She Walks in Beauty (6 page)

But then a smile banished the consternation and she broke the silence. “We shall make a promise between us right now. Never, but never, will we ever allow a suitor to come between us. Say it.”

“Never, but never, will we ever allow a suitor to come between us.”

She nodded.

“But what happens if … I mean, he’ll have to choose, Lizzie.”

“Then he shall choose. If he chooses you, I will be happy and come to your wedding. And if he chooses me, you will be happy and come to my wedding.”

“I don’t think it’s meant to work that way.” Lizzie was always so genial, so cheerful, that she refused to see difficulty in even the most impossible of situations.

“We just made a promise. And now there is nothing to do but keep it.”

“But … how do we know that he will prefer us at all?”

“Why wouldn’t he? We’re the best catches in the city. Papa has plenty of money and if anyone is to fall sick, your father can cure him. I’m exceedingly gay and charming, and you’re exceedingly smart and pretty. What is there not to like about us?”

What indeed?

“Just think: Our debuts await and with them, true love!” Lizzie ducked through the bushes toward the wall. Her blond curls peeked from her hat. “Don’t forget. Next Thursday. Half past three!”

5

I HAD NEVER understood before just how precarious life was. How in one moment, one could exist on Byron and science experiments and in the next, they could vanish—replaced by singing lessons and etiquette books as if my life itself depended upon them. Gone were my days of laughing and learning with Miss Miller, my hours-long visits with Lizzie in the splendors of her bedroom. My debut had ceased to be a vague kind of doom floating about my future; it had grown wings and teeth and swooped down to carry me away with its obligations.

“Don’t light about here and there like a bird!”

I started at Aunt’s voice. I had been wandering about the room, loath to sit and make any more pronounced the confines of my corset, but lacking in anything of substance to do instead.

“Your strength, if you have one, is in your aspect. That pale, white skin and the sheen of your dark hair. With the least bit of wakefulness at night, with a bit of languor and lethargy, you look quite tragic. You should walk slowly, like one in mourning, with measured paces. You must attain a certain note of grace.”

I had to acquire grace now too? Along with a perfectly pitched voice and an accomplished playing of an especially difficult Hungarian dance by Brahms? “You ask too much.”

“Then you expect too little. I can open the doors of high society to you. My marriage to Mr. Stuart entitled me to that, at least. But I cannot make you walk through them with any kind of success. That is up to you.” She frowned at me, criticism lending weight to her scowl. “Go now. And think on that. Have the butler deliver the newspapers. I need to know where everyone has been and who they’re seeing and what they’re doing.”

I did think on my success. I thought about it all night while I tossed and turned and sighed and groaned. By this time next year, I might be married. And if not married, then engaged to be so. There was no doubt about that. Only one uncertainty regarding my future remained: the identity of the groom. If I was going to marry, and it was certain that I was, why should I not marry the De Vries heir? I had almost convinced myself that I should be the winner of that prize. Though I still didn’t understand the circumstances of Aunt and Father’s determination that I unite with him, wasn’t my family’s honor more important than Mrs. Barnes’s connections? But Lizzie’s words kept echoing through my thoughts.

“Never, but never, will we ever allow a suitor to come between us.”

Never, but never? How could we possibly keep that promise unless we both decided to cede Mr. De Vries to the other? And why would Mrs. Barnes or Aunt allow either of us to do that?

Sunday provided some relief from my training, though I should rue the day that I considered a walk down the aisle of Grace Church preferable to an hour spent with Aunt! As soon as I was settled in the pew, I snuck a peek across the aisle.

It was occupied!

By more than just Mr. and Mrs. De Vries. There was another younger woman sitting beside them, wearing a hat edged in white fur. And a dark green costume trimmed with the same fur. She looked like a Russian princess who had stepped from the pages of
Harper’s Bazar
.

On the other side sat two young men. Both dark-haired. The first was dressed in an elegant dove gray frock coat, his hair precisely combed away from his brow. The other had the telltale folds of an Inverness cape showing at his shoulders. His hair was rather unruly, his brows thick. And it was he who caught me looking in their direction.

I quickly pressed myself against the back of the pew. But leaning back just a bit, beyond the furthest reaches of Aunt’s hat, I could see them still. Enough to know that the young man had done the same.

Leaning forward, I took the hymnal to hand and flipped to the morning’s first hymn, determined to give him no more thought. Though I did wonder which one he was: the elder or the younger. To which of them was I to be presented? Which young man was destined to be the restorer of my family’s honor? And if the De Vries were such a terrible family to begin with, then why did I have to marry into them? Why was it that I had been deemed the sacrificial lamb?

