City of Ash Read online

  Geary shuffled papers, the parts for the next play, and my excitement and anticipation rose. I imagined Lucius would start us off with something we hadn’t done in a while, something to showcase my skills, and I wondered which gown I would wear on my opening night, the old, deep blue satin with its bit of lace? Or perhaps, with the extra money I would make now, I could buy some new costume. I’d seen a green in a nearby secondhand store that I thought might work—

  Lucius cleared his throat. He seemed flustered. “Are we all here? Ah, good, good. Well, as you must expect, I have something to announce. Tomorrow we shall start rehearsals for The Wickedness of Saints, a new adaptation by myself, of course, to celebrate our new leading lady—”

  I tensed, waiting.

  “—Mrs. Stella Bernardi!”

  His words fell on silence. There was this wretched, terrible moment when I tried to find my name in the sounds and couldn’t, and Stella flushed an unbecoming red, and Lucius cleared his throat again.

  “What? Have we no congratulations?”

  Suddenly Jack was up, pushing past me, and the others were murmuring platitudes. It was only then that I realized what she’d done. It was only then that I felt her betrayal, and I was so angry and sick it was all I could do to keep from rushing across the room to claw her eyes out. And the worst part was that I should have known better. I did know better. What a fool I was. I had never broken one of the three rules without regretting it, but some people just get what they deserve, and that morning, I was one of them.

  “Mr. Welling has graciously agreed to fund the building of a new set,” Lucius said with a nervous smile, glancing at me, then away again quickly. “And I agreed with his choice for leading lady.”

  “I am so grateful Lucius put his trust in me,” Stella gushed. “It shall be difficult to fill Arabella’s shoes, of course, but I trust I will not slip out of them.”

  Every ounce of love I’d felt for her disappeared.

  “I think you will all find something familiar in your parts,” Lucius said. “Our honorable heroine—”

  “Why have Stella play so against type?” I asked loudly enough that they all went quiet. “She’d be so much better as Judas; at least there’s a part she knows.”

  Stella’s smile was sickly sweet. “You know you shouldn’t frown so, Bea. It only makes those wrinkles on your forehead deeper.”

  I would have launched myself at her if Jack had not stepped just that moment in front of me.

  “Children, children,” Lucius said. “Let’s avoid a row, shall we? Metairie, perhaps you would be so kind as to take our sweet Bea to luncheon after rehearsal. Have the bill sent to me.”

  Aloysius inclined his head in agreement. He took my arm, which would have been comforting had I been inclined to be comforted, which I wasn’t. All I could think was how stupid I’d been, how wretchedly I’d mistaken her. I hated her, but I hated myself more, and when Aloys whispered in my ear, “Her paramour is paying the production costs, darling. One can’t fault her for playing her cards well,” it was all I could do to keep from crying.

  Later Lucius shrugged and said, “Come, Bea, the part of the wounded doesn’t become you. Welling was insistent—what could I say?”

  “That you had another in mind for the lead. I’ve worked hard for this, Lucius.”

  “So you have. But she has worked equally hard, eh?” Lucius smiled. “A theater is always in need of money, my dear, as well you know. And I have given you the juiciest of the supporting roles. You shall chew well on it, I think.”

  What was I to do? Where should I go? There was only one other troupe in town, and their leading lady was well established and not going anywhere soon, nor was their second. I had no hope of overthrowing either of them, and I hadn’t the funds to start my own company. And to do anything else … to be anything else … what else was I made for?

  Brody said, “Might as well make the best of it, Bea. My guess is Stella ain’t long for the Regal. She’s got finer things in mind.” He gave me his bright, teasing smile. “And you ain’t an old hag yet. You maybe got a few months left afore you’re too well done.”

  He was right, of course. I had no choice but to settle in.

  But I’d learned my lesson too, the lesson I thought I’d already known. Friends were for people who had nothing to lose. And now that Stella wasn’t my friend …

  Well … let’s just say I knew just what to do to get what I wanted.

