The Banished Children of Eve (31 page)

Halsey's bet stayed on the 4. The first card, the “soda,” was a 7. The second card, the “loser,” was a 3. The card still in the box, the “winner,” was a jack. Halsey left his bet. He wouldn't lose unless a 4 came out a “loser.” On the next draw, a 4 was the card on top. He won. He put a copper on the queen and then another copper on the first one to signal that he was playing the queen to show up a “loser.” He left it there for two turns. On the third deal, the second card out was a queen. He had bet on a “loser” and won.

Bedford didn't play, but Halsey gave him a sheet so that he could record each card as it came out and was retired. Bedford watched Halsey simultaneously play some cards as “losers,” others as “winners,” his bets spreading across the table, chips laid between cards and in the corners of cards, each marking a bet split to cover two or more cards. Bedford lost track of the permutations. He stopped trying to grasp the subtleties of Halsey's maneuvers and surrendered to the beauty of the game, the soft green cloth, the copper disks, the steady flow of the cards out of the box, the small snap they made as the dealer drew them out, the constant motion of hands, the reshuffling of the cards, a reel of black and white. As the game went on, trays of champagne came by, and Bedford drank as much as was offered. A crowd gathered to watch Halsey. When his earnings reached $10,000, they applauded. Morrissey himself appeared. The room was filled with people and conversation, and in the background was the constant snap of cards being dealt. The gaslights flickered softly, and as the time passed the surroundings no longer seemed faded and threadbare but rich and sumptuous.

Halsey kept
playing. He lost a part of his winnings before he finally cashed in but was still left with over $8,500. Bedford felt the urge to have a go but suppressed it. He had had too much champagne, and had too little grasp of the game. After they left Morrissey's, Halsey suggested they stop at the Trumpeter Swan, a concert saloon generally known as the Trump. Halsey told Bedford to have the driver drop them on Clinton Place, at an alleyway that led to the rear of the Trump. Halsey knew the pug stationed at the back door, who let them in without a word. Bedford followed Halsey up a flight of stairs, where Halsey knocked on a door. A tall black-haired woman in a purple robe opened it. Bedford was stunned by how beautiful she was. Halsey embraced her, kissed her lips and neck, and drew back her robe to kiss her breasts. She pushed him away. “What's got you so excited?” she said.

He put his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels. “I've been bucking the tiger, riding high on his back, and rode the monster into the dust.” He took out of his pocket the bank draft from Morrissey, unfolded it, and stuck it between her breasts. She retrieved it, glanced at it, and put it into the pocket of her robe. Now she embraced Halsey. He looked over his shoulder at Bedford. “I forget that an introduction is in order,” Halsey said. “Charlie Bedford, I want you to meet the Trumpeter Swan herself, the eyeball attraction of the metropolis, the nonpareil of every gawking Cyclops in the city of New York, Miss Eleanor Van Shaick.”

She formed her
arm into a V, her milk-white hand hanging limply at the end. She obviously intended it be kissed, not shaken, and Bedford obliged.

“It's a great pleasure,” he said. Behind her, hanging on the door, Bedford noticed a floor-length cape of white feathers.

“Ellie keeps this place afloat,” Halsey said. “What has the Trump got to recommend it over any other concert saloon except for the Swan herself?”

Bedford had heard of the Trumpeter Swan's “special attraction,” the lure that distinguished the Swan from the city's other saloons. Especially popular with soldiers, the “attraction” was located in a small chamber on the second floor surrounded on three sides by eight closet-size booths, each containing a peephole. Several times an evening, for a fee ranging from three dollars to ten, depending on how wealthy or eager the customer seemed, invitations were given to enjoy the view from one of those booths. A waiter girl would lean over and whisper, “How'd ya like to see the Trumpeter Swan herself?” In a while she would return and escort the patron to a rear staircase. At the top she would lead him into a booth and pull the curtain shut behind him. There he'd sit alone for several minutes, staring at an empty porcelain bathtub on lion's paws, with nothing but a chair beside it. Finally two Negro boys in turbans and baggy pants would enter with a barrel labeled
CHAMPAGNE
and pour its contents into the tub. After they left there would be another pause before the door opened again and a tall, gainly, black-haired woman entered: the Trumpeter Swan herself! She wore a cape of white feathers that she slowly removed to reveal her nakedness. She walked around the tub, stopping at various points to bend over and stir the water—or champagne—with her hand. She stepped into the tub and, after a quick dip, got out, stood, and rubbed her body with a soft white towel, fondling her breasts, drying each nipple between her fingers, bringing the towel down between her legs and pulling it back and forth. Once dry, she put her cape back on and was gone.

