Rumors (10 page)

L
INA SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT THE ADVENT OF
her first true moment of glory would coincide with the complete annihilation of all her dreams. Also, that were her name ever to appear in the columns, it would naturally be misspelled. If Will happened to glance over the columns he likely wouldn’t even wonder if the girl mentioned was the one he used to know. She had been born into the plain world, and it now seemed very likely that she would die in the plain world as well. She had taken her desire to be grand one step too far, and now the sight of her full name,
Carolina,
in print made her feel a little sick with herself for having dared to imagine such a fine future for someone so clearly destined to be common. She had paid through Friday at the hotel: after that would commence the long descent Diana had warned her about.

There had first been the fact of her money being gone. This had been an eventuality, of course—it was more than half gone in a short period of time. But it would have lasted her a little longer, and then it would have taken her away from
the city and all of its expenses to find Will out west. She had been planning to carefully budget out the remainder any day now, exactly how much it would cost to travel to Chicago and from there to San Francisco. Then she might need more, to travel down the coast to one of those towns she had heard Will speak of before, places he’d no doubt read about in one of his books. And of course she had hoped to arrive in Elizabeth Holland–style grandeur. For all of it to be gone at once, and for it to have taken all her plans with it!

She had sat with this new fact for a good part of the night, and that was when the anger came. For the money had not disappeared into thin air. Someone had it. Someone was already spending it, and probably on something much less important than finding the love of one’s life. Surely whoever had it was someone whose name had not just appeared—correctly or not—in the “Gamesome Gallant” column in the Monday early edition.

She wondered, at first, if the thievery weren’t somehow Mr. Longhorn’s doing. It was a little too good to be believed, after all, that her first trip to the opera should bring her into such a very fine box. But he was enormously rich—that fact was in no way in doubt—so why would he bother with her paltry fortune? Then she thought of Robert, Mr. Longhorn’s valet, but of course Robert had been waiting at the carriage outside the opera house the whole evening. She thought of
the front-desk man, and of the maid, of all the invisible parts that made the hotel function—but she stopped herself there. She had been lying to them so consistently, and she had been so artful in her vagueness, that to bring a precise complaint felt impossible. Later, when she was older and grander, when she had proved herself as a lady, this illogic would seem like the comical thinking of a frightened child. But at the moment the idea of causing any kind of scene was nearly as terrifying as the loss of the money itself.

If only she could raise half the stolen sum, she told herself, she would go to Will straightaway. These thoughts circled her head all morning, and then, around noon, she remembered she still had one thing left to sell.

“Miss Carolina Broad,” the Hayeses’ butler announced from the corner of what appeared to be a vast drawing room. Lina, hovering behind him, caught a glimpse of the girl who had first given her hope for a new way of life. She was perched on the corner of a divan and wearing a displeased expression as well as a skirt of dusty pink silk. Penelope looked up at the sound of the name and turned her head to the side contemplatively. Perhaps, Lina thought, she had noticed the changes to the name since the last time she’d heard it, or maybe she
hadn’t—it was impossible to know. “I would have presented her card, mademoiselle,” the butler went on, not assuaging the visitor’s discomfort in the least, “but she hasn’t got one.”

It was through a forest of blue-and-white-upholstered Louis Quinze that Lina had to walk—her nerves raw and her courage flagging all the way—to get to the young lady of the grand new house. Although she had met Penelope before, it was hardly the kind of interaction that might lead to further genteel visits. Lina had to force her leather lace-up boots—a gift from Tristan, the day after they’d met—across the black walnut floor. She was finding it awfully difficult to appear natural.

Penelope looked up at Lina only after she had paused a few feet from the divan. The young lady of the house was drawing her long fingers over the head of a small black-and-white dog. “That dress used to be mine.”

Lina looked down on the pale red fabric with the Swiss dot pattern, which she had worn quite a few times over the fall. She remembered Penelope telling her, when she handed it down, that it had been one of her favorites—Lina wondered now if anyone at the hotel might have recognized its provenance.

The large man with the feminine brow and soft skin, who had been reading the columns in a chair just behind Penelope—though she’d never met him, Lina assumed he was the
Buck Elizabeth used to speak so doubtfully of—commented without raising his eyes from his folded paper, “She certainly doesn’t wear it as you did.”

“Oh…” Lina looked down at herself and wished she hadn’t come. It had been a mistake, as she would have realized earlier if she hadn’t been desperate. But she
was
desperate, so she moved a little closer to her onetime patroness.

“I can’t imagine what brings you here,” Penelope put in sharply.

“It’s quite irregular,” Buck added.

Lina’s cheeks turned the color of claret. “Perhaps I could speak to you about that in private?”

Penelope looked as though she had just been asked to make her own bed.