  Chapter Three

  Geneva

  I had not known what to expect from the town Nathan and I were now to call home. Nathan himself knew little about Seattle, and what he did know he had been reluctant to speak of during the long journey, saying only, “There’s a town there, Ginny, and society, of a sort. We’ll do well enough, I think, if they haven’t heard of your scandal.”

  My scandal. As if it were underlined and italicized, tagging along like an unwelcome but apt nickname, a definition one could neither escape nor explain without embarrassment. I began to feel as if it were somehow emblazoned across my forehead, the first thing people saw when they looked at me.

  Beyond comments like that, Nathan seemed content to silence. His temper had been mercifully absent—the only evidence of his earlier rage was the healing scab on his hand. In a way, I preferred his anger—something I was used to. The punishment of his silence was worse.

  There had been plenty of time to reflect upon things on the journey west. I’d thought myself accustomed to my banishment; as we passed each mean little station and wild landscape and tiny town, I had been at first horrified and then, gradually, accepting. I tried not to think of Claude or my ill-conceived plans. I had failed, and I must be a good wife now and try to salvage my marriage, to act with dignity and restraint. I could not risk Papa’s further displeasure. If I ever had a moment of doubt of my ability to do so, all I had to remember was how much more my miscalculation might have cost me, of Bloomfield Estates.

  And surely … there had once been so much passion between Nathan and me—it could not all have been a lie. It must be possible to find it again. But Nathan had little to say to me and seemingly no interest in starting over, and I knew it was up to me to prove to him—and my father—that I could be the wife he needed here. I had no other choice after all. If I could not do so, my life would be unbearable. I vowed to be at my most charming. I vowed to make Seattle love me.

  But when Nathan escorted me down the wet and slippery steamer ramp to a town knee-deep in mud and tidal stink, my resolve wavered in the face of a crushing disappointment. Seattle was astonishing in the depth of its plainness. The elegance of Chicago was gone; I’d seen only one block of brick buildings, the rest were all wood, some painted, most not. Boardwalks ramped up and down to meet doorways that had been built without regard to one another, some six feet off the ground and some only three. Puddles beneath pilings, sagging awnings, streets paved with wooden planks that sank into the mud or warped and split, horses and people splashed with mud. Hollowed-out logs that served as sewer and water pipes, elevated on stanchions, snaked past saloon windows.

  There were signs of modernity in the midst of the ugliness. Telegraph wires stretched over everything, looping from pole to pole, and when Nathan told me there were telephones too, I hadn’t believed him. I was amazed to see electric streetlamps. But those things were far more the exception than the rule. Instead of my bright streets lined with shops and well-dressed, well-bred women, there were too many men dressed in coarse trousers and collars open to show their underwear and Indian women camped on the street corners, stinking of rotting fish, selling clams and baskets and speaking some odd sort of patois I didn’t recognize.

  I felt out of place in my military-styled traveling suit of deep plum; I’d seen not a single other woman of my class as Nathan helped the driver load our trunks onto the back of the carriage. Even that had been a mean thing, shabby seats and springs so stiff Nathan and I were jounced from one side to another as we made our way to our new home.
/>   “I shall have our own carriage sent for,” Nathan informed me; it was the most he’d said to me in an hour.

  In that moment, I missed Chicago and my life there wretchedly. “Dear God,” I murmured, looking out the window, seeing nothing but blurred buildings past the gauze of rain. “How does anyone survive here?”

  We had barely arrived at the house we’d leased when we discovered the scandal had followed me here. As if blown by the wind or deposited by birds flying overhead. As isolated as Seattle was, it was only a steamer journey away from San Francisco and with a vibrant trade between them. There was even a newspaper with a society page waiting on the table for us when we arrived, as if someone had set it there helpfully.

  ARRIVING TODAY, Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Langley, late of Chicago. Mr. Langley has been given charge of the newly formed Stratford-Brown Mining, and is a well-respected businessman. After the divine Mrs. Langley’s recent brush with scandal (dare we mention Marat’s latest Andromeda? Yes, we dare!) one hopes she will restrain herself in her newly adopted home. Thankfully Seattle society has not yet found debauchery to its taste, and we trust our most respectable matrons will take Mrs. Langley firmly in hand.

