Love did not—would not—exist for either of them. Love waited outside the walls; denied admittance, it was feared and unwelcome. And so, their moments together were occasionally empty. Sometimes laughter wasn’t enough. Sometimes pleasure, or even affection, wasn’t enough.
Heath had given Lucy complete responsibility for redecorating and furnishing the house as well as choosing and training the staff. He had established charge accounts for her at Jordan, Marsh and Company, C. F. Hovey Company, and other large department stores where she became a well-known figure. After having purchased dizzying quantities of merchandise at each place, Lucy had only to walk through the door before she heard pleased exclamations from the doorman and all the store attendants. “Oh, Mrs. Rayne, good morning to you!” “Hello, Mrs. Rayne!” “Mrs. Rayne, how nice to have you back so soon!” Yes, it was quite a feat to have earned such a high standing with them in such a short amount of time, considering the famous reserve of Boston retailers. She amused Heath to no end with her tales of being fawned over by store clerks and managers.
Many times she agonized privately over the decisions she had to make. She had not been brought up to spend money casually, and she had never been entrusted with such a magnitude of responsibility before. Choosing a sofa or picking out a china pattern was one thing, but decorating a whole house was entirely different. Especially when that house was so large, and worse, when she wanted the result of her efforts to be something that would please her husband as well as herself. It was terrifying to order thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture and carpeting, worrying all the while that she might not have chosen the right colors and styles. The house had to be sedate enough to suit the taste of the conservative Bostonians who would come to visit, but Heath had made it clear that he wouldn’t live in a typically funereal New England home. His taste was decidedly modern. Compromises between the two styles had to be made, and compromises were difficult to find. Most of the time Lucy was walking on unfamiliar ground, but since there was no one around to criticize her efforts, she began to rely on her own taste and her own instincts.
She wasn’t especially fond of the elaborate styles that were so fashionable, and so she used solid colors and quiet patterns. To frame the windows, Lucy chose simple velvet panels that would be replaced in warmer weather by light curtains of crisp muslin. Wool portieres drawn back with soft tassels framed the doorways to each room. In colder weather, they would be released to stop drafts from seeping in.
The family sitting room was done in shades of blue and rose, ornamented with lace curtains and an exotic brocade called Château Sur Mer. The background of the brocade was pale cream, the print a lavish pattern of full-blossomed roses, curling green leaves, and delicate orchids. The colors of the parlor were much brighter—royal blue, deep red and emerald green, a rich background for the gleaming walnut furniture.
The bedroom had taken the most time to finish. Lucy had decided on a color scheme of ivory, dusky blue, and soft peach. The old-fashioned, high-poster bedstead was hung with fluttering draperies that matched the window hangings. She bought a selection of embroidery silks and several needlework patterns for cushions, laprugs and lambrequins. It would take time, but eventually she would fill the bedroom with handmade ornaments to make it even more inviting. The figurine that had once belonged to her mother occupied a place of honor on the mantel. As she walked through the house, Lucy felt immense satisfaction with every detail. It felt like home to her already; she felt the promise of the future here, amidst the gracious rooms and quiet sense of welcome they exuded.
After settling into his office at the Examiner, Heath found out quickly that the path he had chosen to tread was trickier and even more twisted than he had anticipated. Most Bostonians regarded new ideas and new approaches with suspicion, which meant that Heath had to be sensitive to the fine line between innovation and going a step too far. What he considered to be liberal, others thought of as radical, a fact he became well aware of. He learned to rely on Damon’s judgment.
Damon, with his innate understanding of the New Englanders’ temperament, was willing to be creative, but he also knew just how much was too much. Damon knew the lay of the land, and his editorials were unfailingly brilliant—relevant, straightforward, and sensible. He was a proficient editor on a technical level, almost faultless. Unfortunately, he was not popular with the employees of the paper. It took a certain talent to inspire excellence in others, a talent that Damon didn’t have. He was too reserved, too impatient with others’ slowness, too unbending. Heath had been brought up to think of that as typical New England haughtiness, but whatever it was called, it did not exactly endear Damon to others.
Heath, on the other hand, had been raised in a society where charm was as necessary as breathing, eating, and sleeping, and he knew exactly how to smooth over ruffled feathers and soothe bruised egos. It was up to him to use all the wiles of a con artist to get the kind of work he wanted out of the employees of the Examiner. He spent countless hours talking to his most promising reporters, discussing their writing and their ideas, leading them from one point to the next until they made the conclusions that he wanted them to make. Knowing the value of praise, he took care to be fair but sparing with his approval.
Strong, accurate reporting was what would make the Examiner successful, and once a strong foundation was established, they would build on that. Heath intended to add a Sunday edition to the Examiner and restructure the paper so that the advertising would be on the inside pages and not the front page. And maybe bigger headlines, not just the width of one or two columns, but twice that size—maybe even three times that size. He would make it showier than the Herald and the Journal, so that when the three papers were side by side, the Examiner would be the first one to catch the eye. It would take months before the real results of his efforts would show, but at least the circulation held. It even edged upwards every now and then, and under Heath’s influence, they were all slowly but surely learning how to work with each other. Even Damon, who had started out as mettlesome and independent as a thoroughbred stallion, was beginning to mellow.
