The Legacy (3 page)

“Yes . . . I’m fine, thank you. It’s a little confined in here, isn’t it?”

“Come over to the window, you will find the air fresher,” she said, taking his arm to steer him through the crowd. The air was indeed close, heavy with sweat and breathing, thick with smoke and music and voices.

“Thank you,” Corin said. The long casement windows were shut against the dead cold of the February night, but that cold radiated from the glass nevertheless, providing an area of cool where the overexerted could find relief. “I’m not used to seeing so many people under one roof all at once. It’s funny, how quickly and completely a person can become unaccustomed to such things.” He hitched one shoulder in a shrug too casual for his evening coat.

“I have never left New York,” Caroline blurted out. “That is, only for my family’s summer house, on the coast . . . I mean to say . . .” but she wasn’t sure what she meant to say. That he seemed foreign to her, a figure from myth almost—to have gone so far from civilization, to have chosen life in an untamed land.

“Would you not like to travel, Miss Fitzpatrick?” he asked, and she began to understand that something had started between them. A negotiation of some kind; a sounding out.

“There you are, my dear.” Bathilda bore down on them. She could spot such a negotiation from quite a distance, it seemed. “Do come along, I want to introduce you to Lady Clemence.” Caroline had no choice but to be led away but she glanced back over her shoulder and raised her hand in slight salute.

“D
on’t be ridiculous, girl!” Bathilda broke into her thoughts and returned her to the present, and the lunch table at La Fiorentina. “You are acting like a lovesick schoolgirl! I, too, have read Mr. Wister’s
novel
, and it has clearly filled your head with romantic notions. I can think of no other reason why you would choose to marry a
cowboy
. But you will learn that
The Virginian
is a work of
fiction
and bears little relation to the reality of it. Did you not also read of the dangers, and the emptiness, and the hardships of the frontier land?”

“It’s not like that any more. Corin has told me all about it. He says the land is so beautiful you can see God’s hand in every blade of grass . . .” At this Bathilda snorted, inelegantly. “And Mr. Wister himself acknowledges that the wild era he described is no more. Woodward is a thriving town, Corin says—”

“Woodward? Who has heard of
Woodward
? What state is it in?”

“I . . . do not know,” Caroline confessed, pressing her lips together resentfully.

“It is in no state at all, that’s why you do not know. No state of the Union. It is uncharted land, full of savages and uncouth men of all kinds. Why, I heard there are no ladies to be found west of Dodge City at all—only
women
of the worst kind. No ladies! Can’t you imagine how
godless
a place it must be?” Bathilda’s chest swelled within the confines of her burgundy gown. A flush mottled her face all the way to her hairline, where her steel-colored hair was gathered into a soft bouffant. She was moved, Caroline realized, incredulously. Bathilda was actually
moved
.

“Of course there are ladies! I’m sure such accounts are exaggerated,” said Caroline.

“I don’t see how you can be so sure when you know nothing. How can you know anything, Caroline? You’re just a child! He would tell you anything to get such a fine and wealthy wife. And you believe every word! You will leave your home and your family and all your prospects here. To live where you will have no name, no society and no comfort.”

“I will have comfort,” Caroline insisted.

A
week after the ball, Corin had taken Caroline to the skating pond in Central Park, along with Charlie Montgomery and his sister Diana, who gave them a tactfully wide berth. It was late in February and the sky was an odd yellowy-white against which the spiralling snowflakes at first looked black, then turned pale against the bare trees before they reached the ground.

“As a boy I was always half afraid to skate here. I kept waiting to fall through the ice,” Corin smiled, taking small, cautious steps more akin to walking than skating.

“You needn’t have worried, Mr. Massey. They drain most of the water out at the beginning of the winter, to be sure that it freezes right through,” Caroline smiled. The cold was biting. It reddened their cheeks and hung their breath in ragged white clouds around them. Caroline tucked her gloved hands into her coat pockets and skated a large, smooth circle around Corin.

“You’re very good at this, Miss Fitzpatrick. Much better than I!”

