Twain's End (24 page)

Oh, the people they had to their table! Businessmen like Henry Rogers and Andrew Carnegie, writers like William Dean Howells and Thomas Bailey Aldrich, scientists, musicians, even professors. Sometimes Isabel had Mrs. Lyon join them for dinner, as they did when they had in Mr. Clemens's doctor friend from Vienna, Herr Heinrich Something-or-another, just last week.

Mrs. Lyon sighed as she bumped along, thinking about that evening. It was just like old times when her Charles was alive, when every night it was another intellectual come to dinner. As she and Isabel were putting on their gloves before going down to table, Isabel had warned her to keep her silence. Mr. Clemens liked to be the one to entertain. Mrs. Lyon had nearly laughed. Isabel was telling
her
how to comport herself? Why, she and Charles had hundreds of these dinners! When an awkward pause arose at the Clemens party as they were waiting for that rude maid Katy to bring in the turtle soup, it was Mrs. Lyon who had known just how to bridge the gap.

“What will you do whilst you are in New York, Herr Doctor?” she had asked the young physician.

“I am here to lecture at Columbia University—”

“Columbia!” Mrs. Lyon clapped together gloved hands in delight. “My husband was on the faculty of Columbia! His textbook on Latin is still being used there. Perhaps you've heard of him—Charles Lyon?”

Young Herr Heinrich inclined his sleek head, the ribbon of his pince-nez dipping onto his stiff white shirtfront. He was dark, like Charles had been, and almost as handsome, and he spoke in a sophisticated Germanic accent. His shirt studs looked to be made of good jet. All in all, he could be a decent catch for Isabel. “I have not,” he said. “I apologize.”

“Isabel,” she said, “was brought up in learned circles. Do you know that she once sat on Horace Greeley's knee and called him Uncle?”

“He must have had an awfully knobby knee,” said Mr. Clemens.

Isabel had gazed into his eyes perhaps a pinch too fondly, especially if she didn't wish to discourage Herr Heinrich.

“Why do you say so?” asked Mrs. Lyon.

“Well,” drawled Mr. Clemens, “it made her cry ‘uncle.' ”

Isabel grinned at him—overly amused, Mrs. Lyon thought. Was she the only one who noticed Herr Heinrich's confusion? “Mr. Clemens is teasing us,” she explained to him. “The mark of a humorist,” she added.

Katy came in with her tray, along with that sweet girl Teresa whom Mr. Clemens had brought back from Italy.

“What are they getting up to at Columbia these days?” asked Mr. Clemens as Katy placed the soup dishes before him. He smiled up at her absentmindedly. Katy looked straight back at him, too long, too hard—much too forward for a maid. Mrs. Lyon resolved to have a word with Isabel about it.

Herr Heinrich watched Teresa set a dish before him. When she was through, he said, “My colleagues in cell biology have recently discovered what they call an XY chromosomal system in humans. Every individual creature's sex is determined by the presence—or not—of the Y chromosome. The default sex is female, who have two X chromosomes but no Y.”

Mr. Clemens took a sip of soup. “You mean we are all girls until we get this Y?”

“Yes.” Herr Heinrich laughed. “And no. It does not work quite like that. My colleague Edmund Beecher Wilson could explain it better.”

Mr. Clemens cocked his head, spoon in fist. “Edmund Beecher Wilson? Edmund
Beecher
Wilson? It would be a Beecher who discovered the biology of sex.”

Mrs. Lyon looked with alarm at Isabel. It was the hostess's job to steer a conversation from the rocks of poor taste. But Isabel just smiled at Mr. Clemens in encouragement.

“Have you heard of him, Heinrich? He was one of the most famous preachers in America. One of the busiest in bed, too.”

“Oh my,” gasped Mrs. Lyon, even as Herr Heinrich sat up.

Mr. Clemens continued. “I don't know if you heard, Herr Heinrich—it was pretty big news here—but he was tried for adultery with the wife of a friend.”

“Do you think it might snow tonight?” said Mrs. Lyon.

