In another moment she might have dwelled on the irony that, only a few months ago, the chance to hold the attention of a Percival Coddington would have seemed to her a very lucky turn indeed. But she was entirely different now. She did not have time for such sentimentalities. Her throat began to constrict, for no matter how rudely she twisted her head around, she could not get a glimpse of Leland anywhere.
Of course, her day with him had already been long and close to perfection. But foolishly she had insisted that she be delivered to the hotel in time to bathe, apply her maquillage, have her hair done, and still leave an hour in which to be corseted and to push all the tiny pearl buttons of her suggestively white dress through their holes. He had agreed almost too amicably, and then he had gone off to play golf with Grayson Hayes. She had worried the whole time that he would not return in time to escort her in to dinner, perhaps so much so that she had made his tardiness come true. That was when she had fallen prey to Mr. Coddington, who had insisted on discussing the caste system of the Fijian islanders through the first three courses. She had seen Leland when he came in late, and she now feared that in choosing a few hours with her maid over golfing (which she had never played) she had lost his interest.
“I never did see what people liked about old Carey Longhorn,” Mr. Coddington said—cruelly, Carolina observed—before she finally lost her patience.
“I hardly see how you are in any position to—” she began, but was saved from causing a scene by the sight of her afternoon companion over her partner’s shoulder. He was grinning, with that mouth that was handsomely too large for his face, and the blue of his eyes was sparkly in the low light. Carolina stopped dancing, and Percival let go of her hand a second later. “Mr. Bouchard.”
“Miss Broad.” He tipped his head and then turned on his heel. “Mr. Coddington, may I cut in?”
Percival’s nostrils flared, and for a moment it appeared that he was going to be vocally unhappy about it. But then he acquiesced, and Carolina felt her hand taken up again, with much more force this time, as she was moved backward into the crowd.
“I find I must apologize to you again,” he offered, though Carolina was barely listening. The gleam on her partner’s strong white teeth, the width of his shoulders, the solid size of him, were too overwhelming. “If I had noticed that you were cornered by that tiresome ass—forgive my language—I would have saved you a long time ago.”
Suddenly the music was louder, exultant, as though her own inner sensations were being re-created by horns and strings. She would have liked to go on staring at Leland, but she reminded herself how Elizabeth never seemed to need anything from her suitors, or even to be particularly interested in them. She turned so that he could appreciate her profile and looked out at the crowd and felt very satisfied to be right where she was.
For there was Lady Dagmall-Lister, dancing with her young male companion, and there was the famous architect Webster Youngham dancing cheek to cheek with one of the junior Mrs. Astors. They were all dressed in their finest, as though life really were some magical stage play in which every moment ought to be illuminated with its own bright spotlight. Earlier, everyone had murmured over Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker, dancing with her adoring husband, his dark eyes full of mystery but his hands on his wife. She couldn’t see them now, but she noted Diana Holland, who was wearing a different dress than the one she had dined in earlier; Grayson Hayes was nowhere to be seen either.
Carolina was a little disappointed that Elizabeth had already gone to bed, leaving Teddy Cutting without a partner, for it meant that she would not be forced any longer to witness her former maid’s entry into the rare world of which she had once been the undisputed princess. For a moment, Carolina wondered uncharitably if her onetime mistress had found another member of the staff to have midnight assignations with. But it didn’t matter, really. There were plenty of witnesses to Carolina’s total acceptance into the fold, and some of them might even cable their contacts in the newspaper business about it tomorrow. They were all her friends, or something nearly as good—they had to be nice to her, they had to have her on their little trips now. She was possessed of her own intrinsic social value, and none of their petty jealousies or little games could take that from her.
“Miss Carolina Broad?”
When the diminutive man in the bow tie said her name, Leland came to a stop. She realized that she was no longer dancing with the man who that afternoon had given her reason to anticipate a possible proposal, and then she felt herself, however irrationally, beginning to hate this messenger, who was waiting patiently off to the side, and whatever it was he had to say to her.
“Yes?”
“You have a telegram.”
“Well, give it to my maid, then,” she replied brusquely, as if she were in the habit of receiving late-night telegrams, before moving back toward Leland. He waited for her beside the white latticework on the far side of the dance floor, which protected the guests from the view of the inner workings of the kitchen. There was a real grapevine climbing up it—Carolina had surreptitiously checked earlier in the evening.
“I did.” The man paused, and there was something terrible in the way he hesitated over his next words. “She said that you should be summoned at once. She said you would want to respond immediately. Our correspondence room, where you may want to avail yourself of our telegraph, is on the first floor, just past the—”
A thousand harsh words for this man brimmed in her throat, but somehow none rose off her tongue. Carolina knew that the disappointment of being taken away from the center of things was humiliatingly obvious in her face, although when she looked at Leland she did attempt a brave smile. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she managed.
“I hope so.” Leland’s features were so full of kindness that she could not look at them. “Do you want me to accompany you?” he offered.
