She Walks in Beauty (33 page)

“Really?” I was glad he hadn’t asked me. I didn’t know how to skate.

“Yes! I shall hardly sleep in expectation of it. I’ve the most gorgeous skating costume. It’s pink and trimmed out in fur. With the most fetching little hat. And you know how I adore hats!”

“Do you know how to skate?”

“Of course. At least … enough to get by, but not well enough that I won’t have to hold on to his arm now and then.” It looked as if … had she winked?

The next morning, a messenger came to the door. The butler delivered up his message to us. Aunt held the invitation out to the light as she read it.

“Mr. Harold De Vries solicits the honor of attending Miss Clara Carter to the skating pond in Central Park on Friday afternoon, February 12th, at three o’clock.

“The bearer will wait for your answer.”

“That’s tomorrow. How unspeakably rude to presume that you have not already made plans. Especially during the season! No. Absolutely not.”

I looked up in surprise. She had said the words with such finality.

“But that’s the day Lizzie’s to go skating with Fr—the elder Mr. De Vries.”

“Is she? And how would you know that?”

“I overheard her telling … someone. Else. Someone else.”

Aunt glanced over at the butler. Glanced at me. Pressed her lips together in a firm and formidable line. “Very well. You may go. Write a reply.”

I went to the desk and found a card. Took up a pen.

Miss Carter has much pleasure in accepting Mr. De Vries’s kind invitation to the skating pond on Friday afternoon, February 12th, at three o’clock.

Aunt stood behind me as I wrote it, and as soon as I had sealed it inside an envelope, she passed it to the butler.

And it was only then that I dared to speak my one small reservation about the event. “I don’t know how to skate.”

“Glide. Push. Glide.”

I was trying.

“Glide! Push! Glide!” It was easy for Aunt to say, but not nearly so easy for me to accomplish.

I pushed just a little too enthusiastically. My other foot wobbled and then all of a sudden I was sitting on my bottom, legs splayed in front of me.

The youngest maid giggled at my misfortune. I did not blame her one whit.

The footman extended a hand and held on to mine as I carefully clambered to my feet.

“Again.”

“Wouldn’t it be rather better to learn at the pond? With an instructor?”

“And admit to such a gap in your education?”

Apparently not. I sighed. Gathered my courage. And pushed once more out onto the highly over-waxed parlor floor.

“Glide. Push. Glide.”

I could glide well enough. It was the pushing I seemed to have a problem with. And it was difficult to keep my feet beneath me when the skates had rags wrapped around their blades. Though no more difficult, I supposed, than it would be once they were unbound. Once I was truly on ice.

“Push.”

I tried, but my foot slid out from under me.

“Push!”

Once again I collapsed onto the floor. And this time I made a vase wobble.

The footman put a hand out to steady it.

The door to Father’s study flew open. “I cannot think with all the crashing and bumping going on—”

“Beware!” Aunt and I called out the word in unison.

But Father had already reached the parlor and his feet were sliding out beneath him. As he hit the floor, the vase wobbled from its display and joined him, shattering into shards.

Oh!

I pushed forward and rescued its flowers from the debris.

It took two men to help Father to his feet. “What is the meaning of all of this?”

“Clara has been invited to a skating party.”

“And?”

I blushed. “I don’t know how to skate.”

“So?”

“The footman is trying to teach me.”

“Well, it doesn’t look as if it is working!” Reaching up to rub at his head, he turned around and went back into his study, slamming the door behind him.

Aunt shook her head. “Really, Clara. You must concentrate. It’s not that difficult.”

“It’s not that difficult.”

I eyed Harry with something that he must have read as suspicion.

“Truly. Just look at Lizzie!”

I had been. And I wished he’d keep his admiration for her to himself. My backside still smarted from all the times I’d fallen on it while practicing. And unbeknownst to Aunt, I had fastened a small pillow to my bottom, underneath my hoop skirt.

“Here. Give me your hand.” Harry stretched out his to receive mine.

I wasn’t quite sure that I should take it. Wasn’t I to be the one to ask for aid? Or maybe … was it that I, as the woman, should wait for aid to be offered? I ventured one of my skate-clad feet out onto the ice and my decision was made for me. I clutched at Harry’s hand as my feet moved in two different directions. Two vastly different directions. I began to sway like a sapling, my free hand casting out to my side for something else to hang on to.

But then Harry’s hand came around my waist with a gentle pressure, and as I leaned back into his strength, he pushed us forward. Into a glide.

And I could glide.

I did glide!

But then he pushed off again. “Stop trying so hard. Just let me push us.” He let go my hand and took up the other. “See? It looks as if we’re dancing.”

What he ought to have said was that it looked as if I knew what I was doing. Circling the pond, with his peppermint-laden breath caressing my cheek, wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever done.

We circled the outer circumference of the pond once. Twice. Three times.

By then, my ankles were becoming fatigued. I glanced up from the ice to the shoreline. Saw a woman sitting by Aunt wave in our direction.

