Woman's Own by Robyn Carr
“Thank you, Jenny. I’m coming.”
Lilly had written to every newspaper around the world. Since they could not possibly attract enough guests to fill up their hotel in the first months they were open, the women had decided to stage the opening when the ground floor and two guest floors were finished. So long as snow covered the mess of still-incomplete grounds, they should make use of what they had.
She had spent weeks on the correspondence, announcing the opening of the Armstrong Arms before Christmas. Finally she began to see small mention of the hotel in various newspapers, but it was not nearly what she had hoped for. Still, she knew that the true popularity would come from the lips of guests and from mention in society columns of their accommodations at the Armstrong Arms.
She clipped the small articles and shared them with Emily and Amanda. She showed them the correspondence she had just finished, mentioning the names of those people who would attend the opening of the hotel in hopes that newspapers would repeat the gossip in print and reservations would be forthcoming.
“It’s going to have to be done differently, Lilly,” Amanda said. “You’ll have to omit the names of the Wynnes, Cadwaladers, and Wisters. Mention artists, writers, politicians, and--”
“But Grandmother, we have to pull the fine families closer.”
“No, no, they’ll know, believe me, but tact is essential. In society you must be more than a little sensitive to privacy. The Vanderbilts like to see their name in print, the Astors despise it. They are two very different types of rich--you must know the difference. They will know you understand their special and peculiar tastes when you mention the right names at the right times. To come here, to live here, they have to believe they can trust you.”
“If we aren’t able to speak of our guests in residence, then--”
Lilly was interrupted when Cleaves knocked at the sitting-room door and opened it. “There is a gentleman asking for Mrs. Armstrong.”
“Who, Cleaves?” Emily asked.
“He won’t give his name, madam. He describes himself as an old friend.”
Emily’s eyes widened briefly. “Bring him up,” she said.
“He has requested a private meeting with you. He’s waiting in the offices downstairs.”
“Mama, it could be Mr. Padgett!” Lilly exclaimed. “Maybe he’s read about the hotel!”
Emily’s cheeks became rosy. “Tell the gentleman I’m with my mother and daughter and he’s welcome to join us.”
“And if he isn’t inclined?” Cleaves asked.
Emily lowered her gaze to a letter she held, pretending to read it. It trembled slightly. “If he isn’t inclined, he can’t have been a very good friend, although I suppose he could as easily be old.”
When Cleaves closed the door, Lilly laughed. “Mama, you make everything so hard for him!”
“Who, Lilly? I have no idea who calls. I have more than one old friend.”
“Oh?” Amanda asked. “Perhaps we should discuss the vast number, dear?”
Both Lilly and Amanda grinned at Emily. But Emily tried to ignore them. In her heart she was preparing herself to be calm when faced with the longed-for eyes of Noel Padgett. This left all three completely unprepared for the man who entered the apartment sitting room.
“Emily?” Ned Armstrong said, holding his hat in his hands. “Patricia?”
Chapter Sixteen
Emily’s shock was so extreme that she slowly rose from the sofa on which she had been seated and stared at her estranged husband, mute and nearly helpless. Amanda stood as well, but hardly helpless.
“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” Amanda demanded.
“Let Emily speak,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t be glad to see me, but she--”
“Cleaves!” Amanda barked. “Cleaves!” Bertie came from another room, the distress in Amanda’s voice an obvious alarm. Cleaves, fifty years old, large, and strong, came to the door through which he had just led Ned Armstrong.
“Is this my daughter? Surely a man has a right to see his daughter?”
Lilly looked between her mother and grandmother, stole a glance at Bertie’s dark scowl, Cleaves’s confusion.
“You gave up that right long ago,” Emily said.
“I had a spot of trouble, Emily. I tried to find you. I--”
“Liar!” Emily shrieked, a sound that Lilly had never heard before in her life. Emily’s face seemed to change color before Lilly’s eyes-- starchy white, pink, red. Lilly instantly knew--this man was her father. Yet the fact was not acceptable; it contradicted everything she had been told. “You lying jackel! I went looking for you and you’d scoured! Don’t you dare--”
“Mama?” Lilly asked, finally standing as the other women had.
