A Collar and Tie (Ganymede Quartet Book 4) (50 page)

Mother’s party plans began to take on substance. On Monday,
two weeks into his estrangement from Martin, they came home to a hall full of
coveralled workmen who were painting the dark brown Lincrusta a vivid peacock
blue.

“Oh, darling, you’re home!” Mother swept into the hall on
Pearl’s arm. “There’s someone I want you to meet. Come through to the parlor.”

In the blue parlor, there was a tall gentleman with very
good posture sitting on a settee and paging through a fat swatch book, but he
got up immediately when they entered and offered Henry his hand and a broad
smile.

“Jefferson Phipps,” he said, with a hint of a Southern
accent. “Delighted to meet you!” He looked to be about Mother’s age and he was
blond, fey, and wearing a well-cut example of the velvet jacket that seemed to
be the hallmark of the urban fairy. He had a dark-haired slave, very handsome
(rather like a Wilton, actually), who stood discreetly back but gave Henry a
deferential nod.

“Mr. Phipps is going to help me with the decorations,
darling. We’re going to have all new furniture in these front rooms, new
carpets, new colors—everything new!” She seemed energized, almost sparkling,
and Henry was not about to tell her that he didn’t care, that he didn’t want a
party, that the redecorating was for naught.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” he told Mr. Phipps.

Mr. Phipps turned to Mother. “He’s a big boy,” he said, “and
so handsome!”

Henry flushed miserably while Mother and Mr. Phipps praised
first his looks and then Martin’s. When Mother asked him if he was interested
in looking at wallpaper samples, Henry begged off, citing homework, and escaped
upstairs.

On Thursday, they came home to a new
Pals
and the
beginning of the Pony Express serial. However, Martin had to go to his violin
lesson, and Henry was relieved because he wasn’t sure how he ought to handle
the reading of stories now anyway.

He locked the door and listened to Martin’s footsteps
receding, then went into Martin’s room. There was no need to rush. He could
relax a little, look around. He could snoop. He opened Martin’s desk drawers
and found nothing interesting, just the same sorts of old mimeographs and
dried-up fountain pens that he had, though fewer of them. He found Tom’s
valentine to Martin in the bottom drawer mixed up in a bunch of old geography
homework, but he did not see his valentine anywhere, and he grew a little
frantic searching for it.

Giving up on the desk, he looked in the nightstand drawer
and found the cigar box where Martin kept his talismans. Henry was a little
wary of touching the actual talismans, but he wanted to look. He set the box on
the desk and gingerly lifted the lid.

His valentine to Martin was on top of everything. That made
him immensely happy and terribly sad all at once. The card apparently had the
status of a protective treasure in Martin’s eyes, or at least at one point it
had. Perhaps Martin had simply not gotten around to taking the card out.

The stone he’d decorated for Martin was there, too, part of
the H showing from beneath the valentine. It wasn’t as pretty as Martin’s other
talismans, but Henry didn’t think any of the others had been made with such
love.

Henry returned the box to the drawer, careful to put it back
just as he’d found it. It would be mortifying beyond belief for Martin to know
that he’d been here, that he’d been pining away and longing for a connection,
however indirect.

He crouched down next to the laundry basket. There were
pajamas, as he’d expected, and he plucked them from the basket and was about to
rise when he realized there was something else there in shadow. It was a
handkerchief, crumpled and stiffened, and Henry grew lightheaded when he
realized what it was. He brought it to his nose and smelled Martin’s spunk and
began to tremble. He got up and carried this treasure and the pajamas back to
his bed with shaking hands.

He didn’t even need the tail. With his head full of this
most intimate of Martin’s scents, he barely had time to get his trousers
unbuttoned before he was coming and soiling a handkerchief of his own. He lay
on his back, disheveled and dazed, and idly drew the slippery tail back and
forth across his parted lips. He eventually roused himself to put his cock back
in his trousers and then to put the skin-scented pajamas back in the laundry
along with his fresh handkerchief. He kept Martin’s handkerchief though, hiding
it in the drawer with the oil bottle.

Henry remembered the new
Pals
, and flipped it open to
the Pony Express story, which he read to himself. It was an interesting premise
for a story, and Henry felt there might be something between two of the riders
that warranted closer scrutiny, but he couldn’t help noticing that the story
would be greatly improved by being read aloud by someone who could do voices.
However, there was nothing to be done about it. He couldn’t ask Martin to read
to him now.

