She Walks in Beauty (28 page)

I intended to sing counter to him, but somehow my will deserted me, and true to Harry’s words we ended up in harmony, trying not to laugh as we sang.

“Stop it!” Lizzie was trying to be proper, but I could tell she was dying to laugh.

“See? It
is
difficult. And you didn’t believe me, did you?”

I hadn’t! “How long did you last? As a child?”

“As a child? We do it still! And it was Katherine who won this year. Of course, she always wins; she has an iron will.”

“Let me try again.”

Harry began to hum the notes of another song, and though I had better luck this time, I left off singing before the song was done and let him finish alone. Franklin walked up just then carrying a stem of champagne in each hand. He offered one to me.

“Oh! No. No, thank you. I don’t think … not tonight.” I had no wish to pass the nighttime hours writhing in my bed from pain.

He offered it to Lizzie instead.

She seemed to pale at its sight. “Er … no, thank you … I’m just … not quite … not now. Thank you.”

A wrinkle appeared on Franklin’s forehead, but then he shrugged. “Harry?”

Harry took the glass from him and they toasted themselves.

After the concert, Aunt and I walked beneath the arches of the Music Hall and onto a glaze of new-fallen snow. In this light it looked pure and brilliant, though I knew that by daylight it would have succumbed to the grime and dirt of the city just like everything else. As our carriage clattered through darkened streets, Aunt dispelled my notion that singing with Harry had been an innocent amusement.

“I heard a report that you were singing this evening. And doing it quite loudly. And poorly.”

“It takes a great deal of effort to sing badly.”

“And so why would you wish to do it?”

“Because . . .” Because it had made me laugh. And it was … fun. “Because it was fun.”

“Fun. There’s nothing so inappropriate as fun when you’re a debutante. This is serious, life-altering business that you are undertaking.”

“Yes. And if there’s to be no fun now, then when
is
there to be any?”

Aunt looked at me, appraisal in her eyes. “Fun? It might come upon you now and then, and startle you with its sudden appearance, but life is not about fun. And it’s not about you. It’s about who you marry. And then, it’s about your in-laws. And your children. There will be no more talk of
fun
. Although I did see that Lizzie Barnes was in the company of the younger De Vries. Perhaps that signals your triumph.”

“Triumph?”

“Perhaps she’s lowered her expectations.”

“You mean … ?”

“I mean perhaps she’s no longer a rival.”

Harry? And Lizzie?

24

THE NEXT DAY, instead of our usual, studied preparations for an opera, Aunt had a different idea. “This afternoon we shall take to the streets. Put on your carriage costume.”

“It must be thirty degrees outside!”

“Change.”

She left me standing in the hall, her dogs watching me. One of them barked, making me step more quickly. Once in my room, the maid helped me out of my house gown and into my carriage costume, recoiffed my hair, and then aided me with my cloak.

The cloak had been done up in gray satin with marten fur around the edges of its swinging cape. Ruffles began at the neck and descended to my shoulders and down the back. It was beautiful, but it weighed at least fifteen pounds. I had to brace myself for it as the maid fit it about my shoulders.

“A hat, miss?”

“She’ll have the gray felt.” Aunt had come into the room and was contemplating my attire. She nodded as the maid set the hat upon my head. “Yes. That will do quite well.”

It should. The hat was a perfect match for the cloak. A band of marten fur decorated its crown in a wavy pattern and tips of ostrich feathers sprang up from the back. The maid pulled the wide ribbon around from beneath the feathers and secured it in an enormous bow between my chin and my ear.

With the weight of the satin bearing down upon my shoulders and the slipperiness of fur threatening to tumble the hat from my head, I feared I would not be able to complete the drive in the manner in which Aunt expected. “I can’t move.”

“The goal is not to move; it is to be seen.”

The hood on the carriage had been lowered and secured; we would have no relief from the wind. The coachman assisted Aunt into the Victoria and then me up beside her. Soon we were gliding away from the house, toward the city.

“We’ll drive Ladies’ Mile first. And then come back for Central Park.”

“Yes, madam.”

We swept past places that I had only just discovered this year. The city was so big, so vast! After we had driven the length of Fifth Avenue housing the most fashionable stores, the coachman urged the horses into a turn.

But down the street came a careening cart, making a turn impossible and spurring our horses into a run.

Aunt stifled a scream.

The carriage, not being able to make the turn, continued on down the street. By coming to his feet and tugging on the reins, the coachman was able to turn the carriage to the east. But the horses’ fear was not so easily diverted, and so as soon as they had recovered from the turn, they were off at a run again. Only the sight of a glass-sided hearse blocking the road ahead of us caused the horses to veer from their course.

I felt my hat slide off my head. It began to bounce at the nape of my neck.

We were headed south, and then, when traffic had blocked an intersection, the horses twisted east once more, dragging our carriage, dangerously tilted, behind them.

“Turn around!”