“Come in,” Heath said, recognizing Damon’s businesslike rap on his office door. Heath occupied the only private room on the whole floor, while Damon worked in the room that the rest of the editorial staff used. There, the walls were papered with maps, the corners were filled with bookshelves, and everyone sat at small green desks. Although working so near the others served the purpose of making Damon seem marginally more approachable, it also allowed him to keep an eye on everything that went on. Having a fondness for stretching his legs every half hour, Damon would saunter through the counting room, the editorial room, and the composing room, his alert black eyes taking notice of countless details of work in progress. “Anything new to report?” Heath asked, without looking up from the story in front of him.
“Still more backlash about the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Something’s coming in on the wire about an earthquake in San Francisco . . . supposedly a big one. And the water pail in the corner of the editorial room has a new dent.”
“You know, Damon, I’d feel a sight better about your sense of perspective if you didn’t mention the water pail in the same breath as the earthquake.”
One of Damon’s rare smiles appeared. “I know which one is going to have more immediate consequences for me.”
“It’s beyond me where you got so much compassion.”
“It’s possible my temper would improve if I didn’t have to stay up until three so many mornings, getting the paper to press.”
“When you have a wife to get home to, I’ll start feeling guilty about that.”
“Then I’ll let you know as soon as I find a woman worth marrying.”
“I’m sure one’s waiting for you somewhere,” Heath replied dryly. “But you’d find her a lot quicker if you stopped looking at a woman’s genealogy before giving a thought to the rest of her attributes.”
“I’ve been brought up to have
a healthy respect for bloodlines. Bad blood will always tell, you know.”
“No offense intended . . . but it doesn’t matter who her great-grandfather was. It’s not him you’ll be climbing into bed with every night.”
“I suppose not,” Damon replied without conviction.
Abruptly Heath changed the subject. “What was it you came here to talk about?”
“Transportation. There’s only one hack parked outside that the reporters can use for special assignments. Most of the time Ransom uses it to cover the police department, which means that whenever the others need it, it’s not there. We keep on telling them to go out and discover the news, to be there as it’s happening instead of waiting to hear it secondhand, but if a story’s not within walking distance, we can’t begin to—”
“I understand. We’ll get another hack.”
“One other thing,” Damon said blandly. “I’ve been approached by several parties—who prefer to remain nameless—to talk to you about something that everyone on Newspaper Row has. Everyone but the Examiner.”
“What in the hell would that be?”
“A doorman.”
“A doorman?” Heath repeated incredulously.
“To take cards from visitors.”
“Hell’s afire!”
“It’s a matter of prestige—”
“You tell them,” Heath said with ominous softness, “that we’ll get a doorman when they start producing a paper that will have more than one good use in an outhouse.”
Lucy had her own struggles to deal with. She stood in the front hallway as furniture was being carried in and rolls of wallpaper being unfurled, and she turned circles as she became the target for a bombardment of questions.
“Mrs. Rayne, where should we put this table?”
“Mrs. Rayne, was this paper supposed to go in the first room on the second floor, or the second room on the first floor?”
“Mrs. Rayne, pardon me, but did you want the sofa against the wall or in the center of the room?”
“Mrs. Rayne. . . did you want me to paint the trimmings in the dining room blue or cream?”
“Stop!” Lucy cried suddenly, holding up her hands as if to ward them all off. Taking a deep breath, she looked from face to face and spoke rapidly. “That table should go between the two velvet chairs in the parlor. The wallpaper—first room, second floor. Sofa against the wall. The trimmings should be cream.”
As the little crowd dispersed, two more deliverymen came through the hallway, bearing more packages.
“Mrs. Rayne . . .”
“Mrs. Rayne . . .”
If anyone said her name one more time today, she would scream!
“Mr. Rayne, you wanted to see me?”
“I did,” Heath said, setting his pen down and folding his forearms as he rested them on his desktop. “Have a seat, Bartlett.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you recall the discussion we had the other day about doing personal interviews?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because it’s a relatively new field in this business, no one can do them really well—except the Chicago Sun— and maybe the New York Tribune. But interviews are going to become very important for the Examiner, Bartlett. People like to read about other people.”
“I remember you telling me—”
“And when you apply yourself, your work is quite . . . satisfactory. Which is why I gave you that assignment to interview Mayor Shurtleff.”
The younger man shifted uneasily in his seat as Heath’s blue eyes pinned him with a fierce stare. As Heath continued to develop his own executive style, the combination of that stare and that soft, drawling voice was increasingly able to reduce the most audacious reporter to a pile of wood pulp.
“Sir, I can explain about that—”
“What you might not have remembered, Bartlett, is something else I told you.”
“What is that?”
