Chapter Forty-Three
Pittsburgh
I scowl at the pile of newspapers sprawled before me. Each sheet has been meticulously ironed by the Thorne butler and brought to me like some savory dish on a platter of polished silver. The newspapers come from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, New York, too.
And I’m featured in every single one of them.
I, Evelyn Thorne, am “the Mistress of Millions, America’s living Cinderella.
” Having begun as a penniless artists’ model, I’ve now won and married my prince.
I’ve left the bright lights of Broadway behind to take up my plush perch in Stonehurst mansion, the grandest castle on Pittsburgh’s Millionaire’s Row.
I’m Mrs. Thorne at the age of nineteen, the luckiest girl in the world.
Then why does each article I read bring a frown to my face?
I suppose that, in large part, it has to do with my company at the table—the fact that I’m not the only one at breakfast scowling.
Nor am I the only Mrs. Thorne presiding over this meal, or this castle.
“I’ve told them not to show me that filth.
I don’t understand why my son insists on seeing the papers each morning.
” My new mother-in-law, Mary Thorne, deepens her glower as she turns her gray eyes from the headlines toward me.
“It’ll only stain his soul. Or, rather, further stain. ”
Known as the pious and venerable Widow Thorne throughout her hometown of Pittsburgh, Mary has instructed me to call her Mother Thorne.
And thorn in my side she is. Though she’d undoubtedly aver that the roles are reversed and that I’m nothing short of a crown of thorns that she, like the suffering savior, has been forced to wear ever since her darling boy returned home from his European summer travels and announced that we’d married while abroad.
It was all done in a whirlwind of haste and practicalities, if not necessarily romance.
All at Hal’s direction. “I’d like to see it done here and now,” he’d told me that evening in Orléans when I unburdened my soul to him.
To my immense relief, it hadn’t pushed him away; in fact, it had seemed to fuel his desire for us to be together.
“If we wait to do it back in New York, Angel, you’ll have to invite your mother.
And possibly he would show up, audacious as he is.
No! There’s no way. Let us sanctify our union here.
And then we may be truly bonded in the eyes of God.
And no one may cast aspersions on our traveling together.
Let no one dare to taint what we share.”
He dispatched the hotel staff to summon the nearest priest. He made arrangements for us to be married in the sanctuary where Joan of Arc’s sainted feet had trod. He even selected the outfit for me from my traveling trunks—black satin with onyx beading, a veiled hat to accompany it.
“I thought I might wear white,” I said, dashed with disappointment when Hal placed the gown before me.
In truth, I hadn’t envisioned with any specificity what my wedding dress might someday look like, as matrimony had always seemed like a vague and distant destination.
But a black gown more fit for mourning? That had never featured in my fantasies.
“You don’t like this one?” Hal balked. “It’s brand-new. We just ordered it in Paris. From Worth.”
“It’s lovely,” I quickly replied. “I only mean, white is the fashion now for weddings.”
Hal’s face furrowed into a thoughtful frown. And then, still looking at the dress, he said, “Don’t you think that would be a bit hypocritical? We are in the hometown of Joan of Arc, of all places. She who never allowed her body to be defiled.”
So I’d donned the black onyx to meet the priest, who married us in the hometown of Hal’s favorite saint.
And now I’ve returned to the United States as Hal’s wife, my head very much in a spin, and not because of the rough sea crossing.
I’m still trying to catch up with all that has happened, and changed, in my life as the newlywed Mrs. Thorne.
Speaking of saints…suffering in saintly silence does not appear to be Mother Thorne’s preference.
On the contrary, she’s made it abundantly clear that she disapproves of the hasty marriage her hapless son entered into while abroad.
That she now sees it as her divine purpose to save my ruined soul.
Or perhaps to save her son after his grievous mistake of attaching himself to me.
“Ill-made match,” she’d groaned when her son and I had appeared together at Stonehurst, weary from the trip.
She’d whisked Hal into the study and closed the door but did little to lower her voice as she shrieked her thoughts.
“This is a tragedy! You are a scion of steel and railroads, my poor, darling boy. A showgirl? If you wanted a dalliance with a pretty skirt, you could have walked into any of the boardinghouses in Pittsburgh.”