T
HE
N
EW
Y
ORK
J
OURNAL
—S
OCIETY
O
CTOBER 27, 1891

Dr. Willard Carter and his sister, Mrs. Lewis Stuart, will give a tea on Tuesday, November 10, at their residence, 472 Fifth Avenue, in honor of Dr. Carter’s daughter, Miss Clara Carter, who is one of the season’s debutantes. Mrs. Stuart and Miss Carter will receive on Tuesdays during the winter.

Aunt had hardly finished reading the newspaper to me when a coil of anxiety began to tighten in my stomach. I would be receiving? This winter? I hadn’t even thought of that! “Wouldn’t another day be better?” Like Wednesday or Thursday or Friday? Some day of the week that wasn’t quite so close to its beginning? A day of the week I would have time to prepare for?

Aunt hardly bothered to look up from the paper before replying. “Tuesdays are best. That allows any interested gentlemen callers to see you directly after a Monday evening event. We shall waste no time that way.”

“Callers?” In the plural? “But I thought my only interest was the De Vries heir.”

“It is. But why would he be interested in you if no one else is interested? We must cast a wide net, and in doing so reel Mr. De Vries in unawares.”

Aunt spoke to Father about that very thing at dinner.

“We shall give Clara a tea on Tuesday, November tenth. To celebrate her debut into society.”

“November tenth? Could it be a different date? I’ve an … appointment … that afternoon.”

“It’s already been announced in the
Journal
.”

Father continued eating.

When he said nothing, Aunt spoke again. “You may announce it to all your patients, those with eligible sons. They might be ignorant of their obligations. Now is the time to remind them.”

“Aren’t our hopes fixed on the De Vries heir?”

“They’re old money and they have to be dealt with gently. Discreetly. They might not take kindly to being reminded of their … debt. We will rely on Clara’s ability to captivate”—she cast a stern eye in my direction—“and on your means of persuasion only as a last resort.”

Father picked up his goblet and took a sip of wine. “Gently and discreetly.” He set the goblet back on the table. “I don’t remember them being gentle or discreet when they lost all of our money during the Panic. I’ll never forget it. All of it gone in a single day. September 18, 1873. It was rather abrupt, Sister, wouldn’t you say? And their bank was completely unrepentant.”

This was how our family had lost its honor? By losing its money? But hadn’t everyone’s fortunes disappeared in the Panic? That was what Miss Miller had said. Hadn’t Aunt married into the illustrious Stuart family? And hadn’t we lived here on Fifth Avenue, among Vanderbilts and Goulds ever since I could remember?

My questions were tempered by the steel that appeared in Aunt’s eyes. “This is our opportunity. And it is better for us if our goal can be accomplished without any undue … unpleasantries.”

Once the tea had been announced, my social education advanced with rapid speed.

“Because this year’s debutante will be next year’s hostess, that’s why! That’s why it’s important to learn the difference between asparagus tongs and sardine tongs. Especially if you’re to be the bride of a De Vries. Understood?”

I nodded.

“So. What is this one for?” Aunt selected a utensil from the dining room table and held it up before me.

“It’s a fork.” At least that’s what I hoped it was. It was shaped like a spoon, but at the very end, where it ought to have been a solid curve, there were several tines. It was a spoonlike fork.

“Yes. It’s a fork. Very good. But what is it for?”

“It’s for . . .” It couldn’t be for salad. And it couldn’t be for meat; the tines weren’t long enough. It wasn’t for fish. Or for bread. It had to be for something that was mostly meant to be eaten with a spoon. A jelly? No. Jellies were meant to be spread with a knife. And it was surely not a soup spoon.

Aunt placed the utensil back on the table. “It’s for ice cream.”

“Oh.”

“And how about this one?”

That
one was a very spidery-looking fork. It had three long, thin, very sharp tines. So it wasn’t meant for placing anything in the mouth. It had to be for stabbing something. Something like a … roast? No. It wasn’t sturdy enough. Something like a cake? No, it would pull right out. It was made for something small but hard. Something like an apple? But why would anyone want to stab an apple? An orange? “An orange.” I said it with much more confidence than I felt.

“Close. It’s a lemon fork.”

“Oh.”

On and on and on she went. A dozen forks. A dozen spoons. A dozen knives.

“And this?”

“It’s a . . .” It couldn’t be what I assumed it to be. It was a shovel. A tiny narrow shovel in miniature. But what else could it be? “It’s a shovel.”