I had an impulse to rush to him, hug him, tell him . . . what? That I’d grown up reading books he hadn’t yet written? That I’d been named for him?
I watched him sit alone at the most distant table. He was smaller than I expected; medium height, not short but small-framed, with narrow shoulders. He wore a dark, rumpled suit; his tie was unfastened. Beneath the tousled hair his skin looked pale in the lamplight. He produced a pipe and rummaged through his pockets for matches. I took a deep breath and stepped forward.
“Mr. Clemens?”
His eyes reflected blue-green as they met mine. His hands paused in their search. His mustache twitched. Something in his face changed, a quick masklike adjustment. Pensive and even melancholy in repose, the features were abruptly charged with sly alertness. “Yes?” He peered at me. “Are we acquainted?” The reedy voice held a pronounced drawl.
I held the letter out. “I think this is yours.”
“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed, snatching it and crushing it to his mouth. He breathed its scent, eyes squeezed shut. “Hang my head and carry me home to die!”
I stood awkwardly as he pulled out a handkerchief and honked into it.
“Forgive me,” he said. “As a general thing my feelings’re more cordially reserved. I’ve hunted high and low for this infernal letter. What a relief to have it!”
I told him where I’d found it.
“Must’ve dropped from my pocket. Sit down, sir! Allow me to stand a drink. This night’s built for pleasuring after all. Hell, I’ll stand us a dozen!”
He came back with four whiskeys, two apiece. Sorry, Andy, I thought, but this is a very rare occasion.
“You knew I was Clemens,” he said. “How’s that? Most sound me by a certain nom de plume. I can’t recollect—Washoe, the Pacific Slope, the Lyceum circuit? Have we met?”
“Not personally,” I said. “I’m Sam Fowler.”
“One Sam to another, I’m obliged.” We clinked glasses and drank. He gestured at the letter. “I’d be a ruined proposition if my darling thought I cared so little for her as to misplace that. Course, I’d gladly go through Hades in a celluloid suit to make up for it. Not that she’d demand it. She’s the dearest, gentlest, sweetest—oh, the best woman I can picture. Why such a noble and delicate creature as Livy consented to a conjugal matchup with the likes of—” He stopped suddenly, pulled the ribbon from the letter, and scanned its sheets.
“Why, there’re no full names here, just as I reckoned. How’d you know it was to me?”
“Isn’t it signed Livy Langdon?” I said.
He shook his head, eyes narrowing slightly over the hawk nose. “It addresses Youth and is signed Livy. Took months to convince her there’s no comfort to me in signing Olivia Louise Langdon, a practice that nigh put me into lunatic spasms. Presently I’m working to repair her spelling. When I’ve done that, I’ll relax with something easy—like bringing the Pyramids over brick by brick.”
As I laughed he gauged my reaction with a deadpan expression, the performer checking his material.
“Why Youth?” I said.
“There is no word for failure in the bright lexicon of youth,’” he recited dryly. “One of the sayings Livy keeps in her infernal little inspiration book. It’s part of her scheme to haul me out, scrape my keel, and refloat me.” He winked foxily as he produced a box of matches. His pipe emitted thick clouds and a swampy odor. He eyed me keenly. “Now, you didn’t answer me about the letter, did you?”
“I can’t really explain it, Mr. Clemens,” I said. “Call it a hunch. To tell the truth, I know a lot about you. You’re quite famous, you know.”
“Call me Mark,” he said, looking pleased. “What exactly do you know?”
The whiskey eroded my caution. “Well, for one thing, I know how you first saw Livy—her brother showed you her picture.”
His eyebrows lifted. “And where was that?”
“On your cruise around the world.”
“Bay of Smyrna, summer of ’sixty-seven.” His drawl sounded almost dreamy. “Even in that ivory miniature she was the loveliest of visions.” He shrugged and sucked on his pipe. “But you could be pals with young Charley Langdon or any other close to the family.”
“I know your engagement date.”
“Oh?” He frowned slightly. “You do?”
“February fourth.” I’d proposed to Stephanie on the same date. “It’s inscribed in Livy’s gold engagement band—and probably inside that one on your finger, too. Want another drink?”
“How’d—?” he began, staring hard. “Yes, I guess I do!” After they came he said, “What part of the country you from, Fowler?”
“San Francisco.”
“Freddy Marriott!” he exclaimed. “That’s who you pumped! And yet I don’t see how Freddy would’ve known of the rings. . . .”
“Your first daughter will be Susy,” I said, laughing, enjoying the power of it; in a way my whole life had been a preparation for this. “I’ll give my second girl that name.”
“That’s very curious,” he mused. “Later you’ll write a wonderful book about a boy on a raft and—” “Hold on,” he interrupted. “You’re not the first to tell me—I mean, about the girl Susy.”
I was speechless for a long moment. My sense of power evaporated, replaced by sharp and poignant sorrow: Susy, his favorite, would die in her early twenties, a terrible loss to Twain and his family. I had no right to be doing this.
“Who else told you?” I said.
“Spiritualist woman, a Lyceum stager with Redpath, same as I was. Went by Madame Antonia, something like that.”
I remembered the card