“Anything you can say to Miss Hayes, you can say to me,” Buck said finally, ending a pause that had done unkind things to Lina’s already suffering nerves.

She looked several times from Buck and back to Penelope, and finally resolved to go forward with what she had planned to say. “I thought we might be able to arrange another trade.”

“Another trade?” Penelope exclaimed. There was disbelief in her wide-open eyes. “I hope you haven’t told anyone about all that.”

“Of course not.” Lina drew her lower lip under her teeth
and wondered just how evident the despair was on her face. “But this is a bit of news I think you’d find most interesting.”

Penelope’s gaze turned neutral and she moved her elbow—its sharpness obvious even beneath the tight-fitting pink silk—a little forward on the armrest. “Well. What is it?”

“It’s about the Hollands,” she forced herself to say. “I discovered it while I was still part of their staff. You see, there was a man, I think he dealt in antiques and things, he would come by the house and take pieces of theirs away. The bills were really piling up then. That’s how I realized…me and my sister, Claire…that they’d lost their money. And Claire still works there, so I know that they’ve had to let most of their staff go.”

“Carolina Broad, is it?”

Lina nodded.

“Carolina…” A dry smile had crept onto Penelope’s face. Maybe this was a good sign, Lina thought. For a brief moment she felt at ease in that vast room with its ormolu-encrusted mirrors and old master paintings and its blindingly shiny floor. “Are you saying that the famous Hollands are poor?”

Carolina smiled back a little now. “Oh, yes. I am absolutely sure of it—”

“Lord, get out.” Penelope’s face fell and she waved her hand impulsively. She turned her whole body away from her
visitor now, even as Lina bent toward her, wishing to know what she had done wrong.

“But before you said that—”

“The Hollands are poor?” Penelope went on in a voice that even the little dog, struggling to free his tail from under her skirt, seemed to find discomfiting. “Everyone
knows
that one already. If you’d come here with a reason Henry Schoonmaker hasn’t fallen back in love with me, then perhaps…but that’s a riddle that people far smarter than you are stumped by. You stupid girl, did you really think you were going to come into my house and sell me old news?”

Lina’s lips hung open slightly and she took these words as though they had been a physical reprimand. She was indeed a very stupid girl. “I was only trying to help,” she said faintly.

“Oh, tsk, tsk,” Buck admonished from the background. “You were trying to sell something, dearie.”

Lina felt so miserable and confused, there in the middle of that once-again hostile room, that she was almost grateful for Penelope’s next stroke.

“Rathmill!” she called. Lina turned and saw the butler appear in the doorway. “Miss
Broad
was confused about whom she was calling on. You can show her out now.”

The butler understood the implications perfectly, crossed to the helpless girl in the lesser shade of red, and took her by
the arm. Lina went without protest, hanging her head on the long walk back across the floor.

“That was unpleasant,” she heard Buck say as she was pulled forcibly into the hall. “And just when you were about to go out.”

Lina closed her eyes as the butler drew her roughly toward the front entrance. She had so recently crossed its black-and-white-checked floor in hope and trepidation, but she returned to it with all her hopes dashed. Penelope was right: She was a stupid girl who would never find her way.

T
HE SECOND MRS. SCHOONMAKER WAS KNOWN
not only for her Mondays but also for her Louis Quatorze, which was a mix of her own collection of antique furniture and that of the first Mrs. Schoonmaker. Isabelle was known for her miniatures as well, and for her facial features, which were diminutive and exquisite, and of course for the company she kept. Lydia Vreewold and Grace Vanderbilt—who were of the same generation and shared some of the youth and vivaciousness that characterized their hostess—were sitting on a little settee upholstered in pale turquoise silk and discussing the clothes they planned to buy in Paris that spring; James De Ford, Isabelle’s younger brother, was standing by one of the tall windows that looked out onto Fifth Avenue and listening to the painter Lispenard Bradley pontificate about nudes. (The second Mrs. Schoonmaker was further known for having somewhat irregularly allowed an artist or two into her circle.) Penelope Hayes—dressed impeccably in a dusky pink silk day dress, a new set of tiny dark bangs just
intruding onto her high white forehead—stepped into this scene of superior furniture and celebrated names.

“Penelope, my dear, you look good enough to eat,” Isabelle said, lacing her arm through that of her guest and steering her across the carpeted floor, which was populated by gleaming chairs and various marble statuary and a few top-notch people, comfortably positioned for conversation. Penelope wouldn’t have disagreed, though she was satisfied in the event to lower her eyes and murmur a shy thanks. She looked around—subtly, her face turned toward the dark purple patterns of the Hamadan carpets—with the idea of seeing Henry.

“Poor Henry,” Isabelle went on, apparently sensing in which direction Penelope’s thoughts were running. “His father was furious with him over that little outburst at the opera. Which is so
silly
! Weren’t you and I and everybody else dying for a little diversion at precisely that moment?”

