May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (35 page)

But then an odd thing occurs. The men all sit alongside the ladies and Mr. Sacramore stands, and rather than requesting the men join him in the library, he requests that Mrs. Templeton sing an aria for them. And Marcella realizes then that there will be no brandy and cigars, no segregation of the sexes, no girlish gossiping and fashion talk to endure. She smiles at Mr. McOwen, Ethan, as she’s finally agreed to call him.

“What is it?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Oh … nothing. I’m just … it’s nothing.”

And then Mrs. Templeton saves her from having to explain any further.

“Oh look at this,” she says, holding up a piece of sheet music, “
Voi Che Sapete
from
Figaro
. How I love this piece—but I’ll need an accompanist.”

Mrs. Templeton looks around the room and finds no one willing, or able, to play. But then, as if on impulse, and inspired by the unique quality of this moment, Marcella volunteers. Ethan stands and begins the applause for her as she steps to the pianoforte.

“Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Miss Arroyo,” Mrs. Templeton says, and then Marcella finds herself removing her gloves and sitting at the piano, and Mrs. Templeton is leaning over her.

“B-flat major at the beginning, and then this arrangement gets interesting,” she whispers as she points to the sheet music. “Where is it … oh, there, see the change to A-flat major? And then … here, to G minor for one, two, three, four measures … and then back to B-flat major … and, oh … I’m sorry to get you into this; it’s such a
frightful
arrangement to play on first sight. I’ve sung it a hundred times, and I
still
get lost.”

Marcella smiles at her, liking this woman even more now, and says humbly, “I’ll do my best.”

Placing her fingers on the opening chords, she glances at Mrs. Templeton, who nods in readiness. She plays the introduction with her usual comfort, and Mrs. Templeton smiles broadly at her, as if realizing that she can indeed play, before joining in on measure. Marcella is only a half beat behind at the first key change, but quickly comes back in form. At the second change, Mrs. Templeton pauses a half beat in anticipation of Marcella trailing, but this time it’s Mrs. Templeton doing the catching up. The remaining key changes are right on measure, and when the aria is complete, the guests demand an encore. They collaborate on another selection from Mozart, and then Mrs. Templeton steps aside, pressing Marcella to play a solo. Unable to slip graciously away, Marcella obliges, playing the simple adagio of Beethoven’s
Moonlight Sonata
from memory. She bows politely and decides that this has been enough of a debut for her. But Mrs. Templeton is having none of that, standing back up, urging Mr. Sacramore and the guests to demand another piece.

“I know you’ve got a better one in you than that,” she whispers to Marcella. “Show them how a woman can
really
play.” And when Mrs. Templeton finds Chopin’s
Nocturne
opus 9, number 2, she lets out a playful gasp and then whispers, “Will you dare tackle
Monsieur
Chopin?”

Marcella smiles at her, and Mrs. Templeton stands off her shoulder to turn the pages of the sheet music. At her father’s dinner parties, when he forced her to play for the guests, she always felt as if she were being shown off like a trained china doll. He would inevitably comment about how much money had been spent teaching her to play so well or how much it cost to have the instrument shipped over from London.
There was always conversation throughout her playing, always dominated by her father, and she never felt like anything more than part of the ornamentation there. But here, not a word is uttered as she plays to a rapt audience. The guests applaud loudly when she’s through, and Mrs. Templeton gives her a knowing smile and a wink. Ethan is smiling and still applauding as she approaches her seat beside him. It is
her
moment to shine, and he appears to be happier for her than he’d been for his own artistic success just the day before.

“Well—I am
most
impressed, Miss Marcella,” he says with a bow. “You play remarkably. I expect to hear you at Irving Hall someday soon.”

“You exaggerate, Mr. McOwen,” she replies, “but only
slightly
.”