The Negro
boys pulled back the curtains, and one by one the booths' occupants went downstairs into the crowd without ever seeing their fellow viewers. Occasionally, one of the Trump's regulars darted up the stairs during the time between baths and rubbed a piece of charcoal around a peephole. At first, the management had threatened to find those responsible and have them thrashed, but with the war and the proliferation of soldiers, it became a house joke to let some officer sneak back downstairs, his eye circled in black, and be asked by half the house, “How'd ya like the bird?”

Ellie Van Shaick lay back on a divan. Bedford sat across from her. The room was small but well furnished. Halsey went over to the dresser, poured from an open bottle of champagne into three glasses, and handed them around. Bedford had paid occasional visits to the Trump but had never been upstairs “to see the Swan.” Looking at Van Shaick as she stretched out on the divan, her shapely ankles protruding from beneath her robe, he regretted his oversight.

She raised her glass. “To luck,” she said.

Halsey started to recount his triumph of earlier in the evening: the applause of the crowd, Morrissey's attempt to appear unfazed.

“Maybe Mr. Bedford brings you luck,” she said to Halsey. He scratched his head. “I never looked at it that way. Why, Charlie, from now on I ain't goin' nowhere without yer.”

The room was warm and perfumed. They had more champagne. Halsey droned on, describing every bet he had made. Bedford noticed that Van Shaick was staring at him. He felt himself growing excited and tried to think of some way to dismiss Halsey. Halsey paused in his storytelling, and Van Shaick said, “Mr. Bedford, I believe we've met before.”

“I wish it were so, Miss Van Shaick, but you are not a person I would forget.”

“Time
changes us.”

“I could not imagine what change time wrought in you that I should not be able to conjure up some clue as to our meeting.”

She saluted him with her glass.

“Charlie,” Halsey said, “I didn't know you were so well known among the ladies. I thought yer were one of them went home after work.”

Bedford ignored him. Van Shaick said, “Do you recall a Christmas reception at the home of Robert Schuyler?”

The day after Christmas, Robert Schuyler, the president of the New York and New Haven, the New York and Harlem, and the Illinois Central railroads, had annually held open house for the proprietors of the most prestigious investment houses, filled the rooms with food and drink, and invited his guests to bring their children or friends. One year, Stark had taken Bedford along. It was Bedford's first time in one of the homes of the great families. He had never been amid such opulence.

“Yes, I have a vivid memory of it.”

“Do you remember talking for some time to Morris Van Shaick?”

Bedford recalled the house and its trappings. In the entrance hall there was a full-length portrait of Philip Schuyler, Major General in the Continental Army, would-be conqueror of Canada, Hudson Valley patroon, a founder of the Republic. The servants still wore the livery of the General's day, breeches and powdered wigs, and the house was filled with precious-looking crystal and china. Above the mantelpiece in the main parlor was the sword that Congress had presented to the General. But Bedford was terrible with names. He suspected such a talent was developed among those who grew up in large towns or cities and who from their earliest childhoods were required to keep track of the endless number of new people they were exposed to. Either that or, like Audley Ward, they were preoccupied with keeping track of bloodlines and social position. Bedford had grown up in a town where strangers were rarely encountered. He had no real interest in anyone's ancestry. Often he even had difficulty remembering the names of clients or of other brokers. He would look at them as they talked and, while trying to recall their names, miss everything they said. It was a deficiency he had promised himself to work on correcting but had yet to do anything about. He decided not to lie.

“To be
honest, my only recollection is of the surroundings. I'd never been in such a place. I felt intimidated, in awe, and I let the man whose guest I was, Mr. Stark, do the talking.”