Whatever the news, some instinct told her that Leland must not hear it. She shook her head and turned to the man with the bow tie, who led her away from the dance floor, where everyone worth knowing and everything worth seeing would continue to go on without her. As she stepped back into the main lobby of the hotel, she looked at the elaborate pattern of the carpet and felt the horrible tightness of her high-heeled slippers with the little gold crests on the toe.
The correspondence room was all polished oak and gadgetry edged in gold. It was well, almost harshly, lit, and Carolina felt ungainly again beside the fastidious little man. He handed her the telegram, and for a moment she wished that she could hand it back and make it untrue. She wished she could return to the ballroom and go on dancing with Leland forever. But there was nothing that could undo the finality of what she read:
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY
TO: Carolina Broad
ARRIVED AT: 25 The Royal Poinciana,
Palm Beach, Florida
2:00 a.m., Sunday, February 18, 1900
Carey Lewis Longhorn dead this evening after a short illness. His final request was your presence at his funeral—You must return to New York posthaste—I have purchased tickets for you and maid on the train 12 p.m. tomorrow—Upon arrival, discontinue her services.
Yours, Morris James, Esq.
Chief Executor of the Longhorn Estate
Carolina closed her eyes and folded the telegram. A long, cold shudder passed through her body. The events of the day, in all its illuminated perfection, seemed very far away now, but she couldn’t help but realize what awfulness had passed while she was thinking highly of herself and dashing around in horseless carriages. Her memory was overwhelmed by the image of him, on the docks that day, and how very much he had wanted her to stay.
Then, just as quickly, her sadness gave way to another emotion. It seemed impossible that Longhorn could have expired so quickly, and for a moment she was angry that no one warned her of the possibility. But there was no one to blame, and no matter how her heart yearned for it, nothing Leland could do to save her from this. She tried to look as high and
mighty as before, and told the man in the bow tie that she would need tea in her room, as there would be much packing to do.
Twenty Five
Men talk themselves into all kinds of trouble at the card table—that is the true reason that real ladies do not go to such places, ever.
—MRS. L. A. M. BRECKINRIDGE, THE LAWS OF BEING IN WELL-MANNERED CIRCLES
THE MUSIC OF THE ORCHESTRA COULD STILL BE heard in the little casino that was adjacent to the ballroom, and though the decorations were all of cheery, sporting green and white, the dark-suited men who crowded the tables gave it quite a different effect. They all had at least one thing in common, which was that they had had enough of dancing. Though for Henry, who bent to slap away some of the sand that still clung to his trousers, dancing was the least of the reasons he wanted to escape.
“Brother!”
Henry’s eyebrows lifted, and the rest of him followed shortly thereafter. Grayson Hayes was sitting at a card table, and at some point in the last two hours his bow tie had come undone and his jacket had disappeared. There had been several hours that afternoon when Henry had hated nothing in the world as he hated Grayson, for he’d been flirting with Diana endlessly—Henry’s Diana—and she had at times seemed to return his attentions. But he liked the man a little better as he was now—far from any women, his heart racing over a game instead of a fine figure.
Henry signaled to a passing waiter for a drink, and then pulled up a chair.
“Could you lend me twenty?” Grayson asked.
Henry couldn’t help the droll smile that played at the edges of his mouth. He waited a moment before nodding to the dealer. “Charge it to my room,” he said, and then fresh chips were produced. There was some fatigue beginning to show under Grayson’s eyes, but the attentive hunch of his shoulders suggested he was many hours from bedtime yet. Henry crossed his legs and lit a cigarette.
“Where’s Penny?” Grayson asked presently.
“I don’t know.” Henry had left her on the dance floor, but he was too consumed with the image of Diana half-drenched, her clavicles exposed in the moonlight, the silk sleeves of her dress clinging to the arms that had once hung around his neck so joyously. Henry’s characteristic pose was one of stylish indifference, and he doubtless still looked like that now as he exhaled contemplatively. But he was, in truth, full of fire.
“She’s smiling and explaining away your absence now, but she’ll have your head later,” Grayson said. “Oh, boy, drink up. I wouldn’t want to be you tomorrow.”
Henry’s drink had arrived, and—knowing this last bit to be true—he took a healthy sip. “Who cares?” he muttered.
To his surprise, Grayson chuckled. “And she used to be such a sweet girl.”
“Oh, I only meant—”
“Don’t worry, Schoonmaker. And don’t think I don’t know she sometimes likes to pull the strings like some puppet master from hell.” The hand ended, but Grayson’s eyes had lost none of their animal quality. “Could you lend me another twenty?”
Henry waved his cigarette at the dealer in confirmation and finished his drink. He tried to discern the waiter, out there amongst all the other men in black and white, in order to request another drink. But the waiter had already seen him and was on his way, and after Henry had taken a sip of the fresh Scotch he felt loose enough to prod a bit.
“You seem awfully fond of Diana Holland.”
