She Walks in Beauty (21 page)

My only consolation was that Lizzie was suffering such agonies as well. She had to be if she was attending the Patriarch’s Ball. It was with the goal of commiserating that I mentioned my torturous dance lessons that Thursday when I met her. “I just can’t seem to remember the order of the patterns.”

“Which patterns?”

“For the ball.”

“Which ball?”

“The Patriarch’s Ball.”

“You’ve been invited to the Patriarch’s Ball?” Her look was akin to the one Aunt had given me.

“Weren’t you?”

“No. I wasn’t.”

If I could have taken back my words, I surely would have.

But Lizzie had already brightened. “The Patriarch’s Ball! You’ll have to tell me everything about it. Can’t you just not wait?”

I could. I could wait for a thousand years. Or more.

I spent the days before the ball in a state of nearly constant fear. What if I tripped stepping out of our carriage? What if I didn’t remember the sets for the cotillion? What if I couldn’t think of anything to say during the dinner? What if I fainted at some point that night?

And worse, there was a whole opera to sit through before the ball even began!

As Tuesday’s night turned into Wednesday’s dawn, as the hours ticked into minutes and the clock finally tolled four, my anxiety knew no bounds. Except those of my corset. When my breathing came too quickly, when my heart beat too fast, I closed my eyes against the world and sought to bring my breathing back within the confines of my laces.

I was coiffed and gowned, shod and brushed. And then I was bundled into a cloak and whisked to the opera. And from there, to Delmonico’s restaurant, where the ball was to be held.

Pink was the color of the evening and the rooms smelled of nothing so much as money. It was evident in the scent of the pink roses that had been draped from every chandelier and which decorated every wall. It showed itself in the fronds of palms and ferns masking the rooms’ corners. And most of all it was exhibited in the glittering jewels that the girls displayed with each wave of their fans.

For an hour there were informal dances. I spied Harry and Franklin—the one kind and affable, the other so confident that he was intimidating—but I did not have the chance to dance with them. At half past eleven we discovered we were to be seated for dinner at a table with the De Vrieses.

Aunt gave me an arch look. And then she leaned close. “We are going to thank Mrs. De Vries for the invitation.”

Right now? When we would all be seated together? When both Franklin and Harry would be able to hear what I was almost certain would be Aunt’s overly effusive gratitude? I didn’t want them to know that I didn’t belong. “Is it not one of those … favors … that it’s best just not to acknowledge?”

Aunt raised a brow. “Not acknowledge? Not acknowledge the person who has secured you an invitation to society’s most elite group? Who has guaranteed you access to the fabled Four Hundred? Who has decided to make your path straight?”

I supposed not.

“An invitation such as this one cannot be bought. We have tried. It must be granted. And we must thank her for granting it.”

I worried overmuch, for by the time we reached the table, weaving in and out of the clusters of people, Franklin and Harry were nowhere to be seen. And so it was with much relief that I joined Aunt in thanking Mrs. De Vries.

“It was my pleasure.” She leaned forward and glanced around as if she were imparting a secret. “My son would not give me peace until I had her invited.”

Aunt smiled.

“And truly, we consider it payment. For services rendered by Dr. Carter.”

I felt Aunt’s hand stiffen around my arm. “Really.”

Mrs. De Vries’s smile seemed to freeze for just an instant. “It was the very least that we could do.”

Later, after dinner, after I had successfully unbuttoned my gloves around my wrist to free my hands and then tucked the glove’s fingers up inside, after I had successfully avoided feeding my nervous stomach by pushing duck and creamed onions about my plate and rearranging them into various piles, the formal dancing began. Knowing that Franklin himself had urged my invitation, I wasted no time in thanking him for securing it.

But he held up a hand to stay my words as he commanded two glasses of champagne. Then he walked us over to a quieter part of the room. He pulled a cigar from his coat pocket. “Do you mind?”

I shook my head.

He lit it. Took a draw. “Now what was it you were saying?”

“I wanted to thank you.”

He replied with a lazy smile. “For what?”

“For having secured me an invitation.”

He took the cigar from his mouth. Blew the smoke away behind me. “Thank Harry. He’s the one who pleaded and prodded and cajoled to get Mother to wedge your name onto the list. In fact, you can thank him yourself. Here he comes.”

I turned in the direction Franklin had pointed with his cigar and, indeed, Harry was coming toward us.

I greeted him with a smile. “I must thank you. For having me added to the list.”

He smiled and bowed. “It was for the most selfish of reasons, I assure you.” He straightened then and frowned at his brother. “You shouldn’t smoke those here. Not around the ladies!”

“Ladies? Where?”

My cheeks flamed at the implication.

But Franklin winked at me and then blew a ring of smoke in Harry’s direction. “I’m only quoting you, little brother. The very same words you used when you extracted me from the Moulin Rouge in Paris.” He turned his attention to me. “‘Ladies? Where?’ That’s what he said. To the Comtesse de Valois’s face.”

“I didn’t know she was a countess. She wasn’t acting like one.”

