Envy (19 page)

C
AROLINA KNEW IT WAS HER DESTINY TO SEE LELAND
again, although she would have been hard-pressed to explain how that would ever come about. Luckily, thoughts of the man she had imagined close to a proposal in Florida were all in her head, and so there was no need to make any of it logical to anybody else. She tried not to dwell too carefully on her current circumstances, either, which were a million miles from just a week before. She was wearing a plain black dress again, though this one at least had a high, stern neck and some attempt at ornamentation around the chest. She had lived for a few days in one of those rickety places downtown, and now she had her own room—close to the servants’ quarters, in another woman’s grand home. There was nothing about this new situation that made Carolina feel even a little bit grand.

“Miss Broad.”

“Yes?” Carolina’s eyes fluttered innocently, and she knew that her face assumed that serviceable, cowlike expression that it had worn so often in her years as a lady’s maid. Her voice
became suddenly girlish too, like that of a woman who has not yet learned to ask for what she deserves. “What is it, Mrs. Tilt?”

“Miss Broad, you need not look so frightened!” Portia Tilt was already a little drunk, and it did not do kind things for her garishly done-up face. She was smiling charitably at Carolina, but only because she now felt more powerful than her. It was quite evident that the western transplant, upon whom Carolina had not wasted even a minute of thought when they’d crossed paths at Sherry’s, liked having someone whose name had been in all the columns to boss around. “I was only going to tell you that you are welcome to play bridge with the guests if you like. You will have to borrow against your wages if you want to bet, but maybe you’re a good player and will come out ahead.”

Carolina blinked her wide-set, sage-colored eyes. She nodded a little dumbly, and then let her gaze drift so that she could see through the satinwood doorframe. Arranged at little French antique card tables were people who once had been her peers. They had all dressed in their finest to see this new Tilt woman, just as they had once done to meet the Broad heiress. She recognized, for instance, Mrs. Carr’s high trilling laugh, although she would have been aware of that lady’s presence at the Tilt town house anyway, for Carolina had handwritten her invitation. Mrs. Carr never turned down an evening,
which was one of the reasons that Carolina—in her capacity as Mrs. Tilt’s new social secretary—had recommended her as a guest. A woman beginning her career must take friends were she can, Carolina had advised tactfully, although she would do well not to exclusively associate with divorcées as her reputation grew. It had pained Carolina to give away such wisdom, but then she no longer had very much to barter.

“No, thank you,” she said quietly. “I’d rather not tonight.”

Mrs. Tilt shrugged her shoulders, her indifference to Carolina’s suffering exaggerated by the vast heaps of red satin ribbons that crowned her lace sleeves. Yellow curls sat above her undistinguished face, catching the light of the chandelier. Mrs. Tilt’s social secretary had held that title only three days by then, and already she resented everything about it. She loathed it, in fact, and feared that others would get wind of this indignity, which was the true reason—although the idea of borrowing against her wages certainly was humiliating—that she preferred not to play bridge that night. Longhorn had taught her, and she was in truth a canny player, but the idea of being pitied by Lucy Carr was too much for Carolina, and so she hung back against the doorframe as Mrs. Tilt swept forward into the room and took her place beside Tristan.

He looked up briefly at Carolina, causing her to draw backward into the hall, where she was invisible and could only see a sliver of the goings-on in the Tilts’ second-floor card
room. It had been Tristan’s suggestion that Carolina take the social secretary position, and also he who had planted the idea in Mrs. Tilt’s mind. That lady swerved past the salesman now, planting a red kiss on his cheek as she made her way to the adjacent high-backed chair, which was covered in new grass-colored jacquard. It was a gesture that was meant to mark her territory, Carolina knew, but she didn’t mind particularly, even though she had allowed Tristan to kiss her twice. She saw now that he was like an illusionist who captivated women with a little sleight of hand, and once she had seen the mechanism, it had lost all power for her. The kisses had only been accepted in loneliness, she told herself, and there was no reason Leland would ever have to know.

