Chapter Five The Ten-Oh-Three to Chicago
In which the net closes, and a bride falls senseless into the wrong man's arms
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The wedding party arrived at the reception in a flood — cars pulling up one after another along the curb, laughter and bright voices spilling out into the evening air.
The household staff melted into their places at doors and buffet tables, and Calie, with only the smallest motioning glance toward Graham, led the way into a room transformed for the occasion: an arch of roses and white carnations strung on nearly invisible silver wire, ferns drooping from the ceiling, the whole space lit soft and gold until it felt less like a New York townhouse than something out of a dream.
Graham had no real choice but to follow.
The hall behind him was already thick with arriving guests, and he understood, with a sinking heart, that whatever escape he managed tonight would have to come from some door other than the front one.
Stepping into that flower-scented room at Calie's side, he felt himself crossing some invisible threshold from the ordinary world into something stranger and lovelier than he had any right to claim — and knew, with every step, that he was an impostor standing where he had no earthly business standing.
Still, there he stood — bowing, shaking hands, smiling behind a mustache that threatened with every passing minute to come unglued at the worst possible moment.
People told him he looked well. They congratulated him on his bride, remarked that he seemed heavier than when he'd left the country, or thinner, depending on who was speaking, and asked after relatives and friends he had never in his life heard of.
He learned quickly that his only real safety lay in smiling, saying as little as possible, and answering awkward questions with vague questions of his own.
It grew almost bearable once the guests began arriving faster than any one of them could hold his attention for long.
Supper came and went in a blur of toasts and formalities that felt, to a man whose stomach had long since stopped cooperating with the evening's demands, like an ordeal with no visible end.
Jeff — everyone called him nothing else — was everywhere at once, directing caterers, soothing an anxious aunt, and materializing at Graham's elbow just as Graham was fumbling through a particularly difficult question about which overseas post he'd been posted to and how the crossing home had gone.
He'd gathered, piecemeal, that he was supposed to have spent the better part of a decade abroad, his ship delayed in making port — but the finer details remained a minefield he had no map for.
It was, he reflected grimly, an extraordinarily poor moment to discover he had no idea where he was even meant to have sailed from.
"Your train's at ten-oh-three," Jeff said, low and businesslike, plainly pleased with himself for having arranged it all.
"Stateroom's booked, tickets and checks are right here.
Trunks are down and checked already — Calie wouldn't hear of the white-ribbon nonsense, thank goodness.
We've got you slipping out by the fire escape and through the Whitmores' back court, where a plain car will be waiting round the corner — nothing fancy, nothing anyone will look twice at.
Calie knows the spot. Nobody at the party will even notice you're gone till you're well clear.
Your coat and hat are already out on the fire escape.
Soon as Calie's ready, I'll show you the way. "
Graham thanked him, because there was nothing else to be done, though his face had gone carefully, deliberately blank.
No escape, then, he thought, with something close to despair.
I am to leave this city with another man's bride on my arm, and no earthly notion of how to be rid of her without ruining her utterly.
Where was the real bridegroom? Why had he not appeared, however late, to claim what was rightfully his?
And yet — if he did appear now, in the middle of all this — what catastrophe might that unleash instead?
Don't let anything hinder you. The Director's voice had not once stopped its quiet, insistent drumbeat beneath every hour of this impossible evening.
An idea came to him suddenly, and he seized it before he could think better of it. "Wouldn't you like to come along to the station with us?" he asked Jeff. "I'm sure your sister would want you there."
The boy's whole face lit with pleasure. "Would I?
I'd like it more than anything — and if it isn't too much to ask, I wonder if Mother might come too.
She and Calie have never once been apart, not for a single night, and I know she's dreading saying goodbye in a house full of company.
