by Tom Murphy
“No, Patrick.”
“Too good for me, are ye, then?” He pulled a clown’s sad face, then laughed and let her go.
“Not too good, Pat, but not a toy, either.”
“Fair’s fair, then, Lily, you cannot blame a poor lonely lad for trying.”
She ran from the stable to the sound of his laughter, mocking.
All at once it was October and the Wallingfords were back in an avalanche of crates and trunks and hand valises. Mrs. Wallingford’s suite looked like high tide in an ocean of silk and velvet and lace. There mustn’t be a dress left in all Europe, thought Lily as she gazed in awe at the richness of this hoard.
Miss Marianne had arrived with nearly as much, and something better. Miss Marianne was to be married, and this winter, and to an English lord!
Her mother was bubbling over with the news, and Marianne herself could hardly wait. The Times put the announcement in headlines, and on its front page, for in New York, Lily realized, titles were worshiped on an altar only just below hard cash, and here was an irresistible combination of wealth and aristocracy.
Lily wasn’t really sure what a baron was, but from childhood she had loved all fairy stories to do with princesses locked in towers, and gallant knights and kings and great deeds. And if this isn’t a fairy story come alive, may I never see another! The Baroness Marianne! In truth, Lily had never been overly fond of the girl, but the glamour of the engagement was not to be denied. It seemed to reflect its glory all over the great house, and on everyone in it.
The wedding, by Mrs. Wallingford’s decree, would be the social event of the year 1855, and quite possibly of the decade. All the glitter that had so bedazzled Lily’s poor eyes in the last two years seemed to pale by contrast with the preparations that began immediately.
And Lily saw it all from first-hand, close as she now was to Mrs. Wallingford. Lily saw, and she helped, and her help was gratefully accepted. There was a whirlwind of parties and balls. The magic in Marianne’s conquest of the British aristocracy was instantly evident, for calling cards appeared on the silver tray in the front hall that had never appeared there before. The most haughty Vanderbilts and Astors became accessible, eager, even, to be a part of the great event. Mrs. Wallingford became a general of the ballroom, empress of petits fours, sovereign of florists, caterers, stationers. And Lily was her trusted lieutenant.
Brooks Chaffee looked up at the stone wedding-cake facade of his best friend’s house and took a deep breath, as though he were going into battle. Then, typically, he grinned. Much a Chaffee had to fear from the suddenly formidable Wallingfords!
What, the young man wondered, would Jack’s mother not give for an invitation to his family’s simple Greek Revival townhouse on Washington Square? Still, Brooks liked Mrs. Wallingford. For all her aspirations—and what, when you thought about it, was wrong with aspirations?—she was a jolly old trout, and God knew she let Jack raise merry hell in six directions at once, and never complained or grudged his gaming debts, or the champagne nights spent chasing after showgirls, or any of it.
Brooks stood hatless in the December afternoon, and a cutting breeze tossed his long dark blond hair. Everyone was expected to wear a hat, but Brooks hated hats. He rang the bell and heard it echo down the miles of polished marble. It seemed odd to be going to tea at Jack’s house. Usually he was there at night, for some dinner or ball, or to collect Jack en route elsewhere, or to drop his college roommate off after the evening’s revels. How many times had he dragged Jack Wallingford up those marble stairs at three A.M., Jack sloshed with wine or whiskey or both, and himself none too sober either, if the truth were known, although usually not quite so bad as the unstoppable young mercantile crown prince and amateur debauchee Jack Wallingford. And both of them singing and laughing and comically trying to hush each other to avoid alarming the household! Well, it was expected. As so many things were expected, especially if your name was Brooks Chaffee, of the Washington Square Chaffees, and your mother a Van den Hoven, which only meant that the entire Dutch-colonial social establishment of New York were blood relatives and, on your father’s side, more than half of the quietly gilt-edged old Yankees. For wasn’t Hiram Chaffee one of the most respected lawyers in America, his head packed with all kinds of knowledge, including several complete family trees, whose purity he counted on his sons Neddy and Brooks to preserve and nurture.
Brooks wished a familiar wish. He wished he saw more of Neddy these days. Neddy didn’t approve of Jack Wallingford, either. Common, he called him. Well, common he was, Brooks couldn’t argue the point. But Jack was also great good fun, a true friend, and loyal, and with a fascinating edge of danger about him.