Now the chandeliers—far smaller than the ones in Leland’s home—bathed society guests in twinkling light, and the smell of cigarettes was sickly sweet in the air. Carolina closed her eyes, and remembered how she had been a prized part of similar circles in rooms that smelled like this one. That she should be hiding in the hall, in a house like this—too far west and too far uptown to have any real importance—made the skin under her collar burn. The house of a woman, moreover, who didn’t think twice of baldly touching her lowborn lover in the house that her husband’s millions had afforded her. It was the kind of behavior one would have thought more rightly at home on a Nevada ranch.

A waiter was passing her, into the card room, a carafe of white wine in his hand, and she reached out and tapped his arm.

“Webster Youngham prefers red.” She had seen this same man unwittingly pouring the great architect white earlier, and knew that he would not accept another invitation if things were not done more correctly. He was a very entitled gentleman, and rightly so, or at least that was what Mrs. Carr always used to say. The waiter nodded and retreated. A moment later, he reappeared with a bottle of red.

“Pour from the right,” Carolina added, before the man crossed into the card room. It had been a kind of instinct, and she felt immediately angry with herself and Tristan and Portia Tilt for having put her in a situation where she might again act so slavishly over someone else’s desires. She let out a breath of embittered air and turned in a hurry from the irritating scene. Mrs. Tilt wouldn’t be needing her anymore, and it was just as well to wallow in her room as right there. The self-pity that Carolina felt in that moment was of an irascible and overwhelming nature; if some little bird had suggested that her life was far more comfortable here than at the Hollands’, or than it would have been on the street, she would have shot it down.

She strode forward on the oak floors, not bothering to step lightly in her high-heeled slippers. She was too good
to make herself quiet for anyone, to hide, or to look after stray waiters who had not been given proper instructions. She was very nearly mouthing these facts to herself when she heard her name, spoken with what she would have formerly believed was the correct stress and reverence.

“Miss Broad,” said Leland Bouchard.

“Oh.” Carolina came to a stop, and her face fell. She was horribly conscious of the simple arrangement of her hair, which was parted down the middle and drawn up in a bun behind her head, and of the dress which her new mistress had considered more appropriate for her than any of those that Longhorn had paid to have made just for her. She managed a little curtsy and tried to say hello.

She must have seemed strange—she knew very well that she appeared dumbstruck and terribly off—but you would not have known it from the way Leland was looking at her. He was beaming; if she hadn’t been so unhappy about his finding her in reduced circumstances, it might have occurred to her that he was pleased to see her.

“We haven’t met at all since Florida. Have you been hiding from me?”

“You mean you haven’t read the columns?” Carolina whispered numbly.

Leland laughed. “I never read the columns.”

“Oh.” Carolina nodded. Of course he didn’t, she reflect
ed, as she found herself improbably liking him even more. “It’s only that I haven’t been feeling so social,” she lied.

“No, I should say not. You look pale, and a little tired. Are you feeling ill? You ought to get your rest. A body needs rest, you know. You ladies work yourselves too hard.” The broad, masculine lines of his face softened suddenly in concern. “It was a long trip,” he added kindly. There was a quality in his voice that she wished could be produced over and over, and held in a great vat, so that she could dive into it.

“Yes,” she seconded, although for her it had not been long enough. “Why are you here?” she went on, knowing that the question sounded neither sophisticated nor polite. But it had just occurred to her that she had made up the guest list, and his was a name she would never have added for Portia Tilt.

“Youngham and I have some business, and he told me to come here to meet him.” Leland shrugged, and brushed back his wheat-colored hair. She noted his handsomeness with a certain searing pain. “I wouldn’t, ordinarily. You know I have no interest in cards. But I am leaving on a long trip soon, and am short on time.”

Carolina looked up at Leland with sad, childlike eyes. “Where are you going?”

“To London first, and then Paris. At the Exposition Universelle in April there are to be many automobile demon
strations and races, and you know of course that I would never miss a thing like that.” He grinned widely, and then, when Carolina’s lids fluttered shut, he added: “Say, are you quite sure you aren’t ill?”