“Don’t be shouting, Emily. I’m back, that’s all. You should be glad to see me. I can explain where I’ve been, but--”
“Get out! Get out! Don’t you dare come around here. Don’t you dare talk of being back. I swear before heaven--”
Cleaves understood why he was needed and grasped the shoulder of Ned Armstrong’s coat, but Ned writhed loose, shaking himself free of the steward’s grasp. Before Cleaves could repeat the move and eject him, Ned joined the shouting.
“Get out of a hotel named for me? No, I’m not going anywhere. I have name rights, father’s rights! We haven’t had an easy time of it--but we are still married!”
“You filthy--”
“Mother!” Lilly said, frantic, grasping the sleeve of her mother’s blouse. “Mother!”
Emily whirled and fled. She ran into the nearest room, Amanda’s suite, and slammed the door behind her.
“Get him out of here, Cleaves,” Amanda said. “Take him downstairs and keep him there. Quick, before I do something terrible.”
“Wait a minute, Amanda. You can’t do that so easily. I have a right to speak to my daughter. Is this beautiful young woman my daughter?”
Lilly’s face had lost all color, and her eyes held the greatest shock she had experienced in her lifetime. Her mouth stood open as she looked at this man. She judged him to be approximately fifty years old. His silver hair was mixed with coal-black; his stature was tall and slender; his face was still handsome; his clothing was decent if not rich.
“Yes, this is your daughter,” Amanda said, her voice shaking.
Lilly felt herself begin to tremble. “My father is dead,” she said weakly.
“No, Patricia,” Ned said, advancing a step.
“Not Patricia, Ned,” Amanda said, stepping close to Lilly and putting a supportive arm around her waist, more than conscious of what Lilly could be thinking, feeling. Ned stopped moving toward her, and now the look of astonishment was his. “Lilly,” Amanda said. “Your second child. The one you didn’t even realize you had given us.”
Ned slowly accepted this possibility. He began to smile but the door through which Emily had disappeared was jerked open. Emily stood in the frame and slowly raised a pistol, the pistol that Amanda kept in a locked box in her bureau. She clutched it with both hands and the look on her face changed her whole appearance. Her mouth was twisted in distraught lines, her eyes narrowed in almost demonic rage. “Get out!” she screamed. He took a step backward, shocked. “Get out and never show your face again!”
Cleaves was no longer needed. Ned Armstrong did one or two clumsy dance steps in his rapid retreat, leaving the door open behind him. His quick moves suggested it wasn’t the first time someone had leveled a pistol in his direction.
“Follow him,” Amanda shouted at Cleaves. “Don’t let him out of your sight!” She turned toward Emily and took quicker steps than she had in some time. “Good Lord! Put that thing down!”
Emily slowly lowered the heavy pistol and turned to her mother. “Oh, Mother!” she cried, shaken and desperate.
“Give me the damned gun!”
“It isn’t loaded,” Emily said, her voice sounding almost familiar again. “I don’t know how.”
Amanda took it away
“Oh, Mother, what is he doing here?”
“Forget about yourself for a moment,” Amanda whispered harshly. “There’s Lilly!”
Sanity slowly returned to Emily’s eyes as she and Amanda turned toward Lilly. Lilly was far from recovering. She had just been visited by a ghost. She slowly backed up to a chair and lowered herself, her shaking legs no longer able to hold her upright. She swallowed once, studying their faces. “Is what you’re about to tell me going to change my whole life? Again?”
“Oh, darling,” was the way Emily began. The story took the rest of the afternoon and continued into the evening. This time Emily didn’t keep portions to herself; she told everything. Lilly was numbed by it, stunned, amazed, and crushed. She could seize on a variety of feelings, each one more confusing and debilitating than the last. Relief that she had a living father after all. Rage that he had been a miserable son-of-a-sod who had abused her mother. Fear that he would create trouble for them all. Grief, for all her life she had thought a good man died and now she thought a beast lived only to haunt her. Name rights!
