Jelly's Gold (25 page)

August 1, 1933

Paris—Hotel Crystal

Darling Sister:

I must write to keep from exploding with joy. I have found a friend! James Dahlin. Surely you must remember him. He is the handsome son of John Dahlin, who owns the Dahlin Construction Company, that odious man who often works with Brent …

I slapped my forehead. “That’s where I heard his name before,” I said. “It was on the plaque at the Public Safety Building, the building that Brent Messer designed. John Dahlin was also a player in the O’Connor System.”

Nina stared at me for a couple of beats. When she was sure I had nothing more to say, she resumed reading.

I was so lucky to encounter him. I had taken a taxi to the Eiffel Tower, where I was sure I saw Scott Fitzgerald. I tried to reach Scott through the crush of tourists but lost him. When I turned around, there was James. Oh, what joy to have a companion to speak with after these long weeks. We had a delicious alfresco lunch at the Café du la Cascade, and later we walked together and Jim bought flowers from an old lady on the street. He is such a wonderful guide. He speaks French so well that no one asks him to repeat things or stares at him with bewilderment as they do when I attempt the language. He says he wants to spend time in Europe before devoting his life to his job, whatever that might turn out to be. When he came home from Princeton, he worked for his father, but now he says he must do something else. He did not explain why, and I did not ask. I think he is running away from home, too.

Your loving sister,
Kathryn

August 16, 1933

Paris—Hotel Crystal

Dearest Rose:

I have received yet another reply from Brent. Still he refuses to grant me my freedom. He writes that I am his wife, the way he might write that I am his automobile. I have vowed never to return to that mausoleum on Summit Avenue that he claims he built for me. He built it for himself Rose! To show off, just as he carries me on his arm to show off. I should never have married a man so much older than myself. I should have married a man such as James Dahlin. Yes, he is still in Paris. He has scarcely left my side since we met. Last week we were up quite early and drove to Le Sainte Chapelle—it means Holy Chapel, and I was speechless at the beauty of it! The glass especially. Then it was off to Notre Dame. Afterward we walked along the river past the statue of Charlemagne. Jimmy described the transitional architecture. What a brilliant man. Later we taxied to L’Escargot for lunch. Jim had snails and enjoyed them. I was not quite up to the experiment and had sole. We both had fraises à la crème—so delicious. Yesterday Jimmy and I visited the cathedral in Rheims where Joan of Arc succeeded in having Charles VII crowned King of France in 1429. We both thought it an impressive church. We drove through the Forest of Ardennes and the beautiful valley of the River Meuse, which Jimmy did not enjoy. He seemed preoccupied. Later we stopped at the Joan of Arc Hotel. It was a pigpen, the most disagreeable restaurant I have found in France. I did not like the house, so we ate in a little two-by-four garden. It was there that Jimmy confessed that our meeting had not been an accident. He said that he had come to Paris for the express purpose of seeing me; that it was my own loving sister Rose—you wonderful, naughty woman—who told him where I could be found. He loves me, Rose! He came all this way to Paris because he loves me.

Your grateful sister,
Kathryn

August 30, 1933

Paris—Hotel Crystal

Dearest Rose:

I do not know what to do. I have written Brent again and again begging for my freedom, yet still he refuses. He will never give me up, he writes. I do not understand. Why would he want a wife who despises him so? Knowing what we both know about each other, does he think we shall ever be happy again? In the meantime, Jimmy has been so understanding, so affectionate, but surely he must be growing weary of our situation. Last week Jim and I took a steamer on the River Seine to St. Cloud, where we had dinner with Mrs. Clarke, her son Dean, Princeton ’26, her daughter Caroline, and Caroline’s friend June, a lovely young woman of Spanish descent. During the meal Dean told Jim that he had connections at a brokerage house in New York if Jimmy should decide to end his life of leisure. Jimmy thanked him and said nothing more, but I know he was thinking about it. I am sure he was thinking about it the next day as well when we met more of his Princeton friends at l’Auberge du Pere Larius, where we had an excellent and cheap dinner. Later, we went to the opera for “Samson and Delilah,” but I know Jimmy did not hear it. Then just yesterday, we went to the Louvre for two hours in the morning. We had Mr. Arthur Higgler for a guide, another Princeton friend trying to persuade James to join his company. That is two job offers in a week! Jim says that he must find work, that he cannot expect his father to support him forever. Rose, I am in despair. I do not know what would become of me should James leave.