“Yes, I only—”

“Miss Broad!”

The couple who had gotten on so well in Florida looked up from their private moment to see Mrs. Tilt emerge from the more flattering light of the card room. The step she’d taken in their direction had been wobbly, but her tone had been perfectly precise. Carolina had known what it meant—it was the way a high and mighty person spoke to her minions—and she was sure Leland had heard it too.

“Mrs. Tilt,” Carolina replied, drawing herself up. She pressed her lips together so that the fine lines of her cheekbones emerged in shadows. Without trying very hard, she soon had a look of haughty carelessness, and then she heard herself go on in the old way. “Thank you so much for a lovely evening, but I fear I am not feeling so well and have lost my appetite for cards. Mr. Bouchard has been so kind as to offer to escort me down and to hail a cab.”

Mrs. Tilt’s mouth opened up like a capital
O
, but she was apparently struck dumb, for she said nothing more as Carolina curtsied, took Leland’s arm, and descended the stairs at the end of the hall. They paused in the lobby, where Carolina
gestured for Mrs. Carr’s otter coat, and then she was again out in the cold.

As they waited in silence for a cab to come clomping down the street, Carolina tried desperately to think of something to say or do that would ensure her seeing Leland again. But she had no permanent address, save the one that she had just exited, and no planned social engagements where she might hope to meet him again soon. There was the same strained silence as a cab finally came to a halt and Leland helped her up to the seat.

“I leave Friday, and am afraid I’ll have no time to see you before I go. But you’ll let me know you’re feeling better?”

Carolina moved her head up and down mechanically.

“Send me a telegram at least,” he said. He grabbed for her hand and held it, tightly, in his own.

“I will,” she promised as she reluctantly released her grip. “Goodbye, Mr. Bouchard.”

Then there was the sound of a whip and the horse moved forward into the night. Carolina closed her eyes, and tried to imagine that she was still with Leland and not wrapped up in a stolen coat riding in a cab to which she could give no directions home.

“W
OULD YOU LIKE A DRINK, SIR
?”

“No.”

Henry kept his chin down and his gaze steady as he walked past the waiter and into the second-floor drawing room where his stepmother did much of her entertaining. Louis XIV furniture, which had been oiled that morning between breakfast and luncheon, was arranged with affected carelessness across the deep purple Hamadan carpet. A few of the men and women who fit the elder Mrs. Schoonmaker’s idea of “right people” were now talking in imperious tones over very little. They perched on the corners of divans and reclined in bergère chairs, sipping only occasionally from paper-thin china cups. The late-afternoon light streamed through the lace undercurtains, and one could be sure that on the other side of the glass the parade of carriages down the avenue was moving briskly along.

The skin of Henry’s jaw was freshly shaved and tender. He did feel a twinge of regret that he had turned down the drink, for that particular waiter had been attentive to his
empty glasses for many years, perhaps over the objections of Henry’s father, and he felt a little disloyal about the rejection. But he was trying to keep himself fit and clear. He had been trying all week, as he awaited the return of the elder Schoonmaker from Albany. He had gone over all the arguments in his head, and he felt ready to present his wish to leave Penelope in a rational and straightforward manner and then let the old man do his worst. And anyway, there would be other drinks and other glasses—with Diana, he hoped, in some wonderfully unrecognizable future.

His gaze darted across the room, but he didn’t see his father anywhere, and eventually he focused on the blue-eyed brunette with the long neck who was sitting on an oval-backed, black velvet settee in a day dress of emerald green satin. Beside her was his stepmother, her blond hair done up and her cheeks pink with all the compliments she liked to receive when there were guests. Both women looked toward Henry, and then Isabelle laughed and turned away.

Penelope, however, went on watching Henry as he moved through the little tables and marble statuary that filled the room. He passed Adelaide Wetmore and Lydia Vreewold, ensconced in conversation, and the painter Lispenard Bradley, who appeared to be waiting for a vacancy beside Mrs. Schoonmaker. Once Henry had drawn close, Penelope turned a bright, counterfeit smile back on him.

