Splendor: A Luxe Novel (15 page)

“Oh, Carolina,” he sighed, as he tipped her chin upward with a bent index finger and put his whole open mouth over hers.

They drove on like that for a long time, up Fifth and into the park, growing closer to each other and periodically pausing to repeat those wonderful words. Outside the windows of the carriage, the heat held quiet and thick, and up above, beyond the fragrant leaves, the sky was littered with stars. She hadn’t known kisses could be like that, that they could last so long. In the matter of a carriage ride everything she knew about kissing had been quadrupled, and now she felt she truly understood why it was such a scandalous, whispered-of activity. She wouldn’t have minded if they never stopped, although eventually they did, while Leland’s coachman was still driving them over the little bridges and down the woodsy paths of Central Park.

The day had begun a long time ago, it seemed; she’d woken early to choose her dress and have it fitted and then prepare her person for the ball, as well as her coiffure, which now lay in beautiful ruins about her shoulders. There had been several dances at the Waldorf, and so many people she believed to be necessary social connections to talk to. There was the surprise of seeing Claire, and the stress of smoothing over the episode, and also a touch of sorrow to think that her sister had left the house where they had lived since they were children, and had had no family to tell of the change. All of a sudden, Carolina was tired—it was the kind of needy fatigue she had not experienced, or been allowed to experience anyway, since she was a child, and she did not waste another moment before putting her head against Leland. In seconds she was asleep, but in that hovering, half-awake place just before conscious thought slips away, she noticed that he pulled her lightweight linen shawl from the seat beside her, and drew it over her bare shoulders.

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Eighteen

Mrs. Henry Schoonmaker, whose husband has so lately returned from serving our nation abroad, made a rather conspicuous reentry into the elite social whirl, and while her loyalists claimed she was merely breathing life into a dead season by dancing so scandalously with the prince of Bavaria, the prince’s actions suggest otherwise. Word is he has a standing order for a daily delivery of rare blooms to be made at the former Miss Hayes’s address, the Schoonmaker mansion on Fifth. Incidentally, there will be a dinner party given at that same address this evening, to honor young Henry’s return….

——FROM THE “GAMESOME GALLANT” COLUMN IN THE

NEW YORK IMPERIAL, MONDAY, JULY 16, 1900

PENELOPE ENTERED THE LARGE SECOND-FLOOR drawing room Monday afternoon, and labored to appear casual as she situated herself beside her stepmother-in-law. This was something of a struggle, as the Imperial was hanging from the brass periodical rack between the marble statues of Orpheus and Eurydice. Though nobody mentioned it, she guessed that several members of the Schoonmaker household now knew about her peonies. Penelope ordered tea with lemon for herself, and tried to glance over the columns that were unrelated to her as casually as possible. She was wearing a cerise shirtwaist whose decided architecture belied its summery weight, and a long slate gray skirt, which was adorned with three rows of ruffles near the ankle and then rose like a tower to her impossibly tiny waist. It was Isabelle’s “day” again, and so she dressed in anticipation of seeing the visitors who would drop by throughout the afternoon, having already read the scandalous little item concerning her and the prince.

The magenta brushfire of blossoms had arrived as usual to replace yesterday’s delivery in her bedroom, but Penelope could not help but feel somewhat less proud about them today than she had on the previous morning. She was a girl of exotic features and long, fine bones, and she was not shy of attracting attention to herself. But neither did she want—no matter how stupidly or caddishly Henry persisted in acting—to cease being the junior Mrs. Schoonmaker, a title that represented the pinnacle of her social standing and had, for a while anyway, silenced any accusations that she was the somewhat fast daughter of a nouveau riche. The Schoonmakers wanted a divorce in the family no more than the Hayeses did, of course—which was to say, not in the least—but she couldn’t help but fear that if the “Gamesome Gallant” kept writing items about her and the prince of Bavaria, then the balance of sympathy toward Henry and his wife might soon shift, and not in her favor.

“Don’t worry,” Isabelle said indifferently, when nobody of consequence was within earshot. Her body emerged from the middle of a heaping grass green organdy skirt, and her blond curls were drawn back and then over her forehead in a kind of studied messiness. “Haven’t I always told you that married women have all the fun? They’ll forget soon enough; only, you could have been more cautious. Better not to let clues appear in the papers.”

