“I don’t know. Mother, he’s downstairs waiting for me and you must entertain him while I change. If you don’t talk to him, I’m afraid he’ll leave.”
Opal took a step backward. “You can’t mean your Mr. Taggert? You have him downstairs?”
Houston took both her mother’s hands in her own. “He is very upset. By accident, he spilled some food in my lap and, oh Mother, everyone started to laugh at him. If you’d seen his face! He was completely humiliated. Please go down and talk to him for a few minutes. Don’t let him leave.”
Opal felt herself softening. “No one should have laughed at him if it was an accident.”
“Thank you,” Houston said, quickly kissing her mother’s cheek before rushing from the room. She ignored Opal’s cry of, “What will I talk to him about?”
Susan was waiting for Houston and helped her with the back fastenings of the dress.
“It’s just the front panel that’s stained,” Houston said, holding the dress up and examining it. “Susan, tell Mrs. Thomas to rub it with magnesia powder for the grease and—oh Heavens, every stain in the world is on it. Hold the panel over a sulfur flame, and if it still doesn’t come clean, I’ll use naphtha on it. But I’ll do it myself. The Last thing I want is the kitchen exploding. Hurry now, before it sets any worse.”
When Susan returned from her errand, Houston was sitting at her desk, writing. “When I finish this note, I want you to give it to Willie to take to Mrs. Murchison. I also want you to explain to him what I need, so there’s no misunderstanding.”
She wrote as she talked. “Tell Willie to take the stairs in the Taggert house, the ones by the kitchen, all the way to the attics, turn left and he’ll see a long corridor. The second door on the left leads to a small room filled with furniture, and along the back wall is a small Soumak carpet—no, I’ll write a red figured carpet—and a large muslin bag of decorative pillows. The bag is as tall as he is, so he can’t miss it. Tell him to take the carpet and the pillows downstairs to the small drawing room. Mrs. Murchison will show him where it is. Have him unroll the carpet, put the pillows along the edges of the carpet, and then bring in the large, three-arm silver candelabra from the dining room next door and set it in the middle of the carpet.”
She looked up. “Can you remember all that to tell Willie?”
“Oh, yes, Miss. A picnic indoors. Did Mr. Taggert really spill the whole table
of food on people?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Ellie, who works for the Mankins’ neighbors, came by.”
“Well, it’s not true at all. Now, go downstairs, tell Willie, and have him give this to Mrs. Murchison. And quickly, please. I’ll need help dressing. Oh yes, and have him tell Mrs. Murchison I’ll delay as long as possible to give her time to cook.”
Houston saw to her dismay, as soon as Susan had gone, that the spilled food had soaked all her undergarments. After a quick inspection, she thought boiling would cleanse them, and she hurriedly began to undress.
From her closet she chose a dress of soft, pale green lawn with short puffed sleeves, the bodice and high neckline made of cotton guipure lace. Unfortunately, the back was laced with thirty-six tiny green buttons. She was struggling with these when Susan returned.
“What do you hear from downstairs?”
“Nothing, Miss,” Susan said, beginning to fasten the buttons with a little brass hook. “Should I look? I think the parlor door’s open.”
“No,” Houston said, but she was beginning to worry. Opal Gates was a woman who needed protection, a woman who was easily shocked. Houston had a vision of Kane using some of his vile language, of Opal fainting from shock and Kane feeling no obligation to “pick her up.”
“There’s no one else in the house, is there, Susan?”
“No, Miss.”
“Good, because I’m going downstairs and look through the hinges. You can button me down there.”
Houston tiptoed down the stairs, Susan behind her, and peeked through the parlor door.
Kane and Opal sat close to one another on the horsehair sofa, both peering together into a stereopticon.
“I’ve never seen the place myself,” Opal was saying, “but I hear it’s quite impressive.”
“I lived in New York for years but I never heard of this place,” Kane said. “What was that name again?”
“Niagara Falls.”
Kane put the viewer down and looked at her. “You’d like to go see it, wouldn’t you?”
“Why, yes, I would. In fact, Mr. Taggert, I’ve always had a secret dream to travel. I would like to hire my own private railroad car and travel all over the United States.”