Chapter Twenty-Two #2
As if sensing my agitation, Stanny looks down at our clasped hands and releases me. “Here I go, coming on too strong. You do have that effect on me. I’m sorry, my little pet. Where was I? Ah, yes, champagne. It is a party, after all.”
He pours out two crystal flutes, handing me one. “To you, Evelyn Talbot.”
“And to you, Stanley Pierce,” I say, clinking my glass against his before taking a big sip, hoping that the cold bubbles will help to calm my rattled nerves and quell this uncharacteristic awkwardness that keeps rising up between us.
The first course, in addition to champagne, is oysters, and I eat almost a dozen. The delicious food does help to settle me, or at the very least, distract me. As we eat, we speak of the show; he asks after the girls and wants to know to whom I’m close. I tell him Penny is my dearest friend.
“Would you say she’s your confidante?” he asks, forking himself an oyster and popping it into his mouth.
“A confidante? I suppose so, yes. Although, it’s not as though I have much to confide.”
I see the lurch of his throat as he swallows the raw oyster. Staring at me, he offers half a playful grin and says, “That so? You don’t have any naughty little secrets?”
“I’m afraid not,” I say, taking a sip of champagne.
“The show, then home. Or out with you. Occasionally a night of dancing with Penny.” Though my outings with the girls have become less frequent, now that Stan whisks me away so often.
I take another sip of my champagne, then add: “Why, other than Penny, you probably know more about my life than anyone.” Certainly more than Mamma.
“What about Dolly? Aren’t you close with her and Dinah?”
I shake my head, frowning. “They’ve dropped me, it seems.”
“Why?”
“I’m not entirely sure.” I lower my glass to the table, then I make an admission. “Since the day I came here to meet you.”
“I suspected that might happen.” He dabs at the corner of his mouth with his napkin, offering a knowing nod. “They are jealous of you, Kitten. Or, at least, threatened by you.”
“Threatened by me?”
Stanny takes a long sip of champagne before he says, “I think Dinah thought her daughter would be the next star.”
“Well, can’t she still be?”
He flashes a smirk. “Dolly can’t hold a candle to you. No one can. You are incomparable, Kitten.” Stanny reaches for the bottle of champagne, refills my flute nearly to the top.
I throw him a questioning look. “But I thought you told me…only one glass.”
“We’re having oysters,” he says, flashing me a wink as he refills his own glass. “It goes too well with the oysters, does it not?”
I don’t argue, happily accepting the second glass and taking a sip before helping myself to another oyster.
I wonder when the rest of the food will arrive, since my stomach is still pretty empty and I don’t think oysters alone will fill it.
But until the next course is brought, I allow myself to enjoy the champagne.
We sit in silence for a moment, my mind turning back to Dolly and Dinah, but his voice pulls me from these thoughts.
“Besides, you’ve shown me how much you have grown, my darling.
I don’t think you are such a little girl anymore.
You steal the light from every other gal.
And yesterday, why, you showed me you could be anything from a little shepherdess to a Turkish sultana.
A queen. Yes, I think you’re ready to be treated as such. As a lady. As a queen.”
His eyes hold that fiery intensity again, and I’m tempted to fidget in my seat. But I’m spared as a footman appears in the doorway, declaring, “It is midnight, sir.”
“Ah.” Stan looks from the servant back to me, pressing himself away from the table. “If you’ll excuse me for just a brief moment, my dear, I have to take a telephone call.”
Stanny gets up to leave the room, but not without refilling my glass once more.
Odd, I think, that the footman appeared to tell him the time, not that there was a telephone call.
And what business does he do at midnight?
But my head feels fuzzy from the drink and the long wait for the food, from the fatigue of a full day, so I decide not to puzzle too much on the matter, instead raising my glass and draining my champagne as I sit alone in the large room.
It’s a while before he’s back, rejoining me at the table and pouring me more champagne from a freshly opened bottle.
“Who was it?” I ask, embarrassed when a hiccup escapes along with the words. I instantly put my hand over my lips.
“Pardon?” he asks, grinning at my hiccup.
“On the telephone.”
“Oh. It was Mr. Edison. Thomas Edison.”
“As in…the man with the glowing lamps?”
“The very one.” He nods, leaning back in his chair. “Would you like to meet him someday? A real magician?”
“Oh, very much.”
