“Or Prudie? I mean—”
“Penelope, you’re the only one I can count on.”
“All right. Fine.” She batted an eyelash and took both of Elizabeth’s hands. “It’s done.”
“And there’s an event—on Friday night—the one for Admiral Dewey at the Waldorf-Astoria. That’s the first public event that Henry and I will attend, as a couple. Will you be there with me, as my maid of honor?”
“Of course.” Penelope tried not to smile too broadly. Already, she was being let in where she could do the most harm.
“I need a new dress for the occasion, of course, and I’m going to my final fitting at Lord and Taylor’s on Thursday.” Elizabeth’s cheeks were flushed with the relief of making plans now. “Come with me, and we can get something for you, too.”
“All right. But really, that’s not the dress you should be focusing on. You’ll wear white to the wedding, of course. But who will make your wedding dress? It will have to have quite a long train, and—”
“Oh yes,” Elizabeth interrupted, and before she knew what was happening, Penelope was listening to her friend go on about ivory versus ecru, and all the varieties of pink flowers, about whom she should ask to be the other bridesmaids, and what Penelope really thought of the ring, anyway.
Grayson Hayes’s little sister did not vomit in public again, though she did feel like it. Watching the bright eyes of Elizabeth Holland as she imagined out loud the garments of a very large, very rich wedding party brought Penelope’s anger back acutely. But despite the gales of bitterness that would have ruined the complexion of a weaker-willed girl, Penelope Hayes kept on smiling. A smiling friend was a true friend, she reminded herself, and that was how she had to appear—for now, anyway.
Twenty One
With the early arrival of Admiral Dewey’s fleet in the New York harbor yesterday, and the frenzied preparations for the two parades—one by sea on Friday, and one by land on Saturday—it would seem that the city will finally have something to talk about besides the engagement of society scions Mr. Henry Schoonmaker and Miss Elizabeth Holland.
––FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL PAGE, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27,1899
“COME ON, RINGMASTER!” CRIED TEDDY CUTTING, shaking his fist in the air.
“Move, you old nag!” Henry added in a somewhat less generous tone. He was sitting beside his friend in the steep and rickety wooden grandstand seats at Morris Park, drinking Pabst from bottles with blue ribbons on them, eating salted peanuts, and generally acting like a man several notches down in class. The racetrack in the Bronx was much prettier from his family’s box, but on this particular day Henry was avoiding the judgmental specter of his father, and the Schoonmaker box was a show of opulence intended to make its visitors ever-mindful of its owner’s worldly accomplishments. Henry’s worldly goal at the moment was drinking enough beer to be happy and forgetful. “Mooooove!” he cried, in the direction of a mahogany blur of thoroughbred.
Teddy tipped his brown derby back on his head, so that tufts of blond hair emerged from under his hat, and clapped his hands together rowdily as their horse approached the finish line. Ringmaster, with the little red-and-white-clothed jockey on his back, was in second, but as he approached the finish line, he was overtaken. Teddy clapped his hands once in frustration when he saw that his horse had come in fourth. “Well, there goes another twenty bucks,” he said, tossing his racing card under their seats.
“Oh, come on,” Henry replied, moving his black straw boater to a jauntier angle and leaning his elbows on the seat behind him. “It’s not all about money.”
“Says you.” Teddy smiled good-naturedly. “So who’s our money on next? La Infanta?”
“Why don’t we just bet on all the horses next time, and then we won’t have to worry about losing. I for one am just glad that we’re out of the city, and away from all that madness.”
Teddy raised both of his fair eyebrows in Henry’s direction and took a long sip of his beer. Henry ignored the skeptical look and turned up the collar of his tweed jacket. Morris Park, where the Belmont Stakes were run, was situated in a far corner of the Bronx, a borough that still did not feel like part of New York City. It had been annexed on January 1 of that year, along with Brooklyn and Queens, but it still looked sleepy and rural and felt very far away from the rumbling grid of Manhattan, which was currently being taken over by revelers and patriots. The city was busy preparing the fireworks and streams of confetti to welcome home those who had triumphed in battle.
