Parlor Games (32 page)

After Daisy and Dicky returned, I pored over the newspaper listings and property-sale records they’d retrieved, calculating what I considered a more-than-reasonable offer for the hotel.

I’d not yet met Mr. Honeyman, though I’d observed him speaking with his wife earlier in the day. His body type contrasted so sharply with his wife’s that they looked quite comical together. She was about five four, roly-poly, and stood at a backward slant, with her weight centered on her heels. But he reached a good five ten, with twiggy arms, lanky legs, and a stooped torso. Perhaps they’d made a more handsome couple in their younger years.

I strolled to the lobby that evening and found the owner working at his desk behind the counter. “Good evening, Mr. Honeyman. I’m one of your guests, May de Vries.”

His putty-gray mustache wriggled about his lean face as he settled a chew into his cheek. “Yes, the wife tells me she met you at breakfast. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to buy you and Mrs. Honeyman coffee tomorrow. Might you have time to discuss a business matter with me?”

He scrunched up one side of his face. “You mean your bill?”

“Heavens, no. My and my companions’ rooms are all paid up.”

He frowned as if he couldn’t imagine what other business there might be.

I looked around the lobby. “You have a lovely hotel here. I must say, we are very much enjoying our stay.”

He nodded and ventured a smile. “Well, I suppose we can meet you around ten.”

The next morning, I showed up in the breakfast room a bit before the appointed hour, dressed in my most conservative day outfit, a pastel-peach dress with a white lace collar. Mr. and Mrs. Honeyman emerged from the kitchen promptly at ten and sauntered over to the corner table I’d selected. Mrs. Honeyman carried a tray with silver coffee service and fine china cups, which was probably a personal set. I’d not seen anything like it at the breakfast offering.

I rose to greet them. “Mr. and Mrs. Honeyman, I’m so pleased you could join me.”

“Why, sure, honey,” said the missus as she placed the tray on a nearby table and set out our coffee service.

I insisted on pouring the coffee, and we chatted for a bit about how they kept up the hotel and its grounds. Mr. Honeyman explained that they themselves took on kitchen duty, but they hired two groundskeepers and two maids to do the heavy work. “The wife and I are getting on in years. Can’t do as much as we used to.”

I lifted the pot and freshened our coffee. “Have you ever thought about selling?”

Mr. Honeyman cocked his head. “I don’t reckon we could afford to do that.”

“Are you carrying a contract?”

“No, we paid that off years ago.”

“What if I offered you fifty-two thousand dollars?” I knew this to be a generous offer, considering that the hotel hardly ever filled up and sorely needed repair and renovation.

Mrs. Honeyman’s eyes popped to alert, and Mr. Honeyman glanced at her and lifted his palm, obviously warning her to keep quiet. He planted his other hand on the table edge and straightened his arm, pulling his torso upright. “Now, we’ll have to think on this, Mrs. de Vries. Not something we really planned on doing.”

“Of course, by all means. And please don’t forget to put this coffee on my bill.”

The Honeymans did think on it. They proposed a price of fifty-six thousand, and we met in the middle, at fifty-four thousand, which I believe satisfied all three of us.

Mr. Honeyman and I recorded the sale the next day in Hot Springs, and I arranged to transfer funds for the first installment from my New York bank. We agreed that the remainder would be disbursed upon the closing of the sale. When I informed Daisy that we could be on our way, she invited me to her room “to discuss a private matter” with her and Dicky.

They offered me the wooden chair in Daisy’s room, and I sat and braced myself against its back. “Now, what’s this all about?”

Daisy, who sat beside Dicky on the bed, glanced at him and gave me one of her I’m-perfectly-serious looks. “You’re going to Menominee next, aren’t you?”

“Yes. You know you’re welcome to come along.”

“Dicky and I want to visit our mother. Didn’t really have time to do that on the way in.”

Was this what they were fussing about? I flapped my hand at them. “Oh, heavens. Of course you can do that. I’d never stop you from seeing your mother.”

“Dicky and I will require sixty dollars for our fare and expenses.”

“That’s reasonable.”

“That’s not all,” said Daisy. She crossed her legs and straightened her spine. “I stopped sending money to Mother after you emptied that first fund from Rudolph.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. You know that forced me to stretch the new account.”

“If I’d kept sending her money all this time, it’d amount to one thousand fifty dollars.”

“That sounds about right.”

“You said you’d make up the money for Mother if I helped you come into some funds.”

“And I will keep my word. I couldn’t ask for a better assistant than you, Daisy.”

Daisy nodded to Dicky and turned to me. “Dicky has something to show you.”

Dicky levered himself up off the bed and pulled out the bottom drawer of Daisy’s dresser. He extracted a soft cloth pouch and handed it to me.

The black pouch weighed heavily in my hand, as if the contents were concentrated—like gold or lead.

Daisy grinned at me. “Go ahead, open it.”

I loosened the slip string on the pouch and poured the contents into my palm.

“My yellow-diamond necklace. Dear God, I’ve got my necklace back.” I bounded to my feet and hugged Daisy, Dicky, and Daisy again, all the time shedding tears of joy.

