the stench, and the heat of Galveston. My sharp awareness of Oscar stunned me, too, seeing for the first time the thin white scar that ran across the bottom of his left cheek, and the crook in his nose. Now there was this discovery that his home was not just down the island, but more specifically, it was outside of the city limits.

I said, ‘You have electricity, don’t you? There, at your home?’

‘It’s coming. There’s been talk of it.’

Panic fluttered in my chest.

‘We have running water,’ he said. ‘In the kitchen and washroom.’

‘Oh. Goodness. I’m pleased to hear that.’

He had more of his beer, then put the mug down. ‘This matter of the wedding,’ he said.

I waited.

‘There’s been a little tangle, you might say.’

‘A tangle?’

‘A small knot. It came up when I talked to the Presbyterian preacher. I believe that’s what you are.’

‘Minister,’ I said. ‘Presbyterians don’t have preachers.’

‘Is that so? Didn’t know that.’ He glanced around the dining room. There were only a handful of diners now. His voice low, he said, ‘Anyway, this minister, he’s not agreeable to marrying us. It’s because of me, me being a Catholic. And Father O’Shea, that’s my priest, he said that before he’d marry us, you’d have to convert.’

‘Mr Williams. That is out of the question.’

‘Oscar,’ he said. ‘Call me Oscar.’

‘Yes, of course. Oscar.’ I picked up my teacup; I put it back down. My hand had acquired a tremor. In Dayton, I had not allowed myself to dwell on Oscar’s religion. The Catholics in Dayton were the Irish and Italians, and my father had considered Catholicism little more than hocus-pocus. It called for the false worship of idols and for blind obedience to the Roman Pope.

‘Mr Williams,’ I said. ‘Oscar. I was raised Presbyterian, it is my family’s religion.’

‘And that’s fine by me. So the way I see it, that leaves a judge.’

‘You could join the Presbyterian Church.’

‘I thought about that, I did. But Miss Wainwright, my boy’s a Catholic and I made a promise to his mother and I intend to abide by that.’

I looked off toward the open doors, the sidewalk busy with pedestrians. I had seven dollars and a pair of crystal earrings. I was in no position to bargain. Nor was I in any position to have qualms about the religious sanctity of this wedding. I turned back to him and said, ‘Have you spoken to a judge?’

‘This morning, before your train got here. He’s willing to marry us most any afternoon but Sunday. I figured on Saturday.’

‘This coming Saturday?’

‘If that’s all right with you,’ he said.

Three days from now. A few minutes ago, I was concerned about my hotel bill. Now, the solution to that problem at hand, it all felt too sudden. Oscar Williams was not who I had expected him to be.

‘Miss Wainwright?’

He waited, the question showing in his green eyes.

I’d come here out of desperation. I’d come here to get married. Whether it was this Saturday or the one after that, the result was the same.

I said, ‘You took me by surprise. But yes, Saturday. That’s suitable.’

He smiled and in that moment, I saw the boy he had been, shy and sitting in the back row during my recital. The image, though, did not linger. His hands, I thought. Scarred and nicked, and not reluctant to touch me.

The wedding. Three days from now. Three days in which to lose my nerve, three days in which to make an irreparable mistake. ‘I don’t know you,’ I imagined myself saying. ‘I cannot marry you.’ But I could not afford such a mistake.

Across the table, Oscar assessed me, his head tilted as though he were seeing me for the first time. Perhaps he was noticing the sallowness in my cheeks and the thinness in my neck. He might see that my youth had faded. There were three days for Oscar to think and to reconsider, too.

‘Mr Williams,’ I said.

‘Oscar.’

‘Oscar.’

A few rows over, a waiter cleared a table placing dishes and the empty platters on a tray. Oscar drank some of his beer, clear beads of moisture running down the outside of the glass. The waiter left, the tray balanced on the flat of his palm.

I said, ‘You’re such a busy man. All this going back and forth, tomorrow and then on Saturday. As well as today. I’m keeping you from your work.’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘That’s kind of you, but …’ My voice disappeared.

‘Don’t you want to see the place? And my boy?’

‘Yes. Very much so. But.’ My slight smile felt frozen into place. I said, ‘Why don’t we just get things settled? Tomorrow.’

‘Come again?’

‘If the judge has the time.’

‘Get married tomorrow? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes.’

‘This comes as a surprise. You might say it all comes as a surprise.’

I couldn’t meet his eyes.

Oscar picked up his fork and ran it over his plate, collecting a few scraps of gristly meat. We were the last diners. Off to my right, a Negro man swept the floor, his broom making soft whispery sounds. Crockery clattered in the kitchen, and outside, on the sidewalk, a boy selling newspapers called the headline about the rebellion in China. Oscar put his fork back down, the scraps of gristle now in a small tidy pile.

He said, ‘I’m going to speak plain here, Miss Wainwright. That’s my way. My boy needs a mother. I wrote you that, put my cards on the table fair and square, didn’t try to hide it. But there was something I didn’t say, not then. Didn’t know how to in a letter, but here it is. I want a woman that can give him things I can’t. I want better for him, the right way to talk, manners and suchlike. Now, me and you, we don’t much know each other anymore, but I recall this about you. You do things right.’

I looked away from him. Framed paintings of ships and seascapes decorated the dining-room walls. Behind several of them, thin cracks zigzagged in the white plaster, some of them running from the floor to the ceiling. Nearby, the man with the broom bent from the waist and swept the droppings of lunch into a dustpan.

Oscar said, ‘I believe in fair and square.’

‘As do I.’

‘Good. So that’s why I’m asking. Miss Wainwright, is everything all right with you?’

‘Mr Williams. Everything is perfectly all right.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

He knew, I thought. The rumors, the whispers. Someone in Dayton had written to him. Or, at the very least, he suspected that something had happened. Six years of silence, and suddenly I write to him. Suddenly I was ready to marry him but not in Dayton.
How considerate,
I had responded last month to Oscar’s suggestion that he come to Ohio.
But I cannot bear the thought of taking you away from your work or from your son. I’d much prefer a quiet wedding there in Galveston, my new home.

I held his gaze, refusing to flinch, refusing to reveal anything about the past. Those eyes, I thought. He saw right through me. Then, he nodded as though he were satisfied with my answers. He picked up his beer and finished it. I did the same with my tea. Oscar put the mug down onto the table with a soft thump.