Twain's End by Lynn Cullen

languorously toward the terrace. The hand withdrew.
    â€œLivy. She’s calling me.” Mr. Clemens threw down his cigar and stalked to the house, sending the pair of bluebirds up and away.
    Isabel crushed the smoldering nub under her boot, then, after checking the window, picked it up and touched the damp end where his mouth had been.

8.

    June 1903
    Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York
    O H DEAR, IT WAS humid, and it was only June! Mrs. Lyon patted her face with her handkerchief as she surveyed Isabel’s hair, assessing the work to be done. How was she to fix the mess her daughter had made of it in time for her gentleman caller and still make them a lovely tea? The Wild Men from Borneo had tidier coiffures. Shaking her head, she tucked her hankie into her belt and then plunged into battle with the teasing brush.
    â€œHow many years has Mr. Bangs taught at Columbia?” She furiously back-combed. “You did tell him that your father taught there for eighteen years?”
    Isabel scraped the chair armrests with her fingernails, as if warring against the urge to spring from her seat. Mrs. Lyon renewed her grip on Isabel’s hair to keep her from moving. Not only was John Kendricks Bangs a Columbia man, but charming, sweet, and pleasantly even-featured in a bald, Humpty Dumpty–ish but nice way. He was a famous humorist (although not as famous as Mr. Clemens), and still Isabel said that she found him as boring as unsalted bread. Did Isabel consider that he was still in mourning? His wife had died only two months earlier—of course he was not at his best. Isabel should not be so judgmental.
    â€œBe still!” Mrs. Lyon seized another hank of her daughter’s hairas if apprehending a criminal. “I see a gray.” She isolated the offender with the point of the teasing brush, grasped it by the root, and yanked. She produced her culprit. “There.”
    Isabel glanced at it, then rolled her gaze away with a sigh.
    Mrs. Lyon cleaned the excess strands from the brush and then stuffed them into the ceramic hair receptor on the vanity. From a quick stirring of the pot with her little finger, she gauged that she had just about enough hair to roll together a new rat—a fresh rat was the secret to the fluffiest pompadour, didn’t you know. She could see why her daughter would be disturbed by the gray. It was 1903, which—goodness!—made Isabel almost forty. Almost forty and unmarried. To be graying before achieving wedlock must be a terrible shock. Mrs. Lyon had not been gray at this age, although she was already married with two children. Her hair had been thick as a fox’s pelt, and had glowed with hints of russet. She had not had grays until Charles died twenty years ago, although then they had come in droves. In truth, it was a miracle that at Isabel’s age, she hadn’t had a shock of hair as white as thistledown. It had not been easy being married to a man as handsome and as vain and as unfaithful as Charles had been. How often had she needed to look away and pretend he was not having relations with another woman?
    â€œDon’t worry, dear. That’s the only gray I saw.”
    Isabel stared into the mirror.
    Mrs. Lyon resumed back-combing her daughter’s hair. Gracious, Isabel needn’t take one silly gray so hard. How about having to deal with your husband’s illegitimate child—alone? There wasn’t a person in the world with whom she could talk about it. Isabel knew nothing of it—none of the children did. Mrs. Lyon had protected them from the knowledge and borne the shame of its existence by herself. Not that she expected their thanks for shielding them. It was just what a mother did.
    â€œNow, tell me about Mr. Clemens.” She picked up the next section of hair framing her daughter’s face. “Where did he take you in New York? Wherever you went, you simply ruined your hair. It’s sodamp, it will hardly take a