Your loving sister,
Kathryn

September 29, 1933

Paris—Hotel Crystal

Dearest, sweet, loving Rose:

I am free! A long telegram from Brent reached me just yesterday. He has granted my request for a divorce. He says the papers will arrive in Paris soon and once I sign them I shall be his property no longer. He was quite nasty about it all. Oh, the things he wrote! He will give me nothing. No money, nor property, not even those personal possessions I left in St. Paul. I do not care. I am free, free, my loving sister, free to marry James Dahlin, and I will marry him! I called him the moment the telegram arrived yesterday morning. Oh, what a brilliant, clear, sunny morning, and everything beautiful. He collected me and we went for a drive along the river. It was so charming, Rose, a surprise around every bend, little villages climbing the hills. We drove just exclaiming with joy at every sight until we were really tired with the excitement of the exquisite beauty and we stopped at a tiny church. I do not even remember its name, yet it was so lovely. We admired the beautiful choir stalls and the fine fifteenth-century pipe organ. I expressed a desire to hear the organ, so Jimmy asked the organist to play for us, and he did! For fifteen minutes or more—such heavenly music as we sat there where monks have sat for hundreds of years. It was a thrilling experience. The moment the music ended, Jimmy got down on one knee and presented me with a ring that he said he had been carrying all these long weeks and asked me to become his bride. I could only nod my head, sweet Rose. My heart was so full I could not speak.

Your loving sister,
Kathryn

October 13, 1933

Paris—Hotel Montmartre

Dearest Rose:

Let me tell you again how deeply sorry I am that I did not wait for you, Mother, and Father to cross before I married Jim—but oh, my darling sister, I could not wait. Not for another moment. In any case, I have already had a big wedding, as you know, one that cost Father a great deal of money. This time I chose to marry with only a few friends in attendance, in the tiny church where Jim first proposed. If you were here, if you could see how indescribably happy we are, you would understand. I did try to wait for you to join us. Truly, I did. It was impossible. We had spent the day shopping, walking the boulevards arm in arm, and then went to Margueray’s for soup St. Germaine, fillet de sole, and fraises à la crème! Afterward, I met with Madame Feranus, who came to the hotel to fit me—corsets and lingerie. I also went to Marcelle Demay’s and bought a hat and a sweater at Maison Royale, opposite the Madeleine Church, and ordered three handkerchiefs at Maison de Blanc. Then Jimmy and I spent a great amount of time looking at the French models showing gowns, wraps, negligees, etc., to dressmakers and women buyers at Drecolls. We were fascinated by the girls and the wonderful clothes. Jimmy bought me three dresses and two gowns. He said he wanted to buy me a negligee, the naughty boy, but I declined. We are not married yet, I told him. Instead I ordered a three-piece dress and wraps that I am sending to you and Mother. Tell me that you think they are wonderful. It was then that Jimmy said he did not want to wait, that he wanted to marry me right away. At that moment. I said no, but he was quite persistent in a playful, charming way. The next morning, before the sun even rose, he called and asked again. Maybe I was addled by lack of sleep, but this time I said yes. We drove with our friends to the tiny chapel and married. Afterward we dined at Ciro’s with four other Americans. It is out of season but the place was nice and the dinner fair and the company just wonderful. Later we went to the much-talked-about Les Folies Bergère and then—Rose, I have to laugh. I expected Jim to take me back to the Hotel Crystal and was surprised when he didn’t. Instead, we arrived at his hotel and I asked why we had gone there and he looked at me with such affection and then he laughed and I understood, I am a married lady now, and I laughed too and we laughed all the way to his rooms. I am so happy!

Your loving sister,
Kathryn

“Well, good for her,” I said.

