On a Cold Dark Sea(13)
With Charlie’s help, she managed to get herself halfway respectable. The evening gown she’d bought in Paris sparkled in the lamplight, but there wasn’t time to arrange her hair properly, so she pulled it over one shoulder. Taking a diamond-and-velvet bracelet off her wrist, she tied it around her hair at the nape of her neck so it wouldn’t hang loose. Then, after Charlie had peeked outside and declared the coast clear, Esme crept down the hall and up the stairs to her husband.
Esme had intended to be a good wife. It was the position she’d been raised and groomed for, her life’s work. She’d never be the richest girl in Philadelphia society or the most beautiful. She didn’t have the lustrous eyes and lashes of Faith Hodges, who sat languidly at parties while the boys swarmed around her. But Esme was pink-cheeked and vivacious, able to talk to anyone and make them feel flattered by her attention. Esme, everyone agreed, was fun; parties and outings turned brighter when she was there. Esme was conscientious in her duties: she sat through French lessons with the forbidding Madame Guilldot and learned to play piano well enough to entertain her father’s friends after dinner. But she drifted from childhood to adulthood with very little education in the practical aspects of being a wife. Esme’s mother, who had died when Esme was six, was nothing more than a faint memory of rustling skirts and medicinal smells. Esme grew up knowing how to manage a household, but not how to manage a marriage. She’d never seen a successful one up close.
Esme’s social debut was followed by a delicious whirl of parties and ice-cream socials. Esme enjoyed herself thoroughly, but she never lost sight of her ultimate goal. Father’s cryptic hints about difficulties at the factory made it clear that she’d best marry soon—and well. Within a few months, she’d settled on two likely prospects. Theodore Yates was the eldest son of a former mayor, part of a well-established political family. Cursed with a stammer, he’d never follow in his forefathers’ footsteps, but Esme found his awkwardness endearing. Theo was always so grateful when she stopped to talk to him or when she kept the conversation going even though he stumbled over half his words. He was tall and skinny, and she’d heard a few of the girls jokingly call him the “Sc-sc-scarecrow.” But Esme sensed he’d be fiercely loyal to a wife who accepted his deficiencies. As would his family.
Then there was John Moss. John was the life of every party, his laughter resonating above the din of conversation. John, like Esme, was fun. He banged out music on the piano to liven up stodgy luncheons, arranged picnics in the country—with silver flasks passed discreetly among the men—and once held a séance at which he swore he spoke to the spirit of his dead grandmother. John was the one who had pulled Esme behind a tree during an Easter egg hunt and kissed her, his hands firm against her waist. Afterward, he’d smiled and put his fingers to his lips, and the fact that he hadn’t declared his love for her, or gone to her father to ask for her hand in marriage, should have made Esme upset. But she hadn’t been. The knowledge of that secret kiss—hinted at later with winks and long looks but never discussed—only increased John’s appeal. Though she was woefully uneducated on relations between men and women, she suspected John’s forwardness should make her wary, that it wasn’t a desirable quality in a husband. But she was tempted by the unpredictability of a future with him.
It was while she was veering between Theo and John—between Good and Fun—that Esme’s father invited Mr. Harper to dinner. She’d spoken to him briefly at some affair or other, and she’d heard about his tragic past: the death of his wife and baby daughter after only a year of marriage, the devotion to their memory that kept him a widower. But it was unusual for Father to invite one of his professional acquaintances home for supper; he usually dined with them at his club. Father told Esme that Mr. Harper, president of Keystone National Bank, had approved a loan to Father’s factory, and the meal was a gesture of thanks. Esme enthusiastically agreed to act as hostess. She put together the small guest list, planned the menu along with the family cook, and arranged the flowers on the table herself.
When Mr. Harper arrived, Esme was at the door to welcome him.
“How lovely to see you again,” she said, smiling brightly. She was wearing the emerald-green gown that set off her eyes, and the effect seemed to dazzle Mr. Harper.
“Miss Sullivan,” he said, with a formal bow.
“Come in, come in,” she urged, waving for Nora, the maid, to take Mr. Harper’s coat. “We’re starting out in the front parlor, this way. Mr. and Mrs. Ayres are already here. We’ll be a small party but an enjoyable one, I hope.”
Mr. Harper looked as if he hadn’t enjoyed himself since the last century. He offered Esme a wan smile, his cheek muscles straining with the effort. Esme felt sorry for him, in the general way she was sorry for anyone who’d suffered a tragedy, but she couldn’t help being irritated, too. He could make a small effort, couldn’t he? He might even be handsome, in a distinguished way, if his expression weren’t so miserable and droopy. She’d seen statues with more spirit than Mr. Harper.
The thought made her smile.
“Am I amusing, Miss Sullivan?”
“Not at all,” Esme said girlishly. She tilted her head sideways for a coquettish effect. “I have the terrible habit of smiling for no reason at all.”
“A cheerful disposition is a rare gift,” Mr. Harper said stiffly.