Elizabeth’s whole body flinched, but she ignored the comment. “Isabelle,” she said nervously instead, leaning forward to address Henry’s stepmother. “Everything is just so lovely. Such a high quality of people. But I do hope we’re not causing you to be a poor hostess.”
Penelope nodded in agreement, as though to her that would be the worst thing in the world.
“No, no…but I should be good and talk to everyone. I’ll be back,” she said, her eyes already darting about the room.
“Thank you, my doves, for being so understanding.”
When Isabelle was gone—she landed with the cricket-playing prince, where she began giggling at a high pitch—Penelope turned to Elizabeth and raised an eyebrow. “Well? Does your sister have a nervous disorder, or what?”
“Oh, no, no, no. You know Diana. She’ll do anything to appear eccentric. But more important…” This time it was Elizabeth guiding Penelope through the roomful of trilling guests and into the adjacent picture gallery, where there were only two people, a man and a woman of their parents’ age, thoroughly engrossed in a portrait of Mamie Stuyvesant Fish in her box at the opera. Elizabeth turned so that they walked away from the couple. “You must stop stalling and tell me the news. I have been waiting all week to hear about your mystery fellow.”
“Well,” Penelope went on conspiratorially, “he is very tall and handsome.”
“Of course.”
“He belongs to all the clubs, and he goes to all the parties.”
“Yes…” Elizabeth smiled at her with bright, inquisitive eyes. The girls had stopped their slow little walk about the room and gazed through the embellished arch separating the gallery from the reception room, to where thirty or so guests appeared to have had a few too many drinks before the dinner.
“He’s been making eyes at me for quite some time.” Penelope tried to rid her voice of pride, but failed. “And at our little party last week we danced, and then this morning, there was an item about him in one of the papers. Oh, Elizabeth, he was seen purchasing a ring.”
There was a peal of laughter, and then Penelope saw Henry, on the far wall, with a golden drink in his hand and his mouth curled sardonically. He was wearing black tails and his hair was slicked back to perfection. He was telling some kind of joke to a group of handsome but lesser young men.
“Yes…” Elizabeth urged her on, excitedly.
Without taking her eyes off him, Penelope announced with not a little delight: “Henry Schoonmaker.”
Elizabeth’s arm went slack, and Penelope wondered if she were simply dying of jealousy. Well, good. That was the idea. From the other room she heard the loud tapping of a knife against crystal. Through the arch of the doorway the big elder Schoonmaker was calling attention to himself.
“Penelope, I have to—” Elizabeth whispered.
“Shhh, I’ll tell you everything later,” she replied in a low tone as she took Elizabeth’s arm back warmly and pulled her friend closer toward the reception room. She couldn’t help but notice how stiff Elizabeth was, and was a touch surprised that she wasn’t able to hide her competitive side better. Isabelle, who was smiling almost giddily, moved through the clutch of dinner guests and took her husband’s side. She looked small beside him, especially with his chest puffed up so much. “I have been told that dinner is ready to be served,” he began in a booming voice. “But before we go in, I have some news that I particularly want to share with you.”
The room murmured at this and leaned in toward the great man. Penelope tried to catch Henry’s eye across the room, but his gaze was fixed determinedly on his drink.
“As you all know, I have long been dedicated to this city, to making it great and good, to making it a lasting haven for the kings of our time. I have done so through industry and enterprise, growing this great city as the hub of a great nation. But I am no longer satisfied by what I can do in private business. I have decided to join the selfless ranks of men who have given their names, their hours, their very lives, to the people. I have decided to run for the office of mayor of New York City….”
The room erupted with cheers. Penelope stifled a yawn and looked at Elizabeth for confirmation that this was not an announcement worth cheering over. Her friend’s face was frozen, however, her polite expression fixed on that blowhard of a future father-in-law. Penelope decided it would be wise if she listened politely also.