  Nathan stood staring at the paper in his hands, his face pale, and I crossed a parlor too sparsely decorated for my taste and still, still, in 1888, lit by gas. I meant to touch him, but he flinched before I could, and I let my hand fall again and said softly, “I’m sorry, Nathan. But I will overcome it. I promise. They’ll see nothing untoward in my behavior tonight.”

  He gave a short nod and said only, “You’d best get dressed.”

  We’d been invited to a welcoming supper hosted by Emery Brown, who owned the Brown part of the new Stratford-Brown Mining, and with whom Nathan would be working, and although I was tired from the last leg of our journey, I was also anxious to meet those who would be my new friends. I took care with my appearance, wearing one of my best Worth gowns, a lovely deep blue embroidered with butterflies in golds and burgundies, its skirt draped and caught up over a bustle that ended in a train. I’d had matching hairpins made—butterflies of sapphires and rubies. No one could fault my elegance at least. They would recognize the Stratford breeding in my bones.

  It was not far to go. Only four blocks until our carriage was before a home that was small by Chicago standards. Like ours, it was on a hill overlooking the city and surrounded by other houses, one of which was very large, and a vacant lot. There was a stable in the back and a cow beyond in a fenced enclosure. The pathway was unpaved; my slippers, which had been dyed to match the gown, were filthy by the time we reached the front door.

  At least they had servants, I thought, as a woman in an apron opened the door and ushered us inside. I’d been afraid Mr. Brown’s wife might answer herself. She took our cloaks and Nathan’s hat and said, “The other guests are waiting for you.”

  We were the last to arrive. Apparently, fashionably late in Chicago was only late in Seattle. Something to make up for already. Mrs. Brown, a diminutive woman in a rather plain brown silk, whose only decoration was the cameo brooch at her collar and the dangling pearls at her ears, eyed me suspiciously as we were introduced, but she was coolly pleasant.

  “I do hope you enjoy your time in Seattle,” she said, her gaze dipping to my very low décolletage—it was the fashion in Chicago, but I was dismayed to find no one here wore anything even half so low. I was scandalous already, and through no fault of my own, and I saw Nathan’s jaw tighten.

  But I smiled my best smile and said, “I expect to like it very much,” and was pleased when she seemed a little impressed, as if she’d expected terrible manners and coarseness from a woman as notorious as I. “How happy Mr. Langley and I were to be invited to your home this evening. We are quite the strangers here, I’m afraid.”

  It prodded her into courtesy. She took Nathan and me about the room, introducing us. The party was more intimate than I’d expected—only twenty, and most of them were disappointingly undistinguishable. Not an artist or writer or even a sea captain among them. It reminded me of my grandmother’s suppers, which were so dull and boring I’d learned to escape them as often as I could, and these people might have been her contemporaries, not in age but in demeanor. There wasn’t a woman there who didn’t look askance at my gown, nor a man who didn’t eye it surreptitiously, though everyone was polite enough, and my smile was beginning to wear as we went in to supper.

  The dining room was small, with barely enough room to house the table. Mrs. Brown had decorated it prettily with evergreens and red ribbon, and candles burned brightly in a simple candelabrum of highly polished silver. The plates were simple as well, a plain white bordered with green.

  Nathan was seated near Mr. Brown, and I nearer Mrs. Brown at the other end. At least Seattle adhered to the basic society rules; no man sat next to his wife. On one side of me was Mr. Thomas Porter, a tall, exceedingly thin man who also worked in the mining company offices, and on the other Major Shields, who looked to be a man who enjoyed himself. I found myself leading the conversation, as both men seemed incapable of it—as tired as I was, I tried to be witty and charming, yet neither seemed interested in clever little bons mots and philosophizing. Instead the conversation turned to politics and the possibility of impending statehood.

  “There will be plenty of positions for good and honest men,” declared the major. “Men who wish to lead us into a new century.”

  Mr. Porter leaned forward. “We have too few men with such ambitions. I wish to God the city council would do something with all these vagrants in the hills. Transients everywhere.”