“My mother used to bring me here all the time. When I was a little girl. I haven’t skated in a while, though. Bathilda does not care for it.”

“Where is your mother now?” Corin asked, circling his arms clumsily to keep his balance. Snow had gathered on the brim of his hat, giving him a festive look.

“My parents died. Eight years ago,” Caroline said, skating to a halt in front of Corin, who also fell still. “There was an explosion at a factory, as they were travelling home one evening. A wall collapsed and . . . their carriage was trapped beneath it,” she told him, quietly. Corin put his hands out as if to hold her, but then let them fall again.

“What a tragic misfortune. I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Charlie told me about your father, and I’m sorry, too,” Caroline said, wondering if he noticed the similarity, as she had, in the nightmarish, claustrophobic way in which they had both lost family. She looked down at her skates. Inside them, her toes were going numb. “Come, Mr. Massey; let’s move on before we cleave to the ice!” she suggested, holding out her hand to him. He took it, smiling, then grimaced as she towed him along, wobbling like a toddler.

They drank hot chocolate in the pavilion, once the ice had become so crowded with skaters that steady progress was nigh on impossible. From their table by the window they watched young boys darting recklessly between the adults. Caroline realized that she hadn’t been feeling the winter weather as she normally did. Perhaps being close to Corin was enough to warm her—it seemed to make her blood run more quickly than ever before.

“You have the most extraordinary eyes, Miss Fitzpatrick,” Corin told her, smiling bashfully. “Why, they shine like silver dollars against the snow out there!” he exclaimed.

Caroline had no idea how to reply to him. She was not used to compliments, and so she looked down into her cup, embarrassed.

“Bathilda says that I have cold eyes. She laments that I did not inherit my father’s shade of blue,” she said, stirring her chocolate slowly.

But Corin reached out a finger and lifted her chin, and she felt his touch like an electric charge. “Your aunt is quite wrong,” he declared.

H
is proposal came a scant three weeks later, as the ice began to melt in the parks and the washed-out sky took on a deeper hue. He called upon her on a Tuesday afternoon, knowing he would find her alone, it being her aunt’s custom to play bridge with Lady Atwell on that day. As Sara ushered him into the room, color poured into Caroline’s face and her throat went dry, and when she rose to greet him her legs were soft and uncooperative. A potent cocktail of joy and terror seemed to undo her whenever she saw him, and it grew stronger every time. Words vanished from Caroline’s mind, and as Sara closed the door she smiled a tight, excited smile at her mistress.

“How kind of you to call,” Caroline managed at last, her voice trembling like her hands. “I trust you are well?”

Instead of replying, Corin turned his hat around in his hands, began to speak but faltered, hooked a finger into his collar and tugged as if to loosen it. Caroline clasped her hands together to still them, and waited, watching him in astonishment. “Won’t . . . won’t you sit down?” she offered at length. Corin glanced at her and seemed to find some resolve at last.

“No, I won’t sit down,” he declared, startling Caroline with the gruffness of his tone. They faced each other for a long moment, at an impasse, then Corin crossed the room in two large strides, took Caroline’s face in his hands and kissed her. The press of his mouth was so shocking that Caroline made no move to stop him, or to move away as she knew she ought. She was struck by the unexpected softness of his lips, and the heat of him. She could not breathe, and dizziness confounded her even as a peculiar warm ache began in her stomach.

“Mr. . . . Mr. Massey . . .” she stammered when he pulled away, still holding her face in his hands and studying her with quiet urgency.

“Caroline . . . come away with me. Marry me,” he said. Caroline could scarcely find the words to answer him.

“Do you . . . do you love me, then?” she asked at last. Her pulse jumped up in panic as she waited for his answer, for the words she so longed to hear.

“Do you not know? Can’t you tell?” he asked, incredulously. “I have loved you since the first moment I met you. The very first moment,” he murmured. Caroline shut her eyes, overwhelmed with relief. “You’re smiling,” Corin said, brushing his finger over her cheek. “Does that mean you will marry me, or that you’re laughing at me?” He smiled anxiously, and Caroline took his hand in hers, pressed it to her face.