“Thank you, thank you. It will be another year we will all have to wait, of course, but I count on your support when November of the year nineteen hundred rolls around.” Penelope’s eyes drifted away from old Schoonmaker and across the foaming skirts and ermine-trimmed dresses of the guests, who were drinking their champagne and trying not to look bored by the speechifying. Her gaze had fixed upward on the gold leaf doorframe that she was standing beneath, when the speech took an interesting turn. “And I have another announcement to make, this one of a more personal, but no less joyous, nature. Henry…my son, my only son, who has so rapidly become a man capable of following in my footsteps, recently came to me with the news every father waits for. He came to me, and he said, ‘Father, I am in love.’”
Penelope’s chest filled with airy delight. This was indeed very soon—almost sudden. After so many months of secret trysts, the idea of Henry confessing his love for her to his father felt gigantic and rewarding. It was inevitable, of course, but to have her desires so publicly granted was remarkable—if a bit presumptuous. Not that she minded, that was just the kind of spontaneous confidence she loved about Henry. She allowed herself a wide, prideful smile and clung tighter to Elizabeth’s arm.
“He said, ‘Father, I want you to be the first to know that I have asked for the hand of Miss Elizabeth Holland, and that she has accepted.’”
The crowd let out an appreciative Ahhhh! but Penelope couldn’t breathe, much less say anything. As all the faces in the crowd fanned in their direction, Penelope’s smile disappeared and her full, red lower lip fell. Her mouth went dry. She felt like she had been kicked in the head by a horse, like all the names for things had been mixed up in her brain. A feeling of doom, turning quickly to rage, was galloping through her stomach.
She dropped Elizabeth’s arm as though it might poison her, and then watched as her friend stepped forward to bask in the glow of all those ridiculous congratulatory smiles. Elizabeth looked back at Penelope with an apologetic grimace. She turned again just as a familiar-looking man, with a neat mustache and an officious clerklike mien, broke away from the crowd to approach her. After a moment Penelope realized that he was familiar because he had helped her on several of her visits to Tiffany, and here he was now, shepherding the precious cargo to its rightful owner. She watched with horrified curiosity as he took a little velvet box from his pocket. He popped it open, and the sight of the huge, light-catching gem threw Penelope’s whole body into revolt. She backed into the picture gallery, where she found herself grasping at things. She felt wood, and then some kind of silver bowl, and the soft leaves of a fern. She knocked the plant aside. Her insides were furious, roiling, and then she couldn’t stop herself. She vomited into the silver planter.
It was little consolation that most of the guests were in the other room and didn’t see her. Surely they all heard. In seconds, Buck was at her side, whispering that he would get her out of there before any more damage was done. There was a commotion, and Penelope could hear the voice of Isabelle Schoonmaker above the din. She was telling Elizabeth that Henry was ready to take her in to dinner, and that she should go, now, before people started to talk.
Penelope peeked around the substantial shield that was Buck’s middle section, and realized that she wasn’t even going to be able to give her onetime friend a hateful parting glare. The hostess was already rushing Elizabeth’s pale green figure from the room where all of Penelope’s perfect plans had been so swiftly snuffed out.
Fifteen
Newly engaged couples will always find ways to flirt with one another, but it is imperative to the
health and well-being of society that they not be encouraged to do so in public. They should not be seen traveling alone through the city, especially not to the theater, and at dinner pains should be taken so that they are not seated beside one another. They will only tickle and tease each other, and that is not to be endured.
––MRS. L. A. M. BRECKINRIDGE, THE LAWS OF BEING IN WELL-MANNERED CIRCLES
HENRY’S ONE CONSOLATION WAS THAT ETIQUETTE was very clear on the rules of seating at dinner parties, and so he was not forced to actually speak with his future wife during the droning six courses that were meant to celebrate their engagement. He did hazard a look or two, across the long table, at Elizabeth Holland, who was looking radiant and beautiful, though regrettably pristine to his eyes, and whose left hand was now lit up with the pride of Tiffany. Henry stared at the rock, which was so large that it overwhelmed her finger, until he knew he was being rude. He knew because his betrothed executed a delicate cough. It just didn’t look like a piece of jewelry that had anything to do with him. He caught the tail of a passing waiter and asked for another drink.