Penelope tried not to show on her face what she felt, which was irritation. For she had been a keeper of file://C:\Documents and Settings\nickunj\Desktop\book.html 10/28/2009

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the elder Mrs. Schoonmaker’s secrets regarding Grayson. And she knew perfectly well that, when the painter Lispenard Bradley (who presently entered the drawing room, knelt on one knee by the hostess, and began rhapsodizing about her beauty) lamented how long it had been since he had had an opportunity to sketch Isabelle, that he was speaking euphemistically.

Prudence, Henry’s younger sister, sat glaring at Bradley and Isabelle from a neighboring chair, and Penelope might have wondered if some rather disgusting triangle had not been formed, if she wasn’t so obsessed with her own troubles. Penelope had wasted weeks pining for Henry’s return, knowing full well it would only mean that he would persist in being cold and indifferent to her. But the length of his absence had entrenched her bitterness toward him, and she now found it impossible to derive pleasure from his good looks, or to muster the will to try and convince him that she was the ideal wife, after all.

He had been back a whole weekend, and he had not looked her in the eye more than half a dozen times.

Meanwhile, everyone seemed ready to view her as the unfaithful party—the injustice of it caused her to set her teacup and saucer down on the mosaic-top table with a touch of violence.

A moment later, she saw that she had broken it. Brown tea ran over the table, and a wedge of lemon slid to the floor. Penelope stood, shocked at herself for doing something so cloddish. She had always prided herself on her cool. “Oh!” she said, as a maid in black dress and a large white apron appeared from beyond her range of vision and began to clean it up.

Bradley stood as well, and Isabelle glanced at her with passing concern or disdain—Penelope couldn’t be certain, and she depended so heavily on her ability to read a face.

“Penelope, are you all right?” Isabelle inquired.

“Yes, I—” She grimaced a little and tried not to feel vulnerable. “I think perhaps I’m just slightly faint and should—”

Penelope did not get a chance to announce her intention of absenting herself from the remaining social hours, because just then the butler arrived in the doorframe, paused for effect, and announced: “His Royal Highness, the Prince of Bavaria.”

Isabelle stood, her cream-colored sleeves sweeping over her person as she smoothed her appearance.

Prudence followed, somewhat more reluctantly, rising to her feet a few seconds later. Silent expectation swelled between the walls of the Schoonmaker drawing room. Then the prince entered, wearing an ivory suit and carrying his straw boater in his hand. He clicked the heels of his black dress shoes and made a bowing motion from his neck, before planting kisses on the hands of all the ladies, and whispering to each, “Enchanté.”

He reached Penelope last, and lingered there, post-kiss, with the tips of her fingers resting against his palm. The maid who had cleaned up Penelope’s spill was still hovering, her head bowed to show her frilly white cap. Penelope gestured toward her, and said, “Would you care for refreshment, your highness?”

“Champagne.”

He released her hand but held her gaze. The maid, hearing his desire, took his hat from him and went to fetch the drink. The prince was taller than she remembered, and his eyes were bluer. They seemed not to blink, and they were fixed on her with such blazing intensity, for such an accumulation of seconds, that even she felt a little pleasantly shocked.

“Have you never been to our house?” she said quickly, when she realized they were being watched. “We have very good rooms here. My husband’s family are quite avid collectors.” The prince’s eyes roamed over the coffered ceilings and heavily decorated walls, finally breaking their gaze. “Yes, so I see,” he replied eventually, in a blasé tone.

Penelope tilted her head, which was piled high with dark hair, and then he lifted his arm so they might take a turn about the room, casually examining the portraits and statuary. As they moved away from the others, Bradley took a seat beside the elder Mrs. Schoonmaker and Prudence returned, huffily, to her book.

“I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed the flowers, Prince—”

“You may call me Frederick.”

“All right—Prince Frederick. I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed the flowers, although I imagine file://C:\Documents and Settings\nickunj\Desktop\book.html 10/28/2009

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you must feel a soupçon of embarrassment over the item that ran in the Imperial this morning, as I did, and I hope you do not think I would ever be so vulgar as to have made a public record of your thoughtfulness.”