“Where Herr Beecher erred,” said Mr. Clemens, “was that he should have publicly denied the affair the day it appeared in the papers. He should have countered the husband's accusations and lied with all his might. There is no more holy a time to lie than for the honor of a woman.”

“The only time holier,” said Isabel, “is when one must lie to save one's own skin.”

Mr. Clemens regarded her, his mustache cocked in amusement. “Lioness, I did not know you were such a cynic.”

“A heavy snow will nip the crocuses!” Mrs. Lyon bleated.

“What happened to this Beecher?” asked Herr Heinrich.

“Beecher?” said Mr. Clemens. “Nothing. He has gone down in history as one of America's great preachers.”

“And the lady?”

“Mrs. Tilton? As one of America's great whores.” He stared openly at Isabel. To Mrs. Lyon's horror, Isabel stared right back. What was she doing? She would secure neither gentleman, condoning such talk.

Mrs. Lyon was going to turn this conversation around. “Herr Heinrich, tell us about the exciting work you are doing here at Columbia.”

He pulled his fascinated gaze from Mr. Clemens and Isabel. “My work? I am studying the nervous system. For this, I am dissecting a body that has been preserved on ice for one and a half years. It has become so soft, I can separate the muscles and nerves and pick them up without cutting—very useful.”

From adultery to corpses! Mrs. Lyon closed her eyes in pain.

“ ‘It.' ” Mr. Clemens lowered his spoon. “Don't you mean ‘he'?”

Herr Heinrich's pince-nez rode his frown. “Pardon me?”

“Who is your cadaver?”

“I saw the most curious automobile today!” cried Mrs. Lyon. “A green contraption called a ‘Ford.' ”

When Herr Heinrich just stared, Mr. Clemens said, “What's his name?”

“Oh. I see. My cadaver.” Herr Heinrich smiled slyly. “I have given him a name. ‘Fritz.' ”

“No, what's his real name?” The edge in Mr. Clemens's voice made Mrs. Lyon blink.

The doctor laughed uneasily. “I don't know.”

“Have you ever stopped to think,” said Mr. Clemens, “that your ‘Fritz' has a family? A wife? A son?”

The doctor's eyes cooled. “Cadavers are most commonly criminals.”

Mr. Clemens stared down his beak of a nose, his gray eyes sharp. “Well, cut nice, Herr Doctor. Fritz could be some boy's pa.”

The rest of the dinner had gone badly. After that, Herr Heinrich could say nothing that Mr. Clemens would not take exception to. Once he'd gone—with no invitation extended to stay and play billiards, a break from the usual custom—Mr. Clemens had turned to Isabel when they retired to the drawing room. Mrs. Lyon had been helping herself to a chocolate from a box on a marble-topped table, wondering how she might have saved the night.

“I don't like him,” Mr. Clemens said.

Mrs. Lyon had looked up with a mouthful of nougat. She saw Isabel reach out and squeeze his hand.

Mr. Clemens bit off the words. “My father had an autopsy. I saw them cut him up through the keyhole of his bedroom. I was eleven.” When he fearfully met Isabel's gaze, she pressed his hand again. She said nothing, she asked no questions, just looked at him.

Mrs. Lyon's hand dropped back to the box of candy. Unthinking, she returned the remainder of the piece of chocolate back to its crinkled brown wrapper. It wasn't Mr. Clemens's awful statement that had rattled her. She never understood half of the crude strangeness
that came from his mouth. But she had seen that look before, decades earlier, when she and Charles were in the entrance hall of Spring Side, returning from some morning calls. The butler had just given Charles the telegram with the news that his mother had died. Mrs. Lyon had been crying into her handkerchief when Poppy, tidying the hall table, put down her feather duster, went to Charles, and, bowing her head, squeezed his hand. Charles had shuddered, but he didn't look at her. He didn't need to. The sympathy that flowed between them was as intimate as that of two lovers after an act of passion . . . the sort of sympathy that only those who had shared their bodies could experience. Realization had scooped out Mrs. Lyon's core, hollowing her out so quickly that she had nearly dropped to her knees.