Grayson was distracted by his hand, and Henry experienced a terrible moment when his words hung in the air without hope of a response. Eventually his brother-in-law looked over, revealing a sparkle in his eye. “She embodies all varieties of feminine beauty,” he said, taking a cigarette from the box that Henry had left on the edge of the table and placing it for a moment between his broad front teeth. “She is perfection in a woman.”
Henry’s mind’s eye filled, briefly, with the chaos that would ensue if he struck his brother-in-law across the jaw.
But then Grayson continued: “Her mother must have been strenuous in raising her, though. There’s a door no man can crack. She’s quite young, quite naïve, more protected even than her sister. I can’t get so much as a kiss on the cheek out of her.”
Henry’s shoulders relaxed, and in celebration of this news he drained the contents of his sturdy glass. He circled his finger in the general direction of the waiter, indicating that he wanted drinks for his friend and himself as well. He knew that he should abandon the conversation there and then, but Diana was everywhere in his thoughts and on his tongue. “She is lovely…” he continued, almost to himself.
“Ah!” Grayson looked up at the ceiling fans and smiled to himself. “That pink skin. Those dreamy lashes.”
Henry closed his eyes, and imagined the sweet, petulant woundedness with which she had stared at him on the beach. He felt a little proud that she could love him. “And she moves so gorgeously.”
“I tell you, Schoonmaker, she doesn’t know what she has. That’s the heart of it. She’s like some wild creature who hasn’t a clue the worth of its coat.” Grayson paused to up his bet and then assumed a philosophical tone. “Whoever wins her in the end will be a lucky man indeed.”
More drinks arrived, and the colors in the room grew both brighter and less distinct for Henry. Grayson became engrossed in cards again, and asked to borrow more money, but the last thing he’d said about Diana had lodged itself in Henry’s head and begun to put down roots. He lit another cigarette and thought on it, and also on his promise to her, and how he would keep it.
The arrangement of the furniture in the best suite in the Royal Poinciana had never seemed so treacherous. It was all blurry, low-lying forms, although the moonlight did glaze the tiled floor. Henry’s eye followed the glittering reflection to the French doors, which were thrown open onto the terrace. The silvery trail ended in a fluted skirt of white chiffon dotted with black that was cinched at the waist and then spread over the bust and up to the shoulders dramatically, where the fabric was gathered with black ribbons. His wife was still wearing her long black gloves, although they had slipped somewhat at the elbows, and she had put all the weight of her long body against the voluptuous carved wood balustrade.
The sky was turning from purple to navy, and beyond Penelope the tops of the palms were just visible, like the unkempt heads of giants. The moon above her had grown hazy under the clouds, but still it glinted in her hair and on her bracelets. He hated her then, not just for having cost him so much, not just for all the hypocrisy and vanity and stupid greed she embodied, but because he had returned to her, even now, when all his being wanted to be elsewhere. He looked at her back—for she showed no signs of turning toward him—and imagined all the ways he might tell her he would leave. But his tongue was as useless as some mud-bound carriage.
Out on the terrace, Penelope remained still, except that she bent her ear toward her shoulder—it seemed to him that no gesture had ever contained such malicious self-possession. His mouth did open once or twice, but his anger had grown and sat in the way of words.
Now his feet were carrying him across the floor, his conscious mind trailing a few beats behind his heavy, drunken footsteps. He had seen how easy it would be. Without any words he could sidestep all the messy legal entanglements, all the cutting judgments of society. His wife was leaning carelessly there, four stories above the gravel walk, and if she leaned too far—trying to catch a glimpse of Lady Dagmall-Lister’s bejeweled coiffure, say, or the flight of a parrot from one low branch to another—then she might stumble, lose balance, and fall to her death. Her neck would snap in painless seconds, and then she would have no way of preventing her husband from finally being with the girl he truly loved. The girl who was somewhere in those hundreds of rooms, believing his promise…
Henry had traveled across the room with forceful speed, removing his jacket as he did and dropping it on the tiles, but something stopped him at the threshold of the terrace. The warm outside air met him like a thick, damp curtain, and Penelope twisted to loo
k at him. Her bottom lip quivered and the corners of her eyes turned down in sorrow. She watched him, and he watched her, and then he knew that the danger had passed. She had seen the idea in him, and now he recognized the full horror of it reflected in her eyes.
Henry gripped the doorframe, unsteady and panting a little, shocked by what he had discovered himself to be nearly capable of. The rich fabric of her dress was contorted around her long body, and even in the darkness she had the appearance of a woman who had seen too much.
Time passed, and then she said, “I don’t blame you for wanting to kill me.”
Her head swayed away, as heavy on her long neck as overripe fruit. A few of the short dark hairs on the back of her neck floated down, away from her coiffure and toward the clasp of the diamond and onyx necklace that she had had to buy for herself as a wedding present. Below them women in evening wear and festooned hairpieces were teetering through the Coconut Grove, a little worse for drinking, laughing just slightly too loud in response to the sweet lies of suitors who were growing generous with the waxing of the moon. Her shoulders slumped, and she gave him an imploring look, as though she would rather he’d just go ahead and do it.
“Penelope”—his voice broke over the name—“I could never—”