“Lilly, I didn’t want you to ever know,” Emily said. “I always thought a dead father with a decent memory better than one who would abandon you and your sister. I made it all up.”
“But you’ve guarded it all this time? Suffered alone? Told no one at all?”
“No one. I confided in Sophia, but I was afraid to tell her everything. Mother didn’t know until she returned to us. Bertie knew…and, well, I was forced to tell Mr. Padgett.”
“Oh, Mama, is that why Mr. Padgett left?”
“Lilly, I sent him away. There was simply no way to accept his good intentions.”
“You did love him! Mama, you should not have sent him away. Not on account of Ned Armstrong!”
“What should I have done, Lilly? Entered into a marriage that would not be legal? I hoped your father really was dead, to my shame, but I had no way of knowing. It wouldn’t have been fair to any of us if I had selfishly created more lies.”
“It’s the hotel,” Lilly said. “He’s read about it, that’s what. That’s why he was here. Name rights, he said. Good Lord!”
“Most definitely,” Amanda said. “A leopard can’t change his spots. He’s after money.”
“What are we going to do with him? I’m not letting him near Mama, that’s sure. I’m not letting him in this establishment. Dear God, he’s my father--what am I supposed to feel? Do?” She looked at her mother. “Mama, we’ll change the name of the hotel. You can go away for a while, if you like. Grandmother and I will--”
“Negotiate,” Amanda said, cutting Lilly off. “We’ll manage some terms with Mr. Armstrong.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Emily said. “He’s not driving me away from my family. Patricia is about to give birth, and our business nearly ready to open!”
Amanda asked Bertie to serve up something stout and have a message sent to Fletcher asking him to come to the hotel first thing in the morning. After a generous brandy, it was decided that Emily lacked the nerves to deal with her estranged husband and Lilly lacked the experience. “And Patricia is not to know about this,” Amanda added.
“Doesn’t she have every right to know?” Lilly asked.
“Yes indeed, but I’m not concerned with Patricia’s rights, not at all. She is continually balancing plots against gains and plans against requests. As long as she is safe, well cared for, and in decent health, I want it kept that way.”
“But Grandmother, it isn’t fair! She wanted to come home, she told me that! And you refused--”
“Lilly,” Emily interrupted. “Your grandmother wouldn’t refuse to take care of Patricia under all circumstances. You must understand, if she were in desperate trouble, we would bring her here in a moment. But the troubles she has, her loneliness and boredom, are troubles of her own design. If she is rescued time after time, her appetite for having her way will only become insatiable. And Lilly, if she ever meets Ned Armstrong, she will find the other sleeve of her coat!”
“She is her father’s daughter, Lilly,” Amanda said. “What I was forced to do for Patricia I had once been forced to do for your mother. The difference between those two situations is that in the first case it was Ned’s lies and schemes; in the second case it was Patricia. Patsy, God bless her, was never really a complete victim. She did not believe Dale because she loved him. She despised him…before and after he assaulted her. She, like her father, is a user.”
“But surely--”
“The two of them together would be impossible. And you and your hotel would not be immune.”
Lilly laughed in disbelief, not amusement. “But what in the world could they do?”
“Even though I have a rather canny imagination, I don’t dare guess. Both Ned and Patricia have a remarkable talent for putting people at a severe disadvantage to get what they want. And their wants are astonishingly alike.”
“But this is a business! Patricia can’t abide work, and he--”
“This is a business that will rely heavily on reputation. Remember that. We haven’t yet had a chance to show we’re above reproach and maintain the highest standards. I’d hate to have that threatened before we’ve even begun, or this great, brick monster could stand vacant forever. Do you think those who can afford these services will visit us if it’s thought we behave scandalously? Think, Lilly! This is delicate!”
When Fletcher Drake arrived at the hotel, Amanda took him into her study. It took a very long time to inform him about Ned Armstrong, who he was, the shabbiness of his character, and the reason he was to be feared.
