His face lit up and he squeezed my hand wordlessly before retreating inside the carriage house. I chewed my lip as I took myself back indoors, puzzled over why he was behaving so imprudently. It was nearly a relief to return to the kitchen and find Grace ready to resume her lecture on the importance of our preparations, as if she had never paused at all.
When I had been first engaged as Charlotte’s maid, Grace Porter had taken it upon herself to explain the significance of the occasion while stressing in a way altogether too fervent for my comfort that, despite the connotations of sainthood in the holiday, the celebration was in no way connected to any popery.
It was now three seasons that Charlotte Walden had been out, and it was clear by her third St. Valentine’s Day ball that Mrs. Walden felt it time that Charlotte settle on a husband of her own.
“You do not,” she had been prone to repeating my first year of employment, “want to have yourself engaged by the end of your first season. Some women view it as a great success, but there is something rather cheap about attaching yourself so soon, you know. It makes it look as though you are desperate to make a match, and that, of course, will not do. It is best to come to some sort of understanding by the end of your second season so that you might have a declaration by the start of your third and let your wedding be the event at the end of it.” Charlotte had very clearly been the belle of her first season, and had had two or three notable proposals, which she had declined respectfully at her mother’s bidding. While it was generally expected that she would make a match her second season, Mrs. Walden’s aspirations were thwarted, as they so often seemed to be, by the escapades of her half sister, Prudence Graham.
Thaddeus Graham was a banker of substantial wealth and somber reputation. His wife had died young, and it was only when his daughter Augusta married Lawrence Walden that he engaged in the sole caprice of his life. Finding himself quite alone in his Bond Street mansion, he set about on a single-minded mission to seduce one Miss Sabrina Clemons, his daughter’s dearest friend. The folly of his suit elicited the whispers of derision that might be expected when a widower pays court to a girl his own daughter’s age, but these whispers were nothing to the clamor in every drawing room when Sabrina Clemons actually accepted his hand. The fruit of this unlikely union was Prudence Graham, who had been born a mere eighteen months after her own niece, Charlotte.
Prudence Graham would have been a sensation in her own right, if only for the circumstances of her parentage, which bordered on scandal. That she was a pretty girl who merely grew prettier with time certainly enhanced her allure. Though society might speculate, Mrs. Walden and the latest Mrs. Graham displayed their daughters together, one auburn and one dark, to striking effect. The two girls played together, they sang together, they rode together, and tormented a governess together. In the course of their intertwining lives, there were but two ripples to disturb the smoothness of their friendship.
The first had occurred early in their childhood, many years before I had come across the ocean. It was told to me in whispers when I first came into the household by Grace Porter, who still felt the slight as though it had happened only the day before. When Charlotte was five and Prudence was three, Thaddeus Graham’s young wife persuaded him to back her brother Josiah in a mining venture in India. Through her pleading, he purchased a stake in a hole in the ground, sight unseen, on the other side of the world. If the drawing rooms had whispered when Sabrina Clemons married Thaddeus Graham, this was nothing to the fevered pitch the gossip reached when he parted with half his fortune on her brother’s whim. For almost a year, rumors of ruin and imminent destitution hovered about the Graham residence, which, it was said, had been twice mortgaged in that twelvemonth alone. So it probably goes without saying that all of New York sat back in shock when the news of diamonds came.
Within the span of a week, Prudence Graham went from being a pretty child with mismatched parents on the precipice of impoverishment to being the greatest heiress of her generation. Her dowry portion was now rumored to be more than quintuple that of her half sister, Augusta, which had been considered jaw-dropping in its day, and it was said that Charlotte, as Thaddeus Graham’s only grandchild, stood to inherit a tidy portion as well. Of the impact of this windfall on Augusta Walden, however, there was no word, for old Mr. Graham had given her portion over when she was married, and it seemed unlikely she should have another cent.
Consider, then, the impression this story would have made on a girl like me when first I arrived at the Waldens’ house. I was at that time so grateful for the roof over my head and the clothes on my back that I could not yet see how a few dollars more or less in the bank should be the cause of so much family rancor. It was not until I actually met Prudence Graham that the full import of the matter hit me.
As I have said, the year I began maiding for Charlotte Walden was the year she had come out. In the month that followed her debut, she came to be considered quite the belle, and in consequence Mrs. Sabrina Graham deemed it wise to remove to Paris for the whole of the season and most of the following summer. It was not, then, until the Grahams returned the following autumn that I first met Miss Prudence.
Prudence Graham would have been called a great beauty many times in her youth, but I tell you in all fairness that it wasn’t quite so. She was very pretty, in her own way, but she was never really what one might term beautiful. Her eyes were far too large for her face, which I would dare to call elfin. Slighter than her niece, she was delicately built with a pointed chin and long face that made her seem smaller than she was. Her hair was dark and very heavy, waved but not curled, and the great, black profusion of it made her face seem even paler and narrower than it was. She cut a very striking figure to be sure, but I could not, in justice, call her a beauty. The difference, I suppose, between my opinion and that of her admirers was that I never wanted her money.