“I meant the celebration,” Henry said, trying to dispel his friend’s accusatory look with a serious expression. “Our yacht is going to be in the water parade, of course.”
“Ah, yes.” Teddy did not appear convinced. Nor did he appear particularly troubled by the lie either. He looked into his beer. “The hero of the South Pacific.”
“The Philippines,” Henry went on in a far-off voice. He had been reading the papers carefully, ever since the Hollands’ coachman had accused him of being ignorant. “What a lot of trouble for such a distant country. The war in Cuba—that was a war I might have gotten behind.”
“Yes, we all would have enlisted, if only we’d had the time.”
“Are you making fun?”
Teddy shrugged. “If you don’t want to admit what you’re running away from, I’m certainly not going to force you.”
Henry sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Teddy lit a cigarette, which filled the air around them with sweet-smelling smoke. “I live for days like these,” Henry said, casting his eyes at the handsome horses, shiny and groomed, being led out to the track.
“Yes, I know, and it’s so awful when we’re all dressed up and the ladies are fawning on you and the champagne comes in magnums and the plate is made of gold. You just hate that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Well?” Teddy exhaled in exasperation. “What seems to be the problem?”
Henry looked at his friend warily, pausing a few moments to find the words. “I’m just not sure about this engagement. Now that actual wedding clothes are being discussed, I’m getting sort of skittish. Details like that make the whole thing feel, I don’t know, real somehow. I mean, imagine hosting lunches with the Mrs. on a day like today, instead of taking in the horses with you. Instead of doing whatever I pleased.”
“But will you think of that, when you have such a pretty Mrs.?”
Henry tried not to frown, but failed. He tried to think of his fiancée as a woman he was attracted to, but the same stiff girl kept souring his thoughts, the one who, on their carriage ride through Central Park, had flinched at his every word. She’d been barely able to look at him, and seemed, especially next to the exuberant sister, with her pink cheeks and carelessness, like a cold fish. “Everyone says she is very pretty,” Henry agreed bitterly.
“I say she is very pretty. In fact, I’d say that was under-stating the situation.”
“Then you marry her,” Henry replied.
“I would.” Teddy laughed. “But she is already engaged, I’m afraid. Now, would you care to bet her hand in marriage on the next race?”
“What a scandal that would be. ‘Society Boys Horse Trade with Their Brides.’ And you know how the papers recount every blow of my nose.”
“I wasn’t serious, man.” Teddy clapped his hand on Henry’s shoulder and gave it a little shake.
“I know.” Henry looked at his hands, with their long, unblemished fingers. They were hands that had never seen a day of work. “I’m just not sure she’s right. I mean, Elizabeth is so shy and polite, and you know very well that I am neither.”
“Well,” Teddy said, draining his beer and tossing the bottle under the seats, “she is definitely not the lady version of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, she is not.”
“But she has taste and manners.”
Henry rolled his eyes.
“And she will be impeccable in all the areas one marries
for. She will host good entertainments, oversee a perfect household, she will give you handsome children, and she will not complain about any of it. You, meanwhile, will sit back and enjoy, and nobody will think twice about you discreetly living your private life on the side, with the same friendships with the same girls and new ones, too. None of your passions last, no matter who it is. So really, Elizabeth is just as good, and probably much better, than anyone you’d likely exchange vows with at any other time.” Teddy seemed to think he had put an end to the discussion and he motioned for a passing boy, with a wooden ice chest full of Pabst, to stop by. When Teddy had paid for both of their beers, he handed one to Henry and knocked it gently with his own. “Cheers, my friend. I think you have made an excellent choice.”
Henry drank, but continued to look dourly out at the race. It had begun sometime during their discussion, and was now swiftly and loudly reaching its denouement. “Maybe marriage just isn’t what I want,” he said finally.
