“I shall become his kind,” said Flossie. Love glowed on her face. Flossie was willing, Flossie was eager, to cut off her life. No more Society, no more travel, no more parents and family and friends, no dresses or dancing or parties. Had she no comprehension of what she would lose?
Flossie pointed out the tower window. The men laying stone along the fountain’s edge had stopped for a break. They wiped sweat from their foreheads. The afternoon sun beat down, turning their skin copper. Johnny was wandering away from his father and uncles and cousins, sauntering toward the long narrow dirt path that led to the holly garden. There he would wait for Flossie.
Devonny loved that path. On one side, a cliff fell straight down to the ocean, and on the other, high shrubs tickled the passerby with delicate branches. Alone on that path she felt like a frontier woman, her rifle at her side to shoot bears that threatened her babies. Soon the men would widen the path, adding stone walls and little stone lookouts, and the frontier feeling would be ruined.
But if Flossie took that path, she would be ruined.
Devonny had known somebody once who had been willing to step across a greater border than Flossie would cross: a girl from another time and place, who had come to save Strat when nothing and no one else could do it.
Was it Devonny’s turn now to take a great risk for love, even though it was not her own love? Must she risk all for Flossie? Or should she take the deep and terrible choice of telling on Flossie? Telling in time to prevent such a dreadful act? Would that be love … or the terrible betrayal of her most important friendship?
Again she thought of Strat. Annie Lockwood had existed, and Devonny knew that somehow Annie had saved Strat. From this distance, her certainty really did seem lunatic.
And yet … she believed. She believed that the love of Annie had rescued her brother.
So Devonny said, in honor of love, “Yes, I will help you, Flossie. Go. Catch up to Johnny. I will keep the household busy.”
Below, on the spreading porch, Lord Winden uncovered the letter he had been writing to his mother, the Duchess. He paid no attention to green fields and white-capped ocean. He did not notice the gleaming white veranda floors, the robin’s egg blue ceilings and the lacy carved balustrades around him. He continued the second paragraph.
Americans make me ill. They are in love with money. The price of this, the stock in that. They actually talk about their work as if it’s something to be proud of. No one talks about hunting or horses. They jabber about coal and railroads and hog slaughtering. I would be ashamed to admit that I had anything to do with warehouses.
I know how you feel about Americans, Mama. You are sickened when one duke after another comes home with an American bride.
On the other hand, Mama, those men come home rich. They can now keep the best horses, own a yacht, and enjoy their clubs. I am the fourth son, Mama, and my inheritance is meager. I wish to live well, and that will take money.
It is so easy to impress these people. They love a British accent, and clasp their hands, and beg you to talk more, as if you were an exhibit at a fair. Then they introduce you to their most beautiful young girls.
American girls are loud, pushy, ridiculous—and rich.
I want one who is too young to have become loud and pushy. I want one without a mother, because American mothers are the loudest and pushiest of all.
I have found her.
Her name is Devonny Stratton. Yes—the Stratton railroad fortune.
She is the only child. There was an older brother, but he died in some messy hunting accident. She is the sole heir. Think of the money! She is sixteen, too young to be out in Society, so she knows nothing, which is excellent; you shall train her. Her father (the most uncouth ungentlemanly unattractive American I have met, and that is saying something) loves my titles, accent, clothing and manners.
I shall require that the money comes directly to me. American fathers are touchy about that. As you know, their daughters continue to have control, and problems result. I shall point out how young his daughter is; I must be in charge. So far, he has agreed to everything I have said.
There is no need to cross the ocean for the wedding, Mama.
She is only an American.
As Flossie rushed joyfully down the back stairs, Devonny sailed down the front. She slowed to a ladylike pace and prepared herself to keep the gentlemen occupied, to prevent anybody from catching a glimpse of Flossie.
Out on the porch, Lord Winden had been joined by his two useless companions. Devonny paused in front of the huge hall mirror to inspect herself and be sure she did not look as emotional as she felt. Her hair, on which her maid had spent an hour that morning, was fixed in plump ringlets, which gleamed pleasingly in a ray of afternoon sun.
Gordon’s voice came clearly through the open screen door. “I will be glad to return home. In this country, one must be polite to so many unpleasant people.”
“There are uses for Americans,” said Miles.
“No,” said Hugh-David, “one use. Money.”
The men laughed.
The tables were piled with afternoon desserts: cakes and creams and lofty pies with whipped meringues. Flowers were everywhere, and so were bees.
Devonny hoped Hugh-David would get stung.
“Just get her pregnant, have a son and be done with her,” came the suggestion.
“I can’t put the girl on the shelf that quickly. I’ll want a second son,” said Hugh-David.
It occurred to Devonny that Flossie would have Johnny’s son. She blushed to be thinking of such a thing, but how were sons created? She and Flossie discussed this often, but had come to no conclusions.
Who decided whether a baby would be a boy or a girl? It must be God. If it were up to the husband, no girl would ever be born.
“And Lisette?” said Miles. “Does she know you’re taking a bride?”
“Of course. Lisette is delighted,” said Hugh-David. “Think of all the Stratton money I can now spend on her.”