Despite the thrill of the dinner party at the Sacramores’, or perhaps
because
of it, she had spent the intervening days working at the hospital and growing increasingly displeased with herself. Pilar was the sort to gush over young men, and Catherine and even Mrs. Carlisle were the sort to romanticize even the most trivial of encounters. But not Marcella. And though Mr. McOwen—as she went back to referring to him in her thoughts—had seemed like no other man she had ever met, it was an all-too-brief window into his real self to yield even a fraction of her emotional autonomy. But she had foolishly agreed to a Wednesday visit—giving up one of her afternoons free from the hospital—and two days were hardly enough to steel herself against the potential dangers of such an engagement.

He arrived promptly at noon with a thin portfolio of paper wrapped in fine white lace and tied by a red ribbon. And Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine laughed with seemingly excessive delight when he confessed to having his mother and aunt take care of the wrapping. Marcella glanced at them like the meddling matchmakers they clearly aspired to be, but they only whimsically insisted she open the gift right then and there. It turned out to be a piece of sheet music, not just any piece, but
Voi Che Sapete
, from
Figaro
, and the wonderful memories of Sunday night returned immediately.

“You brought me a copy of the piece I played at Mr. Sacramore’s party,” she said, attempting to muster all the indifference that would be merited by a mere bouquet of hothouse flowers.

And Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine were effusive in their recognition of what a thoughtful gift it was, prompting Marcella to add a coy evaluation of her own.

“Yes, Mr. McOwen, I suppose I
do
need to practice it.”

But he turned his head a little to one side and drew his eyebrows downward into a puzzled expression.

“Quite the contrary,” he said. “I … that’s not what I …”

Oh, I was only teasing
, she thought.
I thought you had more fortitude than that, Mr. McOwen
.

And as she smiled at his discomfort and her early victory, only then did she notice that the edges were slightly frayed and the crease had been significantly unfolded.

“Is this the
actual
copy from Mr. Sacramore’s?” she asked.

He nodded and said, “He was very kind about it.”

And Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine were practically beside themselves, putting their hands over their hearts. But there was more.

“If you’ll turn it over to the back …” he said.

And she did, hesitantly, seeing a handwritten inscription that read:

And that was all the confirmation Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine would ever need, practically melting with sentimentality right there in the front parlor. They insisted that Mr. McOwen stay for tea, or come for supper, and he was only able to keep them at bay by promising he would gladly do so any other day but this one.

“I was hoping that Miss Arroyo might accompany me for an excursion around the city today. It is such a fine day for this time of year.”

And there was no need for him to explain any further, as Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine accepted
for
Marcella, with Catherine taking hold
of her arm and insisting on going upstairs with her, as if she would need help selecting a coat and hat and gloves. Their relationship had undoubtedly changed over the years, with Catherine starting out as teacher and mentor to Marcella, then slowly becoming more of a friend on equal terms as Marcella became a woman. But lately Marcella had begun to see something new in the dynamic between them, sensing that Catherine had taken to living, in certain respects, vicariously through Marcella, often expressing her amazement at the boldness and vivacity she’d never had. And as Catherine sat on the edge of Marcella’s bed, gushing in a manner more befitting Pilar,
“Oh he’s so gallant,”
and,
“What magnificent eyes,”
and so on, Marcella hadn’t the heart to pretend that she wasn’t more than a little excited by the prospects of the afternoon herself.

“It was a very thoughtful gift,” she confessed, and smiled reluctantly.

Mr. McOwen had a taxi carriage waiting outside, and they were soon off without any instructions to the driver, as if the plans had already been discussed. He said nothing, content, it seemed, to watch the city pass outside the window while tipping his hat to pedestrians on occasion and smiling coyly for most of the ride. They turned right onto Fourth Street and rode over to the Hudson River waterfront, where the driver stopped alongside one of the piers as if on cue. Mr. McOwen stepped out of the carriage and walked around to her door, opened it, and silently extended a hand. She stepped down and stood beside him, looking at a small pier where a merchant ship was just pulling away.

“That’s where the
Lord Sussex
landed,” he finally said. “That’s where I first set foot in America.”