“There’s someone—”

“Katherine! Let’s go see her.”

As we skated closer, I could see Katherine was accompanied. By someone much shorter than she.

“There’s Fritz with her. You haven’t met him, have you? He’s their only child. Katherine spoils him terribly; the baron dotes on him too. He’s the heir, you see. It was thought, until the baron met Katherine, that he could have no heir at all.”

“How felicitous. He must have been so pleased.”

We had reached Katherine and Aunt. Harry lent a firm hand to help me off the ice and up to the bench. As we approached, the boy looked up at me, brown eyes cool, appraising.

Harry bent toward my ear. “He doesn’t speak much English.”

“I do! I speak large!”

I smothered a laugh behind a hand as his mother tousled his blond hair.

Harry squatted before him. “You mean to say that you speak much?”

“Yes. Grand. Large.”

Harry looked about to laugh, but chose not to indulge it. He spoke to the boy instead. “You must be growing tired of New York.”

“I want home.”

“I was thinking, next time I travel to the Continent, you can take me to the Tiergarten.”

“Zoo. With … animals!”

“Yes. The zoo.”

“Bears.”

“And lions. How would you like that?”

“Grand.”

“Yes, I think it would be grand. But this is even grander.” Harry pulled the boy off the bench, hefted him onto his shoulders, and hopped back onto the ice. He skated in crazy circles, spinning Fritz round and round.

“Harry—stop! Stop now!” Katherine had run to the edge of the ice to call out to them. “Harry. That’s enough!”

Laughing, the two returned, red-cheeked and panting. Then Harry offered his hand to me again.

“No. I don’t think—”

“Just once more.”

“I can’t—”

“Say yes. Please.”

“Go ahead, Clara. Why don’t you skate out toward Lizzie?” Once Aunt had thrown her support to Harry, how could I say no?

Lizzie and Franklin were away on the other side of the pond, making graceful patterns in the ice.

“Shouldn’t we skate straight over? Through the middle?”

“No.” Harry pulled me over toward the shore. “The ice is beginning to soften. I told Franklin it was too late in the season for an outing like this, but he said he didn’t care. He wanted to go skating. He had plans.”

I’d noticed that before, that Harry would profess one thing or state a well-thought objection to something, and Franklin would either disregard or overcome it. As he was doing now. He had taken Lizzie out into the very middle of the ice.

Harry slowed to a gentle stop and we paused a moment to watch them. There was something almost bewitching about the way they glided over the ice, Lizzie so confident and graceful. Franklin so sure and suave.

I knew a moment’s regret that I could not trade places with Lizzie. That I could not be so elegant and self-assured.

But as I watched, Lizzie’s foot seemed to catch on something. A look of horror came over her face and then she collapsed into a heap.

Harry left my side, racing out to the middle, toward his brother. By the time they returned, Franklin carrying Lizzie, I had picked my way back around to the bench and Aunt had gestured for our carriage. But the Victoria only had two seats. Aunt arranged for me to take Lizzie’s place in the De Vries carriage and then climbed into our own carriage next to Lizzie to take her straight to Father.

“You’ll see Clara directly home!”

Franklin bowed in reply.

As soon as our carriage began to pull away, Katherine readied Fritz for the return. And Harry began to reprimand his brother. “I knew it was too late in the season for skating! I told you the ice was turning soft in the middle. Didn’t you hear me warn you?”

“No one can see a person if all they do is skate along the edge.”

“Why can’t—”

“Hush!” Katherine spoke to her brothers as if they were children. “Are you going to call for the carriage or am I going to do it?”

Harry called for the carriage while Franklin dug underneath the bench for a hamper and began to round up a group of rather exotic-looking people who were clustered beneath a tree.

As he was doing so, Harry returned and joined me as I sat to remove my skates. “Franklin had the hamper done up with toast and caviar. And hired a Russian to pour tea from a samovar. And another to come with a dancing bear.” He inclined his head toward a cart, where, indeed, I could see a bear, ambling back and forth on a lead. And a stubbly-chinned matron bent over a smoldering fire.

Franklin could be heard shouting at them.

Harry only shook his head and helped the rest of us into the De Vries carriage.

Franklin joined us shortly after. “My Russian tea party is ruined!”

“Let’s just hope Lizzie’s ankle isn’t ruined.” Harry looked a hard glance over at his brother. “From your stupidity.”

“Let’s sing, shall we?” Though Katherine was smiling, the look in her blue eyes could have frozen water. “Clara? Do you have a favorite?”

“I … well … how about ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’”

A little levity seemed to be what was called for.

“Now how I came to get this hat ’tis very strange and funny;
Grandfather died and left to me his property and money.
And when the will it was read out, they told me straight and flat,
If I would have his money, I must always wear his hat!
“Where did you get that hat? Where did you get that tile?
Isn’t it a nobby one, and just the proper style?
I should like to have one just the same as that!”
Where’er I go they shout “Hel-lo! Where did you get that hat?”