Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [143]
Francie sighed. She just wanted everything to be perfect for him because he was such a perfect man.
She glanced at the clock. Eight fifteen. She walked to the window and looked out and then walked back again, puzzled. It wasn’t like Edward to be late, at least not without telephoning. Still, things happened, maybe he couldn’t get to a telephone right now. Telling herself not to worry, that the food would not spoil and there was no rush, she paced backward and forward across her cosy firelit sitting room, waiting.
By nine o’clock her joyful expression had faded to anxiety and she stared worriedly out the window. By ten she slumped into the chair by the dying fire, her eyes closed, praying for the bell to ring. She jumped up again at eleven when she heard footsteps outside, but the front door opened and closed and she recognized Annie’s quick soft step as she walked discreetly to her room. She thought of telephoning his hotel but pride held her back. Surely if he were delayed this long he could have sent her a message.
She didn’t count the minutes and the hours after that. There was no use. She knew Edward was not coming. Head in her hands, she asked herself despairingly, Why? She asked herself the same question a thousand times. Hadn’t he called her just a few days ago and said he was going to marry her no matter what? Tearless, she paced the floor again. She pulled back the curtains and gazed out at the endless quiet night, watching and wondering. And as dawn fought its way through a pearly-gray mist she sank exhausted back into her chair. She knew that for the second time in her life she had lost the man she loved.
Annie found her there at seven o’clock when she came in to check that the table had been cleared. She stared at Francie huddled in the chair, taking in the elegant, untouched table and the guttered candles. “He didn’t come,” she said flatly.
Francie’s eyes were as dead as the ashes in the grate as she looked at her friend. “It’s my fault, Annie,” she said wearily. “I should never have allowed him to suggest coming here, I should never had allowed him to think of marriage. I knew it was wrong. You can’t build happiness on a foundation of lies.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what happened, but I know I’ll never see him again.”
She stood up and trailed wearily to the door. The expensive deep-blue evening gown looked faintly tawdry in the bright morning light, and her shoulders sagged.
Annie said, “Francie, why don’t you telephone him, find out what happened? Surely there must be some explanation—”
“We shall never know.”
But later that morning two notes were delivered, one on Fairmont Hotel stationery. It read: “Francesca. I have had a long night to think things over and I must come to the conclusion that you were right after all, and it is better that we do not see each other again. Please forgive me.” It was signed merely “E.”
The second note was on Harrison Herald stationery and told her curtly that Harry had thought it wise to inform her suitor of her background and that he would do anything in his power to stop such a marriage. It was signed “H. Harrison.”
Harry and Lord Stratton were on the same Pacific Pullman train to New York that afternoon. They nodded and Harry smiled, but Stratton did not speak to him and Harry did not see him again for the rest of the journey.
CHAPTER 30
1912-1917
When he was in New York, Harry always stayed at the Hotel Astor at the corner of Broadway and 44th Street. He liked the location and the luxury as well as the aristocratic connections, and along with Sherry’s, Rector’s, and Delmonico’s, the Astor Roof Garden was his favorite place for an assignation with a woman. The roof