There were plenty, however, who did, and when the season opened with the coming out of Miss Prudence Graham, there were few altogether who could see past the elegant French frocks and Indian diamond mines to realize that she was not, in fact, the beauty of her age, as well as the heiress of it. That honor, I felt, still belonged to her niece. Still, determined that her daughter should not be outshone by the brightness of her sister’s diamonds, Augusta Walden made sure the girls continued to exhibit together. They played together, and sang together, and rode together, just as they had when they were young. Only this time, the stakes were much, much higher.
Unlike their mothers, Charlotte and Prudence took the circumstances of their supposed rivalry in good grace. They still linked arms, like sisters do, at each ball, and took afternoon constitutionals in the park, which occasioned the second ripple: Johnny. Where Charlotte was more retiring, Prudence Graham was social in the extreme, prone to chatting familiarly with anyone she encountered, from her father’s friends to her niece’s groom. When the two belles rode together, considerations of rank played no part in the avidity with which Prudence questioned Johnny about horse breeding. Johnny had eyes in his head and sense enough to know he trained the horses of the beauty of her generation, and, though he answered Prudence carefully, it was not she to whom he began directing himself. Charlotte Walden was always courteous to him, but it was clear, before Prudence Graham drew Johnny out, that she had never noticed him, beyond to thank him for handing her up. Which, I ought point out, had rather been the plan. But as her aunt found more frequent opportunities to involve the two into her rambling conversations, Charlotte began to spend more time in the carriage house than might be considered necessary for her weekly ride.
It was autumn then, and the leaves in the Square had gone from green to gold, just tipped with red. The days when the militia did not march, Miss Walden and Miss Graham frequently showed themselves to advantage by taking a turn along the parade grounds. They were crossing north of the Square when a hackney came careening round the corner. There is, of course, no way to tell what spooked the horses, but, by the time the young dr
iver had got them under the rein again, Miss Walden had shoved Miss Graham out of harm’s way and got a dirty gown and a twisted ankle for her troubles. I was in the kitchen when we heard Johnny bursting through the front door upstairs in a gust of crisp autumn air, and her cradled in his arms, looking pale. Behind them came Miss Graham, her bonnet gone quite askew, her face all streaked with tears, and speaking with such breathless rapidity that it was impossible to know what she said. I never knew how Johnny came to be watching in the street that day, nor how he went so nimbly—almost between the horses’ legs, Miss Graham would later swear—to pluck my mistress from the cobbles and sweep her up the stairs and into the house.
I never thought of it at all until months later, and then I knew what I had never suspected: that Johnny kept his heart as close and closed as I did my own. Damn him. I can only think how it went in the interval, between the time when Charlotte, at last clean and dressed, her pretty ankle bound up by the doctor, had me summon Johnny up from the carriage house to her own room. And I, all unsuspecting of what was to come, took him there almost by the ear, hissing admonishments of politeness and courtesy—as if he intended otherwise!—as I led him up. I remember so little of that interview, save that Johnny was nervous, and how I was ashamed of the beads of sweat that crept along the edges of his brow until I remembered that, in this house, he was nothing to me. Only the Irish groom who had come to work here a week after myself. Practically a stranger.
Yes, that was the second ripple, for in those moments when Charlotte Walden thanked my brother in her low, sweet voice, some transaction, invisible to myself, was made, and thereafter she never cared if Prudence Graham had more beaux than herself, for Charlotte Walden had fallen in love with Johnny.
Have you ever seen a girl dance her way through a season looking for a husband? There is something sharpish-knowing in her eye, and, when she is filling her dance card, you can see her weighing the consequences of her choices. To whom should she bestow the honor of the quadrille, and to whom might she give the quiet privacy of the waltz? Is it altogether wise to grant two dances to he who asks when she is not quite sure of his intentions? The girl who is dancing her way to the altar must consider these things; she must calculate. But the girl who has already reached an understanding may simply dance. She may be freer with her favors; she is secure, and she might be quite as careless with her dance card as she pleases, for, saving the dances she will always give to her intended, the rest of her night is of little consequence.
That was how Charlotte Walden became, after she let Johnny into her bed. The only difference was that her beloved could not claim a single dance from her; he was not even allowed in the house. He never stood back appreciatively to watch her whirl, admiring the neatness of her figure, or straining to catch a glimpse of ankle. No. That was me. From the fringes of the hall, I watched with Grace Porter and any other number of ladies’ maids, as our mistresses minced and spun, and Charlotte made every impolitic choice that her dance card would allow. I watched as Grace wrung her hands in imitation of her own mistress, who stood by as match after match slipped through her daughter’s careless fingers. There were no more proposals that season, for who could be encouraged in pursuit of a girl whose dreamy mien suggested her affections were otherwise engaged?
There are girls who, when at the end of the night they are unlaced and brushed and combed, will sigh into their mirrors, thinking over the hard, strong hands at their waists, the pressure of another’s palm against their own, the whisper of a compliment paid as they flew across the polished floor. Charlotte Walden sighed as well: for the man who was not at the ball.