Stratton money? thought Devonny. She paused, fingertips resting on the glass doorknob.
“American women are difficult about things like this,” warned Gordon.
“Miss Stratton is a child. She won’t understand,” said Hugh-David. “But you’re quite right, of course. American women are very tedious on the subject of mistresses.”
Devonny might be a child, but now she understood all too well. She stormed out onto the porch. “Who do you think you are, you pitiful excuse for a man?” she shouted at Lord Winden.
Three mouths gaped open in shock above their starched collars.
“You can’t even earn a living!” yelled Devonny. She felt herself getting taller and thinner, literally towering with rage.
The Englishmen got to their feet quickly, because one stood in the presence of a lady, even a screaming, misbehaving lady.
“You haven’t asked me to marry you, Hugh-David Winden, and I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth! I will marry a man with spunk, and you are horse manure!”
Her father’s study was very dark.
It was filled with oil paintings, the frames so heavy they seemed to drip gold. Carved gargoyles leered out of the woodwork, and unread books sat locked and cold in glass cabinets.
Devonny’s father said softly, in his voice of crushed rocks, and crushed lives, “You will marry him, Devonny.”
She was weeping. “Father, you can’t mean that.”
“Devonny, let us consider the situation once more. Your brother went insane. Insanity is in your blood. Nobody would marry you if this became known, least of all an Englishman with a title. The sons you produce might have bad blood, too. I must marry you off before word of your brother’s lunacy spreads. I have agreed to this marriage.”
“No, Father! I don’t love him. I don’t think I could ever grow to love him!”
“Love is not a concern,” said her father. “I have agreed to the marriage, and I have agreed that it will happen now.”
“Now? Father, I haven’t even entered Society yet. It’s unseemly to arrange a marriage when I am so young. People will think that—that—” Devonny could not speak of the conception of babies with her stepmother, never mind her father. She rallied. “Father, first let me tell you my own plans.”
Her father took her chin in his huge hand and turned her face roughly back and forth to remind her that she was an object, which he could position any way he chose. Her tears ran down his thick fingers. “I have told you what the plans are, daughter.”
His vest was sprung tight over his spreading flesh. Pipe smoke surrounded him in a choking cloud.
“Father,” she said desperately. It was difficult to speak with her jaw caught in his grip, difficult to think as her eyes were being flung from one direction to the other. “I have been considering telephones. Only five years ago, we had never utilized such a machine. Now, in New York City, there are tens of thousands of instruments. Father, I believe the future of America lies not in railroads, not in ocean shipping, but in telephones!”
He let go of her with a sort of thrust, half jamming her jaw back into the throat. Devonny kept on. “Sir, I wish to begin telephone service to—”
“Your purpose,” said her father in a voice of iron, the iron in which he had made his fortune, “is to become an obedient wife. You will not shame me again in front of my guests. I have not permitted you to acquire blemishes on your complexion and I will not permit you to acquire blemishes in your behavior.”
The rage was in his hands, the hands becoming fists. Devonny must calm him down, make a friend of him again. “Father, how can you have respect for Hugh-David when he isn’t capable of running a business? He can ride a horse, visit his club and use a tennis racket. Why are you not contemptuous of him?”
“He’s an Englishman,” said her father. “One doesn’t expect accomplishments from them. But you’ll have a title, and your son—my grandson—will sit in Parliament.” Her father laughed. It was a thick cruel chuckle. “In fact, at the rate these penniless dukes are snapping up American brides, many sons of America will sit in Parliament. American grandsons will rule England.” With his heavy drooping mustache and grizzled beard, he looked like an ancient ape. “A half-breed, the English will call your son. They have no use for Americans; they might as well be marrying a savage. But how they love our money. And you, my dear, come with a large supply.”
Well, she was not going to marry Hugh-David, who had a mistress and scorned Americans! It was out of the question! Why, Flossie marrying Johnny was better off!
But her father was dreaming of grandsons. To supply them, she must wed somebody else. “I could marry Randal,” she offered.
Her father snorted. “That simpleton?” He handed Devonny an envelope. Devonny opened the letter slowly, understanding that Randal, whose silence had hurt, had written to her after all. Father had chosen to keep Devonny’s mail.
My dearest Devonny,
Thank you for so many lovely visits while we were in California. Of course I had hoped to see more of you, but it is not to be. I congratulate you on your upcoming marriage. Perhaps our paths will cross while you are on your wedding trip in Europe.
Ever your respectful friend,
Randal Porter, Esq.
Devonny tore the letter in half and carefully fed the halves to the fire, to prevent herself from saving the letter and weeping over it. “Father,” she said, for she knew this parent well, “did you pay him?”
Father picked up his pipe and chewed slowly on the end of it. Devonny envied him. Smoking a pipe gave a gentleman so much to do—filling, tamping, lighting, puffing—while she could only stand quietly, awaiting his pleasure. At least she had control over her tears now. Her neck hurt from being wrenched back and forth, but she would not massage the ache lest her father take satisfaction from it.
“Devonny, I have groomed you to be a good wife. Now,” he said, “your breeding must show.”
He purposely used words meant for horses. Groomed. Breeding.