“Please, Mother,” I’d heard my new husband attempt to interject on my behalf, but she gave him no space, railing on: “Why, my daughter went to Europe and became a countess!”
“Mother, if you would only give her—”
“You went to Europe and came home saddled with a vulgar dime-novel character!”
Eventually he’d stopped trying, letting the storm of her furious disapproval run itself out.
I was treated to the whole litany of her horrors on Hal’s behalf.
One thing that was immediately clear to me from my eavesdropping: she’s a mother entirely unlike the detached mother I have, a woman willing to leave me alone on foreign soil.
As much as Mother Thorne may dislike me, I do have to give her credit for adoring her boy.
Seeing the extent of her maternal adoration, I have the strong suspicion that no bride would have been good enough for her beloved son.
I only hope that, with time, I’ll be able to show her that I am not the tawdry character she believes me to be.
In fact, now that I’ve agreed to be his wife, I want nothing more than to be worthy of Hal, to make him happy—and his family, as well.
Why, I agreed to the hasty wedding he wanted in France, didn’t I?
And then when Hal told me he wished for me to leave the Broadway stage behind, when he told me being a showgirl wasn’t proper now that I was a member of the Thorne family, hadn’t I complied without a quarrel?
When he said he wanted us to settle as a family in the Thorne estate in Pittsburgh, quitting Manhattan for the quieter life he’d always envisioned with his bride, didn’t I agree?
So here we are. Living as a new family, folded into the larger family that has presided over the Thorne estate for generations.
In marrying Hal, I’ve gotten his mother, too, and so I’m trying my best to make peace.
She’s the only mother either of us has got now that my own mother no longer speaks to me.
Mamma did leave Paris abruptly, as I had expected, and she’s thrown in her lot with Stan.
I did write to tell her that I’d married Hal, but she never replied.
I believe she still lives in the hotel, supported by Stan.
New York is his town. He built it. Any relationship I might have with Mamma or with Manhattan would now come with a price I am no longer willing to pay, if it would mean Stan would be involved.
Perhaps Mamma and I will find our way back to one another in time.
Cut off from New York and isolated here in Pittsburgh, I’ve got no hope of seeing my girlfriends from the stage.
Penny is the only one who still writes regularly.
Trixie got married and Annissa moved away, I heard to Chicago.
Dinah and Dolly wrote one letter to congratulate me on my wedding news, but that’s all I expect to hear from them.
That’s just as well; they are also too closely intertwined with Stan for my—or Hal’s—comfort.
He’s asked me to leave the stage, the artists’ studios, the late nights and frenetic days, all behind.
“How about I invite Penny for a visit here?” I suggest. “Or maybe I could make a trip to Philadelphia, if not New York?” The truth is, I’d love to see Leah and Rachel after all this time. To show them how far I’ve come, and all because of their support and friendship at the very start.
“In time, in time, dear wife,” Hal responds a touch dismissively.
“Pittsburgh is your home now. Let’s settle here after our wayward travels.
It takes time, but we will introduce you around,” Hal tells me often during our first weeks in this new, quiet life.
I’ve confessed to him how overwhelming, how different it all feels—more foreign, even, than Paris or London.
And the loneliness. Without the distractions of the packed days that I had in foreign cities, I am aware, suddenly, of just how alone I am here in this new place.
“You’ll make friends,” Hal says. “And when we have family news of our own, you’ll be busier than ever, beautiful wife.
” Does he mean…a baby? The thought lands in my gut like a brick.
Do I want a baby? So soon? I’m nineteen, about to turn twenty.
I’ve only just become a wife and have not yet adjusted to the hastily taken role. Am I prepared to also become a mother?
These questions give me a headache that sends me to bed for the rest of the day.
I have my own bedroom suite in our wing of the mansion, and as I shut the heavy door and look around the vast space, I can’t help but note how the room resembles the quarters of a princess.
And yet, it’s cold. It’s cold everywhere inside this massive house, and since we moved here in the autumn, there’s been an ever-present damp, a moist and cloying chill that lurks throughout, just like the heavy dark drapes.