“It was not thoughtfulness.” The prince smiled broadly, showing his large, healthy teeth, and Penelope found in the following moments that this was precisely the compliment she longed to hear. His nose was more robust than Henry’s, which she supposed was owing to his royal blood. “You know my dear, on the Continent, when a man—a real man—sees something beautiful that he wants, he does not waste time feeling embarrassment over it. He shows it. That is all I have done.” Pleasurable buoyancy filled Penelope’s chest, and she smiled, slowly but surely, for him alone. She had forgotten how wonderful it was to flirt with someone new. As they walked, they kept a safe distance between their bodies, except that her elbow did rest in the crook of his. That place where their arms touched began to hold a certain magic for her, as though it was a suggestion of how much more of him would like to be in contact with her.

“Is that what you are, a real man?” she asked in a faintly amused tone.

“I am sorry for you if your…acquaintance has rendered you so unable to recognize one,” he returned in the same airy manner. “But I assure you, from this day forward, you will never again have trouble distinguishing between the real thing and the less solid variety.” They had come around another outcropping of antique divans and alabaster torchères, and turned back in the direction of the hall. The afternoon light played against her high cheekbones and the glossy hair of the dashing visitor. She smiled involuntarily, and when she looked in the direction from which they had come she realized Henry was lurking, just outside the drawing room. He had paused at the door, so that he appeared framed in the double height mahogany entryway, wearing a brown suit and boater not unlike the prince’s.

“What a lucky thing to have a visitor who is not only charming but also so terribly instructive,” she said, looking at Henry but speaking to the prince in a low, lush tone. “It is my sincere wish that your company will not prove an aberration.”

The prince’s blue eyes darted from Penelope to the figure in the hall, and he took in the scene without loosening his grip on her elbow, or otherwise trying to physically distance himself from her. For a married woman and a man who was known to be courting a French aristocrat, they were audaciously close.

“But why would I be so foolish as that?” The prince returned, just before Henry tipped his hat forward over his eyes and continued on his way.

Penelope turned her face toward her visitor and gave him a slow, purposeful wink. “I don’t imagine you will be,” she said, and then drew him toward a private corner, where they could talk without being heard, but where the light was strong enough that he would fully appreciate her beauty. As they settled in, and accepted refreshments from a liveried footman, she idly suggested, “You know, my father-in-law is throwing a party this evening, in honor of my husband, who has just returned from serving in the army.

Perhaps you should come, and prove how very not foolish you are?” Nineteen

Coney Island, that summer safety valve for the urban masses, that wild playground for grownups, where inhibitions are left behind and raw humanity always rises to the surface….

——FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL PAGE,

MONDAY, JULY 16, 1900

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THE YOUNG COUPLE DESCENDED THE HIGH TRAIN platform and joined the droves moving down Surf Avenue and then toward the boardwalk, looking like any other couple, he in his soft brown suit and straw hat and she in white shirtwaist and a long navy skirt. The only detail that set them apart from the other shrieking, sun-touched pleasure seekers was her short hair, but one would hardly notice it, tucked under the matching boater she wore, which partially obscured her face. She kept a few steps behind him until they arrived on the boardwalk, and then he reached back and circled her waist in his arms.

“I’ve missed you,” Diana whispered to Henry, biting her bottom lip because she meant it so much. Seeing him was sweeter now, she couldn’t help but feel, after their unjust separation. “I can’t stand being apart.”

“It’s unconscionable,” he replied dryly. Then he laughed and gripped her under the shoulders, lifting and swinging her around him so that her feet flew in a circle above the ground. His slender lips twisted up in a smile. “I think I’m losing my mind,” he added, almost shouting now. “I miss you so much!” But no one on Coney Island cared enough to listen to another pair of sweethearts, driven to foolish excess by their love, and any self-incrimination was drowned out by the squealing and savage laughter, by the whir of the carousel and the crash of waves in the distance. The air was warm, despite the salty breeze, and it didn’t take long for Henry to remove his coat and for the top buttons of his shirt to come undone. They were a long way from the parlors of Manhattan.