by Anya Seton
Her fingers closed on the turquoise. She slipped away from Simeon into her own dressing-room.
How simple I was ever to have thought this crude lump beautiful! she thought. After a moment she unlocked her new jewel case and put the turquoise into the lowest tray next to some seldom-worn jet earrings. Simeon had given her so many pieces of jewelry that she had difficulty in remembering to wear them in rotation so that he should not be hurt.
In the spring of 1872, Simeon decided not to open the Long Branch villa that June, but to assault instead society's still tightly guarded fortress at Newport. Long Branch was all very well, but it was political rather than fashionable. To be sure, President Grant made it his summer home, but he was not fashionable, and for Simeon ‘The Branch’ was tainted by Tweed and a rowdy theatrical crowd and haunted by the fat, disreputable ghost of Jim Fisk.
On January sixth, Jim Fisk had been shot and killed by Josie Mansfield’s paramour, Edward Stokes. This sordid killing, culmination of even more sordid litigation between Fisk and his former mistress, had shocked all New York. Simeon’s shock had in it also a vein of horrified repudiation. He had once patterned himself on Fisk, imitated the boisterous joviality, the free-and-easy ethics, had admired the buccaneer’s outrageous tactics io the Erie War.
And now—Jim Fisk back where he started from in Brattle-boro, Vermont, six feet underground, murdered, and nearly bankrupt as well.
Tweed, too, was in trouble, accused of filching the public monies. Jay Gould’s million-dollar bail alone had temporarily saved him.
Thank God, thought Simeon, I had sense enough to taper off connection with that crowd.
The shock of Fisk’s murder and Tweed’s arrest forced him to realize that, though he and Fey had climbed, they had not begun to reach that safe summit where murder and violence were literally unspeakable; that peaceful enclosed meadow where it seemed to him that everyone dwelt in stately security, smiling gentle contempt toward the clamorous ones outside.
The Towers had friends—what man of wealth had not?—Mrs. Delatone was kind, and they were accepted in her husband’s flamboyant horsey set. But Simeon rode badly, and betting and gambling bored him. Besides, he wanted to be at the top.
He announced his intention to Fey one May morning at breakfast in the town house. He made a sign to the butler, who vanished, leaving them alone: Fey in a ruffled white morning robe seated at one end of the twelve-foot mahogany table behind the coffee urn, and Simeon in his Prince Albert coat distastefully eating a single boiled egg. Lately his stomach had been troubling him.
‘My dear,’ he said abruptly, ‘I’ve rented the Grandisons’ villa on Ocean Avenue at Newport for this summer. We will go there.’
‘Oh?’ said Fey. She put down her coffee-cup and examined her husband. He had grown thinner in the last three years, and he did not look very well. The fair hair had receded a bit, and on either side of his clipped blond mustache there were deep lines. He is not yet satisfied, she thought, with an inward sigh. Her own social ambition had ebbed. They were exceedingly comfortable, they knew some congenial people, and what if they were not asked to the Patriarch Balls or Cotillion Dinners at Delmonico’s? They could still give their own parties.
‘Well,’ said Simeon, frowning, ‘do you think it’ll work?’
He knew that she would understand him. He was so used to her instant comprehension that he no longer wondered at it.
‘So we must start a new campaign——’ she said, a trifle wearily. ‘What is it exactly that you want so much, Simeon?’
He flung down his napkin and stood up. ‘You know perfectly well! There are a hundred people in this town who don’t speak to us, and who, if we bowed to them, would look vague and pass on. I want to belong to them.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘If you ever do, I believe you’d be disappointed.’
Simeon scowled. ‘If you’ve lost ambition for yourself, I should think you might remember little Lucy. Do you want her to grow up a second-rater? As things are now, we’d never get her into Miss Perrine’s School, nor when she is older into the Family Circle Dancing Class. She’ll have no chance of a decent marriage.’
Fey smiled. ‘You know that you’ve brought out a strong argument. I am ambitious for Lucita, and I bless you for being always so good to her.’
‘I’m fond of her,’ said Simeon. ‘Nice pretty child.’