She'd never ask it herself, of course. It hardly seems fair to you, on your own wedding night, when you haven't had a moment alone with her yet—"
"There will be plenty of time for the two of us," Graham said, with a warmth that felt, even to his own ears, uncomfortably close to a lie. It was not in his nature to enjoy deceiving a decent, open-hearted boy like this one. "I'd be glad to have you both. Truly. Go and tell her."
Jeff seized his hand, impulsive and warm.
"I don't mind telling you — I've half hated the idea of you for three solid months, ever since Calie told us she'd promised herself to you.
Silly, I know. I barely remembered you from when I was small, but I'd got some notion in my head that I didn't trust your eyes.
Kids get these ideas. But I've watched you all evening now, and I was dead wrong.
You've got about the most honest eyes I've ever seen on a man.
I'd trust you with anything. I'm glad — really glad — you're my brother now. "
The color crept up under Graham's disguise until it reached his own hairline.
Honest eyes. They had been, too — every day of his life until this one.
A verse rose in him, unwelcome and exact: Proverbs 12:22 — "Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.
" Into what tangled thicket of deception had he wandered, that a boy's plain trust should feel like an accusation?
For one wild moment he very nearly told him everything, right there — but a fresh wave of arriving guests swept between them before the words could form, and he could only press Jeff's hand and say, low and strained, "Thank you. I'll try to be worthy of that."
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The reception wound down at last, and Calie slipped away to change for travel.
Graham looked desperately about him for any avenue of escape — an open window, an unwatched hallway — but every door still stood thick with well-wishers, and there seemed nothing for it but to find the fire escape he'd been promised and hope for a moment's cover.
He found the window, slipped through it into the cool night air, and had scarcely gotten his bearings on the narrow iron landing before a shape loomed up the stairs toward him. It was Jeff.
"There you are! I was just coming up after you — wanted to leave you till the last minute so nobody'd get suspicious, but since you found your own way, we can get moving.
Already got Mother and Calie down — Mother was a bit nervous on the ladder, but she's game, bless her.
They're waiting in the courtyard. Here, let me get your coat sorted — and I'll pull this window to behind us, so nobody thinks to follow. "
Graham found himself, absurdly, wishing this cheerful, trusting boy really were his own brother.
There was no possibility of slipping away here, hemmed in on a fire escape three stories up with a car already waiting below.
By the time they reached the ground, any thought of flight had become plainly, hopelessly impossible — the car sat idling not ten feet from the base of the stairs, its driver already holding the door.
"Yer mother says hurry, Mister Jefferson," the driver called low. "Some of the guests are coming round the block to see you off proper. Best get in quick."
The drive to the station passed in a hush broken only by Jeff's cheerful, unanswerable stream of questions, and by one moment that caught Graham entirely off guard: Calie's mother, a small, silver-haired woman with kind, tired eyes, leaned across the seat and laid both her gloved hands over his.
"My son," she said, "I won't forget this — that you let me have these last few minutes with my girl. It was a kindness I didn't expect."
Graham, thoroughly undone by the simple warmth of it, could only murmur something about being glad to have her company, while Calie sat silent beside her mother, one hand held fast in the older woman's, and Graham could not shake the memory of tears standing in her eyes.
There was little chance for planning in the crowded car, but by the time they reached the station Graham had settled on a scheme: see the whole party safely to the platform, then remember, with well-timed regret, that his own suitcase still waited at the checking counter — and insist, over Jeff's certain protests, that brother and sister deserved these last minutes alone together.
He would vanish into the crowd, and send for the case later, or simply let it go.
It felt a shabby, dishonorable way to treat people who had shown him nothing but open-hearted kindness all evening — particularly the small, sorrowful bride who had done nothing at all to deserve a husband who meant to abandon her before the ink on the register was dry.
But there seemed no other road open to him.
To stay meant explanations he could not give without betraying his commission, and that he could not risk, whatever it cost his conscience.
The plan very nearly worked. Jeff offered at once to fetch the suitcase himself, and Graham, with what he hoped looked like thoughtful restraint, said quietly, "Let your sister have you to herself a minute first."