“Oh, and, Lucy, I do feel that the celadon mousse-line gown is the one you should wear to the tea dance this afternoon. You know, in Newport …”
But Lucy had wandered off to her bedroom.
Mrs. Sterling Van Wyck’s prominent nose cut across the tented lawn like a racing sloop through the waves. She appeared to be heading directly toward where Marjorie Snow and Lucy had just entered.
“Those lilies she sent for the altar last Sunday were so exquisite.” She leaned in toward Lucy. “Though her ringlets are a bit” — she hesitated — “de trop for a woman of her age. But she is so very handsome.”
Mrs. Van Wyck was a scant four or five feet away. “Oh, Mrs. Van Wyck, it was so generous of you to donate those simply beautiful astral lilies, particularly as they must be the prize of your late August bloom.”
But Cornelia Van Wyck suddenly vaporized. One second she had been feet from them, and the next gone. Marjorie Snow stood frozen as she felt a gathering cold pressing in upon her. The first loom of fog, like the swarthy gray mass that materialized on the horizon so many mornings. The fog would advance inexorably and, within minutes, swallow everything in a cold, damp impenetrable shroud.
What had just occurred was death. A kind of death she had heard of — being cut — in which one did not bleed, and yet she felt as though she were hemorrhaging. She had heard of people in society being cut, but never clergy. Why? The question shrieked in her brain. This bloodless act was the most lethal social injury one could suffer.
“Mother, is something wrong?” Lucy grew alarmed as her mother suddenly looked terribly pale.
Marjorie turned to her daughter. Had she not noticed the snub? Impossible!
“I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll go home.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You mustn’t. Your father will take me.”
“No, Mother, I can. Remember, Father isn’t here yet.”
“Oh, no, look who’s coming over to chat. The duke.” Thank goodness someone still wanted to speak with them. A spark of hope flickered within Marjorie Snow’s breast.
“Ah, just the girl I wanted to see. Miss Snow.”
“How lovely to see you,” Marjorie Snow said in a quavering voice. But the flicker grew dim. Miss Snow?
“I believe this is yours?” He held out his hand. In it was a pale pink pearl button.
“Oh my God!” Lucy said hoarsely.
“Lucy, is that a button from your —” Marjorie Snow could not utter the word.
“Yes, I found it,” the duke said as a smirk like a fat worm crawled across his face.
“Where?” Lucy asked weakly, and felt her mother sway and clutch her arm.
“In the woods behind the Grantmore Hotel.”
“W-w-what …” Her mother’s lips seemed to wobble while it searched for the shape of the next word. “What was she doing there?”
“Perhaps you should ask your daughter,” the duke said, turned, and walked away quickly.
Lucy would never know how exactly she navigated her mother out of the tent. They had not gone far when Gus Bellamy rushed up to them.
“I’ll drive you back. I have our trap here.” It was not a question.
“Gus … Gus, what is happening?” Lucy asked.
“I’ll tell you” — he looked at Marjorie Snow — “I’ll tell you later.” He bent over and whispered quickly in her ear, “Not in front of your mother.”
“Yes, of course,” Lucy replied, and cast a nervous glance at her mother.
Lucy had just gotten her mother into bed with a cup of tea when she noticed a cable had been slipped under the front door. It was from Aunt Prissy.
It was signed Priscilla Bancroft Devries. That was perhaps the cruelest blow of all.
LUCY’S FIRST THOUGHT was that she could not show this to her mother. But then she realized that the cable had already been unsealed, and it was rather wrinkled. It must have already been torn open, read, and thrown on the floor in a fit of rage. Her father! But where was he?
She folded the cable and went outside, walking toward the cliffs where she had told Gus to wait.
His back was to her. The wind ruffled his thick black hair. She didn’t mean to startle him, but he flinched as she slipped the cable in front of him.
“Do you know about this?” she asked.
He read it and then looked up.
“Not this cable specifically,” he replied. There was almost a tortured sound in his voice.
“What are you talking about?”
“The word has gone out. The gossip machine has started.”