  “There are worse problems to contend with.” The major took a sip of his wine. “What about you, Langley? Have you political aspirations?”

  Nathan looked up. “I should think the new company will take most of my efforts, at least in the beginning. But I don’t rule out the possibility of government service.”

  “Excellent news,” said Mr. Brown, glancing unsubtlely at me. “Of course, circumspection is the order of the day in this city, as you’ve no doubt heard.”

  I felt myself flush.

  Nathan’s smile thinned. “Yes, of course. Well, I dislike making decisions precipitously. I expect it will take some time simply to become used to the rain.”

  The rest at the table laughed. “Oh, I think you will find it not so bad as that,” said Major Shields’s wife. “We’re in the worst of it now, but the summers will prove delightful for it.”

  The conversation went on in much the same vein for three more courses, all meant, said Mrs. Brown, to showcase Seattle’s bounty: a heavy salmon pie, oyster stew, and a dessert of jellied cream flavored with red currants. As we finished the last bites, Mrs. Brown rose, saying, “Shall we leave the gentlemen to their cigars, ladies?”

  It was a custom I hated and one I never adhered to in my own home, having long ago asserted that the men saved the more interesting conversation for after dinner. Many of my friends in Chicago had followed my lead. But I remembered my father’s admonitions and my resolve, so I restrained my tongue and followed the other women demurely into a parlor hardly big enough to accommodate us all. The furniture was pleasant enough, if all machine made and Jacobean in design, though there was a lovely rosewood table inlaid with ivory and set with a delicate opaline vase from which emerged the thin stems of two wax roses. A few paintings decorated the walls, mostly landscapes by artists I had no familiarity with.

  We milled about, some finding a chair, a few standing by the window that overlooked the street and darkness grayed by rain. Mrs. Brown poured tea from a graceful silver tea service. She handed a cup to a woman who sat on the chair opposite—Mrs. Porter, I remembered—and glanced at me.

  “Mrs. Langley, please, come talk with us awhile.” She patted the space beside her on the settee; when I went to it, she handed me a cup of tea as well.

  “You’re living at the old Post place, I hear,” Mrs. Porter said to me.

  “I do hope it’s to your liking
,” Mrs. Brown interjected. “I wish we could have done more, but with such short notice … well, you understand.”

  The censure was in her words. I did not mistake it; I was an expert myself at scolds hidden in graciousness. “I think it remarkable that you managed to accomplish what you did,” I said courteously. “I could not have hoped for better.”

  “We are not lacking the more graceful aspects of life in Seattle. There are many shops downtown. If you’re looking for something in particular, I do hope you’ll look to me for guidance.” Again, the quick eyeing of my bodice. “We don’t lack excellent seamstresses either. I would be pleased to recommend one.”

  “Is there one trained in the French style?”

  “French? Like the one you wear now?”

  “Yes. It’s a Worth,” I said.

  “It’s quite beautiful,” Mrs. Porter said. “Is it the fashion in Chicago?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Mrs. Brown sighed. “You must realize, Mrs. Langley, that Seattle is not Chicago. As beautiful as the gown is, I think you’ll find that here you won’t have need for such … immoderation. We much prefer simple elegance.”

  I forced an answering smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Brown. I shall remember that.”

  “I understand you held a salon in Chicago.” Mrs. Porter offered this carefully, as if fearful of the landscape.

  There was a whisper, a titter, from somewhere over my shoulder. Someone else laughed. I was meant to hear both, but I ignored them completely. I grasped gratefully at the subject. “Yes. It was quite renowned. You must tell me, as I have no idea: Do authors ever visit Seattle? Or artists? My Thursday evenings had quite a following among actors as well.”

  It was too much, too fast; I knew it the moment Mrs. Brown said, “I’m afraid no one would be much interested in a salon of that kind.”

  This place would require patience, I realized. It was my own fault; I could not blame them for wanting to see evidence of my humility. Still, I could not help my disappointment. I struggled to keep my smile. “Of course,” I said finally.