Fey looked down, feeling a quick rush of gratitude and regret. Why couldn’t they have a baby together? She had prayed for it, though not in church. Once in a great while she stole out to Mass, but she was no longer a communicant. The Irish priest had made it very clear that, even if she might be forgiven the Protestant marriage, her subsequent conduct left no alternative to excommunication. For in fulfillment of her promise to Simeon, she accompanied him to the Presbyterian Church, where he had become a pewholder and usher. She had for a time felt guilt and a dull sense of loss, then it passed. Religion, like the Spanish part of her ’—like those flashes of true-sight—seemed to have no place in the new life.
Simeon, pursuing his own thoughts, walked to the silver-laden buffet and selected a cigar from the humidor. He clipped the end, frowning. ‘If only we could make Ward McAllister notice us.’
Fey instantly recalled her attention and considered his remark. Ward McAllister, the pompous little man who was rapidly becoming New York’s social arbiter. He had made a career of it, and lately, backed by the powerful Mrs. William B. Astor, he had succeeded in imposing his own restrictions on a hitherto unguided and indolent society. It was he who had founded the Patriarch Balls with twenty-five patrons who were ‘ crême de la crême ’—his own phrase. It was he, too, who had initiated the ultraexclusive Cotillion Dinners at Delmonico’s.
‘Can’t put financial pressure on him,’ continued Simeon, pacing up and down beside the table. ‘It’s been tried, and anyway everything he’s got is gilt-edged. Don’t see any way of getting at him.’
‘Oh, yes, there is,’ said Fey calmly. ‘I shall go and see him.’
‘But you can’t!’ cried Simeon. Her simple approach to problems always staggered him. She seemed never to see the uses of indirection or the necessity for preserving appearances. Yet this trait of hers provoked a reluctant admiration; he dimly recognized it as the product of generations of breeding. Whereas I—he thought—the son of a mill hand’s daughter and an oppressed Jew— fear and confusion—the train of thought he never permitted himself. But I make money. I could buy out most of them—this McAllister, the Livingstons, even maybe Astor——
Fey smiled at him, got up from behind the coffee urn, and put her hand on his arm. ‘You will see,’she said. ‘I don’t promise the outcome, but I will at least meet this Mr. McAllister.’
Simeon bent and kissed the white parting between the two wings of shining black hair. ‘Be sure and tell him about your grandfather. And be careful, he’ll ask questions. Don’t want him digging up your past or——’
‘Or yours,’ she finished, with a shrug. ‘I know what you want. You are distantly related to the Hingham branch of Towers. You are an orphan, it is very vague——’ She shut her lips, burst out in sudden passion, ‘Ah, Simeon, you do not know what it is to be really an orphan, or you would not be ashamed of your parents!’
Dull color seeped up his astonished face. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said angrily. ‘They’re very old, simple-minded. I provided for them liberally. They’ve never asked questions. I hated my home.’
‘Yes, well——’ she said, quiet again. ‘It doesn’t matter——’ She reached over and picked a Gloire de Paris rosebud from the centerpiece, tucked it in his buttonhole. ‘Have a good day at the office, dear/ she said, with her light tender irony. ‘Herd and prod your bulls and bears. Make lots of money for us and our new campaign!’
On the third day following, Fey ordered out the best brougham and directed that both coachman and footman should wear gala livery. Then she drove by appointment down to Ward McAllister’s house on Twenty-First Street.
Fifth Avenue was lovely in the soft May air. All along the sidewalks the ailanthus and horsechestnut trees were in bloom, every window-box glowed with geraniums and petunias. From Madison Square a German band blared out ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’ and the oompah-pa was exhilarating. Fey would have much preferred to walk. But fashionable ladies seldom walked, and her impressive equipage would be a desirable reinforcement. Her costume was also impressive, a blue shot-taffeta suit, lavishly garnished by mink tails and Mechlin lace, and further adorned by a seed-pearl and sapphire set of brooch and earrings.
Madame Loreste, New York’s most expensive couturière, had made the suit to the accompaniment of admiring coos over Mrs. Tower’s perfect figure. So fiat down here in front, which showed off the bustle in back—whereas many ladies—a bulge, alas!—— And such a superb bust! No need for inserted ruffles——The only thing wanting was perhaps a little more tallness, but that was so easily remedied by heels and plumes on the bonnet. ‘Ah, Madame Tower is ravissante, is she not?’ had cried Madame Loreste at the final trying-on. She had been born in Indiana, but she used French phrases with dexterity.