“What word? What gossip machine?”
“You didn’t notice Mrs. Van Wyck? The cut?”
“The cut?” It was as if Gus were speaking another language.
“She walked by your mother, ignoring her entirely. Everyone saw it. Cornelia Van Wyck is an expert at delivering these social torpedoes. She is a lethal weapon.”
“I noticed that Mother suddenly seemed very pale and quite agitated, but then Percy Wilgrew came up, and … oh, I can’t begin to tell you what he did.”
“Percy? What did he do? Although there is nothing I would put beneath him. He’s an utter cad.”
Lucy turned bright red to the roots of her hair. There was no way she could tell him about the pearl from her combis. She cast her eyes down. “He obviously followed me and Phineas one afternoon. We were alone, unchaperoned.” She laughed as she said the last word.
“And you were doing what … unchaperoned people in love might do.”
“Just kissing.” Lucy sobbed and buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, Lucy!” Gus sighed and touched her elbow lightly.
“I don’t understand any of it.”
Gus’s face had grown hard. “It’s what I hate about this whole stupid little world. Anna and I are going to escape it. I swear, if I have to give up every penny of my inheritance. Despite all the money, it is the most morally bankrupt existence imaginable. A native from the bush of Africa has more morals in the tip of his little finger than this bunch of louts!”
Gus Bellamy was fuming. But Lucy was still confused and felt she could not indulge him in his rant a moment longer. She needed to know things, facts. What was happening to her family?
“Sit down now. Right here on the ground and explain everything to me.”
He looked at her, suddenly abashed. “I’m sorry. I was thinking about myself and not you.” He took the cable and thwacked his hand with it. “This cable is most likely the result of certain inquiries that were probably initiated by Percy Wilgrew, the Duke of Crompton.”
“Yes, go on.”
“He apparently had been led to believe that you were the heiress to a substantial fortune with no entailments.” Lucy groaned. It was becoming all too clear. “He found out otherwise and then, as we can assume, saw you and Phineas alone, which most likely spread fuel on the fire — although those rumors have not started to circulate yet. He began saying that you, your family were … sailing under false colors in order to fetch you a title.”
“A title! As if being called a duchess would make up for that slimy, revolting man.”
“To you, he is slimy and revolting, but he is considered the most amusing man on two continents. Charming, witty, an endless source of entertainment for bored rich people — particularly ladies. He hardly pays for a thing; since he is so fashionable he is a walking advertisement for the best wines, the best tailors. You notice the cravats in the pastel colors he has been wearing?”
“Not really,” Lucy admitted, but she recalled her brief visit with Mrs. Van Wyck and how she had gone on about the duke’s sense of style, his joie de vivre.
“Well, a dozen or more men here are wearing them now. My mother ordered a half dozen for both my father and me.” Gus paused. “He has charmed them, enchanted them as much as any sorcerer. And so they will listen to anything he has to say. And right now, because of the rumors he has started, my father and the other church eld
ers are meeting with your father at Bellemere.”
“At Bellemere? Now?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, poor Father. Are they going to fire him?”
“No. They’ll let him finish the season.”
“Finish the season but not be invited back.” Lucy sighed. “And obviously no chance for the office of bishop of New York.”
“No chance. The Van Wycks will definitely see to that. Sterling Van Wyck is the most powerful man in the diocese of New York.”
Lucy was quiet for some time. Finally, she looked up at Gus. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“For what?”
“For anything?’
Gus looked at her steadily. “This, I know, is easier for me to say since I am a man and you are a young woman. But I would offer this.”
“What?”
“Do what I’m going to do and live your own life, Lucy.”
“Thank you, Gus, but …”
“But what?”
“It’s not that much harder — at least not in some ways,” she said quietly.
“You mean because you are a young woman, it is not that much harder?” He seemed confused.
“Yes, that is exactly what I mean.” Lucy lifted her chin a bit as she spoke. But not in the way you might imagine, she thought.
“Well, I do think you are an uncommon young woman — so perhaps.”
Lucy sighed. More uncommon than you might ever believe.
