Heatherstone—1897

I ’ll be bringing several business associates for dinner tonight,” Hugh Galloway informed his daughter over their morning coffee. “Will you take care of it?”

“Of course, Papa. I’ll talk to Dauphine immediately when we’re done here. There shouldn’t be any problem. Will there be women in the group?”

“No, just men. You can count on eight, I believe. It’s a business affair, actually.” Hugh often substituted the dinner table for the conference room.

Margo sighed, half relieved, half disappointed. Hostess to these affairs of her father’s, she found them to be both a trial and a pleasure. She accompanied Hugh on occasional dinner engagements and to various social functions, and these were enjoyable enough but rarely included people her age. As for entertaining at Heatherstone, she occasionally gleaned—and enjoyed—small glimpses into her father’s business affairs. If only he allowed her to be a part of them! She would find her interest rising, only to be snuffed out by ignorance. For usually, when dinner was over and coffee served, Hugh excused her, and she spent the evening in the library or in her room.

Hugh’s shutting her out of all things connected with his business puzzled her. She understood, though she couldn’t recall how she knew, that he had wanted a son. But all men do, she reasoned, and, not having one, surely they should settle for the daughter the Lord gave them and make the best of it!

Hugh was sixty. Though in fairly good health, time was running out for training someone to be in a place of responsibility with the eventuality of his sickness or death. She, Margo, was the logical person. Moreover, she had reasonably good intelligence, knew how to conduct herself around people of importance and, most of all, had little or nothing to do. Dauphine ran the house very well; cook had been with the family ever since Heatherstone was built; and Hugh’s personal needs were attended to by his attendant, Bailey. Margo felt ready, and frustrated, in all respects.

Now, planning another business dinner, a surge of rebellion at her uselessness and Hugh’s lack of interest in her life caused her to say, daringly, “I’d like to stay in, Papa. I’d like to be in on what goes on. I’d like to—”

Margo’s words faltered. Hugh’s face was not scornful, it was not angry. It was not bored—the reaction she dreaded most. The face her father lifted toward her was simply blank. Blank, as if what she had said was incomprehensible to him.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “After we’ve adjourned to the drawing room, you be prepared to join us. Perhaps you could bring in fresh coffee at that point. A little feminine company would go well about then. There will be,” he added thoughtfully, “several young men present tonight. How does that sound, my dear?”

Hot color surged into Margo’s cheeks. Had her father deliberately misunderstood? Or was he showing a father’s natural interest in his daughter’s future, which, of course, could only include marriage?

It was neither of those, Margo thought instinctively. After almost twenty years under his roof, she knew her father well. Here again, as across the years from her first memory, she had come face up with supreme indifference. And again, as countless times across the years, she was at a loss to understand why.

Never cruel, never anything but mannerly, Hugh had a reserve that did not allow Margo’s entrance. When she spoke, he listened politely, almost as a stranger might listen. Her every need was cared for. But he lived behind closed doors—where Margo was concerned. As a child she knew him as an idol to be worshipped but from afar. Entering her young womanhood, she realized that to his wife Hugh showed a degree of warmth and an interest that Margo was not privileged to share. The hurt increased, but the understanding did not.

Now, with her mother gone and doing all she could to be not only daughter but companion to him, she failed again, and finally, battled resentment, despair, even anger.

Now, with yet another demonstration of her father’s complete lack of understanding, Margo rose to her feet, her breath ragged and her lips, in spite of everything, trembling so that natural speech was difficult. She spoke from behind her serviette before laying it aside: “As you wish, Papa.”

As it turned out, three of the eight gentlemen were young, unmarried, eligible, and obviously attracted to the young daughter of magnate Hugh Galloway. Myron Dalton, Chester Fleer, and Winfield Craven all made themselves agreeable, even entertaining, and when Margo withdrew from the table, stood and bowed, expressing a desire that she join them later.

It would have taken a very indifferent female, indeed, not to enjoy, even enjoy greatly, the attention. When at last she opened the great double doors to the drawing room and, accompanied by Casper, the butler, with a cart of after-dinner refreshers, carried in the silver service, the three young men were on their feet, quick to take the tray, to assist Margo in serving and, at last, to settle at her feet and side with warm glances and earnest, sometimes arch, conversation.

Margaret had the good sense to know that, with her dark beauty (though she never thought of it as that) and her vivid coloring, it would be easy to look overblown and gaudy, and so tonight, as always, though dressed expensively, her costume was simple to the point of plainness. Fitting snugly at the waist and flaring above at the shoulders and below over the hips, its chief attraction was its variegated color. Walking through the park and entranced with the autumn hues, she had whimsically gathered a bouquet of leaves touched with the muted fading colors, and had taken them to a French dyeing establishment to be copied. When delivered, the proprietor, Lewando, had cunningly added his personal verse, thus proving again his rare gift for pleasing his customers and bringing a smile to Margo’s lips:

What loveliness! Whose art is this?

It leaves naught to desire!

Lewando’s name upon the box

Proclaims the Champion Dyer.

Her dark hair, so excessively curly that certain hairstyles were out of the question, was pulled back loosely and gathered at the nape of the neck with a large, pomegranate-colored bow. Slippers of the same shade peeped from below her hem line, and their French heel and satin strap buttoning across the instep proclaimed them handsome as well as expensive.

Margo’s natural vivid coloring was enhanced by the attention she was receiving as the men vied for her glance and smile. Before long, the expertise of Winfield Craven became clear. When Chester Fleer turned to direct a comment toward Hugh and the other gentlemen, Winfield skillfully engaged Margo in a conversation that kept her gaze turned his way; only with rudeness could she have interrupted the flow of the account he was telling not only verbally but with flashing hands and expressive face. Then, when Myron Dalton rose to replenish his drink, Winfield slipped from his position on the hassock at Margo’s feet to the coveted spot at her side, where the fascinating story continued. Nor did he move when Myron returned, to stand, fiddling with his drink, shifting from foot to foot and finally turning to engage someone else in conversation.

When the men rose to take their departure and Casper had brought their hats, canes, and coats—ankle-length, with or without velvet collars but macintoshes without exception, and all, without exception, including a detachable cape and made of the finest wool or cashmere—Winfield Craven managed to insert himself with his back to the men, facing Margo.

“Thank you for a most enjoyable evening,” he said, making it sound her personal accomplishment and taking her hand and holding it.

As Margo was responding to the usual banalities of the others, Casper opened the door. It was clear that the snow, which had begun earlier in the evening, was still falling and falling thickly.

“Miss Galloway,” Winfield Craven said, “it seems too golden an opportunity to miss the first sleigh ride of the year. Unless we have a thaw, would you do me the honor of accompanying me on a sleigh ride this coming Sunday afternoon?”

Seeing no reason not to . . . rather dreading the beginning of the long, quiet winter . . . and rather amused at the persistence of the man, Margo assented.

Parting to go to their separate quarters, Margo turned to her father and mentioned the invitation. “I don’t suppose you mind, Papa,” she added, and would have found her pulse leaping if he had so much as voiced an opinion—approval or disapproval, it mattered not.

But Hugh Galloway turned toward the stairs, to shut himself away until coffee time the next morning, with a murmured “fine, fine” that said, clearly, nothing at all.

Margo removed the autumn-tinted gown, prepared herself for bed, and gazed into a future that was as dark as the night itself.

Having nothing better to do, she turned her thoughts to the handsome face and polished manners of Winfield Craven. Drifting off to sleep, she fancied the darkness showed the faintest glow of light.