Splendor

by Anna Godbersen

  For the first time all afternoon, Henry cracked a smile. The sight of the colonel floundering in the tranquil, opaque water was too comical to inspire any other reaction. The girls all shrieked and crawled forward to look at the foolish American whose fancy uniform, like the rest of him, was now submerged in the bay. They shrieked again when Henry undid the remaining buttons of his shirt, threw it on the deck, and dove in. He plunged deep into the cool silence; for that one moment of immersion it seemed to him that Florida was not, after all, too far to swim. The water, however murky, had a transformative effect. By the time Henry had gotten his arms around the colonel, gasped for breath at the surface, and pushed him back onto the deck of the boat, his anger had dissipated.

  “Are you all right, sir?” he asked, hoisting the colonel on the deck. The resentful lethargy he’d been feeling was washed away.

  “Yes, my boy,” he replied, clapping Henry on the wet back. There was something stunned in his appearance, but there was nothing really wrong with him. “All in good fun. I won’t harangue you about girls anymore, so long as you pour yourself a drink and at least pretend to relax a little.”

  “Yes, sir.” The air felt cooler now, and Henry pulled the sleeves of his shirt back over his slick arms. When he was finished with the buttons, he accepted the fresh glass of rum that Harvey’s girl had poured for him. Drinks were being passed all around.

  “To Cuba,” the girl said, raising her glass, “y Los Estados Unidos.”

  They all drank to a long friendship between their countries, and Henry, in his own mind, said his usual private toast: To Diana, whatever she might be doing these days, and to the grain of a chance that she might one day forgive him.

  Four

  The party that everyone wants to attend this evening is being hosted by Miss Carolina Broad, at her new townhouse on East Sixty-third off the park, and will be attended by such luminaries as the Prince of Bavaria, Mr. Reginald Newbold and his new bride, Adelaide, and Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker, the former Miss Penelope Hayes, who has been convalescing since a small family tragedy of early spring, and who may cause something of a scandal by going out so soon when her husband is still serving his country abroad. One invitee sure to be absent is Miss Broad’s new neighbor, Leland Bouchard, whose European tour was extended several times, and whose Atlantic voyage back to New York has been delayed by bad weather….

  ——FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF

  THE WORLD GAZETTE, FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1900

  THE HEAT WAS STIFLING, AND EVERY CONCEIVABLE inch of floor—from the shiny granite of the foyer, up the polished oak of the spiral staircase, to the herringbone parquet on the parlor level—was obscured by black dress shoes or sweeping skirts. Perfume and innuendo filled the air, although one could scarcely hear the voice of one’s neighbor, if that lady or gentleman were speaking at anything like an appropriate level. Music played, but only the best dancers kept going, for space was at a premium and everyone would have thought poorly of a less talented couple throwing their limbs about at a time like this. The throng pressed against the ivory-and-rose-flocked wallpaper of the first three stories, and although the windows had been left open, the air inside remained stagnant. Of course, no one dreamed of leaving. On that Friday evening, there was no place any of them would have rather been.

  Through the crush and up and down the stairs darted the hostess, Carolina Broad. She caused a little stir wherever she went, and not only because of the lavender silk dress that revealed her shoulders, hugged her hips, and trailed behind her like a bridal train. The beadwork on her bodice was so minute, it might have escaped the attention of her guests, had it not been for the incandescence those beads created in the chandelier light. There had been a time when she would have hidden her shoulders—they were big and bony, and in the summer they were darkened by freckles the same way her nose was—but she had learned not a few things since inheriting the mighty fortune of her late benefactor, Mr. Carey Lewis Longhorn, and among them was that a girl, if she is clever, owns what she already has. She had come from a Western family, a copper-smelting fortune, which was somewhat modest compared to her current holdings. That was the official story, at any rate, and her big, bare shoulders, their pale skin adorned with auburn flecks, the teeth that were slightly oversized for her mouth, confirmed it. Now, if she seemed a little large or coarse in places, it only enhanced her aura.