MARJORIE SNOW STOOD on the porch of the cottage and stared out at the windless iron gray sea. The thick clouds had sucked every bit of reflected light from the water so that the ocean looked like the gruel served in the poorhouses where she was obliged as a reverend’s wife to volunteer one day a week.
The black spruce and pines felt as if they were closing in around her. The desolation, the grimness of this place seemed to augur the bleak future she, her husband, and Lucy now faced. And now she had jeopardized her oldest friendship. She could not bear to think about Prissy, but was it any easier to think about Lucy? How had she been so deceived by her own daughter? And Phineas Heanssler. How could Lucy be in love with this ordinary man?
The reverend, thinking he had heard the worst when he came back from the meeting of the church elders, had walked into an incomprehensible scene. The cottage seemed caught in a paroxysm of shrieking voices. As he entered, Marjorie wheeled around. She was screaming about a pink pearl button. Lucy was standing absolutely rigid with rage, shouting, “He is every bit a gentleman. How dare you?”
It took a full three minutes for the story to come out. And as the denouement, the pink button, assumed its place in the context of this sorry tale, the color drained from the reverend’s face.
Lucy retreated to her bedroom. Marjorie, however, was not ready for sleep or the sleeping draft she would normally take when she was upset. She decided that her head must be crystal clear. The fog outside was bad enough; she refused to let it seep into her mind. As she stood on the porch of the cottage, gazing at the thickening fog, she told herself, “I must save what I can.” And what she felt she could save was her daughter’s reputation. So far, Percy Wilgrew had not breathed a word of the encounter between Lucy and Phineas in the woods. But there was no telling how long his silence would last. And that was just the problem. He might demand money from her. She would be lucky if Prissy ever spoke to her again, though Prissy did love Lucy. She could be convinced to lend some money if it could ensure his silence. But there never really is insurance, is there? Marjorie Snow reflected. This might go on for years and years. And why should Prissy, her oldest, dearest friend in the world, be subjected to that? Never. He must be stopped.
“I’M GOING TO DO the violets and rosemary bouquet in the popover basket for the duke,” Dolly Beal said as she arranged the tea tray with the jam pots and the china teapot.
“It’s his last day?” Murla Jean Eaton asked.
“Yes,” sighed Dolly.
“You going to miss him, girl, ain’t you?” Edna Weed, the cook, said as she brought the freshly baked popovers from the oven to the counter where the tea trays were prepared for serving.
“It ain’t like I’m in love or anything. It’s just like … well … you know … it’s sort of like going to a foreign land when he comes in. I mean, I know he ain’t our kind.”
“And we sure ain’t his kind!” Murla Jean laughed.
“’Course we ain’t. But it’s like something different.”
“You mean he don’t smell like bait,” Edna Weed said, giving the popover pan a delicate shake to loosen inflated buns that rose lofty and golden. Quickly she dropped them into the waiting baskets. “Scat! Before they fall!” she ordered.
No, he sure don’t smell like bait, Dolly thought as she navigated through the tables draped in flowered cloths toward where the Duke of Crompton was holding forth with his usual companions, Mrs. Van Wyck, Mrs. Forbes, and Mrs. Bannister. The overhead fans turned languidly in the thick heat of August, and the women stirred the air with their hand fans as if it were a heavy batter.
“The Harvest Ball — always the last week in August. Mrs. Vanderbilt truly needs me to help with the arrangements. You know, the Russian crown prince is expected as well as the Marquis de Falaise…. Oh, Dolly! I was hoping you’d be on today. It’s my last day.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I know.”
The ladies at the table exchanged meaningful glances. The first time Dolly served the duke, she had addressed him as Mr. Duke. Mrs. Van Wyck had taken her aside and explained that “Duke” was not his last name but a title and that she should simply address him as “sir,” which she had done thereafter until this particular day. They conjectured that she must have gotten hold of a book of peerage and realized that to address him as “Your Grace” was, in fact, most proper. The ladies themselves being comparatively untutored in receiving titled English aristocrats, unlike their counterparts in Newport, had learned this form of address only a bit into the season and felt that “sir” would certainly suffice for Dolly.
