She Walks in Beauty (31 page)

He did. And then he reached forward to settle the music on its holder above the keyboard.

A warmth rose from his clothes. A warmth scented with cedar and sandalwood … and something that tickled my nose with its pungence. Limes?

He placed his hands on the keyboard, as did I. Our shoulders were touching, the wool of his coat scratching against my bared skin.

“Ready?”

I nodded.

“One … two . . .”

I kept the time of his count by pulsing my fingers as he did the same. And on three, we began to play.

The composer had given me a lovely, lilting melody, and Harry a simple, if unimaginative, harmony. But then, inexplicably, the piece began to change. And very soon I was playing in his low octaves, and he was playing in my high octaves.

He leaned back a bit as I leaned forward.

Our fingers flirted, first nestling between one another and then bounding away. The intricacy, the sheer … intimacy … of it all, left me rather flustered. But soon I began to anticipate those portions of the music that would bring me into close proximity. Those moments when Harry’s breath would caress the curls dangling at the back of my neck and I would graze the backs of his hands, for just an instant, as I leapt over them to the next movement in the music.

But just as I was growing accustomed to our musical embrace, the melody and harmony wandered apart and I was returned to my own octaves, constrained by the music inscribed on the sheet. And then, in one last lilting phrase, the song ended, leaving us both breathless.

T
HE
N
EW
Y
ORK
J
OURNAL
—S
OCIETY
F
EBRUARY 9, 1892

. . . the ball was well attended, and was especially graced by the presence of the charming Miss Clara Carter, who wore a striking gown by Madame Connolly. Composed of ciel blue ribbons and white taffeta, drifts of snowy white lace fell from its shoulders. It was cut décolleté, and flounces of lace decorated the bodice.

T
HE
T
ATTLER
F
EBRUARY 9, 1892

Which debutante appears most skilled in the art of flirting by duet? She was seen entwined upon the octaves while playing with one of our city’s finest young Knickerbockers yesterday evening.

“Entwined upon the octaves!” I couldn’t seem to keep my voice from rising.

Lizzie gave my arm a squeeze. “I knew you’d want to see it. That’s why I sent you the message to meet me.”

And Aunt had almost intercepted it.

Lizzie shifted the paper so that it caught the light filtering through the branches of the hedge. “Entwined. That’s what it says.” Worry clearly shone through the lines above Lizzie’s eyes.

“Entwined!”

“I’m not misquoting. And you might want to keep your voice down. Just a little.”

“I know you’re not misquoting, but—we were not entwined! Our fingers might have gotten a bit mixed up … and I might have had to lean across him … and … he across me . . .”

“You
were
playing a duet. What did you expect?”

“That I would play a duet. Not that I would be portrayed as some … some … fallen woman!”

Lizzie began to laugh. “But duets are only ever played in flirtation.”

“He said it was a new one. From Italy.”

“Oh—from
Italy
!” Her laughter grew more pronounced. “Honestly, Clara. Didn’t you know?” She quieted for a moment to look at me. And then, with a curious pity displayed in her eyes, she leaned forward and patted my hand. “You didn’t know.”

“But—but you and I play duets all the time. Or … we used to.”

“In practice.”

“And you play them all the time with Franklin.”

“How else can one expect to get five minutes alone with a suitor? Sitting side by side, breathing the same air? Duets were made for courting.”

I closed my eyes with a groan. “And now Aunt will have one more thing to scold me for. I’ve been discovered courting the wrong man.”

“Yes. Discovered
entwined
with him upon the octaves!” She couldn’t seem to keep her giggles from bubbling forth.

“I suppose … there was an awful lot of … shifting … that occurred. And we did trade octaves more than once.”

“Scandal!” Lizzie was laughing so hard that her face was beginning to turn red.

“But what if Franklin sees it? What if Franklin thinks—I mean—Harry’s his own brother!”

That stopped up her laughter. “Franklin might see it, but he won’t read it. Franklin doesn’t read much of anything. Haven’t you noticed?”

I hadn’t. But as I thought upon it, I realized she was probably right. Franklin was such a restless, impetuous soul that I couldn’t imagine him sitting in one place long enough to pick up a newspaper, let alone read it.

“Besides, the article didn’t even name you.”

That was little consolation. Anyone who had been there would realize that it was me. I let out another sigh. Vowed never again to sit next to Harry on a piano bench. Even if we both understood that it meant nothing.

The Tattler had to be stopped. He’d dogged my steps for the entire season and cast me in only the poorest of lights. At least I knew who he was. Hadn’t Mr. Hooper signaled his intentions back at the beginning of the season? During my first at-home? Who else could it be but him? I could understand the depths of grief, but insulting me could do nothing to reverse his sister’s death. Ruining my season would never result in any kind of triumph for her own.

She was dead!

Surely he could be made to understand reason. I resolved to speak to him that very night.

“Who?” A paleness seemed to wash over Aunt’s cheeks.

“Mr. Hooper. The man who always stares at me.” I had decided to enlist Aunt’s aid so that my interview with Mr. Hooper could be accomplished quickly. And discreetly. But I hadn’t yet seen him among the ball-goers.