  The evening was a triumph, but she could not begin to enjoy it. The one person whose presence she cared about was somewhere out on the Atlantic.

  Perhaps to distract herself from disappointment, she moved hurriedly, setting off little currents and eddies among the guests who filled the halls and galleries of her new townhouse—No. 15, with a redbrick façade and tall, narrow layout. She had wanted one of those grandly squatting monoliths that they built on Fifth Avenue nowadays, but she had been very specific about wanting a home on this particular block, and number fifteen had been the only one available. To her surprise, this choice had proved advantageous to her. Everybody knew that she could afford someplace grander, but they applauded her in the press, and over decadently laid dinner tables, for choosing something elegant and appropriate to a young heiress without a family.

  These days, and especially tonight, everyone wanted to whisper in her ear. Carolina smiled and posed, and when her cheeks grew a little red from the warmth, that only served to make her green eyes look especially so in contrast. She exchanged coiffure compliments with Mrs. Reginald Newbold, née Adelaide Wetmore, who was stationed with her new husband under the life-size portrait of Carolina as a horsewoman that hung over the mantel in the third-floor library. It was the largest of the late Longhorn’s collection of portraits of society beauties, and his final commission. Halfway down the stairs she exchanged cordial hellos with Agnes Jones, who had at one time been a charity case of Carolina’s childhood friend Elizabeth Holland. Agnes was not in and of herself an interesting person, but she did—Carolina had recently discovered—feed bits of gossip to the New-York News of the World Gazette society columnist, and so if one was kind to her, one could count on that kindness being returned in print. Carolina flirted casually with Amos Vreewold at the entryway of the second-story rosewood-paneled drawing room, and his reputation for rather familiar compliments did not disappoint.

  When she couldn’t stand it any longer she broke from the throng and stepped toward the south-facing windows. The fragrant summer city smelled of heat and leaves and vaguely, not entirely unpleasantly, of animal. There were horses below, beside her guests’ drivers, who waited, and would wait some more, probably until the very advanced hour of the morning when the party, to everybody’s disappointment, ended. Carolina took what seemed her first breath in a long while, and then she did something she did almost every day, and some days every hour: She permitted her eyes to drift down the block, to a limestone mansion with the number 18 carved into its impressive face. That was where Leland Bouchard lived—at least, when he was in town, which had not been the case for several months.

  For a moment she’d let herself hope that he had finally returned, but now she saw the windows were just as dark and inscrutable as they had been for months. She swallowed dejectedly, and her shoulders slumped. Leland was supposed to have arrived from Europe two days before—Carolina knew because his departure from Paris had been announced in the society column. It was the whole reason she had decided to have her party that evening; it was the whole reason she had chosen this particular house on this particular block in the first place. But then stormy seas had delayed his ship, and he had not returned in time to attend the opening of her house after all.

  They had shared a few perfect days together in Florida—all swooning and dancing—but that was back in February. Once or twice she had imagined the words Marry me on his lips, although of course that would have been very quick indeed. When she last saw him, it was in New York and the winter had still been bitter, and she’d believed herself a ruined girl. Since then she had become very rich,
truly rich—all her greatest fears had blown over. Now she dreamed every night of the moment when he’d finally walk through her doors and witness her in all her glory. Waiting was painful, and the only thing to assuage it was to look dolefully from her south-facing windows at his house, willing the lights to flicker on.

  “Why, Miss Broad, whatever are you staring at?”

  Carolina turned too quickly to disguise the blush on her cheeks. Penelope Schoonmaker was approaching, long and shimmering and bedecked in her old vermilion glory, which had not been on such generous display since her little “illness” of late spring. Miss Broad blinked and kissed Mrs. Schoonmaker on either cheek. Although Carolina’s presence in Penelope’s bridal party that past New Year’s Eve had announced the former as a young lady of sound importance, they were not the kind of friends who liked to show one another their vulnerabilities. The only person who knew the depth of Carolina’s feelings for Leland was her older sister, Claire, who still worked as a maid for the Hollands and who savored any small tidbit of her younger sister’s life among the fashionable people. But of course life was very busy, for an heiress anyway, and the sisters hadn’t been able to have one of their secret meetings in some weeks. Or was it months?