His father did seem pleased, however, and distracted enough by the room of congratulators and sycophants. Apparently, it hadn’t registered with him that Henry was keeping himself relatively pleasant by keeping himself quite drunk. The old man sat at the head of the table projecting grandiloquent pronouncements down half its length. At Father’s right sat Isabelle. Henry was between her and his younger sister, Prudie, who fancied herself an intellectual and so wore black muslin and spoke to no one. On the other side of the onyx-topped table, Mrs. Holland took the seat directly to old Schoonmaker’s left, with some fellow named Brennan on her other side. Next to him—and directly across from Henry—was Elizabeth, who was quietly rearranging the lobster salad on her plate.
Two chairs to Elizabeth’s left was her younger sister, Diana, who shone with the otherworldly beauty of a girl he could not possibly attain. She did not sit still the way she was supposed to, the way her sister did. She gesticulated and laughed and pouted and generally made the dress she was sewn into and the room she was inhabiting look ridiculous and constraining. The light of her eyes—which were angry one moment and joyous the next—made the gold service arranged across the table look, by comparison, like a heap of junk. The bank of white mums on the table behind her seemed stuffy as a background for someone so alive. He pictured her in his top hat and smiled privately. Kissing her in the first hour of his engagement to her sister was—according to any logic he might employ—the furthest he was ever going to get. He tried to catch her eye, but she was remarkably adept at looking everywhere but at him.
“Have you read The Awakening?” she was asking that cricket player from the Punjab, or wherever it was, who was seated between her and her sister.
The supposed prince shook his head but continued to watch her attentively.
“They say it is too scandalous to ever be published again, but it is a work of genius.”
“I am very impressed by all this reading you seem to do.” The prince leaned toward her in a familiar way that made Henry want to stand up and swat him. “When I was living in England, it seemed to me that none of the ladies read a thing.”
“Oh, yes, well, I find myself unconventional everywhere,” Diana replied with the same shiny eyes that Henry had seen last Sunday.
Henry looked down in front of him and happily noted the full glass of Scotch, which had appeared like magic. Having witnessed the inevitable humiliation of Penelope, become officially engaged to her best friend, and found his attractions diverted to his fiancée’s little sister, he had settled on drinking as the only safe course of action. He turned to his right and leaned across Prudie to where his friend Teddy was seated. He raised his drink. “Cheers, and thank God you’re here to see me through this.”
Teddy looked away from the girl on his other side—she was a Holland cousin or something, Henry couldn’t remember, and reasonably good-looking. “Cheers,” Teddy replied, raising his glass. “Here’s to my lucky friend. You don’t deserve her.”
“What does that mean?” Henry said loudly.
“Nothing, never mind.” Teddy laughed. “Drink up, and stop looking so morose, would you?”
Henry rolled his eyes and refocused on the drink. He didn’t think it was unreasonable, this suffocated feeling. A part of him wished Elizabeth might evaporate into thin air, or better, that he would. He was trying very hard not to think about the fun that was being had in other, less elegant parts of the city. Instead he focused on the perversely shiny red globe grapes that occupied the center of the table in great heaps.
“So, Miss Diana,” Isabelle, next to him, trilled to the girl across the table. “Have you and Miss Holland discussed colors for the wedding? You know, mauve is very fashionable for bridesmaids’ dresses nowadays. In my wedding—”
“Mauve is a made-up color,” Diana snapped. A few brunette tendrils unfurled around her neck as if to punctuate her disapproval.
“Oh no,” Elizabeth broke in. “It is a very lovely color. Although,” and here her voice lowered, as though she had noticed a bit of food on somebody’s chin, “it is already very much in use.”
