Rumors (20 page)

H
ENRY WAS A REMARKABLY WELL-FED BACHELOR
, and it had been some years since the absence of a lady had caused him anything like discomfort. Still, on Christmas Eve, with a fresh snow still settling into the panes of the Schoonmaker windows and onto the sloped mansard roof above them, he could not help but feel a little hungry. When he had slipped back into his bedroom late that morning, he’d found his friend Teddy already gone, and then he’d slept until the sounds of party preparation woke him with a start. Then his imagination turned directly to the pink skin and reckless curls of the young Miss Holland. The most important thing he’d accomplished all day, by far, was having the hyacinths sent to her home. It was with these thoughts that he began to feel a pleasant kind of anticipation for an event of his father’s that he would not otherwise have cared about remotely.

He rang to have his dinner in his room, which he picked at indifferently, and then he dressed in his customary black dinner jacket with tails and white tie without summoning the
assistance of a footman. He didn’t want to be pampered. He didn’t want to be spoon-fed by all the liveried manservants his father could afford. He was thinking about the plush neckline of Diana Holland and the bright knowingness in her eyes, and having another man fussing about his waistcoat would only interfere with such thoughts. How brave she was, how fearless in the face of every expectation she was supposed to meet. Being near her made him feel brave too. It made him feel as though he needed, beyond her, very little indeed.

He took a final sip of the coffee that had been resting on a sideboard and fixed the last strands of his hair into place. Then he looked down from his bay windows unto Fifth Avenue, where all those his father deemed worthy or useful were being helped down to the sidewalk. The snow glistened as bright as any of the diamonds, and it even necessitated the carrying of one or two of the ladies who feared for their gowns. Henry smiled ruefully and thought to himself that Diana would never have done such a thing. She would have inhaled the cold and gone up the steps as indomitably as she did everything. Then he turned and stood, under the great mural of picnicking bons vivants that decorated the ceiling of his rooms, and checked his tie a final time in the full-length mirror with the copper snake ensnaring it.

He walked toward the door with airy purpose, and it seemed to him that he would have reached the main floor of his family’s house in a few, blithe steps. The reason he did not
was entirely to do with the two men standing at his door. They were wearing the black tails and dove gray slacks of butlers, although their faces seemed to have known rougher things than drawing rooms and pantries. Their features, like their hands, were thick and chapped.

“Excuse me,” Henry said hotly.

“Oh, no, sir,” replied the first.

“Excuse us, sir,” seconded the other. “We’ll be escorting you downstairs, then.”

“Why?” Henry’s voice was indignant. “I hardly need—”

“Your father’s orders,” answered the first.

“Seems you broke house arrest—your father found your friend Cutting dozing off in there early this morning, and figured out that you’d given him the slip.”

“Wasn’t too pleased,” added the other, lowering his eyes at his charge.

“No, not at all.”

“Speaking of Mr. Cutting,” said the first man with a gap-toothed smile, “this note came for you earlier.”

A folded, cream-colored piece of paper was extended toward him. Henry snatched it. He opened it slowly, and as he read he began to see what had happened. He looked at the two men in disbelief, and down the long corridor to where the guests were arriving. The floor had been polished that day, and the light of the entryway was visible down at the end, spilling
across the boards like daylight at the end of a cave. He could hear the shrieks of delight as the droves came in, and he took a step in that direction. The two men moved to either side of his shoulders, close enough that Henry smelled the smell of men who did not spend their days looking after hereditary silver. He took another step, and the men followed him exactly. As Henry went forward, the men matching his movements, he realized that he was in another of his father’s traps.

The three of them went down the grand stairway in absurd lockstep, Henry fighting—not very successfully—his caged feeling. The shiny floors of the hall were almost all crowded out by the arriving guests, who filled the air with silly exclamations and loud prattle. Several of them turned, without much subtlety, to look at Henry as he passed. They went under the wide oak entryway and into the ballroom with all its paintings high on the walls. Henry felt the men fall behind him for just a moment, and that was when he caught a glimpse of her.

She was a vision in a white gown, her dark hair forming a hazy halo around her rosy, heart-shaped face. Her long lashes fluttered to touch her cheeks, and then her eyes opened fully in his direction. Her small, round mouth flexed in an immediate and knowing smile.
That’s the girl I’m going to marry,
Henry thought. Then the shoulder of one of his father’s men obstructed his view, and he heard the other one say: “Mr. Schoonmaker wants you going this way.”

P
ENELOPE CROSSED THE THRESHOLD OF THE
Schoonmaker ballroom with all things necessary for a notable entrance. She wore a new dress from the Parisian couturier Doucet, who kept a dossier on her measurements and fabric preferences. It had arrived just that week, and it was made of a garnet-colored silk faille in rows of tucks and volants that brought it close to her body in the hips and ribs and flowed outward at the knee and was garlanded at the neckline and hem with yards of white point d’esprit. She was glad it was Christmas, if only for the excuse to return to her favorite shade. Her dark hair was done up with simple height, and it was ringed with real pine and pearls. And if her natural stature and glow were not enough to win attention, she had on her arm the returned prodigal, Grayson Hayes, the older brother everyone was always asking about.