So did Ward McAllister, Fey discovered, as a white-capped maid ushered her into that gentleman’s drawing-room.
‘Enchanté! my dear Mrs. Tower. Enchanté!’ murmured Mr. McAllister, rising from the armchair, where he was prepared to give audience and touching her gloved fingertips.
Fey murmured, too, though not in French, and sat down with her usual composure while she considered him. Short, plump, medium coloring—waxed imperials a la Louis Napoleon. Not an unkindly face, but a self-important one.
‘It was good of you to see me,’ she said.
‘Pleasure——’ McAllister bowed. He guessed her errand. He granted fifty such audiences a year, mostly, however, to Middle-Western parvenus who had marriageable daughters. This was different. Since receiving Fey’s note, he had been making discreet inquiry about the Towers.
‘I will be direct, Mr. McAllister,’ said Fey, smiling and looking at him through her lashes. ‘You are the most important man in New York society. Your word is law. I wish that you would advise us.’
A faintly gratified look came into his prominent eyes. ‘Dear lady, you greatly overestimate my—er—my powers.’ He crossed his legs, and placed his fingertips together. ‘Now let’s see. You know the Delatones?’
Fey nodded.
‘Mrs. Delatone is delightful, is she not?’
Fey nodded again and waited.
‘But perhaps not quite——’ He paused delicately. Joseph Delatone had not been invited to be one of the Patriarchs.
‘You see,’ said Fey, ‘we have a daughter——’
‘Ah——’ They all had daughters. ‘And how old is she?’
‘Almost four,’ answered Fey, laughing.
McAllister did not smile. ‘It is never too young to get them started, and for the second generation it’s easier. Forgive me, ma’am, but is it true that you are well connected in England? ’
‘My grandfather was a Scottish baronet, Sir James Cameron.’
Dios, she thought suddenly, how stupid this all is! Her smile became more brilliant.
‘Indeed,' said McAllister. ‘Oh, the happy days I’ve spent grouse-shooting with dear Lord Landsdowne! I remember once near Balmoral—but I mustn’t reminisce. Mr. Tower is from New England, I believe?’
Fey’s square little jaw tightened. ‘Related to the Hingham, Massachusetts, Towers,’ she said quickly, ‘but an orphan from earliest years.’
‘Sad,’ said McAllister, pursing his lips and digesting this. He glanced out of the window at the magnificent brougham, then at Fey’s dress and jewels. ‘Mr. Tower has been successful; his business ventures no doubt continue to be advantageous——’
‘Oh, we’re very rich,’ said Fey.
McAllister winced. ‘ Dear lady—might I suggest that such frankness is hardly, hardly——’
‘Sorry,’ she smiled. ‘I thought that was what you wanted to know.’
After a moment McAllister accepted this with a wave of his plump hand. ‘ A fortune is useful when one wishes to enter the best society, but it is not a passport, thank Heaven, or we should be swamped by an undesirable element. It is ’—said he, drawing himself up—‘my privilege to help guard the—may I say—inner sanctum from pollution.’
‘Yes, I know——’ said Fey sweetly, giving him the full benefit of soft admiring eyes. ‘You are a very wise man. That is why I came to you.’
McAllister was warmed. He looked at her kindly. Stylish little lady; charming, too. Mrs. Astor might just possibly be induced to take her up eventually. But those things could not be hurried.
‘I’ll see what I can do, Mrs. Tower,’ he said, bowing. 'At Newport it’s easier. The move is wise. One word of advice, though—— Have you a governess for your little girl? ’
‘Oh, no,’ answered Fey, surprised. ‘ I have a nurse, but usually I take care of her myself. I love to.’
‘Charming. Maternal affection. Always charming. But might I suggest that a governess'—English, of course, conversant with all the ways of British nobility—would be helpful. Or—it has just occurred to me—perhaps some poor relation of your own Scotch family—?’
I, myself, am the poor relation in my Scottish family, thought Fey, wryly. Out loud she said, ‘Is a governess really necessary?’
‘It is the thing to do,’ returned McAllister definitely.