  “Your house is exceptionally good,” Mrs. Schoonmaker remarked after a moment. The two regarded each other like wary allies. Carolina was gratified to see that Penelope’s best diamonds dripped from her slender neck and across her alabaster décolletage, and that her oval face had been made up with prodigious care. It was obvious, to the hostess and everybody else, that she had not taken the evening casually.

  “You must come see it again soon, at a quieter moment, when we can talk more intimately,” Carolina replied, in a studiously refined voice. “Now that you are going out again.”

  “I would enjoy that.” Penelope smiled crisply. A sharp quality came into her round blue eyes; when she spoke again, it was with counterfeit concern. “But now tell me—whatever is it you’re gazing at? You can’t afford to grow distracted during your first big party.”

  “No.” There was irony in Carolina’s tone, even though on the surface she pretended to agree. Still she itched to swivel and glance again at Leland’s empty house. “I cannot.”

  “I myself would not have invited Agnes Jones,” Penelope went on, turning to assess the other wealthy New Yorkers who packed the corners of the rooms and jammed the doorframe. “Although I was relieved not to see that divorcée Lucy Carr in attendance. Pity Leland Bouchard was not returned in time….” She paused portentously. “But, oh, look, the lights have just gone on in his house.”

  Now Carolina felt her mouth grow dry and her lips part. For a moment she insisted to herself that she would not be obvious, and so continued to meet her friend’s archly knowing gaze. But the desire was too great. She turned her whole body and looked across the street. This scene, which she had seen so many times since moving into No. 15, had suddenly undergone a transformation. The lights were now on, and the windows had been thrust open. Many pieces of luggage were being carried from a motorcar, up the steps and into what appeared all of a sudden to be a very warm place.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered. She did not pause to gauge Penelope’s reaction. She did not care what it was. She had to find her butler, immediately, and send him to summon Leland.

  Now, hurrying back across the floor, her body had become unusually light. The humid air was nothing to her, nor was the weight of her skirts. She was stopped only once en route to the second-floor landing, by a garish face she recognized a few seconds later as belonging to Mrs. Portia Tilt. That lady was wearing acres of green satin and sticking out among members of Manhattan’s best families like a fly on fondant; she had been the hostess’s employer for a few days during late winter, and had dismissed her then-social secretary after an episode of unforgivable insubordination. Of course, since then, Carolina had come into more money than the Tilts could ever dream of, and had been seen out with all the people Mrs. Tilt had hoped to get in with. Carolina stared at her for a moment, and then smiled in a partial way that did not really communicate hospitality—the invitation had served its purpose, and Mrs. Tilt now knew which of the two was the more consequential lady.

  They exchanged careful smiles, and by the time Mrs. Tilt’s began to fade Carolina was already moving past her, onto the crowded staircase landing. She felt a surging agitation, because she feared the butler would be impossible to find just now, when she needed him so. The din was too loud for her to call for him, and meanwhile he was probably on some useless errand, trying to replace the melted ice under the oysters long after everyone had stopped caring about food. But in the next moment it became clear that she wasn’t going to need him at all. There, below her, Leland Bouchard stood in front of the door, glancing about him at the giddily shrieking partygoers, with their lit cigarettes and drained champagne flutes, looking adorably just a touch out of place.

  “Mr. Bouchard!” she called, before pushing past the bodies crowding the stairs. None of the subtly dishonest ladylike quality that she had mastered over the previous season had been evident in her voice.

  The lavender silk and chiffon of her dress fit her tightly in some places, holding her upright and imperious; in others it bloomed, as though all of her were some fragrant and enticing bouquet. She blinked and took in his height; his light brown hair, which was overgrown and tucked behind his ears; the pale, plainspoken blue of his eyes; the gorgeous width of his shoulders. All of these qualities contributed to the sense that her cool exterior was about to crack again.