Drapes that I constantly want opened, because it is dim in this house also.
Both day and night, the shadows stretch long, and I wish to welcome any spot of sunshine that is willing to push its way through the ivy that wraps this castle.
When I confess to Hal that I feel cold quite often in my bedroom, he scolds the servants. “Keep Mrs. Thorne’s fire blazing at all times!” I hear him censuring a chambermaid. Mrs. Thorne. It gives me pause to hear him speak the name. Does this poor maid find the new title as confounding as I do?
After that, there is always a hearty fire in my hearth, and gleaming new silver candelabras appear atop every empty surface in my bedroom—that helps with both the damp and the gloominess.
Hal is trying to make me happy. And I am trying my best to settle into my new days as Mrs. Thorne with as little disruption to the household as possible.
The evenings, I find, are more tedious than the days. After dinner the three of us kneel in the parlor to say prayers as a family. I gather this was a mainstay of Hal’s childhood, this nightly vigil that lasts over an hour, all of our hands clasped, heads bowed.
The first time I joined Hal and his mother for this Thorne evening ritual, I was stunned when, as Mother Thorne prayed aloud for the “list of sinners,” she included my name.
Stung, I threw a pointed look toward Hal, but with his eyes shut and head tipped, he didn’t see me.
So I pulled him aside later that evening, after his mother had gone up to bed.
“What was the meaning of that?” I asked, my anger outpaced only by my hurt.
He sighed, throwing a look down the dark corridor, before he answered: “The thing is, Mother tells me that she has forgiven you.”
“How kind of her.” My tone is wry, but from Hal’s distracted expression, I can’t be sure he’s heard that.
He goes on. “But she feels it behooves us all to continue to pray for you. And in exchange for her forgiveness, she’s asked that we never speak of your past again.”
“Haven’t I already agreed to leave my past behind?
” I ask, wounded afresh. And not a little bit irked that my husband is submitting to this ridiculousness from his mother.
When it’s just the pair of us, my Hal is still as kind and thoughtful as ever, but the problem is, in this house, it’s rarely just the pair of us.
And I’m under no illusions as to who is in charge, running this household.
That imperious, disapproving, marble-mouthed…
I catch myself. And before I can say anything too disrespectful aloud, something that might offend my husband, when he’s only ever tried to defend me, I excuse myself, telling Hal I’m tired.
But back in my massive bedroom and plush bed, sleep evades me, my body as uncomfortable as if I were lying on a slab of stone.
I’ve been the model daughter-in-law, obeying her ridiculous list of house rules without protest. When Mother Thorne told me she wished for me not to read novels, only the Bible, I agreed silently, doing my best to block out Daddy’s face.
When I asked her why her beautiful home didn’t boast any art besides portraits—they could afford original Monets, after all—she explained to me that the endless rows of drab portraits were of deceased Thorne family members and that it would do well for me to reflect on their examples if I ever hoped to be worthy of them.
I bit my lip and offered her a respectful nod.
Insufferable woman. She’s as dull as the dead family members that darken these walls.
The worst painting of all—one of the main reasons I find sleep so elusive—is a portrait that hangs in my large marble bathroom. Right over the bathtub. The sallow face of some long-dead Thorne lady. I can see from the plaque on the frame that her name was also Mary.
“She hanged herself with a towel, in this very room,” my mother-in-law told me when she first helped me settle into my suite. “While her family thought she was taking a bath. Can you imagine?”
And then, with a quiet “tut-tut,” my mother-in-law simply walked on as if she’d commented on something as banal as my bath towels.
But I remained fixed, staring up at the portrait, at the yellow hue of this Mary Thorne’s sickly, unsmiling face.
No, I could not imagine. Either what would make this woman wish to end her own life or why the Thornes who came after her had thought it a nice idea to hang her portrait in the very room where she had hanged herself.
A month into my new life here with the pious Widow Thorne, I wonder whether it is the tragic Mary Thorne of long past who haunts my sleepless nights. Or is it perhaps the other Mary Thorne, the living woman who gave birth to my husband and now prays just down the hall for my fallen soul?