I am nothing, she thought, but breeding stock. “Father, I know you care about my happiness.” She did not know this. Father had never shown a particle of interest in her happiness.
“Your happiness consists of pleasing me.”
“But Father—”
“Do not begin another sentence with the word but.” He advanced, and she knew the slap was coming, but held still, hoping he would recall that complexions were everything; a bruise on her face would not be attractive.
They stared at each other.
She could only hope that Lord Winden would be so humiliated by her shrieking in front of his friends that he was already packing, off to find a bride with better manners.
Her father lifted the leather rectangle that lay on his massive desk. Into its triangular corners, a new blotter was fitted every morning. Flat and hidden underneath lay a single piece of ivory paper with rippled edges.
“Read it,” he said. Fury mottled his speech. So this piece of paper was the source of his recent rage. It could not be a letter from Johnny Annello; he wrote on cheap lined school pads. It could not be from Flossie; she used Devonny’s onionskin paper.
Devonny was afraid to reach for it, lest her father stab her hand with the letter opener and pin her to the desk. What could be on that page, to turn her father into a beast?
The writing was copperplate, that slender elegant script used by educated people. Spidery letters wove delicately over the page.
Your only son died insane, Mr. Stratton. Your daughter carries the blood of insanity. Devonny may receive offers of marriage … but if I produce papers you signed, committing your son to the Evergreen Asylum for the Insane, your daughter will die a spinster. No grandson for you. No next generation to inherit the fortune you created. Unless, of course, you wish to purchase that paper from me … and if so, you must act quickly, for there are other interested parties.
Devonny was gasping for air. Blackmail. The corset that reduced her twenty-three-inch waist to eighteen inches allowed no room for frightened lungs. To die a spinster. Devonny could think of no worse prison.
“The writer of this letter,” said her father, measuring his syllables to keep the rage from corrupting them, “has chosen a good year. There is nothing happening in New York City. Newspaper readers are bored by descriptions of children in tenements and senators taking graft. Insanity in my family would delight reporters. It would destroy my chances of marrying you off at all, let alone having you marry well.”
Devonny examined the letter for clues, turning it over, and over again, as if she would find a signature, or an address, or a clue. “Do you know who wrote the letter, Father?”
“If I knew, he would be at the bottom of the ocean,” said her father. “But I shall find out. No one threatens me.”
It was true. Father had smashed unions rather than raise pay or cut hours. He had closed a plant, losing huge sums of money, rather than acknowledge the union trying to form there. When renters of his tenements were late with payments, they were removed by force, even if the woman was in labor or the husband dying. As for how Father had treated Mother, had treated Strat—these hardly bore thinking of.
But for once, Devonny was glad for her father’s roughness. Blackmail! Yes, that person must be destroyed! And who better than Father to crush someone?
“It is imperative to get you wed, on a ship out of the country, and with child. Lord Winden is in a hurry to be rich, and I am in a hurry to get you married. It is a good match. We will have your wedding within the month.”
Devonny nearly fainted. She had dreamed of her wedding day all her life. Nobody could put together a wedding in a month! A month wasn’t time to arrange bridesmaids, have bridal teas, and—
“We will borrow a wedding gown,” said her father, “and put my New York staff to work on the reception.”
Borrow a wedding gown?
Devonny wanted to scream or weep. At least, if she must be married off like this, the w
edding gown should be her choice! It should be designed just for her, they should send to Paris for it, she ought to have …
But whatever she ought to have, she would not.
She, Devonny Aurelia Victoria Stratton, would reach not a single one of her dreams. Instead, she would have an unwanted marriage, years too early. A man who despised her family. A life in a foreign land among foreign people.
Her father slipped the letter carefully into its hiding place. Devonny was amused. The servants who changed that blotter and polished that desk had probably memorized the contents and told the entire household. There were few secrets in a mansion run by servants. How amazing that her father, who knew everything, did not know this.
“You will go now,” said her father, “and apologize to your future husband. Explain that you behaved badly, but it is merely youth. You have much to learn, and you hope he will be kind enough to forgive you. You hope for his thoughtful control over your person, so that you will behave better in the future.”
“Father,” she said, groping for a strategy to combat this, or at least stall it.
“Or,” said her father, leaning so close to Devonny that the bristly edges of his beard scraped her cheek, “I will tell Hugh-David myself. Her brother is insane, I will explain. I cannot permit her to contaminate this world with insane children, I will tell him.” Her father expelled a lungful of cigar smoke into her eyes.
“The wedding, I will announce, is off.”
Devonny pressed her hands to her eyes.
“You will then choose a bedroom, Devonny, and in that room you will spend the remainder of your days.”
Hiram Stratton’s past was strewn with the ruined lives of people who had offended him. Hiram Stratton did not joke and Hiram Stratton did not exaggerate.
So Devonny went to Lord Winden, pale and trembling, as a woman should be.
He was kind, however, and said that he understood. She had been shocked, he agreed, and ladies did not manage surprises well. Their weak systems could not tolerate confusion. Devonny was not to feel shame. He would make all decisions in the future. She was to stay out of the sun and keep her lovely complexion, because such fair skin would please his mother, the Duchess.