Splendor l-4

by Anna Godbersen

  Twenty Two

  Our era has produced many great men — robber barons, masters of innovation, beasts of business — whose staggering wealth, incomparable ruthlessness, and personal legends would seem to prove they are the dominant of the species; but then one has a look at their sons, and doubts the theory of evolution entirely.

  — DR. BERTRAND LEGMAN COPPER, PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE AND SOCIETY, POSITED BY ONE WHO HAS KNOWN BOTH, 1900

  HENRY STARED INTO THE ALABASTER OVAL OF A face that belonged to the girl who one way or another had become his wife. There was a warm hue at the edges of her sharp cheekbones and on her wide, plump lips, but everything else was glacial. He was momentarily stunned into silence by the outrageously callous thing she had just said, and it occurred to him, for the first time, that it did unflattering things to a person when affection was taken away from them. For there had been a time when she had seemed gorgeous, and fun, and all of her naughtiness had had for him a kind of irresistible pull. It was only after he decided he didn’t want her anymore that she became such a shrew, and obliterated his memory of the girl she used to be with her despicable behavior.

  “That is what you do,” he returned firmly, when he had recovered himself. He turned from her, not wanting to see any more hatred on her features, and as he walked away he added, almost to reassure himself of the greater capacity of his own heart: “Not me.”

  He half expected her to come tearing after him and was relieved when he realized that he was being followed only by the echo of his own footsteps. The route he took was not entirely familiar to him, for though he had lived in the house all his life it was a large and complicated one, and anyway his years as a young man-about-town had rarely brought him to his father’s chambers of business. They were sacrosanct rooms to the old man, so Henry hadn’t been interested. In any event, there had always been easier ways to get money when he needed it. But he was seeing to something serious now, and his instincts didn’t fail him. He came upon the smoking room soon enough, with its ornate carved ceiling — Italian craftsmen had been transported from their homeland for this single, specific purpose — and cognac-colored club chairs.

  “Yes, every widower thinks he wants a young wife to replace the one he has lost,” the elder Schoonmaker was bellowing. “But that is before she starts giving away all his money to her dressmaker, and stops caring about managing a household, if indeed she ever did!”

  Henry stepped across the threshold and into a space filled by men in dark jackets who chomped cigars and appeared haloed by their own moody smoke. They were mostly older than him, associates of his father or more recent cronies acquired along with his political ambitions, and you could see their corruption in their bloated middles and ruddy faces. His father, whose nose was in full bloom, was no exception.

  “Henry…”

  His father had noticed him before he had a chance to speak, and the elder Schoonmaker’s tone indicated that he was unsure whether to act jovial at the sight of the guest of honor, or to instead be furious that the young soldier had not taken the time to dress properly or comb his hair before the beginning of the evening.

  “A cigar?”

  “No, Dad, I have something to say to you, and then I’ll be on my way. But I don’t think I’ll be able to attend your party.”

  The men turned their heads, eyes wide with interest. They plugged up the holes of their mouths with cigars, and waited for the inimitable William Sackhouse Schoonmaker to reply. The big man flexed back his shoulders and watched his son. After a minute, a grin broke across his face. “What…is there a battle you have to get to tonight?”

  The others erupted in guffaws. Henry looked at the floor and placed a hand in his trouser pocket. He let the laughter die down before meeting his father’s eye. “I’m not much of a soldier, am I?”

  “Come, Henry, I only meant—”

  But Henry was not searching for reassurances, and he cut his father off before he could apologize. “I can’t stay because I’ll be leaving New York tomorrow. There’s a ship that sails for Paris at noon. I’ll be on it, and Diana Holland will be with me. I’m in love with her, you see, not Penelope. I married Penelope because I thought it would allow us all to go on living quietly, under some false façade of respectability, but I can’t stand it anymore.”

  The elder Schoonmaker’s face had gone white — with rage, one assumed — and his big bear’s hand, and the cigar in it, moved slowly below his waist.

  “I can’t stand lying about my marriage or about my tour of duty. I don’t want to pretend I was a hero in the Pacific, when in fact you all know I was just another soldier who went to Cuba after the Spanish had been defeated, and never fired his gun. Penelope can divorce me if she likes, or she can go on with the sham of calling herself Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker.” Henry waved his hand dismissively, and realized he was glad that so many of the old man’s associates were there to witness him becoming his own man. His voice had risen continually as he laid out his intentions; it was glorious thumbing his nose at his father, telling him to do his worst, that all his bullying and threatening to withhold Henry’s inheritance held no power anymore. It was the freest Henry had ever felt, except maybe in Diana’s arms. In a small act of showmanship, which he would come to regret for the rest of his life, he reached forward, plucked the half-smoked cigar from his father’s lowered hand, and placed it between his teeth. “I don’t care,” he concluded, “and I won’t be here to see it, either way.”