The next day, Mother requested Martin’s assistance with
putting together a guest list, and Henry was relieved to let him help. While he
didn’t want the party, planning meant that Martin was out of their rooms more
often, and Henry welcomed the time alone.

The party was being scheduled for June 22nd, a Saturday,
which of course was the day in between his birthday and Martin’s, and the day
when they had talked about having some private celebration. Henry felt a pang
of dismay upon learning this, but did not feel he could protest the date
without causing trouble for himself. The party would have to happen sometime,
apparently, and he might as well get it over with.

Henry paid as little attention to the party plans as he
could, but inevitably he had to answer questions about matters of preference
and taste. Martin required his input on a great many details, from determining
the make-up of the guest list to choosing the foods that would be laid out in
the redecorated reception room. When Martin had occasion to question him, Henry
was sullen and uncooperative and reluctant to admit to liking anything at all,
much less liking one thing over another, and he knew he was making things
difficult for Martin and told himself he did not care.

Still, despite the obstacles Henry threw in Martin’s way,
Mother was most complimentary of his organizational skills, saying that there
was simply no way she and Pearl would ever be able to put the party together
without his help. Henry listened to all of this with stiff politeness. He
didn’t want a party, and he definitely didn’t want a party that Martin had
planned, but Mother was clearly enjoying herself, and Henry could see no way
out of the celebration without hurting her.

The party invitations were to go out at the beginning of
June. Henry had contributed very few names to the guest list. He’d disinvited
Louis, of course, but all of his other school friends were to be asked. Martin
and Mother had gotten ahold of a list of all the young people who’d attended
the Metropolitan Ball and would be inviting all of them—a very large number of
people—excepting Adam Pettibone. Martin had conferred with Russ and gotten the
names of many of the young ladies Henry had danced with at Jesse’s party, and
of course Jesse’s friends would be invited, though even the prospect of Perry
Whitman here in his own home could not instill enthusiasm for the event in
Henry’s dulled heart.

The only things that seemed to give Martin any joy at all
were his violin and helping with the party. All month, Martin had seemed so
down. Henry willed him to stop being so stubborn, to come to him with a sincere
apology so he could forgive him and love him again. He just wanted Martin to
say he was sorry. He wanted him to say he’d made a mistake, and that Henry’s
love was worth more than Father’s favor. He wanted Martin to promise never to
go against Henry ever again.

Even as despairing and morose as Henry felt, life went on
around him with muscle and vigor, making him feel quite unimportant in the
scheme of things. The house seemed especially lively, with workmen in and out,
and the redecoration proceeded apace. The public rooms of the house, unused for
so many years, had been essentially museums of ostentatious taste circa 1882,
the year the house had been completed, but now they were bright and modern and
airy. The parlor that had always been blue was now a different shade of blue,
lighter and brighter, and the other parlor, formerly a heavy umber, was now
lavender and grey and trimmed in silver leaf. New furnishings sat on new
carpets in groupings that would encourage conversation and conviviality. Mr.
Phipps had helped Mother to choose well.

Mother had grown quite attached to Mr. Phipps. In the course
of performing his duties, Mr. Phipps had had occasion to take several meals at
the Blackwell house, including chatty weekend lunches for which Henry was also
present. Mother and Mr. Phipps called each other “Jefferson” and “Louisa” and
“darling,” of course, and Mother told Mr. Phipps a great deal about Reggie
during one particularly long Saturday luncheon, and Henry suspected she was
matchmaking in advance of Reggie’s return.

A letter came for Henry on Friday, addressed in Uncle
Reggie’s flourished hand. Henry carried it upstairs while Martin trailed
behind, and he opened it and read, slumped on his desk chair, while Martin
practiced his violin in his own room, the closed door muffling the notes.

Little Prince,

I hope you are having a busy, interesting spring. The weather
here is lovely, and I wish you could see the gardens all in bloom. I have taken
some photographs, but they don’t really capture the charm of the place.

My business here is proceeding apace. Really, I seem to have a
knack for selling furniture. I do enjoy talking, darling, and there are a great
many opportunities to tell anecdotes and share gossip while trying to convince
someone that they need
my
chair as opposed to some other less-storied
sit-upon. As it is, I have told a great many tales and I have sold nearly all
the furniture and most of the art, and there are several parties interested in
the house and gardens. Overall, I will see more money out of my inheritance
than I would have dared dream, but it is still bittersweet to let everything
go.