“Have you missed me terribly?” she said loud enough for several known gossips to hear.

The bodice of Penelope’s dress was braided and layered, and the effect was something like armor. Despite the abundant fabric, there was an angular quality to it. There seemed to be nothing capable of movement underneath the fitted satin, and Henry wondered not for the first time if her blood ran red or black. The answer didn’t matter to him anymore.

“No,” he said finally.

Penelope’s long black lashes batted back just an eighth of an inch. She pressed her oversize lips together and let the perfect oval of her face assume an implacable expression. If she felt embarrassment, she was trying awfully hard to make sure no one else noticed it.

“I was looking for my father. Is he here, Isabelle?”

Isabelle, who had been engaged in a silent exchange with Bradley, showed Henry an innocent face that betrayed just how carefully she had been monitoring the words between her stepson and daughter-in-law. “No,” she said eventually. “He went to the club, but we expect him for dinner at the Hayeses’ tonight. You can talk to him there, later. But do stay now, Henry—you are never any help when we have good people over.”

The glow coming through the windows was fading slowly to evening light, and the colors that women wore during the
day began to appear garish. Already Isabelle was thinking of the next gown she would wear, he knew, although, as usual, she would not want to part with those who had kept her company during the day. She collected furniture, but somewhat indifferently—her real passion was for collecting people.

“I don’t feel so much like socializing now,” Henry replied curtly. “There’s something that I need to discuss with the old man—it’s important, and I won’t be much fun until we’ve had our talk.”

He nodded his goodbye, and moved to leave the drawing room. He’d nearly reached the door when he realized that his wife had matched his every step. All the heads in the room twisted so as to better observe her, and when Henry fully comprehended that the attention of the assembled was on them, he paused and tried to appear a little normal.

“What is it you want to talk to your father about?” she asked in a low voice.

Henry’s eyes went everywhere—to alabaster torchères and angels carved out of wood, to the postures of people who were trying not to seem to spy, to anything but her. “I’d really rather not—”

“If it’s about me, I hope you’d have the courage to say it to my face.”

Henry’s hands moved awkwardly across his black jacket and he sighed.

Penelope’s eyes brightened with a prideful gleam. “Here it is,” she replied, extending her neck so that her head came closer to his. Though her tone was sweet, there was a challenge in it, too.

The Schoonmaker guests had gone back to their little talks and were at least keeping up the illusion that they had no interest in the newlyweds by the mahogany doorframe. He had told her once before: He didn’t know why he was finding it so difficult to muster the words now. Maybe she seemed a more pitiable figure to him after everything.

“Is this about that nonsense you were babbling about in Florida?” She laughed, as at a very urbane joke. There must have been something in his countenance that affirmed this, because she went on: “What would people
say
, Henry. It would be so awfully irregular.” She brought a gloved hand up to cover her mouth and laughed again, this time in a more quiet, simmering way. “Would you like to know what I think? I think you don’t have the guts to tell your father.”

Henry took a hoarse breath. There was a taunting quality in her voice, and it made him pity her somewhat less. He held her gaze, and pronounced his next statement with great care. “I’m going to tell him tonight.”

Only now did Penelope’s smile begin to falter, although she held it enough that her sharp cheekbones emerged against her skin to catch the last of the outside light.

“You wouldn’t.” Her voice had fallen to a hiss, and she stepped forward as though she might find a way to physically prevent him from altering her plans.

“Yes.” Now that he’d said this much aloud, he felt as though the conversation with his father was a foregone conclusion. Henry thought maybe a parade down Fifth Avenue should be planned to honor his bravery, and he was already almost experiencing the thrill of falling confetti. “I would.”

There were many more things he might have gone on to say—about how she deserved it, or that she was cold and venal, or how flimsy his interest in her had ever been—but he knew somehow that the right thing to do at that moment was to keep quiet. There was no need to prolong the war when his exit strategy was so perfectly clear.

He nodded a polite goodbye, turned on his heel, and left the room, his blood charging through his veins and his thoughts soaring to a triumphal tune.