“Just as soon as I can, madam.”

But we continued, block after block, until we found ourselves in the middle of a narrow street with no way forward and too little room to turn around.

The horses lurched to a halt.

After the wild pounding of hooves and banging of the carriage that we had endured, the silence seemed unnatural. And the scene before us unreal. The street was littered with a colorful collection of filth. A horse was lying on the street before us, dead, its stomach bloated beyond comprehension. Across from it, on the other side of that narrow street, a man had been pushing a cart filled with rags past a wooden barrel leaking ashes. And just in front of him, where a hotel had left its door open to the street, the tinkling music of a piano could be heard.

And though I had never known this part of the city, I found I knew this place. I knew it from the pages of Mr. Riis’s book. This was how the other half lived. They lived here in this place that stank of overripe food and overripe flesh.

The coachman hopped down from his perch and went to calm the horses. They were trembling with exhaustion, steam rising from their backs. In between their great gasping breaths, as the condensation of their breath thinned and dispersed, I saw people slowly gather. People with an unsavory look about them. Men in stained bowlers. Boys with greasy caps. And behind them, women with shawls pulled over their heads. And beyond them, on the sidewalks, close to the hotel, a group of women dressed far too nicely for the area and far too delicately for the weather.

Aunt must have been looking at the crowd too, for she clutched at my forearm with her hand.

“May I be of some assistance?”

I jumped at the words and Aunt grabbed at me.

But as the steam thinned and vanished, I recognized Mr. Douglas stepping from the crowds. “Mr. Douglas!”

“Help the coachman turn this carriage. Immediately!” Aunt had pushed to her feet and was trying to step past me.

“Perhaps we should stay seated, Aunt.” More and more people were pressing around the carriage, staring at us. Little boys were hoisting friends to their shoulders so they could get a look over the sides.

Mr. Douglas was eyeing the crowds as he moved toward us. He put a hand out to one of the horses.

They snorted great clouds of breath at him.

“Yes, please remain seated.” He cast an eye to the people around him. “Move on. The ladies need the carriage turned.”

A collective mumbling rose up, but no one moved.

“Be off!” Mr. Douglas raised his cane.

I had never known before that I should be frightened in the city, but with the press of humanity that would not be moved and a dull flatness in the dark eyes that looked up at me, it crossed my thoughts that I might never find my way home again.

It must have been in Aunt’s mind too, for she slipped her hand into mine.

I gave it a squeeze.

Then I heard the scuff of footsteps approaching and the crowd began to thin. Just a bit. To my complete and utter surprise, Harry pushed through. He came up to the carriage, hat in hand. “I saw what happened back on Fifth Avenue. I ordered my carriage to follow yours. May I offer you a ride?”

Aunt stood once more, but this time pulling on my hand, she moved as if there were no crowd and as if runaway carriages were a daily occurrence. “Thank you, Mr. De Vries. We would be delighted.”

She reached down for Harry’s hand, but there was no room for him to retreat to clear a space for her descent.

There was one tense moment when no one yielded, but then slowly a path was cleared. There were a few grunts and an assortment of coughs and sneezes, but no one reached out to accost us, and no one addressed us, and very soon Harry had led us away from our carriage and we were seated in his.

I pulled my hat from my neck and settled it once more atop my head.

As the horses pulled away, I glanced back. The coachman and Mr. Douglas were trying to coax the horses to step back, slowly reversing the carriage’s path.

“We should do something nice for him.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Douglas.”

Aunt sniffed. “We already are.”

I might have pondered her enigmatic reply, but then Harry began to speak and further thoughts of the incident drifted away.

T
HE
N
EW
Y
ORK
J
OURNAL
—S
OCIETY
F
EBRUARY 5, 1892

. . . and among the attendees at last night’s opera,
Lakmé
, were Mr. Franklin De Vries, Mr. Harold De Vries, Miss Emma Vandermere, Miss Elizabeth Barnes, and the lovely Miss Clara Carter. . . .

T
HE
T
ATTLER
F
EBRUARY 5, 1892

Which of our city’s lovely debutantes wandered far from Fifth Avenue on a winter’s afternoon when a runaway carriage pulled her into The Bowery? Through some cajoling of The Bowery element and the aid of a gentleman, all was put right. But that is not the first time that a person of her name has ventured into the bowels of our fair city.

But—that was me. Again! How had
The Tattler
known? Did news travel so fast? And what was meant by that final line?

Even Lizzie read it. She asked me about it when we next met.

“Who do you think it was?”

“It was me.”

“It was? You! But how did
The Tattler
know?”

I shook my head.

“So what was it like?”

I closed my eyes as I remembered that harrowing ride, then opened them to try to forget the sights of The Bowery. But I had only to go upstairs to my bedroom and open Mr. Riis’s book to renew them. “It was terrifying—with the carriage tipping this way and that. I’m just thankful that it didn’t overturn!”