“The first order of business is to buy his silence. I’m sure that will come at a high price, but convince him somehow that I’m willing. And next, let’s find out what he’s been up to for the past few years. There has to be something in his past for which he can be prosecuted and put away. And he must not know where his other daughter is.”
“If he can be found guilty of some crime, to prosecute him will create quite a stir--a lot of talk.”
“Don’t be a ninny, Fletcher. I won’t prosecute him. But he’ll open his mouth at the risk of prison. I hope and pray!”
“And Lilly?” Fletcher asked.
“What about Lilly?”
“She knows about this? Your plan?”
“Of course. More or less. What are you getting at?”
“It’s her father--” he began.
“He’s a scoundrel! Jackass! Devil of the--”
“Her father,” Fletcher added, quietly.
“Well, what the hell would you have me do?” Amanda demanded impatiently.
“I don’t know, madam. My own father was a ruthless bastard, and I hated him.” He shrugged. “I wept at his burial…just the same.”
“Oh, Fletcher, for God’s sake, you’re nearly fifty years old! Surely you recovered from--”
“Amanda,” he said, stopping her with the use of her name. Although he was an old friend, he rarely presumed unless the matter was personal and sensitive. “I don’t mean to tell you how to deal with Armstrong. But does one ever recover from the abuse of a parent? I’m not sure. We’ll do what has to be done. Comfort Lilly as well, that’s all. This can’t be easy for her. Harder for her than all of you.”
Amanda slowly softened, the angry turn of her mouth relaxing. “Perhaps you will comfort her?”
Fletcher smiled tolerantly. “I feel affection for Lilly. Not passion. Yes, I’ll comfort her, if I can.”
“That’s good,” Amanda said, picking up her pen again, composed. “If it were passion, Fletcher, dismissing you would be only the beginning.”
He laughed loudly, enjoying her threat, knowing she was completely dependent on him. “Ah, to see the two of you tangle, what a rare treat that would be!” He stood to leave.
“I hope you never do,?
Fletcher turned to see her sitting at her desk, her thoughts far from the hotel. “Madam,” he said. “I’m forty-six.”
“Ah. Well.” She shook herself. “Lilly is twenty-one. If your touch is ever more than avuncular, I’ll probably have to shoot you.” She looked again at her papers.
“Yes, madam,” he said, laughing.
When Lilly awoke on the morning of November 25,1880, she bolted from her bed and pulled back the curtains. A shriek of sheer delight escaped her. The clouds had gathered in the previous days, and she had nearly fainted from the intensity of her prayers--she asked God in desperation to send snow to cover the grounds, the gently sloping hills surrounding the hotel. The area surrounding the hotel was still patchy, dirty; there were deep rivets and gullies from construction, half-finished flower beds and lawns--a sight she hoped to conceal during her opening. And not just any kind of snow, she prayed, but a perfect, gentle snow. A storm would paralyze them.
The opening would constitute a three-day celebration of food, drink, diversions, parties, music. Fires were set to blaze in hearths around the hotel. An orchestra played for three hundred guests, over two hundred of whom would stay at least a few days in the Armstrong Arms. Magnificent dinners were served: squab, duckling, porterhouse steak, fabulous pastries, a variety of breads, soups, and puddings. Musicales were performed by singers. There was a formal ball and dancing, a great deal of champagne, and complimentary sleigh rides through the hotel grounds. Skating on the nearby frozen pond entertained some guests while others were content to take tea and cake in one parlor or another.
From all Lilly could tell, it was a success followed by a modest but not disappointing number of reservations. Reporters from various newspapers had been invited, their meals and accommodations provided by the hotel, and the stories about the opening that followed were glowing. The Armstrong Arms, it was written, was more luxurious than La Pierre House or the Nesbitt House, the two luxury class hotels in Philadelphia. More than one reporter suggested that the Armstrong Arms could easily, over time, develop a reputation as the finest hotel in the United States.