Choking down that mouthful of nougat in Mr. Clemens's parlor, Mrs. Lyon had drawn a life-giving breath. She must not fret over the disastrous dinner with Herr Heinrich, nor linger over the heartbreak of that terrible, searing memory. She should rejoice:
Isabel and Mr. Clemens have that sympathy.
Isabel could win the prize.

Now, trundling underground in this deafening keg of nails, Mrs. Lyon glanced at Mr. Clemens and Isabel, sighed, then went back to counting the number of pelts in her neighbor's coat. Twenty-six, that she could see. When the woman looked up, Mrs. Lyon would give her a knowing smile. They were peers, you know, and like liked to be with like as the world went topsy-turvy beneath them.

August 1905

Dublin, New Hampshire

“
MISS LYON! YOO-HOO!”

The heels of her white boots ringing on the boards of the covered porch, Miss Norma K. Bright, twenty-two, as blond as butter and crammed full of deviled ham sandwiches and lemonade from lunch at Mr. Clemens's summer home in New Hampshire, strode toward Isabel with all the confidence of the young, the beautiful, and the coddled. Miss Bright was one of the many stripes of wealthy artists who summered in the inspirational shadow of Mount Monadnock, all of them hoping to escape the heat of the city while turning out creative work, Mr. Clemens among them. Having recently published a collection of poetry for children, Miss Bright clearly felt on top of the world—or maybe she had always felt that way.

“You disappeared!” she cried. “I had hoped I'd find you out here.”

Isabel turned regretfully from the hemlock-fringed view of the mountain, and from a happy memory with Mr. Clemens that she had been savoring. “Just getting a breath of air. I hope you enjoyed your lunch.”

Miss Bright patted her stomach, sunken beneath her white lawn dress. “Stuffed!”

“Good.”

Miss Bright seized Isabel's arm. “I wanted to talk to you before
everyone else came out—your boss is in there showing off his copy of Helen Keller's new book.”

“He's very fond of her.”

Miss Bright gave her a conspiratorial smile. “He's very fond of
you,
I'd say. I saw the way he looked at you at lunch.”

Isabel studied her, wondering if Miss Bright was always this brazen or if the success of her poetry had emboldened her. “We've been working together for a number of years now.”

“How many?”

“Three.”

Miss Bright twisted her head in a teasing look. “A suitable period for an engagement.”

Was it because Isabel was older, poorer, or less successful that made the girl think she could be so forward with her? “He lost his wife just last summer.”

“A shame. Do you get along with his daughters?”

“Miss Bright, please.”

The girl tented her nose and mouth with her pretty hands. “I'm sorry. I must sound rude.” She put down her hands. “But it's really quite adorable how he dotes on you. One can't help wondering if there might be wedding bells.”

Isabel glanced inside the house, flattered in spite of her annoyance. Did he actually seem to dote on her? Well, she had nothing to hide. And surely it would seem like more of a case of her doting on him. She picked out his clothes, arranged his activities, accompanied him on trips, conferred with his daughters' doctors, read his works in progress, even washed his hair, taking the chore from Katy—all of which she did with pleasure. The result was that his writing was flowing out of him this summer like it hadn't in years. Bold, angry, thrilling stories and articles like “The Mysterious Stranger,” “King Leopold's Soliloquy,” “3,000 Years Among the Microbes,” “The War Prayer,” and her favorite by far, the preciously personal “Eve's Diary,” poured from him. His exuberance on the page spilled into their relationship, forging a closeness that no one would understand—certainly his
daughters couldn't. Not even she and Mr. Clemens did. They did not speak of it. To acknowledge it, to look too close, might make it disappear, like the shoemaker's elves once the shoemaker discovered them. Oh, but she could feel it. Being with Mr. Clemens filled her with so much happiness that it frightened her.

“I'm just his secretary, nothing more.”

“Well, people are interested in you.”

Isabel plucked at the coral necklace that he had given her, thinking of all the times she had been patted, kissed, or had her hand grasped by both men and women so they might touch someone close to the great man. One woman, after kissing her on the forehead, had asked how she ever managed to come to work for such a saintly man, as if Isabel somehow maneuvered her way into his confidence. Isabel had “managed” nothing. The most wonderful things in life came of their own accord; you just had to be open to them.