“I think so, too,” Nina said. We were eating the bread and cheese and drinking the wine at the dining room table—it wasn’t at all what I had in mind when I invited her over. “She seems so happy.”

“You notice that she never mentioned to her sister that she was at least four months pregnant when she married James Dahlin. Do you think he knew?”

“Of course he knew,” Nina said. “He married her anyway. I like this guy. I don’t even know who he is and I like him.”

“I wonder,” I said.

“Wonder what?” Nina said.

“When she was on the ship, do you think she could have been suffering from morning sickness?”

“I suppose it’s possible. You know what I noticed?”

“Hmm?”

“Kathryn never once mentioned Jelly Nash or his gold.”

“Keep reading.”

Again we took turns reciting Kathryn’s letters aloud. For the next couple of months they were filled with nothing except how much she and Jim Dahlin loved each other, and Paris, and the world in general. She didn’t announce her pregnancy until December, although she was at least seven months along by my calculations.
How lucky, how blessed among women I have become,
she wrote. In June Kathryn wrote her sister that
James had taken a job with a brokerage house in New York owned by some Princeton friends and that they expected to leave Paris in late July.

It was
such a very rough passage, a gale howling and the ship tossing all the time
that caused Kathryn to go into labor two weeks before her Paris doctor had predicted. However, she reported that the ship’s doctor was more than equal to the task and the child was born healthy somewhere in the North Atlantic.
The boat is still tossing a lot as it has been all week, but not as badly. Perhaps I have become used to it, an old salt getting her sea legs at last. James is concerned that there might be a problem with the birth certificate. He wants to make sure that our son has an American birth certificate and the date is correct, but the ship’s captain has been very good about this. I think he wants our son to someday be president of the United States as much as Jim does. Our son. We shall call him Timothy.

Afterward the letters—and Kathryn’s letterhead—were addressed from a
wonderfully chic
apartment in New York City near Central Park, where Kathryn took Timothy every day.
It isn’t Paris, but the daily walks do us both good.
The letters also exclaim that
Timothy is growing so fast that you would hardly believe it. He seems so much bigger and smarter and more advanced than the other children his age,
and that
James is flourishing in his new job.
The only thing she needed to make her completely happy, Kathryn wrote, was for them
to return to St. Paul and soon. I miss you all so much! Yet Jim seems insistent that we remain here. Do not worry. James has given me everything a woman could ask from a dear and loving husband and I have no doubt that one day he will give me this, as well.

This went on for another year, until …

August 17, 1936

New York City

Dearest Rose:

There is no place quite as hot as New York City in August. How I long for the cooling breezes of Minnesota and its many lakes. I believe Jim is missing St. Paul as well. Just the other day he was reminiscing about the boat rides on Lake Como. Still, Timothy seems to thrive in the heat. How big he has become! He must have grown two inches since you saw him on your last visit. I had an interesting encounter two days ago that might amuse you. Jim brought me to a party on Park Avenue thrown by clients of his firm. I was conversing with a group of women there that I knew when a man, a stranger to me, arrived and all conversation turned to him. His name was Louis Buchalter. It was whispered to me that he was a gangster, that he had killed a man. I laughed. I did not mean to, sweet Rose, but the women spoke like characters in a Scott Fitzgerald novel. At the risk of seeming condescending, I revealed to them that I was from St. Paul, that I knew gangsters; that I had danced with gangsters and more; that I was unimpressed by gangsters. Somehow these words were passed to Mr. Buchalter, who introduced himself to me. He asked if I was indeed from St. Paul and whether I had the acquaintance of several friends of his, such as Mr. Jack Peifer and Mr. Harry Sawyer. I confessed that I had met those men, and Mr. Buchalter led me to a table in the corner, where we spoke in private for some time. He was particularly sentimental over Verne Miller, whom I was led to understand Mr. Buchalter had very much cared for, and poor Frank Nash, whom he also liked. It had been three years since the Kansas City Massacre, yet clearly Mr. Buchalter was still upset by what he referred to as “that accident in K.C.” Of course it had not been an accident, and I told him so. Perhaps I shouldn’t have.