Teddy gave a wan smile to that and looked out at the horses, who were coming breakneck around the bend. The men in the crowd were on their feet and whooping, hoping with their whole bodies that the speed of one filly would change their lives. “Well, then, what do you want?” Teddy asked, exasperation breaking through his tone.
The horses crossed the finish line, and Henry realized that it had been the last race of the day. Most of the crowd were ripping up their cards or cursing or shuffling away, gazes focused on their feet as they headed back to their dingy little lives. One ruddy-faced man, however, was jumping up and down and pumping his fists in the air. “I’m made!” he cried. “I’m made!”
Henry turned away from the gauche display. His friend was looking at him as though he might not have heard properly. But Henry had heard, and the question—what did he want?—was marching around in his head.
But when he closed his eyes, all he could see was Diana Holland running across the grass, pulling her skirt back to reveal her lovely white calves and yelling at him. Her voice was full of heat and mischief, telling him that he had better not let the ribbon of her hat escape, or her mother would have his neck for letting her get so freckled in the sun.
Henry knew exactly what he wanted; it was just that he had no earthly idea how to get it.
Twenty Two
The whole city is waiting expectantly to see Miss Elizabeth Holland and her fiancé, Mr. Schoonmaker, in public for the first time, tomorrow night at the Waldorf-Astoria, where a party is to be given in honor of Admiral Dewey. I am sure I am not the only one anxiously anticipating the romantic vision of our premier bachelor escorting his chosen one.
––FROM THE “GAMESOME GALLANT” COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1899
DIANA WAS ALMOST DOZING OFF IN THE STUFFY private room where her sister was being outfitted for tomorrow’s first public appearance with Henry, when she heard that magical name she had been waiting for all afternoon.
“So…is Henry being romantic with you?”
It was Penelope who had asked the question, with a somewhat put-on nonchalance. She was wearing a black chiffon shirtwaist with puffed sleeves and a fawn-colored skirt with black silk trim. She had directed the question at Elizabeth, who was standing on a wood block in the middle of one of the private dressmaker’s rooms at Lord & Taylor, but it was Diana whose heart fluttered at the mention of Henry’s name. Elizabeth, who was encircled not only by the dressmaker, Mr. Carroll, but also by an attentive Penelope and a small fleet of shopgirls, did not appear interested in the question. She stared ahead vacantly and shrugged.
“No…” she said slowly. “But tomorrow night is the first night we will appear as a couple, so perhaps he is waiting till then.”
“Yes, he is probably just being shy until he is sure of himself with you,” Penelope replied quickly. She seemed to have recovered from her public vomiting of the week before, Diana noted. But of course, girls of their set were like moths to the light when it came to a wedding, as evidenced by Penelope’s constant presence beside the bustling dressmaker.
Mr. Carroll was not a tall man, and he wore measuring tapes draped around his neck. Even though he was in his early thirties, he was already nearly bald, and he moved with a decided grace. Elizabeth stood with quiet entitlement at the center of the frenzy, even though he had been perfecting the fit of her dress for nearly an hour, marking various points to be taken in. It was a modest dress in theory, covering clavicle and wrists in Belgian lace, but every alteration seemed to bring the cloth closer to her skin. It was constructed of the palest pink silk, and its skirt was gathered in ripples and waves that cascaded downward toward the floor. The neckline was adorned with tiny freshwater pearls set in gold, hundreds of them clustered together. Diana had heard her mother exclaiming over these pearls that morning—they were a gift from Mrs. Schoonmaker, apparently.
Diana watched from one of the soft plum-colored velvet couches as Penelope pointed out an uneven cut to the dressmaker. The whole of the department store—located on Broadway at the very top of what they called Ladies’ Mile, a stretch of luxury shops to rival any in the world—smelled of musk, which wafted up from the lower floors, where gloves, brooches, and bonnets were sold. Every surface seemed to be covered with mirrors, so that at any moment a young girl could be pleased by the sight of her own reflection from a new and surprising angle. Diana usually enjoyed visits to the department store, if only because they were staffed mostly by handsome young men. But today she felt already weary of the image of her sister reflected so many times over, illuminated by glittering chandelier light. She could see only a tiny bit of herself in the mirror, a background face in the grand tableau of Elizabeth’s fitting.