“People don’t like to read old news.” Heath paused and then slammed his palm down on the table for effect, causing Bartlett to jump in his seat. Heath was not above using theatrics to get his point across. “Everyone knows Shurtleff went to Harvard. Everyone knows he’s caused a few streets to be built here and there. Everyone knows he belongs to practically every historical society in the state. What is the point of writing about all of that? After reading this interview you handed in, it is damned obvious that you didn’t ask him why he spends more time worrying about history than he does worrying about organizing a decent fire department! Why doesn’t he do something about the public parks? What does he think about the Morrill Tariff Act and what it’s done to the poor? What does he think about the Bostonians’ attitude towards Reconstruction legislation? You didn’t ask him any of those questions!”
“But, sir . . . there were other men present in the room.”
“What,” Heath asked with ominous patience, “does that have to do with anything?”
“A gentleman would not think of embarrassing another in front of his peers.”
“Bartlett,” Heath groaned. “Good Lord! It’s your job to do that. Don’t you understand? . . . no, you don’t.” He sighed, thought for several seconds, and then looked back at the sheepish reporter. “All right. This is something you’ll understand. Go back to Shurtleff—tell him there were one or two things you wanted to clarify—”
“But—”
“If you have to, remind him outright that he doesn’t want bad publicity. And when you talk to him, ask him about the fire department, or the Tariff Act, or something equally controversial. If you can come back to me with an answer to one embarrassing question—just one—I’ll raise your salary by ten percent. That clear enough?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Now, go. And for ten percent, it better be a hell of a question you ask.”
Now that the house was nearly finished and a complete staff had been hired—including a coachman, a cook, two maids, and a butler—Lucy had hours of free time on her hands. From a woman she had met during one of her shopping expeditions, she accepted an invitation to attend a Friday lecture and luncheon sponsored by the New England Women’s Club. Enjoying herself immensely, she made many acquaintances and tentatively began to attend other social engagements and salon discussions. Oh, how different it was from the club meetings she had gone to in Concord! Fashion, small-town scandals and love affairs were never mentioned in the salons in Boston. Here, the women talked about literature and politics, they listened to lectures from celebrated social figures and educators, and they argued—politely, of course—over rights and wrongs, and changes that would occur in the future. Lucy would listen raptly, entranced by the debate between two Harvard professors or the monologue by a foreign statesman, which would go on for several minutes while all of them ate slices of sponge cake and sipped tea out of cups as fragile as seashells.
Thirstily Lucy drank in ideas and information, finding to her delight that she sometimes managed to surprise Heath with her understanding of the current issues that his and other papers were grappling with.
Occasionally Heath would invite Damon to dine with them, usually after they had worked until late evening. After the first time that Heath had appeared with the unexpected dinner guest, Lucy had privately objected, telling Heath that she hadn’t appreciated the lack of advance warning, and besides that, she wasn’t especially fond of Damon Redmond’s company. Heath had countered with the explanation that Damon had no wife to take care of him, and that since he had missed the regular meal with the Redmond clan, he would have either had to dine out alone or skip dinner. That had made Lucy feel a little sorry for Damon, and a little guilty that she hadn’t wanted him there, and she always made a special effort to be hospitable to him after that.
The occasional dinners with Damon were much more pleasant than the first one at the Parker House had been. Since he had become accustomed to Lucy’s uninhibited manner with her husband and her lively interest in the newspaper, Damon had learned to join in h
er discussions with Heath. Relating scraps of news that would amuse her, Damon made her laugh with his sly humor. He became much more relaxed around her, less cautious, freer with his smile. And then, there were times when she was telling Heath about what had been said that day at a lecture she had gone to, or what events were taking place in connection with one of her clubs, and she would glance over at Damon to find that his coal black eyes were fixed on her with disturbing attentiveness. Lucy was puzzled by him. Despite his impressive heritage and his distinguished name, he seemed to have no home, no family; he was a loner, just as Heath had been before their marriage. And because she sensed that in him, Lucy unconsciously offered him a timid sympathy that went far in softening his heart towards her.
It was due to Damon’s influence—though he made light of it and would not accept Lucy’s thanks—that she and Heath had been invited to one of the supper dances given to celebrate the election of a new street commissioner for the city. Officially it took a year to “arrive” in Boston, which meant that ordinarily such an exclusive invitation would not have been offered to newcomers. Damon appeared for dinner one night with two of the universally sought-after invitations tucked inside his coat, giving them to Lucy as they sat down to the table.
“Oh, Mr. Redmond!” she exclaimed, beaming at him and then staring down at the invitations in wonder. “How kind of you . . . how sweet and thoughtful, and . . . well, I didn’t even know these were transferable! How did you manage to—”
“I did it for selfish reasons,” Damon admitted with a shrug, matter-of-fact as always. “I’ve had enough experience with these kinds of evenings to know when one promises to be especially dull. I plan to rely on the two of you to alleviate my boredom.”
Lucy looked at Heath with a wry smile and handed him the invitations. “Should we accept a gift when he’s admitted to giving it with ulterior motives in mind?” she asked, and Heath’s eyes twinkled as he replied.