It was March 2, the day before Inauguration Day, and parties would begin early, even in Livingston. The Boys were political animals, and Dulcy imagined them in Washington, rebuilding the family reputation at the balls, publically applauding Roosevelt, whispering to fellow bankers. They were not progressive men, and they never told acquaintances that their father had been a miner.
At the library, she found Lewis Braudel all over the place: Harper’s and the Century, McClure’s and Collier’s. Politics; some cruel profiles; talk of the West as a colony, no better or worse than Algeria, India, or King Leopold’s Congo; an amusing piece contrasting insanity diagnoses in a rich Scottish immigrant and a poor Irish one; some non-patronizing humor in a profile of female explorers; an essay on Italian restaurants that made her like him too much. She’d read some of these articles without recognizing his name, especially a humor piece called “The Grand Tour of Health,” which might have been a profile of Walton. She tried to settle on an opinion, beyond the notion that he wrote well but used too many adverbs. He was a bit of a socialist, though one who seemed fond of certain luxuries. He was not bland.
In the Enterprise, to the right of enormous losses around mukden, she skimmed the news of the stabbing, then landed on a second article:
Identity of Girl Still Unknown
The body of a girl discovered along the train tracks west of our city remains unclaimed. The corpse had been sent north to Great Falls, to be viewed by a family seeking a missing daughter, but these hopes were dashed last week. Her presence has now been requested in Billings; we wonder how much longer she can tour. She is described as being between the ages of twenty and thirty, of medium height and weight, with dark brown hair. Mr. Siegfried Durr, at 117 North Main, has photographs available for viewing, if any citizen feels they might recognize the girl. The pictures have been artfully framed to spare the viewer’s sensibilities.
If the girl is not identified, the body will proceed to the Poor Farm cemetery.
Buck up, thought Dulcy. You’re not dead. And she realized, finally, that she was no longer willing to be dead to disappear, even in the middle of the night, even if Victor was close to knowing where she hid.
Back at the hotel, Irina waved a note: Mrs. Nash’s house offer had been accepted.
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Margaret and Dulcy left for Butte the next morning. Margaret thought it would be the best place to go to find things for the house, and Dulcy, intent on avoidance, said that sooner would be better. Margaret’s own house was a tiny brick kitty-corner to the library, with not enough yard—her husband had not cared for the outdoors. The idea that Margaret might want another husband was not a given: according to the Sacajaweas, Mr. Mallow had been a sandy-haired seller of encyclopedias who had lacked curiosity about the text of the books he sold. Dulcy hadn’t sensed heartbreak. Margaret said she was waiting out a year of mourning before regaining a teaching job that fall. She was snub-nosed and long-waisted, but she had beautiful dark hair and eyes, and she was so good-humored, so intelligent and empathetic, that Dulcy watched men watch her with openhearted admiration. Margaret was a good woman; Margaret was a funny smart sweetheart.
Butte was a short jog rather than a full retreat, just enough to make the situation bearable. Margaret and Dulcy dropped their bags at the Thornton and shopped for linens and cookware at Hennessey’s, a store whose name Livingston people whispered with the sort of reverence Dulcy had heard used for Liberty’s or Altman’s. They found rugs from a dealer who looked like he’d been born in Persia, and ordered teak blinds. Mrs. Knox had supplied the name of a furniture dealer who stocked the better leavings of people who’d sold quickly—half of Montana, at one point or another—and they found a secretaire with actual secret drawers, two nice sets of pawned silver, and some pretty Brussels lace draperies. They bought clothes, not all widowy: nightgowns, dresses in blue and mauve, summer skirts, white hats, canvas aprons for cleaning and gardening. Margaret never asked why Dulcy hadn’t sent for the belongings she’d presumably accumulated during her marriage.
Margaret went back to the Thornton to rest before dinner, and Dulcy set off on her main errand. No one else had the key to this bank box, but she worried that Henning might somehow know about the account, that he’d pulled the brown book from under Walton’s pillow, too. Coming here for a pittance might reveal her existence, but she had to try: she had enough money to stay in Montana, not enough if she ever had to flee again. At the bank the manager was faultlessly polite, and politely disinterested, as he had her sign the log that showed no visits since 1900, before the African mines. She wrote Miranda Falk—if Henning followed her, and paid the manager to show him the log, at least she could leave a clue that she’d expected him—and waited for the manager to leave her alone with the box.
She kept him waiting for a full ten minutes while comprehending the forty-three thousand dollars in English and American notes, with some Austrian gold for good measure. Walton had loved hiding things, and now he’d allowed her to hide. She’d hoped for a quarter of this, and outside on the street with a full satchel, she walked slowly, mind veering around theories of how Walton might have collected so much. This wasn’t a revenge on Victor; the dates were wrong. Had he cheated other clients, or spent less than she’d ever imagined on women? She tried looking at a stand of narcissus, a candy store, a window full of fabric, but she shriveled a little as she passed the Sons of St. George Hall on North Main and listened for Cornish ghosts, mining voices. She took the side entrance to the Thornton.
“Was your business all right, Maria?” asked Margaret, looking up from her book.
“It was all right,” said Dulcy.
“You’re sad,” said Margaret.
They had shellfish and caviar, wine and brandy, and Dulcy’s worry eroded again. Afterward, they smoked cigarettes and drank champagne above the people strolling down East Broadway: bankers and prostitutes, blacks and Chinese. All of them were well-dressed city people, not a cowboy in sight.
“Maybe the men are more interesting here,” said Margaret.
Dulcy scanned the sidewalk, and didn’t think so, and didn’t think Margaret meant it, either.
When they arrived at the station the next morning, Margaret felt woozy and retreated to the bathroom. Dulcy bought a pasty on the platform and ate it hot there and then before she climbed into the first-class cabin and pretended to be a proper lady, lacking appetite.