That night Fey told Simeon of her interview, and he listened to the oracle with what seemed to her a pathetic earnestness. They must get an English governess at once, and a French chef, since Simeon had heard that they, too, were all the rage. He was anxious to do in everything exactly as ‘ they ’ did. But I was like that once, too, was I not? thought Fey. What’s happened to me that it no longer seems so important? I must take it seriously or it will not work, our campaign. That much, at least, I have learned from life; one gets what one goes after with singlehearted purpose, but otherwise not.
She went up to Lucita’s nursery and the little girl bounced up and down in her crib, holding out her arms to her mother.
‘Sing a song, Mama,’ she called. ‘Sing Lucy a good-night song!’
Fey lifted her out of the crib, hugging the squirming little figure in its long batiste nightgown. They nestled down together on the great polar-bear rug before the fireplace. This was their nightly ritual. Fey stroked the bright auburn curls, seeing the rose-flush of health on the child’s cheeks, the straightness of the body, sweet-scented and powdered from the bath.
‘You are to have an English governess, mi corazón,’ she said. ‘Won’t you be elegant!’
Lucita chuckled, delighted always at the grave grown-up way her mother spoke to her. ‘El-e-gant,’ she repeated carefully, enjoying the new word. ‘ Sing Lucy’s song, Mama.’
Fey gathered her close and sang an old Spanish lullaby. If Simeon were with them, and he sometimes joined them at this bed hour, she sang only English songs, ‘My Lady Wind,’ ‘Beautiful Dreamer/ or ‘Hush thee, my baby.’ Simeon would sing, too, bumbling along in a self-conscious bass which delighted Lucita, who loved to clamber on his lap and play with his massive gold watch-chain. But Fey never sang the Spanish songs. Simeon would have hated them.
In the last week of June, the three Towers—for obvious reasons Lucita’s last name had been changed to Tower—and the English governess, Miss Pringle, boarded the Inveraray and steamed to Newport Harbor, the French chef and ten other servants having preceded them by train. Two victorias and a dogcart for the luggage awaited the yachting party on the pier. They drove along Bellevue Avenue toward the ocean, passing increasingly sumptuous villas until, near Bailey’s Beach, they reached their own. It was built of gray stone in the medieval manner and embellished with turrets, stained glass, and an edging of wooden fretwork. It was called ‘Kenilworth.’
Simeon glanced at Miss Pringle, hoping to surprise some emotion of astonishment or even awe. As usual, she dis
appointed him. Her high-nosed, horsey face continued to show supercilious patience, its unvarying expression since, tempted by an enormous salary, she had joined the Tower household a month ago.
She had been governess in the Marlboroughs’ ducal family until her charges grew up, then, moved by some unexpected urge for adventure, she had come to New York. The urge had rapidly expired. She despised America; she despised even the fabulous two hundred yearly pounds she received from Simeon, though her common sense had prevented her refusing it. She despised Simeon for being a self-made man, and Fey—whose connection with Scottish gentry did not impress hers after all, what was a Highland baronet?—for supinely living in this preposterous country. To Lucita she showed a chilly conscientiousness and the little girl was already picking up the best Oxford speech.
Miss Pringle was, in short, precisely the type of English governess which McAllister had had in mind. She added tone to the household. When she accompanied Lucita to the beach, she snubbed the other assembled governesses so thoroughly that they were impressed. This filtered back to the employers, of course, and some interest began to devolve upon the Towers. They made real headway when Ward McAllister, after long deliberation, invited them to one of his ‘fêtes champêtres.’
This was a picnic at McAllister’s harborside ‘farm,’ for which occasions he always hired a flock of Southdown sheep and a half-dozen cows to give the place an animated and suitable look. His farm fêtes were carefully graded, and the Towers were invited to an inferior one. Mrs. Astor would not be present; the throne would that day be occupied by Mrs. Sylvester Bull.
Simeon was delighted. He had been growing bored and thinking of running down to New York to the office. But here at last was recognition.
‘I suppose sporting clothes for a picnic——’ he asked Fey anxiously on the morning of the event. ‘ And you’ll wear muslin? ’
Fey frowned. ‘I don’t know—Lucita’s been playing with the little Bull girl at the beach and she said her mama was going to wear lace and diamonds, but I can’t believe it. Lucita must have misunderstood.’