“Then I shall arrange it. I will do anything I can, Evelyn, to wave my wand so that you may live in a world of magic. But before that, how about some dessert?” He reaches into his pocket.
I wish to ask: What about the rest of the supper?
But he has retrieved a small nugget of what appears to be chocolate, and I simply love chocolate.
That, and I don’t wish to offend him when he’s just served me oysters and champagne.
He unwraps the tasty morsel and breaks off a piece.
I take the offered chocolate into my palm. “Aren’t you having any?”
“I’m full.” He pats his tummy. “But I know you can’t resist your sweets.”
I take a bite, closing my eyes in appreciation at the rich, nutty flavor. He refills my champagne again, but I don’t wish for more. As I finish the nugget, the thought of my massive bed back at the hotel seems suddenly most appealing.
When a servant appears at the threshold, asking if Mr. Pierce would like him to clear the dishes, Stanny hastily orders the fellow out. “Leave us,” he replies, his voice almost like a growl.
I look across the table and say: “I’m tired.” The fatigue has hit me like a brick all of a sudden. I’m so exhausted that I feel as though I can barely keep my eyelids from closing. And my head feels heavy, unpleasantly so.
Stanny is looking directly at me, but makes no move from the table. “You should rest, my darling.”
I want to fold over and drop my head right here on the table. “Can you bring me home?” I ask, hesitant to summon a hansom on my own. I doubt I would be able to stay awake for the short ride to the hotel.
“You can sleep here, Kitten. It’s easier that way. My driver is gone for the evening.”
This strikes me as unusual since Stanny always offers his auto to see me safely home after our postshow outings, no matter the hour.
But my mind is beginning to fray at the edges, like a carpet coming unraveled.
I find it hard to understand what he’s saying.
My bed is all I want. But then, he has no driver.
And not having to travel does sound easier.
“I have plenty of room,” he says. “You’re not to worry.” He helps me from the table since my feet feel suddenly leaden beneath me. I wobble silently up the stairs, his arm around my waist the only thing keeping me from tumbling down the entire flight.
Into the bedroom we go, the red room with the massive bed, the parasol dangling from the mirrored ceiling.
The space we visited together on the day of my first luncheon in his home.
It’s past midnight, and the rich red drapes are drawn, and the room glows with a rosy candlelight that dances around me.
The combination of the jittery flames and the deep, blood-red hue of the velvet furnishings strikes me as too much. I feel as though I might be sick.
The feeling only worsens when I look up, into the mirrors overhead. Stan, at my side, does the same, smiling at my reflection. “Surrounded by Evelyns,” he says, his voice much more lucid than I feel, “just as I would always have it be.”
But I don’t like the way I can see a dozen of myself, as though I’ve been trapped in so many different shards of shattered glass. As though I myself have been shattered. I glance back downward, attempting to steady myself as the room sways.
That swing is in the corner, just as I remember it, and overhead that paper parasol. “This…Is this your bedroom?” I try to ask, but my mouth feels stuffed with marbles.
Stanny doesn’t answer; instead he says only: “You can have my bed, darling. I’d like you to be comfortable.”
The four-poster bed is the only thing in this room that appeals to me at present. I say, “Thank you,” but again my words sound slurred.
“Would you like a quick swing before bed, Kitten?”
I shake my head, no. My face feels warm but not in a pleasant way, more like a fever.
But Stanny is guiding me toward the swing, and I’m too tired to protest. He practically lifts me up onto the seat.
I just want to shut my eyes. But then he’s pushing me.
I struggle in the seat; it’s too much for me to hold on, though I try.
I grip the ropes, grasping for—but not reaching—the words to ask him to stop.
He keeps pushing me. I’m dizzy, too dizzy, and now there’s something like a drumbeat between my ears.
With the mirrors above me, I see myself from every angle as the swing arcs me through the air.
It’s too much. But Stanny apparently feels quite the opposite: “Just what I want, Evelyn on all sides!” His voice sounds a thousand miles away.
My hands have gone clammy, and I can’t hold on to the ropes anymore.
I can’t even keep my eyes open. I slump, and the next thing I feel is the sensation of falling.
Backward, off the swing, until I feel that his arms are there for me.
And as I slip, finally, into a black slumber that won’t release its grip, I think, Oh, good, Stanny has caught me. I’ll be all right.