Jack Wallingford was ever willing to take the wild risk, to dance on the thinnest ice, to go just that bit faster, come what may. And for Brooks, who was naturally conservative, the contrast was thrilling.
The Wallingfords, he knew, liked the fact of his friendship with Jack, and their hospitality, without reciprocation from Washington Square, was so lavish as to be almost embarrassing. The Wallingfords considered, rightly, that Brooks was a good influence on Jack, a balance wheel. For himself, Brooks found his larks and sprees with Jack a true revelation. It was more than the wine and the girls and the music, although the good Lord knew Brooks loved all those things.
What Brooks loved in Jack was his total freedom from convention, his outright mockery of the standards that society held so dear. And while Brooks was far from ready to overthrow the establishment that had been so kind to him all his life, it was good fun to watch Jack try. And try he did, with cost as no object.
Jack had an immense allowance, and still managed to owe everyone in New Haven. And you’d lend Jack any amount in a flash, because you knew he was good for it, and you knew you’d get it back in the form of Jack’s own largess the minute he was flush again. Which was never long in coming, because dear Mama would send a draft by messenger, if necessary, all the way from this vast monument to the Wallingford money on Fifth Avenue. Brooks himself was on a tight allowance by comparison, and every cent of it had to be accounted for in writing, every quarter, before the next quarter was advanced.
To Brooks, the Wallingfords were a permanent circus-in-residence, and he found their somewhat simpleminded devotion to spending the Wallingford fortune upon every possible frivolity curiously endearing. If there was harm in it, the harm would not be for Brooks Chaffee. So he basked in the warmth of his friendship with Jack, and the generosity of Jack’s family, just as a frog might sit in the sun on a bright day, more than a little drunk with the mindless pleasure of the act.
At Yale, Brooks knew men who had far better minds than Jack’s, men of more serious scholarly interests, men who would, beyond doubt, make something significant of themselves in the greater world.
It was hard to imagine Jack Wallingford at forty. But Brooks and Jack were twenty, and forty was an eternity away, and in any event, who cared?
Brooks stood waiting for the door to be opened. He wondered idly what new mischief Jack would have cooked up for tonight. Already he had a small, delicious sense of guilt, for he was skipping Aunt Theodora’s dinner party, a family occasion that ranked right up there with christenings and funerals, and was every bit as much fun. To hell with Aunt Theodora. She served terrible food and undrinkable wine, and little enough of that. An evening with Aunt Theodora was the social equivalent, as far as Brooks was concerned, of a month becalmed, in steerage, on a leaky ship.
Whatever he and Jack got up to, it would be miles ahead of Aunt Theodora’s gruesome festivities.
The huge door opened. The fat butler, Groome, smiled. It was as though two hams were trying to dance across his flushed face. Fond of the claret, was old Groome, or at least that was what Jack said.
“Mr. Jack is in the library, sir.”
“Thank you, Groome.”
Brooks was enough of a familiar in the Wallingford household to be left on his own to find the library. But the minute he got to the landing on the second floor
of the mansion, he realized he wasn’t quite sure where the damned place was. Down there, he thought, about half a mile past that potted tree, turn right at the marble centaur, down there someplace. God, but you could get lost in this place! He thought of the simple foursquare plan of his parents’ house, and how much more sense it made. Brooks liked things simple, if the truth were to be known. He walked down the empty, polished, gleaming hallway and turned right at the statue. There were three large walnut doors, and any one of them might be the library. He chose the first, knocked briskly, and opened it.
Damn! It was the dining room—now he remembered. But for the life of him he couldn’t remember where the library was. Then he felt the girl’s eyes on him. He hadn’t seen her at first. Brooks Chaffee blinked in the half-light of the big room, touched his cravat to feel if it was tied properly, for she was staring at him rather intensely; then he thought, what the hell, a maid, helping with the table flowers it looked like.
“Excuse me,” he said quietly, “but I seem to be lost. Could you direct me to the library?”
It was a small, pale face, with extraordinary hair, a red that might almost be gold. Immediately she dropped her eyes, blushed, then answered, “Surely, sir. If you will follow me.”
