Time After Time by Antoinette Stockenberg

more confidently,
read the words which presumably she herself had written over a
century earlier.
    "'My dear Mercy,' "
Victoria read aloud.
     
    It is the middle of the
night, and I have only just returned from a champagne feast hosted
by Ambassador Schilling in honor of his "dear friend," the Duchess
de Tino. Before I retire, I must write and tell you everything —
everything! — while it is fresh in my mind.
    Let me say at once that
Newport is both the prettiest town, and the most vulgar, that I
have ever seen. It is, quite simply, the perfect place for us. A
mad gaiety abounds here which is much in need of a spiritual
corrective. I think, dear sister, that between us we can restore
the balance.
    You must come just as soon
as you can. I have no doubt that my hostess, who suffers the
painful afflictions of rheumatism, can much benefit from your
healing touch. And she has recently lost her third husband, of whom
they say she was fond.
     
    Victoria looked up at Liz
and said, "When I first read this part, I took what she said at
face value. Everyone knows that Newport entertained on a decadent
scale back then. I thought she believed she could do some good. And
Mercy, too — I do believe in faith healing," Victoria added with a defiant lift
of her chin.
    "As we know," said Liz in
her dry way. "What made you have second thoughts about Victoria St.
Onge?"
    "Well, she seems a little
too enthusiastic about the material world for a spiritualist. She
raves about all of it, from the canopied dancing pavilion on the
grounds to the two-hundred-foot-long red carpet they rolled out to
it from the house. And she loved the dinner menu — four different kinds of fowl,
six of seafood ... blah, blah. Okay, now listen to this part about
the woman she was actually staying with, the recently widowed Mrs.
Gundrun."
     
    I have it in mind to
reunite, if ever so briefly, Mrs. Gundrun with her dear Eckhard. I
understand that when he was alive, the lady was completely under
her husband's influence and spent her considerable fortune
according to his instructions. We shall see.
     
    Victoria made a funny
little grimace, then said, "How does that sound to you? Snotty or
genuine?"
    "I would have to say
snotty."
    Victoria sighed. "To me,
too."
    "Did she ever get them
together?"
    "Well — see what you think." Victoria
took out several sheets of stationery from the 1881 shoebox and
handed them to Liz.
    The letter was written in
a hurry; the handwriting was annoyingly illegible. Liz curled up in
the wing chair that was too small for Jack Eastman's shoulders and
began to read.
     
    My dear Mercy,
    I was disappointed, as you
can well imagine, to learn you have decided to prolong your stay in
Baden-Baden. I cannot blame you, of course. The hot springs there
have great allure for the wealthy infirm, and where they provide no
benefit, surely you, dear sister, can step into the breach. With
whom do you stay? Write me with more care than you have taken so
far. You are much too brief!
    As for me, I like my
little Newport very well indeed. After a month here, I have settled
into a pleasant routine. If the weather is fair, some of the bolder
of us head for the shore. I don my silk stockings, my corset, my
pantaloons and my black wool dress, then I slip into my bathing
shoes, put on my largest veiled hat, take up my black parasol — and
voilà! I am ready for bathing at Easton's Beach, a pretty crescent
of white sand that is oriented, praise heaven, to the prevailing
breeze.
    It hardly seems fair: no
sooner do we ladies get wet up to our knees, when the flag is run
up signaling us to evacuate the beach so that, beginning promptly
at twelve o'clock noon, the men may have their turn to bathe —
and they bathe, I
may add, completely unencumbered!
    But the afternoon beach is
perhaps the only thing that society ladies do not control in
Newport. The wealthiest women are very powerful here — indeed, they
can hardly be anything else, since their husbands are away all