“Oh dear, Archie,” she said as she sat beside his desk, “this is a sad errand. I closed Mother’s house last night.”
“How is she?”
“Depressed. But the good of it is she no longer has to fear foreclosure. She’ll do fine in the apartment. And she’s still in the old neighborhood.”
“I knew it was happening,” Archie said. “Such a pity. Such a magnificent house it was.”
“I’ve taken a few pieces of special memory, but the rest is off to be auctioned. I bring valuables for our box in your vault. Mother had a safe for them at home, but I do not.”
As he prepared the paper for her to sign, Katrina saw the descending panorama of Archie’s entire life, culminating in the whiskey-blotch of his face; and she realized precisely how this, too, had happened. She would have to tell him.
“We’ll go in now,” Archie said, and together they walked across the bank to the armed guard, and Archie presented him with Katrina’s identification card; and they entered. Katrina left her bag on the table in the coupon room, and walked into the great vault of the bank with Archie. Together they opened the combination lock on the Daugherty safe deposit box, and Katrina carried the box back to the table.
“I’ll be a few minutes with this,” she said.
“Ring the wall buzzer and I’ll come back,” Archie said.
She took the jewel case out of her bag and placed all that was in it on the table: her mother’s diamond tiara, the silver cream pitcher from the Cromwell tea service, a pair of gold cuff links inscribed with her father’s initials in Old English script, two gold rings she and Adelaide had outgrown in childhood, the single strand of pearls Lyman had given Geraldine on her sixteenth birthday, and a miscellany of gold and silver bracelets that might not be gold and silver, since Geraldine had yielded most jewelry of value to rescue her husband from debt. This was what remained of the Taylor fortune, excepting what would come from the auction and the sale of the house, some of which would clear her mother’s debt to tradesmen, doctors, and lawyers, the rest to go into the trust fund that would pay for Geraldine’s modest room and board for the rest of her life. The melancholy management of reduced expectations.
Katrina took two silk scarves from her bag, wrapped the tiara, pitcher, and cuff links (a set of rainy-day surprises for Edward) in one, the rest of the items in the other. She saw that, as now packed, the deposit box would not accept all she wanted to put into it. She took out the family documents, their birth certificates, and the endowment agreement under which Lyman gave an annuity to Edward, the deeds to the Colonie Street house and the Daugherty house on Main Street, and two plays by Edward she had copied and put here for safekeeping without his knowing: Pyramus and Thisbe, which had since been published and no longer needed to be here, and Lunar Majesty, his play about a woman’s courtship, marriage, and early estrangement from her husband. Katrina cherished this play for its compassion and insight — into her, of course — she the enduring heroine of all of Edward’s works. She opened the manuscript to a page and read:
THE HUSBAND: I’m convinced she’s walled in behind the energy of her derangement, sane as anyone alive, mad as the queen of Bedlam — the stigmata, the sickness, the lesions visible in her eyes and the clutch of her hand. Such a marvel of womanhood, as pure and as fated as Eve before the serpent.
“A bit overstated, Edward,” Katrina said aloud.
Then she closed the manuscript, laid it flat in the deposit box, arranged the diaries atop it, then put in the jewels wrapped in their scarves. She folded Pyramus and Thisbe into her leather bag, closed the box, and rang the buzzer for Archie. He was waiting outside the door. Together they reentered the vault, secured the box in its place, and left the vault.
“I saw my father last night at the house,” Katrina said as they went out.
Archie stopped, looked at her, took off his pince-nez.
“I was standing in his office,” she said, “and I realized he was in the cellar. I went down with a candle and found him sitting on a stool by the pipe where the city water comes in. The pipe was dripping water onto his shoulder. He was wearing his small spectacles and an old overcoat, which was quite wet. He was hunched over and looked very pitiful. We stared at each other until I summoned the courage to say, ‘I would take you upstairs, Father, but there’s nothing up there now.’ He continued to stare at me, and the water dripped onto his unruly hair.”
Archie looked away from Katrina, spoke to the floor.
“You know, Katrina, of course you know, that your father is dead. You were at his burial.”
“Of course I was, of course I know that.”
“I suppose these things can happen.”
“Father blamed Edward for Adelaide’s death, but I was the one. Edward was only doing what he knew I wanted.”
“You can’t blame yourself for such things, Katrina. You seem a bit skewed today, frankly. You should see a doctor.”
“I’m very clear on it, Archie. I truly am.”
Her voice was as bright as morning.
“If I hadn’t been what I was, Edward and I wouldn’t have needed to make peace with the family. If we all hadn’t gone to that dinner of reconciliation, Adelaide and my father wouldn’t have died, and you wouldn’t have ruined your career with drink.”
“I have hardly done that, Katrina. You are ill.”
“It’s you who are ill, Archie, and I’m sorry I had a hand in it.”
“You’ll soon be taking blame for the weather.”
“Perhaps I shall. It’s quite uncanny what one sets in motion by being oneself.”
She stood up and extended her hand.
“Thank you so much, Archie. I must go up to the Hall now and see a bit of the dress rehearsal of Edward’s play.”
“Yes, I saw a notice in the paper.”
“I believe he’s written the tragedy of our lives. And do stop drinking, Archie. You’re such a good man without it.”
“You should learn to mind your own business, Katrina.”
“Yes, I suppose I should. But I have so very little business to mind.”
Katrina Watches The Flaming Corsage
She sits alone at the rear of the orchestra
In Harmanus Bleecker Hall,
Albany’s premier
Theater
She sees only Act Four, Scene One
The text of the scene:
The City Club Tea Room on Elk Street (ladies only), summer, 1910. One round white wicker table, two matching chairs, one potted palm tree in white pot.
MARINA and CLARISSA are seated at table with white lamp with white shade, a pot of tea, two cups and saucers, spoons, two small plates, and, in the center of the table, a plate of small sandwiches made from white bread with crusts removed.
Both women are elegantly dressed in long, white dresses with colossal hats. marina’s hat is a garden of puffy white ostrich plumes. Clarissa’s hat is a circular fountain of long, narrow white feathers.
MARINA: Will you have tea?
CLARISSA: If you please.
(Marina pours tea into both cups.)
You must wonder about my letter.
MARINA: Not at all.
CLARISSA: I thought it important to write you.
MARINA: Did you? Why was that?
CLARISSA: I thought we should discuss Miles.
MARINA: Did you? Why was that?