  The room had gone silent. The wall of men in black dress jackets loomed steady and still behind the elder Schoonmaker. William’s broad face hung open. At one time it had been notable for the same clean, aristocratic features that had always made his son so irresistible to debutantes, but it had since been ruined by a life of anger, competition, rich food, and stiff drink. The expression that face now wore was unreadable; whatever mysteries it contained, however, did not undercut its severity. He took a lumbering step forward, and for a moment his son thought he was about to be wrestled for the remainder of the cigar.

  Then Henry felt a tremendous weight against his shoulder, and in the next instant he realized that his father could no longer stand on his own. He tried to hold him up, and for a moment they really were wrestling, William’s massive body pushing for the ground, and Henry’s young, slim one fighting against gravity to keep it upright. The old man wheezed and gasped for air. Seconds passed, and Henry couldn’t support him anymore; the father fell heavily to the ground, and the son sank down beside him.

  “Help!” Henry yelled at all the elegantly dressed men standing around, their pocket watches gleaming in the low, pretty light. “One of you go and call the doctor!”

  There were murmurs, shuffling, and then somebody did finally do as he said. The elder Schoonmakers artificially blackened hair was all out of place now, and his face was pinched by his inability to breathe. There was fear and rage in his eyes, but that faded into a steady something else as he stared up at his son. Henry blinked at him like a little boy, and put his hand against the old man’s heart, as though somehow that might help. One of the men separated from the others and came to stand over the fallen patriarch.

  Henry glanced up and saw the long tall figure of Jeremiah Lawrence, his father’s lawyer. “He’s gone,” Lawrence announced, and by the time Henry had turned back to his father, he knew that it was true.

  Twenty Three

  To match a European title with American dollars is so tried and true a matrimonial route, it is hardly worth commenting on, although it ought to be remembered that they do things differently there, and a mother should be wary during the courting process, lest the young lady catch a little Continental moral lassitude.

  — MRS. HAMILTON W. BREEDFELT, COLLECTED COLUMNS ON RAISING YOUNG LADIES OF CHARACTER, 1899

  “SO WHICH ONE OF THESE FELLOWS IS MY RIVAL?” the prince asked, bending in Penelope’s direction with an air of conspiracy, allowing his eyes to linger on the soft white skin of her décolletage before glancing
at the other guests. The gauzy white part of her dress floated down around her feet, and the chandelier light played at the rings and bracelets that adorned her hands.

  “Mr. Schoonmaker is acting strange this evening,” she answered, liking the word rival more than ever. It made her feel all doused in gold. “So I don’t expect you will meet him.”

  “Ah.” There was glitter in the prince’s eyes when he met hers again, and though Penelope could not be sure, she thought she felt his hand brush against the back of her upper thigh. His appearance, in the blue military jacket, was especially crisp and robust. “All the more for me, then?” he went on in a quieter, more carnivorous tone.

  The Schoonmakers’ guests were accepting second glasses of champagne now, and the ambience had grown festive. It was the height of summer, and they all wanted to see and be seen before they went off for Riviera cruises or to their cottages at Newport for August. Isabelle was whispering something to Bradley behind her fan, and Penelope realized as she watched that none of her confidences were safe with her mother-in-law when that lady had taken a paramour. Even now she was probably repeating verbatim things Penelope had said about the prince of Bavaria, and to a man with no reputation to keep.

  “Everyone is looking at us, you know,” Penelope said after a pause, enunciating each word to let him know she believed they were, indeed, in the midst of something quite worth looking at.

  “But all of their eyes are averted,” he countered.

  “Yes, that’s how we do it in this country.”

  “I am not unfamiliar with the technique.” The prince surveyed the people before him, lifting his champagne as a kind of punctuation, so that the light shot through the pale liquid. “But what could we possibly have done to inspire such interest?”

  The large blue disks of Penelope’s eyes floated toward her upper lashes as she averted her gaze in a false display of modesty and confusion. “Do you suggest, my prince, that we have not done enough?”

  She briefly wondered if she had again gone too far, but then a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. “My darling, one can always do more.”

  He kept his eyes on her as he swallowed the rest of his drink, and then he took her arm and placed his lips near her ear and instructed, in a voice growing pleasantly gruff: “Show me the grounds, why don’t you?”

  Penelope glanced back at the guests she was leaving behind — slyly, from the corners of her eyes — as she and the gentleman in epaulets strode out into the main hallway. She made no attempt not to be seen. Earlier in the evening, when she still had yet to encounter the prince, she had held a suspicion that she looked especially well put together, and an inclination not to waste such a pretty showing. But her sense of her own beauty had reached another level entirely, and as she walked arm in arm with her first royal admirer, she felt as though she were traveling a foot above the ground.

  “As you can see, we have very fine tapestries in this house…,” she said as they moved down the hall. She had returned to a rather distanced manner of speaking, as though she were any young matron showing off the family treasures. “But then I suppose you are a little sick of tapestries.”

  “Yes,” he answered in a banal tone that belied the movement of his hand from her elbow to her waist, “we have far too many tapestries in my own country. I did not, my incomparable Mrs. Schoonmaker, come all this way to search out more.”