Van Shaick looked saddened. A film of water covered her eyes. “At one time,” she said, “men used to boast about knowing my grandfather.”

Bedford heard the hurt in her voice. It was obviously important to her that he remember her grandfather.

“Yes, now that I give it some thought, I recall having a conversation with a very distinguished gentleman. I had forgotten his name, but it comes back to me now. Morris Van Shaick was your grandfather?”

“Yes, and of all his grandchildren I was the favorite. He took me with him that day. I shall never forget it, nor you.”

“Me?”

“I thought you were the handsomest thing I had ever seen. The whole time Grandfather talked, I couldn't take my eyes off you. When we left I told Grandfather you were the man I wanted to marry, and he gave a great laugh.”

Halsey laughed. “There yer go, Charlie, Ellie's grandpappy knew better than letting the likes of yer near his women.”

“I was twelve at the time,” Van Shaick said. Halsey was standing over her. She reached up and patted his cheek. “Hardly a woman, my dear bumpkin, although in the rural precincts of our Republic female children may often be treated as such.”

“Twelve!” Bedford said. “That explains the hesitancy of my memory. By God, the scene returns to me with some clarity!” He was surprised he still had no recollection at all of either of them. “Let's see, it must have been 1854 or '55.”

“I think you're trying to establish my age,” she said.

“It was 1853,” he said, “yes, it had to have been. It was the Christmas before Schuyler left for England with two million dollars in notes he'd embezzled from friends, partners, and family.” Bedford had a clear memory of the day the news had struck that Schuyler had absconded. Stark had laughed until his face was so red it seemed ready to explode. “The little scamp,” Stark had said, “I always counted him a mouse, yet he's proved himself a rat.”

“Never
heard of Robert Schuyler,” Halsey said.

“He ruined my grandfather,” Van Schaick said. “The poor man had placed a great deal of trust in Robert Schuyler. He held on until the panic of '57. Did the best he could until then, but he was never the same.”

“Never heard of your grandfather, either.”

“This city forgets the good with the bad; all are consigned to the same oblivion. Nothing matters but the present ability to pay, and once that disappears you are dead, gone, forgotten.”

“Ain't that the gospel truth.”

It came back to Bedford now. The old man standing in a doorway a few days after the panic. A friendly rival of Stark's. Morris Van Shaick. Poisoned himself. Bedford received a note from Van Schaick a day or so after his suicide. Something to do with the grave.

“Your grandfather was a gentleman,” Bedford said. “I've never forgotten that.”

“He was. But after he died and the firm was in ruins, his so-called gentlemen friends turned their backs on my family. My father tried to keep the firm afloat. He was sure he could rely on Grandfather's acquaintances for at least some measure of help until he got back on his feet, but none was forthcoming. The day after our house was taken from us, he left. We never saw nor heard from him again. My mother went to some of those same gentlemen and told them what had happened. They suggested she go to the almshouse.
The almshouse!
” Her eyes became as cold and merciless as the winter sea. She put her feet on the floor and sat up. “We moved to a boardinghouse on Washington Street, a place filled with immigrants. My mother took in laundry like a common Irish washerwoman, and her hands bled from the work. She didn't last a year. My younger sister, Edwina, a girl of talent and true musical sensibility who had been planning to study in Europe, was reduced to playing stringed instruments at the lowest sort of affairs, for the worst riffraff you could imagine.”

“I don't know what to say, Miss Van Shaick,” Bedford said. “It is a tragic story, but if it is of any comfort, I would say this city is filled with such.”

“It is not
comfort, Mr. Bedford, although you are kind to try to offer some. But I have learned the lessons to be learned.” She reached into her pocket and took out the bank draft. “This is the first lesson. Always have a lot of it.” She put it back. “And this is the second.” She reached up and took hold of Halsey's lapel and pulled him down to her. She kissed his lips and rubbed her hand over his chest. “Always have someone you can trust, someone reliable, preferably a good farm boy, a man of strong instincts and rough tastes, as far from being a gentleman as possible.”