“We’ll miss you, Your Grace. We always make a little bouquet on folks’ last day.”
“Ah, violets! How lovely.”
“And sprigs of rosemary — for remembrance so you won’t forget us downeast here on this island.”
“Forget? Never, Dolly! I have carefully packed away the recipe you so thoughtfully wrote out for the popovers.”
“Well, enjoy, as I ’spect these still might be your last for a spell. They don’t serve them down in Newport.”
Mrs. Van Wyck shot Dolly a somewhat severe glance. This had to be one of the longer dialogues between a waitress and a guest; in Newport, rarely more than a single word was exchanged between staff and guests. Dolly blushed and gave a quick curtsy, then moved on to tend to her other two tables.
Returning to the kitchen, Dolly gave Lil, Edna Weed’s assistant, the orders. “The Greens want their chamomile tea as usual. One order of popovers for the Whiteheads, with a small basket of blueberry muffins. No butter plate, please.”
“Poor Mr. Whitehead. She don’t let him eat a thing, do she? A tyrant that one,” Lil said.
Suddenly, there was a commotion on the other side of the swinging doors.
“Sweet Jesus! Did Sally drop another tray?” Edna Weed exclaimed.
A small, frantic young woman, her starched cap askew, streaked into the kitchen. “Quick! Quick! Send someone for Doctor Holmes.”
“Did you drop a tray?” Edna Weed shrieked.
“No, I did not drop a tray!” Sally shot back, her mild gray eyes suddenly fierce. “The duke has fainted. Collapsed.”
“What?” Dolly gasped.
“Fell off his chair, gagging. Oh, you should see him. Sick as a dog, no worse. Face all twisted up like a halibut.”
Dolly, who had been helping Edna shake loose the next batch of popovers, dropped the pan. The lofty bronze peaks quivered slightly, then folded in on themselves as she rushed through the swinging doors.
“Stand back! Sta
nd back!” Mr. Haskell, the Abenaki Club’s manager, ordered as he knelt beside the duke, who was crumpled on the floor, grunting in agony. His eyes had rolled back in his head, and his knees were drawn up to his chest. Then there was a terrible sound. Dolly was shocked when she realized it was the duke’s own breath being torn from him like shreds of canvas sails split in a gale. These sounds were followed by a torturous inhalation and then nothing.
“The doctor’s here!” someone cried out.
But it was too late. They all knew that as Dr. Lucius Holmes knelt by the stricken form. The doctor picked up the duke’s wrist. His face was grim. He dropped the limp hand and tore open the duke’s vest and shirt. Putting one hand over the other, he leaned hard on the chest and pressed.
His chest? Dolly thought. The duke’s chest? His Grace’s chest? The body. At some point, the Duke of Crompton had become in Dolly’s mind merely a body. She turned away, tears in her eyes.
An offshore breeze stirred the floral tablecloths and on it a spirit glided past them, wafted away and blown back across the sea — to that foreign country England. As the spirit brushed by, Dolly, who had never left this Maine island, felt inclined to say, “Good-bye, godspeed, Your Grace,” for during this brief summer, she had traveled miles and miles and miles, gone farther from this island than anyone could ever imagine.
“I warn’t in love with him, Dicky,” she told her boyfriend later that evening. “I wouldn’t never love anyone but you. And it’s hard to explain, but it’s just like when I was serving him tea and popovers …” She struggled to find the right words. “It was just like I’d seen a place I’d only heard about. I mean a whole ’nother continent. England!”
“But, Dolly, England ain’t really a continent. If you look at it on the map. It ain’t much bigger than an island, really.”
Dolly was quiet for a while. “Maybe you’re right, Dicky.” She sighed. She could smell the scent of the bait. He’d been fishing with alewives, and though she knew he bathed, alewives stank to high heaven. Nevertheless, it was the fisherman’s favorite bait at this time of year. “Maybe it is just an island, a really big one, but it’s all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, and I just felt like I’d been there. Understand?”