That Wednesday, Lizzie called at the Putnams’. Odd Wednesdays were Mrs. Putnam’s regular at-home days and Lizzie was resuming her regular, pre–magical-juncture life down to the tiniest particular. Erma was visiting from Sacramento with the new baby, and Mrs. Mullin, like Lizzie, was obligated to attend. Lizzie was eager to show everyone her same old self, boring as ever, and keeping quiet about her real thoughts, just the way they liked her best.
She sat in the Putnams’ conservatory, a fashionable room with a terra-cotta tile floor and curtains of dotted muslin. A fern grew in a bronze planter at the end of the sofa next to Lizzie. It was so large that one frond tapped her shoulder whenever she moved her head.
Outside, the sky darkened. A light rain flicked against the windows, giving the room a contrasting coziness. The baby fussed. Mrs. Putnam took him from Erma, bounced him on her thighs, floated him on her fat, rustling skirts until he quieted. “Isn’t he precious?” she asked, and Lizzie supposed that another time he was bound to be. He hiccoughed, his heavy eyelids flying open, startled, with each spasm. “Isn’t he the precious man?”
“He is just so precious,” Mrs. Mullin said. “Erma, he’s a little rosebud!” Mrs. Mullin was wearing a dress of gray wool, with a white collar that sprang up around her thin neck. From certain angles her head seemed suspended above it like an impossibly balanced egg.
Blythe appeared, pushing a cart with their afternoon tea. Blythe was a widow with two adult sons who’d worked for the Putnams fifteen years now. When she left the room, Mrs. Putnam would say that they thought of Blythe as one of the family. Mrs. Mullin would add what a charity it was to keep her on, when a Chinaman could be got for so much less. Cheap Chinese help was one reason wives in San Francisco society were considered so spoiled.
Lizzie’s own contributions were equally unvarying. “How are the boys, Blythe?” Lizzie asked, just as she always did, as if they weren’t, in fact, grown men.
“I’ve no complaints, Miss Hayes,” Blythe said, but in her absence, Mrs. Putnam would know better. The boys were badly behaved, shockingly extravagant. They would be the ruin of poor Blythe if not the actual death of her.
Blythe brought Lizzie the tea tray. On it were biscuits with almonds pressed into the tops and arranged like petals, and buttered toast with lime marmalade. Lizzie circled the spoon in her cup so it made a rough music against the china, like the tongue of a crude bell. She turned to Erma. “Think how many times you and I played at this. Tea parties with water for tea and wooden blocks for tea cakes. In this very house. Why are children in such a hurry to grow up?”
“Babies,” said Erma complacently, “are God’s very best idea.” And that quickly the coziness was gone. Lizzie felt excluded from the sentiment, as though she were still playing make-believe while everyone else had gone on and done the real thing. She would never have a baby, nor would she be anyone’s baby ever again. She had a tactile memory of her mother’s hand on the back of her head, following the brushstroke down her hair, and was overcome with self-pity when it turned out to be the fern. Poor Lizzie had no one of her very own. She sat back and the fern frond groped at her bosom.
Outside the melancholy ticking of rain, inside the murmur of women’s voices. Blythe was one of the family, but ever so much more expensive than a Chinaman would be. Children were God’s very best idea, except for Blythe’s, who would be the death of her. Mrs. Mullin had met a Mr. and Mrs. Derry while attending a lecture on the customs of Japan. “In Japan, they consider it impolite to finish the food on your plate!”
“Not really! Do you hear, Lizzie?”
“They won’t take a gift unless it’s offered three times! The first two are considered mere politeness.”
Lizzie helped herself to another biscuit. What a nightmare fund-raising must be in Japan!
According to Mrs. Mullin, the Japanese were an exceptionally clean, respectable race, who only looked like the Chinese. The way you could tell the difference was that the Japanese were extremely sensitive to beauty. Sunrises and waterfalls and the like, they couldn’t get enough of them. The Chinese didn’t care so much for nature, which is why they were so good underground.
But the Derrys were a nice, refined sort of people, and they lived on Octavia, close to the Bell mansion. They’d told Mrs. Mullin that in the days before the Sharon trial had made Mrs. Pleasant such a public figure, large groups of Negroes used to gather at the House of Mystery for voodoo ceremonies. This would happen only on stormy nights and when Thomas Bell was away. “How those women carried on in his absence! They counted on the noise of the wind to cover the drums, but it didn’t hardly do the job,” Mrs. Mullin noted. “As if thunder rolls in rhythm!”
Mrs. Putnam’s teacup floated to her mouth. She spoke from behind it. “I hope you’ve kept your promise and not seen that woman again.” Everyone turned to look at Lizzie. “I’m forced to tell you there’s been talk.” Her voice sounded forced. It sounded tired, upset. “Ever since the séance your name has been linked to hers. A strong public disavowal right then and there would have settled the matter.”
“I’ll make one here and now. I’ll have nothing more to do with her,” Lizzie said. The room was warm with tea and approval. Poor Malina Paillet, who never got to be warm again. Drums and the moon and a young dead girl about whom no one cared. Red rooms and painted mouths. Statues of naked, pleading women. Good-bye to all of that, and not the tiniest touch of headache.
In fact, after her declaration, things got even better. As a reward for being the same old Lizzie, Mrs. Putnam invited her to join them for the Saturday-evening promenade. Not this week, when they had a dinner to go to, but weather permitting, the next. Happy Lizzie! She loved the Saturday-night Market Street parade. Saturday afternoon was for women and fashion. Lizzie could go to that alone, but she had no interest. Saturday night required an escort.
And then things got better yet. The baby made a series of gaseous noises and began to smell. The nursemaid was hovering nearby. She was thin and drained-looking, a woman whose hands, when empty, drooped exhausted from her wrists. Mrs. Putnam handed little Charles to her. His odor receded down the hall, up the stairs, and behind the nursery doors. There was no further talk of what a rosebud he was. Lizzie drank her tea in utter contentment.