The maid led him to the door, and down the hallway, and stopped before the third door. Damn and damn! He knew—should have known—it was that one.
It had been a grand day when Lily was first allowed to arrange the table flowers. And still, although that had been months ago, she took a special pride in doing it. For who knew, after all, what eyes might be looking on these very arrangements when supper was presented.
The flowers came from Arrigo’s, Manhattan’s finest florist, in stiff paperboard boxes lined with fresh straw. And the flowers themselves were miraculous. Mr. Arrigo could grow roses in midwinter, irises when no right-thinking native iris would dream of blooming, branches of pale shy quince blossoms, and narcissus whose very scent could break your heart. Had his own glass houses, had Mr. Arrigo, kept warm as summer all season long, and here the miracles happened, and for the wonders he produced Mr. Arrigo also produced equally wondrous bills. These, the hostesses of New York paid gladly, for there was rivalry in flowers as in many other things. It was no light question, Lily knew, who set the finest table, served the rarest most out-of-season delicacies, or found the most interesting musicians to play.
Mrs. Wallingford had decided upon an all-white banquet this evening, and the flowers, too, were to be entirely white. There were white roses, proud on unimaginably long, straight stems, and white French lilac branches, white-on-white narcissus, and, in separate small white porcelain tubs, lilies of the valley actually growing and in bloom!
Lily worked on the large central bouquet, the box from Arrigo’s on a side table behind her. It was nearly done, and a fine thing, if she did say so herself. She had started with the biggest flowers, the lilacs. Too big, they proved, and in need of trimming. That done, the sweet-smelling branches tamed and shaped, she added the roses, first trimming the stems, then singeing them over a candle flame as Louise had taught her, then trimming them again, which prevented their drooping. Last, Lily added the smallest of the flowers, the narcissus. There!
She stepped back a bit, surveyed her work, frowned, walked slowly around the huge table, frowned again, changed three roses, and was at last satisfied. Lily was standing thus, in the shadows halfway down the long room, when the knock came gently on the door.
Saying nothing, she stood there watching as it opened.
Oh, my. A young man’s head poked in, followed by the young man himself. Fair he was, and handsome, more than handsome: these were the features of a knight in the old stories, a fine pure warrior knight riding out of legends. Or even an angel, Lily thought, yes, and did the angels themselves look so fine?
She said nothing, transfixed, waiting. He might not be real, she might be dreaming such a man. But Lily’s dreams had never dared so much.
She held her breath, and felt a flush building on her neck, her cheeks. He might disappear in a puff of smoke! He might be the devil himself, cleverly disguised, sent to earth for the temptation of poor young virgins. For Lily was poor, and young, and surely a virgin, and just as surely tempted. And why? she wondered. There were men around and plenty, and some of them good to look on, Pat for one—the girls chased him like bees after a flower. Why had no man ever caused her to feel like this? She felt her knees going all weak on her. Maybe he’d go away, and never see her, and she’d forget all about him.
But even in that instant, sure as death, Lily knew she might live to be a hundred years old and never forget the mere sight of him. When his words came, one part of Lily’s head told her it was just a young man’s voice, good enough, to be sure, educated beyond a doubt, but not all that heavenly-inspired special. All the same, she trembled. Lily Malone found sweet music in his words, heard trumpets calling in the everyday request: “Excuse me,” said the voice, called the trumpets, “but I seem to be lost. Could you direct me to the library?”
Oh, fine sir, if you think you are lost, it’s glad you should be you’re not me.
She stood there like a deaf-mute, and only after a terrible effort did Lily find her tongue. “Surely, sir. If you will follow me.”
She made her legs move, and thanked God and all his angels that she managed to get down the length of the room without actually falling, fainting, or otherwise making a fool of herself. She’d have to pass by him! So close. Close enough to touch him. The strange young man held the door open for her, and stepped back a bit as he did this, smiling vaguely.
He doesn’t see me at all, and that’s a fact. And thank God for it.