  They had walked through a series of corridors, and the chatter and the music of the party had become far away and indistinct. Around the corner and down a short flight of stairs was the entrance to the greenhouse, which had been a favorite assignation spot for Henry, back when he still wanted her. “What would you be interested in seeing? We have plenty of statuary, and all manner of hothouse flowers—”

  The prince dropped his arm and drifted away from her for a moment, as though he really were considering what part of this fine home he was most curious about. He batted down a smile and lifted a well-manicured finger, placing it against Penelope’s exposed clavicle. Then he drew it down, across the smooth skin of her chest, to the elaborate gold embroidery at the edge of her black velvet bodice, and then slowly along the embroidery until he reached her right arm, at which point he began tracing a line upward to her opposite clavicle. He had taken his time, and when the gesture was over her chest was rising and falling rather more quickly, and his mouth stood open.

  The noises from the rest of the house had grown clamorous, and she realized the mood of the party was ascendant. She was the hostess, and she would soon be missed. The fragrance of flowers and loamy earth emanated from the greenhouse, which for her had always meant one thing. She was inclined to show the prince the rest of her, but knew there wasn’t time. She extended her neck and waited for his kiss. When it came, it was with such force that she felt the wall against her back and the medals on his jacket sinking just slightly into her skin. That, she thought to herself, just before she heard the servants shouting from down the hall that both Mrs. Schoonmakers were needed, was how kings must kiss. Footsteps were growing closer, and she knew that she was at a very great risk of being found out, but she remained in place, staring into the prince’s eyes, feeling him press in against her, for as long she possibly could.

  Twenty Four

  Then Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

  — MATTHEW 19:23–24

  THE GHOSTLY GASOLIER LIGHT FELL ON MR. AND Mrs. Cairns, as the gentleman of the house gazed silently onto the street and his lady read from an open Bible propped against her full belly. Neither had spoken much since dinner, which had itself been a rather wordless affair. She had never stopped to think very much about what occupied Snowden’s thoughts; the realization made her feel even more of a churl. He had done so much for her — the perfectly chosen silver rattle was only the most recent example — and she had never so much as stopped to consider what preoccupations might plague him.

  And then of course there was the word Klondike, written in that childlike scrawl, which kept returning to her thoughts. She tried to put it away, and then laid down the small Bible and crossed the floor. The avenue framed in the tall windows was darkly purple, except where the street lamps illuminated it, and was populated by subdued carriage traffic. It was a Monday, but she knew from the servants’ gossiping that the Schoonmakers and several others were holding parties that night. The season would be over soon, and Elizabeth knew very well from years past, when she had been at the center of things, the kind of reckless energy that must be overtaking all social functions just then.

  “Is everything all right, Mr. Cairns?” Elizabeth asked, hovering just slightly behind her husband, and watching their two reflections in the glass.

  He nodded.

  “I have a confession to make,” she went on, in a small voice that twinkled just slightly. This was the way she said things when she was playing the hostess, the little lady of the house, the lovely and demure girl who set about defining perfection for her peers.

  In the reflection she could see his brow lift, and then his head rotated in her direction, although not far enough that their eyes met. “Oh?”

  “Yes.” Her words fell sweetly into the air, although she was speaking too quickly now. “I saw the rattle — I mean, I didn’t peek, but I have given the same gift, so I knew what it was. I am sorry, but I have been feeling such gratitude all day, it is such a lovely thing for you to have purchased for me, and I wanted to thank you.”

  “Oh. I am glad you like it,” he said in a tone she had never before known him to employ — like relief, except not exactly that. “Or that you will, rather,” he corrected.

  He had not turned to look at her, and so she rested a reassuring hand on his arm and allowed the touch to lengthen, compassionately, into the quiet. He did not offer a word or a glance, but still she tho
ught that she was being admirably wifelike, and when she felt that her hand upon his arm had served its purpose, she left the room to search for something soothing to serve him. Tea perhaps, or better yet, brandy, which the staff had not yet found time to decant into the crystal bottles that she’d intended for the regency huntboard in the front parlor.

  Every day now she seemed to be growing larger and slower, the child within requiring more of her energy. It took her a long time to find a tray, the brandy, and a snifter. The kitchen was quiet at that hour — for Mrs. Schmidt was fastidious and saw that everything was cleaned and put away almost as soon as dinner was cleared — and Elizabeth was distracted from her task by the look of the hanging copper pots and the brick-sized white tiles of the walls. Her new home had been built in the same era as the house she’d grown up in, and the coal range with its iron hood, the porcelain sink, the hot water tank, all of it was reminiscent of the room in No. 17 Gramercy that she had known so well. Not because she had ever spent much time in the Holland kitchen, but because she had had to go through it when she was sneaking to see Will at night. What anticipation it had always held for her — the faint smell of cooking grease, covered over with soap, which she would experience just before stepping down and into the carriage house that had been Will’s domain.

  These pleasant associations had largely eclipsed the guilt and anxiety she had felt toward Snowden by the time she returned to the hall, and she caught herself almost smiling in the oval mirror that hung across from the staircase. That was when she heard the voice of a man that was quite plainly not that of her husband, followed shortly by the more familiar timbre.

  “It’s late,” Snowden said dismissively.