“Oh, my dear! Please, don’t speak of that. Of him.”

“But he’s been unbearably rude to me—you must agree—and I find that I require an explanation.”

“You’re not to mention him tonight. Or any other night. To do so would be to commit the
unspeakable
.”

“But it is imperative that I speak tonight.”

Aunt leaned close. “He’s dead.”

“Dead!”
That
was unexpected.

“By his own hand.” The words were whispered viciously into my ear. “And it is not to be spoken of, will never be spoken of, in polite company.”

A shameful relief overcame my initial revulsion. If he was dead, then The Tattler had nothing left to say. If he was dead, then I no longer had to confront him. I only wished I did not feel quite so triumphant.

Mr. Hooper had died.

May God bless his miserable, tormented soul.

27

I WAS PACING in front of the window, trying to gather my thoughts. Lizzie’s continued comments about the vaunted, ubiquitous Miss Clara Carter had left me in something of a state. If I stood on the tips of my toes, I could see beyond the lace curtains and out to the sidewalk. Just. There was a gathering of five or six girls out there. Doing absolutely nothing but loitering as far as I could tell. “Have they nothing better to do?”

“Who?”

“All those girls out there. On the sidewalk.”

Aunt looked up at me over the stack of invitations with a frown. “Let them look. Let them linger. It will only make your hand in marriage more valuable.”

“I’m not a piece of merchandise. I’m a person.”

“Who is destined for a great marriage. Why should they not look upon you with awe? You’ll soon have the life of which every girl dreams. A veritable fairy tale.”

I nearly laughed outright. A fairy tale? No. Those always included true love. And at that, I had not one chance. I turned away from the window. “No one told me it would be like this.” Tripping home in the wee hours of morning, sleeping until nearly noon only to get up and repeat the performance again. In front of an ever-increasing crowd of admirers. Who all wore hats of orange bombazine decorated with plum-colored ribbons.

“You’ve done far better than we had hoped.”

“Yes. And now I can’t go anywhere without Mr. Douglas. And I can wear nothing without it being dissected and analyzed in the newspapers.” How could anyone think that I knew anything about … any of this? How could they call me an expert on society? “Mama never told me … when she spoke of debuts it was always about the dances.” About being whisked around a ballroom in the arms of a handsome man. She hadn’t told me what hard work it was.

“Your mother never knew any of this. She never had a debut. She was a Newport girl.”

As I had grown, I had come to realize that I didn’t know much about my mother. I had only been ten when she’d died—much too young to wonder at the life she led before she had become the mother I had always known her to be.

“Not from a family that
went
to Newport. She was
from
Newport. She was a town girl.”

“Oh.”

“Yes:
Oh
. That’s exactly what I said when Brother told me he had met her. There were Posts in Newport that year. And Livingstons. Sheldons. May Vandermere was there, with the bloom of youth and all her family’s connections, just come from her debut.”

“He was hoping for a match?”

“I was hoping for a match. In spite of our losses from the Panic. A Warren would even have done. Anyone besides a Newport girl.”

“But … ?”

“He didn’t listen. Wouldn’t listen. Listened to nothing at all but your mother sing at church. She was a soloist, you know. In the choir.”

I hadn’t known.

“A summer of romance. Walks on the beach, dinners at the hotels. All fall and all winter there were quick visits to the coast out of season. He would not be dissuaded. And in the spring, they were married.”

“Mama was beautiful.”

“Oh, to be sure! And that was his argument. ‘She’ll be the most beautiful girl in the city, you’ll see. We’ll retake all I’ve lost, together.’ And since there was nothing else to be done about it, I took her under my tutelage. I trained her up in the ways of society so that she wouldn’t make a fool of Brother. I took her to the corsetiere’s and the dressmaker’s. To balls and the opera. Imagine: She had never seen one!”

“But she got sick.”

“She was never quite well. Not after Brother brought her back from the sea.”

She had missed her home. I knew it as surely as if Mama were speaking the words into my ear.

“She wasn’t used to city ways. And how she chafed at her corsets! Just like a young girl.” Aunt grimaced. “Just like you. But in time, she came to accept them. And use them for her benefit. In time and with guidance, she became the envy of every woman in the city: She achieved a sixteen-inch waist.”

Sixteen inches! That was two less than my own.

“For a time, after we had groomed her for her new life, she brought Brother nothing but luck. She had a very simple way about her. Quite disarming. And charming.”

“Did she never go back?” Because we never had. I had never once been to Newport.

“There was nothing to go back to. Her mother had passed away, and her father had her in his old age. After he had given up teaching at Cambridge. He died soon after she married.”

“But she must have returned for the funeral.”

“No. Brother couldn’t leave his practice.”

“He couldn’t? But … not even in the summer? When everyone else goes to Newport?”

“Everyone else does not go to Newport. Not during the week. The men stay in the city. And that’s where your father had to be.”

Poor Mama. A child of the ocean, a child of the summer, without a wave in sight, with scarcely a breeze in the city. But … she must have been happy. Hadn’t she always been singing? At least until … she hadn’t?