And she felt the need to say something nice about it, though it was a dreary sight to be sure, even in the flattering midday sunshine.

“Oh, it’s—” was as much as she mustered before he jumped in to finish the sentence.

“—indescribably ugly, yes I know.” And she laughed as he nodded his head up and down.

“That’s where we landed,” he pointed out, “and the dock next to it is where I waited with Suah.”

And he began to tell her about this man Suah, who he was sure had saved his life, continuing as they climbed back into the carriage,
and somewhere along the way seeming to re-create the image of that twelve-year-old boy and his first day in a new world. The carriage traveled back to Broadway and then over to the edge of the Five Points, and he explained that they were retracing his and his Da’s steps from that very day. She smiled when he said
Da
, finding it so much warmer than Papa—probably because of the men attached to each term—as they continued on past Wall Street, and then all the way across town to the South Street Port. He pointed out the pier where his
Mam
and
Aunt Em
had arrived a year or so after him, describing the scene with such affection and relief, all these years later, that she was saddened by her own story of arrival, without Papa there to greet them, and her pressed into service to speak English and instruct one taxi carriage driver to take them to Sixty-Third Street and another to follow with their trunks piled inside. But she told him none of this, content to listen to the stories he so willingly shared. And before long they were aboard the ferry headed to Brooklyn, though only after he promised her that they were not going to meet his family.

“I want you all to myself,” he said. “The rest of th’McOwens will just have to wait their turn.”

It was the closest thing he had said, to that point in their acquaintance, that reminded her of something that might be uttered by one of the pretentious suitors Papa used to bring home to meet her. Perhaps it was the lilt of his lingering brogue, or perhaps it was the genuineness that seemed to be at the center of everything he had done and said so far, but for some reason she was not put off by such a compliment, as she normally would be. Instead, she smiled without intent, only catching herself after a moment or two and turning her gaze to the water and the sight of New York growing smaller in the distance.
Well done, Mr. McOwen
, she thought to herself, and summoned what remained of her resistance.

Once in Brooklyn, they passed a few minutes staring up at the Heights, with him pointing out the general direction of the City Hall and of Reverend Beecher’s Plymouth Church. She told him that her only trips to Brooklyn were generally to hear the Reverend’s abolitionist sermons. And he told her that he had been there several times himself.

“I even convinced Mam and Aunt Em to come along—though we sat
in the back beneath the balcony in case the
Lahrd was lookin’ down on that particular Sunday an’ moight see us surrounded by all manner o’ Protestants.”

And she laughed again, the defenses weakening with every reference to his family that seemed in such direct contrast to her own, and the great affection he seemed capable of, like no man she’d ever known. Then, rather than walking up toward the Heights for what she expected would be a luncheon at some restaurant or inn designed to impress her, it was instead another taxi carriage ride, this one toward the south and the village of Red Hook. There were stories of fishing with his Da, and the tiny cabin that had been replaced with something much larger years before, and games of baseball with his friends in a field that was now covered with houses and a livery stable and a large warehouse as well. And he spoke of his boyhood friends with the same sort of affection he had shown when talking about his family, and she thought now of the gallery opening, thinking of the determined expressions of the men from the Irish Brigade, and trying to remember which ones were the fellows he spoke of now, Harry and Finny, knowing Smitty already of course.

They disembarked from the carriage, and he left her to stand there by the dirt path, walking thirty or forty feet over to one of the small boats turned upside down along the shore. Leaning heavily on his cane for the first time that day, he struggled to flip the boat over with his free hand, and then, having managed the task, collected himself and with opened hand gestured to a picnic basket covered by a blanket that had been stored beneath it.

“It’s a little cold for a sail,” he said, “but perhaps a picnic will do?”

And for the first time that day, or in any of their moments together to that point, she saw him as what he might have been had fortunes been only slightly altered, in that instant imagining him as one of the contorted, lifeless bodies spilled across the canvas of a Mathew Brady photograph.