Beside Diana was their chaperone, Aunt Edith, who was nodding off. She was wearing a maroon dress, and her neck was covered by a cream scarf, which she claimed would protect her from catarrh. Every ten minutes or so, a salesgirl would reappear with some new treasure to show them—feathered caps and leather opera gloves and bracelets inlaid with mother-of-pearl, all resting in pale pink tissue paper—and occasionally with the glasses of champagne they provided for choice customers.
“And have you chosen a wedding date?” Penelope went on, her blue eyes wide with a peculiar curiosity.
“Oh, yes…sometime in winter, perhaps, or spring.”
Diana took one of the champagne flutes from the salesgirl and sipped. This was odd, her sister being so vague, but she wasn’t about to make a point of it. If she had, she might also have pointed out that Penelope, who had little natural curiosity about other people, was being unusually inquisitive. In Diana’s experience, Penelope’s favored conversational topic was the subject of herself.
“That is soon,” Penelope said. “Maybe you should ask Buckie to help? With the wedding planning, I mean. He is very good at what he does, you know….”
“You think so?” Elizabeth stared vacantly at herself in the mirror. “All right, then. But could you ask him? You know him so much better than I do.”
Diana slouched back, her head against the dark blue wallpaper, and waited for her turn to be dressed. There was something going on between Elizabeth and her friend—perhaps Penelope was jealous that Elizabeth was first to be engaged?—but Diana was having trouble following it. Ordinarily she couldn’t have cared less, but today she found herself eavesdropping, listening for any mention of Henry. Henry, in any context, was interesting to her again.
Earlier, when they were lunching at the Palm Garden at the Waldorf, Elizabeth had been making a big deal about how much it meant to her that Penelope was going to be her maid of honor, and how beautiful the wedding would be, and on and on and on. When Penelope had gone to sneak a cigarette in the ladies’ lounge, away from Aunt Edith’s prying eyes, Elizabeth had whispered to Diana that she was sorry that she could not have two maids of honor.
“I really had to ask Penelope—you’ll forgive me, won’t you?” she’d said. “After all, we did make a promise to each other.”
“I already told you that I don’t care,” had been Diana’s perfectly audible reply. “Penelope is probably a better candidate for official flower holder at a loveless wedding, anyway.”
Elizabeth had drawn back quickly at that comment, although Diana hadn’t meant for it to be cruel. It was just a statement of fact. But Elizabeth had been acting withdrawn ever since—moody, even—and that was not a face she wore in public, ever.
“But you have been seeing him?” Penelope prodded. She was extremely close to Elizabeth, almost uncomfortably so, and checking the lace detailing at her throat.
“Oh, yes. We went for a ride in the park, on…when was it, Di?”
“On Sunday,” Diana replied with authority. She didn’t even have to think which he Penelope was referring to. “He was very gallant,” she added thoughtlessly.
“Oh, was he?” said Penelope, moving her fingers to the pearls near Elizabeth’s heart, but turning her eyes on Diana.
“He was nice enough,” Elizabeth put in. “He rescued Diana’s runaway hat.”
“Oh,” Penelope said, and returned to examining the dress.
Diana had replayed that afternoon in Central Park many times since, and found herself watching it in her mind again now. The blur of green and gingham as they ran over the lawn, Henry comically heroic as he waded into the murky water. The subtlety of his smile and the knowing way he looked at her.
“Have you ever taken a train in the western direction out of Grand Central?”
Diana looked up from her daydreams to see her sister, still somewhat vacant in the eyes and asking a totally illogical question. The room—with its patterned blue wallpaper and opulent rug—came back into focus as Diana considered why her sister would ask something so strange.
“No, not unless you count Newport, which is due north, I believe,” Penelope declared. Diana watched her in the mirror as she bent to examine the ruffles of Elizabeth’s skirt.