Beautiful Wild - Anna Godbersen Page 0,78

large crowds that have gathered to welcome the survivors of the sinking of the Princess of the Pacific, of which I was famously one. This has been a heartening experience for all of the survivors, who, as I have expounded upon in my serialized account, suffered a trial of body and spirit on a desert island in the South Seas and were rescued only by the heroic voyage and return of Fitzhugh Farrar, sole heir to the Farrar Line after the tragic drowning of his older brother. Our trip back to the mainland was upon the grandest of the Farrar ships, which has recently been rechristened the Vida.

However, several of the survivors have confided to me privately that they will be glad to finally reach New York, where the Farrar family has put up all members of the island camp in the Waldorf-Astoria indefinitely. The ordeal on the island was of course exhausting, but that is nothing compared to being feted by crowds of thousands! What we all know, and few will acknowledge, is this, my dears: the crowds are particularly vociferous on account of the sweethearts whose union was sealed on the aforementioned island. As you have read in this account, the proposal was of a most dramatic and memorable nature. It is said, though they have been coy about a date, that Fitzhugh Farrar and Miss Vidalia Hazzard, who met as fellow passengers aboard the Princess and began their courtship in a faraway place of swaying palms, will be wed before the year is out. Keep reading this column to learn if this rumor can be credited. . . .

Twenty-Six

“What are those?” Vida asked, her palm pressed to the glass in the private salon of the Farrar ferry, which delivered its transcontinental-to-transatlantic passengers from the Pennsylvania Station in New Jersey to the docks of Manhattan, where they might take an evening’s rest in one of the city’s fine hotels before beginning their journey to Europe. That was her own destination—hers and Mother and Father’s. They were all dressed in smart new suits for their first trip to New York City, Vida in a fitted high-necked jacket and skirt of cornflower blue—a shade she could not possibly have worn with her former complexion, but which was quite striking on her now—and a broad, beribboned hat; Mother and Father were in maroon and dark gray. Her life was just as it had been before the Princess (parties, dresses) except much grander, and much more talked about in newspapers.

Meanwhile the life she had led on the island had become dreamlike. She knew she had been there, but it did not seem quite real.

Except, sometimes—or maybe, really, if she was being frank with herself, several times an hour—she would close her eyes, and the smell of the ocean and the breeze against her neck and the salt from the sea sticking to her ankles were more tangible than this busy, safe world of railcars and fitting rooms and interviews and celebratory dances. She could almost hear Sal saying:

Look at the world, look at all this wonder, stay still and just look at it, what are you rushing for, what else do you need?

Then the life of parties and social columns seemed the illusion. She would be surprised when she opened her eyes and saw that it all went marching on. That more invitations arrived, and very interesting people sent notes seeking her friendship. There were so many appointments to be kept; it seemed the rest of her life had been planned out for her. That without a word from her, the whole trajectory of her story on this Earth had been written, described in print, heralded before it even took shape. And, all the while, various travel accommodations had been made in her name—she was moved inexorably toward a future she couldn’t remember agreeing to. Another day, another place like this: a first-class salon on a train or boat, with all the tassels, crystal lamps, silken settees, and regularly circulating trays of tea or champagne. An aura of luxurious and perfumed quiet that enveloped her thoughts and made her tired.

“What are what?” Fitzhugh, who sat beside her on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other, looked up from his newspaper and glanced at the river. His appearance too had undergone a change—he wore a trim black jacket and chewed his bottom lip as he read the news. Her handsome fiancé, the one she’d dreamed of. Yes, the river was crowded with