“Oh, I probably was, though I can’t remember the outburst you speak of,” Penelope replied, trying to edge a little bit of chumminess into her shy tone. She took her hostess’s small, soft palm into her own and leaned toward the older woman intimately. “Was Mr. Schoonmaker terribly harsh?”

“He was. There was so much yelling when poor Henry got home.” Isabelle lowered her voice to a confidential pitch as they moved slowly and regally toward the tea things.

Several of the guests had taken notice of the new arrival, but Henry, reclining on a chaise longue in the corner by himself, was looking rather moody and staring at the ceiling. He had not noticed Penelope, a fact that she comprehended with a slight tickle of rage in her throat. “He’s quite worried that Henry’ll do something that might make the family look bad now, when he’s just received so much enthusiasm for his mayoral campaign,” Isabelle went on in the same tone. “But of course, most of the support has come because of sympathy for
Henry,
losing Elizabeth and all…so it’s a fine line for Schoonmaker—he can’t punish him
too
much.”

“No, I suppose not.” They had arrived at the refreshment table, and Isabelle wasted no time in putting a small collection of petits fours glacés onto a small plate. Penelope allowed herself a long, unabashed look in Henry’s direction, which he did not return. He was wearing the usual black jacket and slacks, and the skin around his eyes, which were pretty in an almost feminine way, was touched by a purple fatigue.

Isabelle poured tea for both of them, examining her new friend as she did. She brushed a golden curl away from her eyes and lowered her voice. “Schoonmaker has actually been rather gentle, compared with his usual fury.
I
think Henry has such a long face because of how terribly he’s taking Elizabeth’s death.” The ladies took their teacups and moved toward a set of chairs by a window, which would allow them to appear with
the full benefit of the afternoon light; Penelope and Isabelle comprehended the advantage of this spot with unspoken collusion. “You know, I think when a man loses a wife it’s less of a blow, because he has already had a little bit of life with her. But to lose a fiancée is like having a meal presented to one and then whisked a way before even a single bite can be had….”

Penelope nodded compassionately, although she felt certain that Elizabeth was not a dish Henry would have ordered in the first place. Isabelle sighed and put the little sea-foam green pastry half into her mouth, her eyes rolling to the coved ceiling as she did. “It seems that Henry was greatly matured by the loss of his fiancée,” Penelope said delicately, if completely disingenuously, looking over her teacup to confirm that the subject of their discussions had still not looked in her direction.

“Oh, I should say so, though Schoonmaker doesn’t think so at all.” Isabelle leaned forward and put a hand on Penelope’s arm. “He is petrified that at any moment Henry might cease to appear sad about the whole miserable affair.”

“That’s rather mercenary.” Penelope felt that the new her would react in this way, though as soon as the statement had escaped her mouth, she wondered if it might sound critical of her future family-in-law. It wasn’t easy, trying to make friends as a Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes.

“Oh, yes, of course that’s a terrible way to put it.
Especially since you were such a particular friend of Elizabeth’s.” Isabelle put the rest of the petit four in her mouth remorsefully and swallowed it. “It’s such a pity for Elizabeth, too, and for her family. What a thing it would have been for them if she
had
married Henry. Have you heard the stories about their situation?”

Penelope nodded gravely, keeping her smile safely at bay. She had almost put the pathetic visit from the Hollands’ old maid out of her mind but recalled it now with a certain satisfaction. There was nothing so richly pitiful as the help turning against their employers.

“But of course, it would have been quite the thing for Elizabeth to have been Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker, too. A good married lady she would have made.” Isabelle sighed and put her empty plate down on a small, marble-topped table with an exuberantly curved base. Then she leaned back against her chair and turned her face in Penelope’s direction. A girlish color had come into her cheeks, and where there had been concern in her eyes before, now there was a gleam of mischief. “You know what they say, that a lady’s life really doesn’t begin until she’s a married woman? I had no idea how true that was until
I
was married.”

“Really?” Penelope responded with a matching sparkle in her eye. She had always felt a little sad for Isabelle, who seemed like fun, and who had had so many beaux as
a debutante—including, Penelope believed, her own brother, Grayson—for being married to a controlling, humorless old man. She was glad to hear that being Mrs. William Schoonmaker was not as suffocating as she had imagined. “But I’m so afraid that marriage will mean I must always do only what my husband wishes, and
that
doesn’t sound terribly fun.”

“Oh,
no,
my dear, you must stop thinking that way. Once you are married, no one can suspect you of anything.” Isabelle followed this statement with a long wink and then a pause, in which she rearranged her hands and watched Penelope with cautious eyes. Penelope felt herself to be on the receiving end of the kind of evaluation of which she was ordinarily the author. It was as though Isabelle were trying to look through her. “You know…I always thought Elizabeth would have made a lovely Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker, just as I said…but she wouldn’t have been my first choice for a daughter-in-law.”