  Men in black jackets and women in sweet silks were still all around, but they no longer mattered. Carolina’s smile overtook her face before she could help it, and then Leland smiled back in a way that caused her chest to swell pleasurably with air. She took the final step down and joined him on the shiny granite. In her fantasies of their reunion, she began by offering him a tour of the house or a glass of Scotch, but neither of these seemed worthy of the moment. She was now close enough to grip his upper arm in welcome. What she most wanted to do was not very ladylike at all—but then, she was from a western state, and maybe he would assume that what was appropriate for girls was different out there.

  When she next spoke, her voice had fallen to a near mumble: “How did Paris suit you?”

  “Oh…wonderfully. I saw all variety of new automobiles and traveled a great deal. I…” He paused and shook his head, as though his travels had lost all importance. “I thought of you so frequently—it quite surprised me.”

  For a moment the elegant Manhattanites leaning against the second-story railing, or pressed up against the cloakroom, or smoking on the landing, ceased to exist. It was late, anyway, and quite a few cases of champagne had been drunk already. She turned her face up toward Leland invitingly, and found that he scarcely hesitated before putting his lips discreetly against hers. When he pulled away, his eyes shimmered with silver and his voice had deepened.

  “Carolina—you aren’t like the rest of them.”

  Everyone on the second and third floors had concluded, several hours ago, that the hostess was a success. But now she saw that, for entirely different reasons, she was a success in the foyer, in a private scene that could not have been more perfect if she had scripted it herself in advance. Every inch of her skin radiated with the pleasure of Leland’s words. A confession played, briefly, on her tongue, and she considered telling her handsome neighbor exactly why she wasn’t like the rest of them. But then she didn’t want to ruin anything, and so went on beaming at him as the night lengthened and the party went on upstairs without them.

  Five

  When a lady takes a less established girl under her wing, she always runs the risk that she will someday be outshone, which is why she must do so only sparingly and with the greatest care.

  ——MAEVE DE JONG, LOVE AND OTHER FOLLIES OF

  THE GREAT FAMILIES OF OLD NEW YORK

  “THEY’VE ALL GROWN SO SMALL,” PENELOPE SCHOONMAKER announced, s
everal hours after arriving at the party, but when no one had yet asked her to dance. She had always been said to have dramatic features, but her eyes were especially wide now, in disbelief. The feel of the flocked wallpaper at Miss Broad’s had become hatefully familiar to her; she had never been the kind of girl content to go unnoticed. Three months of convalescing were behind her and she was dying for a little fun, but she was finding that not so easy to come by as before. “Buck, don’t they look small?” she repeated insistently

  “Not me,” replied her friend Isaac Phillips Buck with a little self-effacing laugh. His tone indicated he was joking, but what he had said was perfectly true, for Buck stood a full head taller than Penelope, and was several times her girth. Buck liked to give the impression of being from the august Buck clan, but this lineage was dubious at best, and his prestige was almost entirely based on his reputation for being indispensable when one was throwing a party. It was a reputation that had been fanned in no small part by the former Miss Hayes. But that he was not a small man was indeed true, although it was only one of the reasons his longtime patron found him irritating at that particular moment.

  “They must be small-minded at least if they actually believe Carolina Broad is as fine as they pretend to think she is,” Penelope snapped. Fashion was vicious; it moved quickly, she knew, but she had not been in bed so long, and she was still better looking than any of them. She remembered when Carolina was just another disgruntled maid, let go by the Hollands—but that was before she had befriended the old bachelor Carey Lewis Longhorn and somehow or other persuaded him to leave her his vast fortune. She had been playing heiress at first, but now she really was one, and the evidence was above them in coffered ceilings as well as on the handsome façade that boasted her new address. It was stomach-turning how formal she had been with Penelope—who had done so much for her—and how quickly she had excused herself to chase after Leland Bouchard.