“Don’t worry. She thought it quite amusing.” He flicked his ashes to the gleaming marble floor. “Shame we couldn’t have stayed in Paris … to see how that might have developed.”

“Into an international incident.”

Franklin laughed. For a moment. “You have the most annoying attachment to propriety, Brother. I’ll bet Clara doesn’t, do you, Clara? You have more imagination than that.”

Harry responded before I could even open my mouth. “That’s some question! How do you expect her to respond?”

“I was paying her a compliment. I think there’s more beneath that regal carriage and gentle gaze than one might think. But you probably think I’ve insulted her.”

“Someone has to protect her honor.”

“She won’t lose it with me. Unless she wants to. And then I would be very happy to oblige.”

Harry just shook his head as Franklin sauntered off. “He thinks he’s being sophisticated, but he doesn’t realize how arrogant he sounds. He’s really not quite so bad as he’d like to be. Although … well … I’m sorry.”

I tried to smile. Franklin hadn’t insulted me. Not really. Not exactly. But I wondered how it was that two brothers could be so entirely different in their natures.

There were two ballrooms in use that evening, manned by two separate orchestras. I danced an admirable cotillion, though I had a hard time hiding my yawns as the hours passed. At half past three, the last dance ended. Once home, Aunt’s maid helped me from my gown and exchanged it for a nightgown. I was famished, not having eaten at dinner. I wrapped a breakfast jacket around myself and crept down the back stairs to the kitchen.

I would have liked to have devoured the remainder of a cake that was sitting on the sideboard, but instead I found a roll and ate it plain. With a cup of cream to help it down. Too late I remembered the indigestion that cream had lately seemed to inspire.

Feeling a bit green, I walked back through the kitchen and out into the front hall. It was then I heard the voices. Father’s and Aunt’s.

So late at night?

I inched toward his study’s door.

Aunt was speaking. “That’s what she said: ‘We consider it payment. For services rendered by Dr. Carter.’”

“At least they understand the debt that must be paid.”

“But they think that now it’s been paid in full!” Clearly, she had been affronted.

“I don’t read that into her words.”

“You would if you had heard what she said in parting.”

“Which was?” Father’s patience seemed to be reaching an end.

“‘It was the very least that we could do.’”

“That sounds benign.”

“Not the way she said it. She said it as if it were the most that they could do. The most they
would
do. And there are not even two months left in the season. You’re going to have to do something.”

I stifled a belch. The indigestion was going to be worse than I had feared. And so I left them to their conversation.

If I had hoped for sleep that night, I was disappointed. As my stomach roiled under the influence of the cream, the questions in my head kept me company through the few dark hours that remained. What could the De Vrieses possibly owe my father? And why had their debt not yet been paid? According to Aunt, they owned half the city. Surely they could afford a mere doctor’s bill.

19

IN SPITE OF his personal rancor toward me, Mr. Douglas appeared to be keeping his agreement with my father. And though
The Tattler
told a different tale, according to Mr. Douglas, I was the season’s most celebrated debutante. It wasn’t true, of course. Not at first. But the more he wrote it, the more people had begun to believe it. People who should have known better!

Mr. Tiffany sent a spangled bracelet to me for consideration. Mr. Constable of Arnold, Constable & Co. sent an opera cloak as a gift. And one night, when I had been walking into the Astor residence for a private ball, a woman standing on the sidewalk squealed, “That’s Miss Carter!”

A journalist from
Town Topics
magazine had been dispatched to interview me. A corsetiere had written to persuade me to offer an endorsement of her corsets. And an artist from
Ladies’ Home Journal
was sent to draw my portrait for a piece on the debutante’s life. Lately, I was remarked upon even when I was simply stepping out of my own front door. A wave of whispers followed me about like a shadow.

“Miss Carter!”

“That’s her!”

“Who is she wearing?”

“Where is she going?”

I had become the main arbiter and chief mistress of everything that was fashionable. Lizzie thought it hilarious. “What do you think, Clara? Orchids or roses?”

“For what?” We had met behind the bushes where I had been telling her about the Patriarch’s Ball.

“For decorating.”

“Yes, but when? And for what?”

“At a dinner party. For table arrangements.”

Table arrangements? Did it truly matter? “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?” Lizzie was laughing at me. I could tell by the sparkle in her eyes. “Because they say you know everything.”

“Who says?”

“Society.”

That was Mr. Douglas’s column. “No they don’t. He—
they
just report on where I’ve been.” I hoped Lizzie wouldn’t notice the blush I felt staining my cheeks. I still hadn’t told her about Mr. Douglas.

“Well … maybe
they
don’t. But everyone else does. Mother and I went into McCreery’s yesterday for a new hat and do you know what the clerk did?”

“What?”

“She brought out this truly terrible, hideous hat. It was made of orange bombazine with plum-colored ribbons, with a great big mass of blue feathers perched right on top. She said, and I quote, ‘I delivered a hat just like this one to Miss Clara Carter last Tuesday.’”