“It means I will marry you, Mr. Massey. It means that . . . I want nothing more than to marry you,” she breathed.

“I will make you so happy,” he promised, kissing her again.

B
athilda refused to announce the engagement between her niece and Corin Massey. She refused to help her assemble her trousseau, buy clothes for travelling, or pack her leather trunks for the journey. Instead, she watched her niece neatly folding away new tailoreds, gored skirts and embroidered shirtwaists.

“I suppose you consider yourself emancipated, to act so disastrously. Quite the Gibson Girl, I’m sure,” she remarked. Caroline made no reply, although the barb stuck because it was near to the mark. She rolled her jewelry into a blue velvet fold and tucked it into her vanity case. Later, she sought Bathilda out in their spacious house in Gramercy Park, finding her seated in a ray of spring sunshine, so startlingly bright it stripped years from the woman. Caroline asked again for her engagement to be announced. She wanted it to be done properly, officially, as it ought to be; but her request fell on deaf ears.

“It’s hardly to be celebrated,” Bathilda snapped. “I’m only glad I shan’t be here to have to answer questions about it. I will be returning to London, to stay with a cousin of my dear late husband’s, a lady with whom I have always shared great affection and regard. There is nothing to tie me here in New York, now.”

“You’re going back to London? But . . . when?” Caroline asked, more meekly. Unhappily, she realized that in spite of the rift between them, her Aunt Bathilda represented her only family, her only home.

“Next month, when the weather is more clement.”

“I see,” Caroline breathed. She linked her hands in front of her, wound the fingers tightly together and squeezed. Bathilda looked up at her from the book she was ostensibly reading, her gaze tempered with something almost aggressive. “Then we shall not see each other much from now on, I suppose,” Caroline murmured.

“Indeed not, my dear. But that would have been the case even if I had remained in New York. You will be far beyond the distance I could comfortably have travelled. I will give you my address in London, and of course you must write to me. And I dare say you will find company enough on the farm. There will be other farm wives in the vicinity, I am sure,” she said, smiling faintly as she returned to her book. Caroline’s lace collar seemed to choke her. She felt a jolt of fear and did not know whether to run to or from Bathilda.

“You have never shown me love,” she whispered, her voice fearful and tight. “I do not know why you should be so surprised that I run after it when it is offered to me.” And she left the room before Bathilda could scorn this sentiment.

So Caroline married with nobody to give her away and no family to represent her. She chose a gown of diaphanous white muslin, with a wide yoke of lace ruffles across the bust and crisp frills at the neck and cuffs. Her hair was piled high on her head and held with ivory combs, and pearl drop earrings were her only jewels. She wore no make-up, and her countenance, as she took a last look in the glass, was somewhat pale. Although the weather was not warm, she carried her mother’s silk fan on her wrist, fingering it nervously as she travelled to a small church on the Upper East Side, close to where Corin had lived as a boy. Sara the maid sat alone on the bride’s side; and as she entered the building, Caroline longed to see her parents there. Corin wore a borrowed suit and tie, his hair combed neatly back and his cheeks freshly shaven, the skin soft and slightly raw. He fidgeted with his collar as she began her approach along the aisle, but then he met her anxious gaze, and he smiled and fell still as though naught else mattered. His mother and two elder brothers were in attendance, solemn as the couple made their vows before the minister. Mrs. Massey still wore her mourning dress, and although she welcomed her new daughter-in-law, her grief was too fresh for her to feel truly glad. It was another wet day, and the church was quiet and dark, smelling of damp brick dust and candle wax. Caroline did not mind. Her world had contracted to include nothing but the man in front of her, the man taking her hand, the man who looked at her so possessively and spoke with such conviction as he made his promises. With their hands joined before God, Caroline felt such an irresistible surge of elation that she could not contain it, and it spilled from her in a storm of happy tears that Corin gathered on his fingertips and kissed away. With him she would start her real life at last.