If she touched him, passing, her dress would burst into flames sure as Victoria ruled England. Lily passed the young man, close enough to touch, but not touching, and as she passed, Lily could smell a familiar scent. The young man used the same cologne as Master Jack. Somehow the spicy, faintly floral aroma of Roger & Gallet reassured Lily that the man was real, not an emissary from the darker powers. She led him down the hall to the library, and bowed and hurried back as though all the demons in hell itself were hot on her trail. And maybe they were. For surely she was lusting after the poor man, if this yearning could properly be called lust. Properly, indeed! Thoughts like these were very far from proper, there was no doubt at all of that.
Lily smiled then, for she remembered her own impatience with Susie McGlynn, when Susie was all mad about Patrick. Girlish nonsense, that was how Lily felt about that, and here she was drowning in the very same nonsense!
But it wasn’t nonsense. It was completely real, foolish and sad, and altogether hopeless. At least Susie had her little dream come true, for all that it never came to much, and ended quickly. At least she had the memory of it. But for Lily Malone and the young and golden stranger who had just touched her heart, there could be no hope at all in this world. There were things you shouldn’t want, or even be thinking of, not if you were poor, and Irish, and a servant.
Lily walked back into the dining room and looked at her flowers. They were every bit as lovely as they had been five minutes ago, but now they held no magic for her.
In these few devastating minutes Lily’s whole life changed. She would never be the same girl again, or dream the same dreams.
She knew with shattering finality that the young man, who in a few minutes would barely recall that he’d seen her, moved in a world so far from hers that it was a kind of miracle she had ever seen him at all. A miracle it was, for sure, and a sad one.
Lily gathered up Mr. Arrigo’s straw-filled box, and with it the trimmings of her flower arrangement, and walked slowly down the back stairs to the kitchen.
Lily might have known that Susie McGlynn could tell her all about the strange and wonderful and disturbing visitor.
“That’s Mr. Brooks Chaffee, who’s the college friend of Master Jack, and a fine old New York family they are, the Chaffees, Lil, finer by miles than you-can-guess-w
ho.”
“I thought him fine to look on.”
Lily was reluctant to bare her feelings about the young man, but she felt the need to know more about him as an almost physical thirst or hunger.
“Well, you’re not alone, then, for sure and Mrs. W. thinks him a fine catch, and if a certain young lady hadn’t gone and caught herself a royalty, it wouldn’t surprise most people to find Mrs. W. aimin’ Miss Marianne in his direction.”
Lily thought about that. Of course, it would be natural, a step up the social ladder, no doubt, if what Susie said was true, but not so fine as catching an English baron. I hope I live to see the baron who’s a finer sight than that lad!
“Did she love him? Miss Marianne?”
“Ha! That one loved dozens. But I have heard speculations. Mostly wishful thinkin’, I’m more like to call it.”
Susie laughed, and Lily made herself laugh too. And with a twinkle in her eyes, Susie went on: “I think, Miss Lillian, that you’ve been hatching randy thoughts about Brooks Chaffee. Could that be the truth? You can tell your old pal Susie, who’s had many a randy thought herself, and done randy deeds, too, may God forgive me for a sinner.”
“I thought him handsome.” I would die for him, here and now.
“Aye, and so do all the girls, rich and poor. You’re not alone in that, Lil, more’s the pity. And he’s taken up with young Master Jack, and you know what deviltries that can lead to. Between the pair of them, well, I’d be surprised if there’s a virgin left in all New York by springtime.”
“Are they that bad?”
“Who’s to say what’s bad, my fine lady? They’re busy, that’s for sure and gone!”
And Susie laughed again, pleased with her woman-of-the-world tolerance.
Lily smiled, and turned back to her sewing. Well she could imagine the young master and his friend cutting through the ballrooms of New York like hot knives through butter, leaving trails of tears and palpitations and broken maidenheads. And laughing, and maybe not remembering in the light of harsh dawn what the poor girl’s name was. She sighed, and smiled at the sighing, for wasn’t she becoming the very spit and image of a Lovelorn Maiden? For her, for Lily Malone, whose heart had hardly been flexed yet, to have it all of a sudden smashed and broken all beyond repair, all in one quick moment, in daylight, and by a stranger, a man she’d never meet upon any equal plane. It was a thing to make you laugh, or weep. And Lily had never been a weeper, and she wasn’t going to start now, not for Master Brooks Chaffee, nor any man, however strange and beautiful.
