She Walks in Beauty (19 page)

I retreated to my room the next afternoon and had the second man kindle a fire against the winter’s chill. After he had positioned a chair next to the hearth, I picked up my embroidery and punched the needle through the cardboard. Drew the thread back and forth. In and out; up and down.

Punch. Pull.

Punch. Pull.

Punch. Pull.

The dull monotony of repetition did nothing to drive the words of the newspapers from my mind. Did naiveté beget stupidity? And if it did, then what was I supposed to do about it?

The Tattler
seemed to imply that a debutante had some sort of say in her future. That I, that all of us, could make some decision other than that which had already been made for us. On our behalf. By our fathers. By our mothers.

But in that, I knew that whoever wrote that column had erred. Miss Miller had helped me to see that our futures had been decided. Decided long ago. Though some of us had hoped otherwise, we had all known of this end since our beginnings. Since the day the doctor had uttered the words “No. It’s a girl.”

So this one thing at least we could do: We could aspire to great social heights, greater heights than our parents had reached. Greater heights than Aunt had reached.

Punch. Pull.

Punch. Pull.

And no, we had no choice.

The Tattler
was wrong.

17

I MET LIZZIE the next afternoon in the bushes as was our habit. She greeted me by waving two packages at me. “I have Christmas presents for you!”

“Presents?” In the plural? But I had only one for her.

“One for now. Mine.” She gave me the gift that her right hand was holding. I prized open the gilded paper and found within it a pair of embroidered slippers.

“But they’re perfect! With pansies!”

“Your favorite.”

Yes, they were. The fact that she knew it brought tears to my eyes.

“And this one is from Miss Miller.” She offered me the present that she held in her left hand. When I took it, she slid her hands into her muff.

“But—how—?”

“She had it sent to me and asked me to be her messenger.”

I hid it within the folds of my cloak. And from those same folds I withdrew her gift.

Lizzie fairly snatched it from me and tore the paper open. She squealed when she saw what it contained. “Friendship Love and Truth.”

“I know you like mottos.”

“I adore them!”

“Then, merry Christmas.”

She reached out and wrapped her arms around me in an embrace. “Merry Christmas!” After letting go my neck, she straightened the hat on her head. “I have to go. They’re putting the pig on to roast soon. And the cheese straws should be out of the oven by now.”

While we had always had a goose for Christmas, the Barneses always had roasted pig. A whole one. Turned on a spit in their garden. “And what else will you be doing? Tonight?”

“We’ll all eat an apple at midnight. Like always.” Her smile wobbled for an instant. “Just a very little bite this year, you know . . .”

Oh, how I knew. I very much doubted whether I would eat another apple as long as I wore a corset … which appeared to be indefinitely long … as long as the rest of my life. Apples gave me the worst indigestion. “Will you have the bonfire?” Another Barnes eccentricity, it filled the air with woodsmoke if the wind happened to blow in the wrong direction.

“Of course!”

One of my secret wishes as a child had always been to spend Christmas Eve at the Barnes house instead of my own. As it was, I usually spent a few minutes on Christmas Eve night with my cheek pressed to a back-facing window trying to see over our garden and the neighbors’ into theirs. Trying to catch a glimpse of the merry flames and dancing sparks that shot up from the inferno like firecrackers.

“And what will you be doing?”

I shrugged. “The same things as always.” We would eat dinner. I would play the piano, Father would read. And then we would all go to bed. And sometime during the night, Father would be called out to attend to someone who had overindulged or overimbibed. Just the same as almost every other night of the year.

The next morning I awoke to an unfamiliar sound. The sound of silence. There was no activity on the street beneath my windows. No calling out of passersby. I heard the clatter of one carriage as I lay there, propped against my pillows, but not the noise of the dozens I usually did.

I drew on a breakfast jacket without the help of a maid and slipped down the stairs to the parlor. The Christmas tree had appeared in the night, magically, just as it always had. Trees of Christmases past had been done up in paper chains and popcorn strings, with ornaments made of folded paper and candles clipped to the branches. Trees of Christmases past had witnessed the singing of Christmas carols, the hiding of gifts. They had seen the kisses that Father had stolen from Mama when he caught her underneath the balls of mistletoe. This year’s tree was much more stylish and much too elegant to suffer any foolish games. Draped with tinsel and hung with silvered glass ornaments, there was none of my childhood present upon it, but all of Aunt’s fervent wishes for the future were displayed upon its branches.

