Bliss, Ernest thought. Madam found her own bliss at the Tenderloin.
Meanwhile Ernest had found his heart torn between Fahn—so headstrong and hot-tempered, but fearless, daring to do what she wanted—and Maisie, who was willing to sacrifice herself for a mother who didn’t know her anymore. Fahn had been given nothing in life but the short straw at every turn, while Maisie, in comparison, had had so much, at least until now. Both struggled to do what they thought was best, even for him.
Maisie and Fahn had known Ernest’s secrets, all except for the one he’d thought was obvious—that he was in love with both girls. But what did that matter now?
As Ernest listened, he noticed that the Professor changed the ending of the melancholy song, finishing up-tempo, with a blizzard of stinging quarter notes. “That there was for you, my boy,” he said.
Ernest nodded. He tried to smile, but the expression came out as more of a polite grimace. He wished Fahn were here so the girls could talk to each other. He had a hard time talking to Maisie about Maisie. But he hadn’t given up.
Professor True began playing something jazzy and modern called the “Comet Rag,” but Ernest barely batted an eyelash.
“My playing that bad tonight?”
“Sorry. It’s not you,” Ernest said. “I’m just, you know…”
“Man, if you’re nervous…” Professor True began playing a sad tune Ernest didn’t recognize. “I can only imagine how the Mayflower must feel about what’s happening in just a few days. I’m all for parties, but this one…”
Ernest had tried not to obsess about Maisie and Fahn, but the more he tried, the more he worried, fretted, felt helpless. He had lain awake each evening staring out the window, where the cloudy sky held wishing stars for ransom.
“How’s that new job of yours working out?” the Professor asked.
“Gets better every day.” Ernest sighed as he released the top button of his coachman’s uniform and tried to relax. One of his new tasks was to drive a carload of Gibson girls about town, late in the afternoon, decked out in their voluptuously corseted finery. The girls would bare their shoulders and wave their gloved hands as they blew kisses at gentlemen on the streets in a wanton display of advertising. Though lately they’d been pilloried by the Ladies Relief Society, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and Mrs. Irvine’s Mothers of Virtue, who would heckle and throw rotting food at them as they passed, leaving Ernest to wash the car each day and pick bits of eggshell off the chrome.
But the worst was the long, anguished afternoon he’d spent alone in that fancy black car, delivering invitations for Maisie’s coming-out gala. He’d driven around downtown, then to select gentlemen’s clubs in Wedgwood, Ravenna Heights, and Seward Park. Ernest had somberly read the important-sounding names on the sealed envelopes, which had been addressed by Miss Amber—though he’d seen Madam Flora signing the cards, personally, in a moment of silent lucidity.
Despite visiting fancy town clubs, the city treasurer’s office, and even the executive floor of Dexter Horton Bank, Ernest knew who the real guest of honor would be. He had delivered an extra-large envelope to the Turnbull Shipwright Corporation. He’d come so close to pitching all of the invitations out the window, or burning them, or sinking them to the murky bottom of Lake Union, even at the risk of getting fired and kicked out into the street. But it didn’t matter. He knew that Miss Amber wouldn’t be put off that easily. She’d just have someone else send out a fresh batch of invitations. Besides, all the driving allowed Ernest to look for Fahn.
“Do you know much about this Turnbull gentleman?” Ernest asked Professor True. His curiosity was dark, morbid, and painful. He felt the way he had when reading about an avalanche that had made an entire Great Northern passenger train disappear last month. The train cars had fallen 150 feet into the Tye River near Wellington. Hundreds of passengers were missing—all of them probably dead, and no one could lift a finger to search until the snow melted.
That’s how Ernest felt. Helplessly counting the days.
“Oh, Turnbull’s well known around these parts,” Professor True said as he played an ominous chord. “Louis Josiah Turnbull was one of the founders of the Arctic Brotherhood. He made his name when he was just a boy, running loads of gelignite up to Alaska, and piloting riverboats up the Yukon River during the first years of the Klondike Gold Rush. Then he placed his newly built fortune on the stern of a shipbuilding concern, named after himself, of course, and got lucky when his wharf was the only one left standing in the wake of the Great Seattle Fire. He went on to become the biggest shipbuilder in the Northwest—and owned a few ships too, importing goods from all over the globe. Now he’s a fellow with enough cash to buy the whole world. I suppose for a fellow like L. J. Turnbull, being denied something that he wants just makes him want it even more.”
Ernest nodded.
Professor True said, “Turnbull was still a fairly youthful man when his health started failing, and since he was from a consumptive family, his doctors gave him a year to live. So what does he do? He builds the biggest house anyone has ever seen—a place to spend his waning months. Named the mansion Speedwell. But instead, his wife dies of the hundred days’ cough, and here it is ten years later and Ol’ Louis Turnbull is still going strong. He was smitten with Madam Flora back in the day. And when he found out she’d retired, he started asking when the Mayflower would be up for bid—sister, daughter, I don’t think he cares—next best thing, I guess. Rich men get spoiled, or go crazy, a little of both I suppose. Grown men who should know better, I’ve seen them fall hard, like tripping down stairs, head over teakettle for some of the working girls, and then they can’t understand why the girls don’t fall right back.”
Ernest felt the anger and helplessness surge through him again. “I guess there’s a difference between the body and the soul. You can buy a body, but the heart…” He shook his head. “The heart, you can’t even rent.”
—
THOSE WERE THE words that lingered in Ernest’s mind as he scoured his room for every nickel, dime, and wheat penny. He’d saved most of his wages since he had begun working as a houseboy last year, and now he earned tips as a coachman—sometimes large ones. He’d drive home patrons who’d had too much to drink, and they were loose with their wallets.
He counted $128. He paused for a moment, astonished, after not having had even a penny for so many years. But then, chagrined, he remembered his savings were but a pittance compared to the enormous wads of folding money that the regulars would be throwing about at the party on Saturday night.
Ernest also took out the ticket from the fair—his prize-winning ticket—that humble piece of cardboard that had put his future in the generous, magnanimous, but now-quaking hands of Madam Flora. For a moment he wondered what his life would have been like had someone else claimed him. Where would he be? As torn as he was about Fahn’s and Maisie’s fates, he wouldn’t have wished to be anywhere else.
Last, and with much reluctance, he added the gold hairpin topped with jade that had once belonged to his mother. When he wasn’t wearing it on his lapel, he’d kept the piece of jewelry hidden in an old sock in the bottom of his dresser. That slender piece of soft, tarnished gold was his only earthly reminder of his time in China, those dark moments with his ah-ma.
Ernest gathered everything and walked down the hall to Miss Amber’s room, where the door stood partially open. He peered inside, where she stood in a casual evening dress, smoking a cigarette and tending to one of her many wigs, as though the nest of golden hair were a small terrier in need of grooming.