Of course, the entrance proved a useless and petty endeavor. Henry was nowhere to be seen, a fact Penelope grasped in a few unquiet moments.

They glided into the room, in advance of their less comely parents, slowly, letting the light catch against the architectural planes of their faces. Penelope resented her brother, in a mild sort of way, for his prolonged absence and for taking some attention away from her. But she knew that everybody thought of her as the bright sibling, the sibling who would make a more brilliant marriage, the sibling who would propel the family name to new levels of social exclusivity. It was only that he had made himself scarce that made him so exciting now, and she was inclined to let him have his moment. She clung, sisterly, to his arm as they moved forward along the green velvet wall hangings.

“Is that little Diana Holland over there?” Grayson asked in a low voice.

“Little is the right word. Her sister may have been a prude, but at least she had the proper finishing and coming-out. Diana really is an untrained thing.” Penelope cocked an eyebrow and drew herself up to her superior height.

“You know, I saw a girl who looked just like her sister on the train from California….”

“Elizabeth Holland is dead,” she replied sharply. Only after she had spoken did the chill set in. Whenever she heard a rumor about Elizabeth being still alive, she felt a touch of fear that her former friend might be returning to New York to take away all the things that were rightfully Penelope’s. It
was true that she had left with utter determination, although Penelope sometimes wondered how long a girl used to servants and satin underthings could last in the dusty West. But it was easy enough to dismiss what was written in the papers as fantasy, and harder to hear the observations of her always exacting brother.

“I
know,
Penny, but this young lady looked uncommonly like her. And when I approached her, she dismissed the notion just the way you would. The way a girl from New York would. Whoever she was, she wasn’t western bred.”

“Grayson.” Penelope’s voice had fallen to a gravelly whisper. “Not now.”

“In any event,” her brother went on, his voice light with understanding, “her sister will be quite pretty when the edges come off.”

Penelope might have sniffed, but she was distracted from her brother’s distressing comments by the sight of Mrs. Isabelle Schoonmaker moving toward them at a barely disguised charge. She was wearing a gown of gold lamé with a tremendous bronze bow at the neckline and a large sash of the same color demarcating her waist. Several peacock feathers bounced in her waves of blond hair. Penelope was pleased to note her friend’s approach, and was already planning a neat segue to Henry’s whereabouts, when the rosy hostess was intercepted midstride.

“Mrs. Schoonmaker,” old Carey Lewis Longhorn was saying. He had stepped out of the crowd accompanied by a brunette whose broad back was turned toward Penelope. His companion’s hair was pinned to the back of her head in the shape of a big, wooden spoon. Mrs. Schoonmaker’s blue eyes rolled yearningly in the direction of the Hayes siblings; Penelope winked at her in sympathy.

Penelope leaned in toward her brother’s ear. “Mrs. Schoonmaker and I have lately become fast friends.”

“Is that so,” he replied dryly.

By the time they arrived by the Hayeses’ side, Penelope had realized who Longhorn’s young friend was. She couldn’t help but huff a little at the sight of the Hollands’ old maid, her hair so clearly done by her own hand, and in the company of that randy old bachelor. She really was an idiot. If she went on being seen only with that man—and no doubt the likes of his famous friend, old divorced Lucy Carr, too—then people would begin to talk. And it would be the kind of talk that would doom her even more quickly than her plain face.

“Isabelle!” Penelope cried, blowing kisses.

“Penny!” Mrs. Schoonmaker rejoined. She looked at Grayson and turned a color of pink that brought out the turquoise in her eyes. “You know Mr. Longhorn, of course, Mr. Longhorn, this is Mr. Hayes and Miss Hayes. And Penelope,
Mr. Hayes, this is Miss Carolina Broad of Utah, who is a new friend of Mr. Longhorn’s.”

“Charmed,” Grayson said as he leaned forward and kissed “Carolina’s” gloved hand. “Mr. Longhorn,” he went on, “I believe you have the portrait Sargent did of our lovely Isabelle in your collection.”

“Indeed I do.” Longhorn permitted himself a wink in the other man’s direction. “Although I have to say that she has only grown lovelier since then. Perhaps, if her husband permits, I will have another commissioned….”

Mr. Longhorn continued praising Isabelle’s beauty, but Penelope was having trouble focusing on their little group’s conversational direction. She was doing her best to appear to pay attention, when Lina disengaged herself from Longhorn and moved in Penelope’s direction with a confidence of gait that she had not heretofore exhibited. Because—and only because—it was not currently in her interest to appear outwardly rude, Penelope allowed herself to be drawn away from the others and back into the marbled hall. Once they were out of earshot she resumed a cold tone. “I suppose you’ve got something to sell.”