Christmas used to be my favorite holiday. We had been whirled into a frenzy of activity every December, Mama and I. I had been allowed in the kitchen to watch the cook make her puddings and Christmas cakes and to put the finishing touches on those creations. And when I had not been in the kitchen, its scents had followed me everywhere. Cinnamon and ginger, orange peel and lemon. Of such things were my memories of Christmas perfumed.

This December, the house had smelled of roasts and turnips. The way it usually did. In fact, no hint at the coming of Christmas had appeared at all until the tree this morning.

Eventually, Father appeared from his study and Aunt came downstairs. After a breakfast of boiled eggs and boiled ham, we exchanged gifts.

Father placed Mother’s jewelry box in my hands.

I lifted the lid and gazed at the gems I knew so well. There were sets of garnets and rubies and emeralds nestled in its felt-lined boxes. And best of all, the amethysts.

“The season’s most beautiful debutante shouldn’t be without her jewels.”

“Thank you.” Tears had begun to prick my eyes. I blinked. Then I looked at him and tried to smile. “They’re lovely.”

“If I don’t miss my guess, you’ll be even more lauded than your mother was.”

Than Mama? I very much doubted that. Before I could revel any more in that unexpected gift, Aunt presented me with hers. A tasseled fan that was set into mother-of-pearl sticks.

I gave Father a new paperweight for his study and Aunt an opera purse I had worked in beads.

Father took a look at his pocket watch, frowned, and then set it back into his pocket. Aunt busied herself with petting her dogs. After a while, Father left.

Aunt excused herself.

And I went back upstairs, carrying the box and the fan with me.

Later that morning, we reassembled for church. The silence of early morning had been overwhelmed by the clatter of carriages, seemingly summoned by the pealing of church bells all across the city.

As always, the whole of the church had been done up for the holiday, from the narthex to the sanctuary. Small fir trees decorated the platform and calla lilies and elephant ears had been placed on the altar. The pews were swagged with festoons of holly and laurel.

The De Vrieses went into church just ahead of us. Mrs. De Vries, resplendent in maroon, followed by the girl and a man I did not recognize. That man was followed by Franklin, who was followed by his brother. The men were so dark, the women so fair that they looked like a picture of a storybook family.

The minister outdid himself that morning with his sermon. And the choir outdid themselves with a Te Deum and a Sanctus and then with “Adeste Fideles” during the offertory. The best singing of the service, however, came not from the choir but from across the aisle. From the direction of the De Vries pew.

After church we returned to the house, and at three o’clock we sat down to a dinner of roast goose with chestnut stuffing, a salad course with celery and hot cheese balls, and a plum pudding with brandy butter for dessert.

Later that night I opened the present I had most been looking forward to. The gift from Miss Miller. I unwrapped the package to discover a slim volume of verses. And though I would have liked to have devoured them with a crisp green apple in hand, I gave myself to their stanzas and forgot, for several blissful hours, that I was even wearing a corset.

The next morning, my first task was to write a letter to Miss Miller.

Dear Miss Miller,

Thank you so much for the lovely book of verses. How did you know that I have nearly memorized my entire volume of Byron? I found Emily Dickinson’s poems to be delightful, if rather odd. I had not before heard mention of her.

If you do me the pleasure of corresponding in the future, please write to me in the care of

Care of whom? Though Aunt had agreed to let me speak with Lizzie at balls and other events we attended together, were she to discover our meetings in the hedge, I was not sure she would approve. Better, perhaps, not to rely on Lizzie as a messenger. But if not Lizzie … ?

Perhaps … Harry? Though I did not know him well, and though it was probably completely inappropriate to beg such favors from a gentleman, I decided that I would ask him. I thought, I hoped, that he would agree. But in case I was mistaken, I would wait to send the letter until I could ask.

Mr. Harold De Vries, New York City.

Your friend,
Clara Carter

That evening I attended a private ball at the Hamiltons’. And it was with some relief that I saw the De Vries brothers attending. Thankfully, Harry offered me a cup of punch during the first intermission. I wasted no opportunity in begging my favor from him.

“. . . I hate to have to presume upon our recent friendship.”

“I beg you, Miss Carter, to presume.”

His generosity of spirit supplied me the courage to continue. “I would like to post a letter to a friend. And it’s necessasry that her reply, if there is to be one, not be posted to my house.”

“To her? It is a
she
, then, to whom you write?”