THE BONDS OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS
TO MENOMINEE—OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 1901

T
he next day, I bade Daisy and Dicky good-bye. They caught the morning train to the East Coast, and I left in the late afternoon, bound for Michigan.

As my train chugged out of Lawrence station, I squeezed by the other passengers navigating the car’s narrow corridor. My sleep compartment, which was barely wide enough to turn around in, featured a neatly made-up bed, an overhead storage rack, and, on the opposite side, a counter with an inset wash basin and two wide but shallow drawers. I deposited my suitcase on the bed, unlatched it, and dug out my yellow-diamond necklace. Bracing myself against the counter, I stood before the mirror and fastened it on. Such a beautiful piece, I thought; I’ll never tire of gazing at it.

I’d shaken a finger at Dicky during our private meeting, “So you’re the one who nabbed my necklace.”

His expression brightened with one of his rare smiles.

“As I was leaving the ball?” I asked.

He nodded. “A little trick I learned on the streets of New York.”

And then Daisy took my hand. “So you mustn’t ever show it in public, either in England or anywhere else.”

But I could wear it in the privacy of my own quarters and, in some distant future (after everyone had forgotten it was a stolen item, with the insurance money already disbursed), once again dazzle admirers with it.

I was traveling on my own for the first time in nearly a decade, with nary a soul to answer to. It was exhilarating. My first full afternoon
on the train, I circulated about the lounge car, where I met several august gentlemen. No sooner had I accepted Mr. Ramsey’s invitation to dinner than Mr. Weber joined us and asked if we had dinner plans. Turning to Mr. Ramsey, I said, “Why not make it a party?” Mr. McFarland came along soon thereafter, and the three gentlemen escorted me to dinner. I asked to be seated at a table that could accommodate one more person, just in case someone else happened along. Mr. Ramsey ordered a bottle of claret and told the waiter not to rush us.

Mr. McFarland, a wiry young man with a red beard that tangled at its fringes, said, “Mrs. de Vries, I understand I should be addressing you as Baroness.”

“Technically, yes,” I said. “But we’re not at a royal ceremony, are we?”

The hollow-cheeked Mr. Ramsey sat up straight, adjusting the collar of his starched white shirt. “At least tell us how you came to marry a baron.”

“It’s a long story. We married at his home in Holland. My goodness, it’ll be nine years next month.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” said the solid Mr. Weber, “how did you meet a baron?”

“Gentlemen, I’m just a simple girl from Michigan—a modern Cinderella, you might say.”

Mr. Weber thumped one of his sausage-fingered hands on the table. “Ach, I don’t believe it.”

“Honestly, I grew up in a log cabin in Muskegon. I can tell you all about it.”

“Please do,” said Mr. McFarland, with a sweep of his arm.

“My father owned a tavern. I had an older brother, Paul, who walked me to and from school every day. One day, when Paul took sick, I stopped at my father’s tavern instead of going straight home. A fiddler stood on a table in the corner, sawing away at that fiddle and making everyone merry. When I walked in, the men lined up to dance with me. Mind you, I was only seven, but my father had taught me how to dance. I reeled from one man to the next and had such a wonderful time I arrived home very late for dinner.”

“What a naughty Cinderella,” said Mr. Weber.

“My mother was furious, hollering at me for worrying her to
death. ‘But, Maman,’ I said, ‘I had to help Louise with school lessons.’ ‘I don’t care what Louise wanted,’ she said. ‘Please,’ I begged, ‘please forgive me.’ She said, ‘When flowers turn blue. Now off to bed. There’ll be no dinner for you tonight, or tomorrow, either.’ Once the house quieted, I scrambled out my bedroom window with a candle lantern. I found a thicket of wintergreens and feasted on their tender new leaves. Then I picked some tiny forest-floor blossoms, arranged the miniature bouquet in an inkwell, and left it on the kitchen table with a note apologizing to Maman. By morning, the blooms had turned indigo blue.”

“And did you have dinner the next night?”

“My favorite—perch and potatoes.”

The men lit into laughter, and the woman at the next table—a solid-framed woman in a stylish wool suit—guffawed.

Once her laughter subsided, I turned to her. “Would you care to join us?”

“You bet I would,” she said, striding over to our table and sticking out her hand. “I’m Frank Shaver. From Chicago.”

It turned out that Frank, who I guessed to be roughly my age, was quite a storyteller herself. The men she’d attended law school with had dished out a lot of guff, and she regaled us with some of her comebacks: “Better watch out, buster, we might meet across the aisle in some big case”; “Is that the best insult you can muster?”; and “You think a woman’ll be out of place in a courtroom? Well, at least my voice carries, which is more than I can say for that banjo twang of yours.”

Frank and I took to each other like old school chums. When she announced she needed to retrieve her bag for the next stop, I said, “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see Frank off.”

As Frank and I sidled along through the cars, I asked where she was from.

“Grew up in Pittsburgh. My parents still live there. But the place is too stodgy for me.”

“But Chicago, you couldn’t call it stodgy.”