“Oh, no.” The former maid looked around the room and then directly into the other girl’s eyes.
Eye contact,
thought Penelope.
How
very
novel.
“Not in the slightest, although I do have a story to tell you that I think you’ll find very amusing.”

Late guests were still trickling in at the entryway down at the end of the hall, and the air was colder here than in the ballroom. Isabelle’s intrusion had made Penelope forget, however temporarily, Grayson’s comment about Elizabeth, but now the specter was back. Penelope’s features hardened.

“It’s about Henry,” Lina said. The clicks of the girls’ high-heeled slippers echoed in the hall several times before the former help made a needless clarification: “Henry Schoonmaker. You wondered out loud to me once why he wasn’t in love with you, and I think I might have an idea,” she went on baldly.

Now it was Penelope whose arm tightened against Lina’s, and she drew her away from the entryway and across the gleaming, cream-colored floor. They moved along the walls, which were decorated in the richly colored tapestries of the ancestral home of some old, fallen European family, and out of earshot.

“Yes, but it’s a rather personal story, and I really wouldn’t feel comfortable telling someone who wasn’t my friend.” The former maid paused for an effect that was not altogether necessary. “My very good friend. You are my friend, aren’t you, Miss Hayes?”

Penelope couldn’t help but feel a little impressed by this. So Carolina knew there were more important things than money if she were going to make it in New York. “Yes,” Penelope replied slowly, trying not to seem too eager. After all, she didn’t yet know whether this information would be useful
to her or not. “You are my friend. Though of course, my best friends are the ones with the best stories.”

“Oh, I’m sure they are.” A waiter with a tray of hot-spiced punch in little crystal cups passed them, on his way from the kitchen to the main site of the party. Once he had passed, Lina took a breath. She seemed to be stitching the words together in her head. “You wanted to know why Mr. Schoonmaker doesn’t love you, and while I can hardly pretend to answer that, I can tell you where he woke up this morning and with whom.”

Penelope felt a sudden rage burning at her ears and down her throat. She had to set her teeth to keep her temper from reaching the boiling point. Since she knew she could not then be trusted with words, she gave her new friend a look and waited impatiently for her to go on.

“So, would you like to know?”

“Yes.”
Penelope had to close her eyes for a minute to disguise her seething. She needed to know who this person, whom Henry erroneously believed to have some quality that might recommend her over the girl in whose embrace he’d spent the entire summer of 1899, was. She needed to know now.

“But I’ll need guarantees, specific guarantees.”

Penelope’s eyes were tinged red, she knew, but she opened them and stared into Lina’s. Her pale green eyes were so open and steady, as though she really believed that whatever she was about to ask for could rival Penelope’s goal in importance.
Penelope would have called her expression stupid, except that the girl seemed to have been clever again in collecting information. “What? Anything.”

“I’ll need to be invited on your family’s days of course, and welcomed as your friend.” Lina spoke carefully, laying out a plan she had apparently spent much obsessive thought on. It was as though she were looking at sweets in a glass case and saying,
I’ll take that, and that, and that.
“And as your friend, I will be expecting to be invited to any balls that might also be thrown at the Hayeses’ house. And since our friendship is indeed so dear to both of us, then would I be too forward in expecting an invitation to stay in Newport during the summer season? And when there is a wedding”—Lina paused to smile confidentially at her new friend—“I would be so very honored to be among your bridesmaids.”

“Yes, yes, for God’s sake. All of it. I promise that I will take you up.” Penelope’s throat was entirely dry, and she had to pause to swallow. She would have promised anything at that particular moment. “I will make you. Only tell me now.”

Penelope became aware of the sounds of revelry back down the hall again as Lina paused to catch her breath, and then the horrid story came out.

“He woke up in my former mistress’s house, in the room of her younger sister. With her younger sister. They were—”

“How do you know?” Penelope’s voice was dark, her
words strained and chosen for utility. She could picture this scene, of Henry and that impetuous little girl, and she was struggling not to.

“Because my sister, Claire, who still works there, saw them. She walked in on them—”

“That’s enough. I believe you.” Penelope closed her prettily painted lids and tried to regain herself. It was too idiotic to be believed, and yet it all perversely fit together. In one moment her body felt chills and in the next unbearable heat. “I cannot tell you now,” she pronounced slowly, carefully, “how very much I appreciate your sharing this with me. You have become a very close friend. You are always welcome at my home when we are receiving, and you can count on invitations to our gatherings and any weekend parties out of town we might hold. Now, however, as my friend, please go back and tell my brother and Mrs. Schoonmaker that I am not feeling very well and that I had to go to the ladies’ dressing room to regain myself. You’ll see my gratitude later.”

Penelope kept her eyes shut and listened as Lina’s footsteps fell away. She sank a row of teeth into her plush bottom lip and turned her face to the wall. She rested her forehead against one of those precious tapestries, with their antique threads and grand depictions of the heroism of old. She raised her fist and pounded the soft side of it against the thick fabric five times until her heartbeats began to slow down.