“Oh, I know what you mean, dear. But really, the sight of seven of your closest friends in that divine shade…”
Henry raised his eyes and tried to catch Diana’s. They were dark, and smudged with makeup, and full of feeling. All around the table, there was movement—the servants passing in the shadows of the room, the young people clapping their hands and squealing, the older guests ordering second helpings of terrapin—but Henry held his gaze steady. He could tell that Diana found the whole wedding conversation as lackluster as he did, and all of a sudden he didn’t care what sort of party was going on without him. All he wanted out of the entire evening was some acknowledgment of their mutual disgust.
Her eyes roamed over the ceiling and the plates, but finally he wore her down. At last she settled her gaze on him, and for a long moment he managed to hold her stare. Then she emitted a miniature gasp, as though someone had called her a cruel name. She shoved herself away from the table and hurried from the room.
“May I take your plate, sir?”
Henry looked up, startled, at one of the hired waiters.
“Oh, yes,” he said, watching the half-eaten gold platter of salmon in cream sauce disappear behind him. His father was still engaging in a cross-table discussion at maximum volume about the price of steel. Isabelle and Elizabeth were debating the merits of periwinkle and lavender. Mrs. Holland was staring happily at Elizabeth’s engagement ring, and Prudie was muttering something into her glass of claret. A cellist played softly in the corner. Henry took his drink firmly in hand and slipped out of his chair without letting it make a noise.
He stepped into the hall and headed in the direction in which he heard footsteps falling. A figure in a peach-colored dress was hurrying away from him. She disappeared around the corner, but the sight proved irresistible. He followed at what he hoped was a nimble pace, trying his best not to spill any of the drink in his hand.
She took another turn down the long corridor, and Henry followed in thoughtless pursuit. All of a sudden, he had stumbled down a short flight of stairs and into the conservatory, spilling a bit of his drink as he went. Twenty feet ahead of him, the girl to whom his attraction was growing by the second had come to a halt. One of her great, puffed sleeves had slipped, revealing a bare shoulder, and she turned her head, with its precarious pile of curls, upward, as though she was taking in the silent majesty of the place: the arched glass ceiling, the loamy air, the profusion of greenery. He stood still and watched as she took three deep breaths and then bent to put her face close to a big blue hydrangea.
“Lovely, aren’t they? You see why my family never has to send out for fresh-cut flowers….” Henry leaned rakishly against the doorway and took a sip of Scotch. “But you know, they don’t smell.”
Diana turned her face, but not her body. “Oh…y
ou. Yes, I know they don’t smell.” She looked back at the hydrangea and shrugged. “I suppose you want your hat back.”
“No, that was for you to keep. It looks much better on you than—”
“Yes, you said that already,” Diana cut him off bitterly.
“Very cute.”
“Why are you being so sullen with me, Miss Diana?” Henry smiled out of the corner of his mouth as he employed a much-used tone and tack. “Didn’t you want me to follow you? Why else would you have run out like that?”
“I ran out because I couldn’t bear you leering at me anymore!” Diana’s brown eyes turned a wrathful shade. She let go of the flower and looked around her. “There is only one good thing about you, Mr. Schoonmaker,” she went on in a calmer voice, “and I’m afraid that is your greenhouse. But I have to be going now.”
She stepped toward the door, and Henry, who was unused to women wanting to escape his company, blocked her way. The anger returned to her eyes when she saw that he was not going to let her pass, but it had the effect of making her look even lovelier. “Do you wish this greenhouse were going to be yours, instead of Elizabeth’s?” he asked with a hint of amusement.
“Oh, please.” Diana pushed past him, and Henry, who had no intention of really trapping her, gave in easily. He did feel, as she moved forcefully against him and through the doorway, a little bit of the warmth of her body and a few rapid heartbeats. “It makes me sick to even hear that. I am not your little windup toy, Hen—”
Before she could finish speaking, or even get fully past Henry, she caught her slipper against his leg and stumbled forward. She steadied herself against the wall, short of falling, and turned angrily. The great volume of her skirt swerved around with her.
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