Penelope could not help but spread her plush red lips into a full smile at this statement. She looked away, so as not to seem too eager, and rested her pale fingers on the shiny oak finial of her chair. “What sort of daughter-in-law would you have preferred?”

“Oh…” Isabelle shifted thoughtfully in her chair. “One who wasn’t so very…
very
good, I suppose. Elizabeth would always have been checking in on the linens and chiding me for being rude to some old bore—don’t you think so?”

Penelope nodded, perhaps a little too quickly.

“Not to speak ill of the dead,” her hostess went on. “But someone a little…a little more like you would add to the Schoonmaker family in the way that would most please me.”

The pair looked at each other for a long moment, a glimmer of understanding on both their faces.

“Now, tell me what has become of your brother? We do miss him in New York….”

“Oh, Grayson?” Penelope smiled and complied, giving her hostess as much information on her older brother, who had been seeing to the family business abroad for some years, as she possibly could. The two ladies continued to engage each other in affectionate conversation, their long silk skirts adjoining on the carpet, until the butler appeared in the doorway and announced Teddy Cutting’s name. At this point both Isabelle and Penelope looked up and watched with interest as he crossed to Henry and began to talk to him in hushed tones without bothering to take a seat.

“How rude of Mr. Cutting not to greet you first,” Penelope murmured.

“I quite agree with you,” Isabelle answered, sounding not offended in the least, “though I suppose it is Henry’s home too.”

Meanwhile, Henry had stood; something, apparently, had been agreed upon.

“Oh, Mr. Cutting!” Isabelle cried. Everyone in the room turned to look, a fact to which their hostess appeared entirely indifferent. She had taken Penelope’s hand again, as if to imply that this was all for the younger woman’s benefit. “I’m sure you aren’t going to leave without greeting me!”

The attention of the room was now fixed on the pair of chairs by the window; Penelope leaned forward so that the late-day sun would illuminate her best angle. She watched as Teddy, remaining awkwardly in his spot, adjusted his jacket so that it hung just so on him. It had already been hanging just so. The moment lengthened, and Teddy looked to Henry as though he might know what the appropriate thing to do was. But Henry—to Penelope’s mute fury and suffocating disappointment—closed his eyes in impatience and turned toward the ornate oak door frame.

Penelope barely registered Teddy as he moved, with some embarrassment, to his hostess and greeted her with a kiss on the hand.

“My apologies for not coming to you immediately, Mrs. Schoonmaker,” he said. The contractions around his gray eyes indicated he was sincere.

Had Penelope not been so stunned by Henry’s continual lack of interest in her, she might have wondered why Isabelle’s eyes had become dewy and flirtatious in the presence of boring old Teddy, and if this was perhaps all she’d meant when
she said married women had more fun. But for Penelope, at that particular moment, Henry’s baffling indifference was all-consuming.

“Miss Hayes,” Teddy was saying, “it is a pleasure to see you as well.”

“Oh, hello, Teddy,” Penelope answered, extending her hand so that she could feel the soft impress of his lips through her glove. “Where has your friend gone to?”

“Oh, Henry? Some of us are off to race four-in-hands in the park, and Henry has agreed to come along. He has just now gone to give his instructions to the stable.”

Penelope could only manage to maintain a faint smile while Teddy exchanged a few obligatory niceties with Mrs. Schoonmaker. Then he took his leave and with it any hope of seeing Henry for the rest of the afternoon.

“You see,” Isabelle said, once again taking Penelope’s hand. “Henry is so curiously devastated by Elizabeth’s passing. It reveals itself most especially in the deterioration of his manners.”

Penelope would not before that moment have credited any of Henry’s inexplicable behaviors to Elizabeth’s death, but she found herself wondering if this could in fact be true now. Isabelle, as her tone and winking glances indicated, was fast becoming her ally, and
she
apparently believed it to be the reason. Penelope closed her eyes and remembered Elizabeth,
so cold and determined as she’d laid out the plan that would remove her from New York and Henry’s attentions forever. It had not been something she would have previously thought Liz capable of, and that was the least of what Penelope had been surprised by that day. She had had to confront several holes in her knowledge of the world, and she supposed that late in December, in the Schoonmakers’ drawing room, there might still be one or two things she was wrong about.

“But don’t worry,” Isabelle was saying. “We will make him see that although Elizabeth had her charms, there are other ladies who would perhaps be a more ideal match for him.”

Penelope nodded and gave her the smile of a confidante. She found that she no longer minded the idea that Henry’s enduring melancholia might have something to do with the fact that Elizabeth was dead, because if that were so—if Henry was too depressed over Elizabeth’s “death” to see that Penelope was the girl for him—it was based on a misconception that she herself could easily dispel.