It would not do to think for a moment that Mrs. Walden had not noticed something amiss, and I was forever in expectation that she would cipher out the cause. She would have to have been a proper fool not to realize her daughter’s affections were misplaced, and that the source of all her sighing was not to be found in the ballroom. Grace Porter, who lived and breathed on such scraps, was only too happy to share her mistress’s theory as we sat and sewed one morning while the ladies made their calls. There had been a Prussian baron her first season, whom Charlotte had been advised not to accept, the precariousness of Germanic politics being what they were. And this had gone very hard with my mistress, who had declined two other proposals in as many months, and been rather taken with him at the time. Still, when the moment came, she declined his offer gracefully, though she did not speak with her mother for days afterwards. It was all so neat, so tidily packaged, that I lost no time in readily agreeing that it was the likeliest case, and Grace nodded wisely, and I knew that Johnny was safe.
Yet, though Johnny was safe, Charlotte was not; for an heiress, unmarried, cannot go carrying on with her groom forever when there are expectations that she make a grand match. Charlotte and her mother had been left well provisioned when Mr. Walden was carried off by the influenza, but the money was not inexhaustible, and soon or late Charlotte was meant to marry into affluence greater than her own. Her portion of the estate could not be touched until she was wed, at any rate, and, as freely as Mrs. Walden might spend on frocks and balls, it was all an investment with great expectations of return. And so it was, midway through Charlotte Walden’s third season, that her mother’s campaign, begun in earnest, carried on through exasperation, grew desperate.
With the eye of a woman who has known only wealth to be attractive, Augusta Walden had, at the start of the summer, laid out an enormous sum toward Charlotte’s wardrobe for the coming season. That summer, I had joined Charlotte in the carriage as we made countless trips to Marguerite Beauchamp’s boutique on Broadway. There, Augusta Walden joined the renowned dressmaker in lively debates regarding the colors and fabrics best suited to Charlotte’s graceful frame and auburn hair. I sat on a stool in the corner as Marguerite and her assistant, Claire, pinned and draped and fussed, holding bolts of fabric up and swathing them over Charlotte’s bare petticoats while my mistress stood, bored, impassive, and patient in the face of such ado. Then, too, were there visits to the cobbler and the milliner, though Augusta Walden was far more content to allow Charlotte to wear last season’s vestments outside of the ballroom. Bodices were very low-cut that year, and I well recall she had ordered two new corsets to accommodate this newly fashionable plunge.
All this, however, was nothing to the sole visit on which I accompanied them to the jewelers. It had previously been Augusta Walden’s policy that, as she had not had any new jewels during her years as a debutante, her daughter needed none. While concessions had been made during Prudence Graham’s debut, Charlotte had previously been content to wear out the limited contents of her jewel box, augmented only by a few loans from her mother. Regrettably, the family rubies looked ill when worn against Charlotte’s hair. They had come to Mrs. Walden through her mother, the first Mrs. Graham, as part of her dower portion. At last it was decided that the versatility of pearls would do, for of course Augusta Walden could not bear to see her daughter wear diamonds. There was also a sapphire brooch, very fine, and a set of matching combs, for blue looked well against Charlotte’s auburn, and her gown for the St. Valentine’s Day ball was to be of that color.
Grace Porter joined me to help put away Charlotte’s finery when it was at last delivered. I watched as she ran her appraising fingers over the lace and flounces, as she fingered the beads and rubbed the slippery taffeta. She sat and watched me hungrily as I shined my mistress’s new gems with vinegar and ran a soft cloth against the pearls. You mustn’t think Grace personally covetous; she merely lived on reflected glory. She should not have known what to do with such gems herself, but she fair lived for the notion of fastening them onto her mistress’s throat and wrists. She longed for the days when she could dress Augusta Walden as finely as I now dressed her daughter, and I found myself caught up in her enthusiasm. She showed me how to wrap the sapphires in squares of silk to prevent them jostling and scratching in the jewel box, and she taught me to warm Charlotte’s pearls against my own skin to bri
ng out their luster.
I had dressed Charlotte for countless balls since she had come out, but, on the evening of the St. Valentine’s Day ball, I took extra care. I oiled her hair with huile antique and brushed it until it looked like burnished copper. I papered the sides while I braided and coiled it in the back, securing the coil with the sapphire combs. Her shoulders I sponged with buttermilk, brandy, and alum and rubbed them so that her skin glowed creamy white before helping her into her chemise and lacing her into one of the new corsets. The whalebone creaked slightly as I ran the cording through the brass eyelets, and I thought with secret pleasure that I was the only one who ever saw her like this, that the periwinkles embroidered on her stays were for my benefit and mine alone. I paused to take her in: the swell of her bosom above the sateen edging, and the gentle curve of her hip below. It was almost a pity to cover it with her crinoline and coats before at last sliding the Egyptian blue taffeta gown over her head and buttoning up her back. The gown hung from her shoulders, a layer of paler blue lace along the sloping neckline, and below it on her arms were embroidered bands that gave way to the round puffed sleeves then in vogue. The high-waist bodice nipped tightly in before falling away into a profusion of pleats, just brushing the floor. I wrapped her as carefully as I now unwrapped her jewels, and, like the glittering brooch on her bodice, my mistress shone.
If you have any personal attractions, and most young women have something that is agreeable or pleasing, beware of the least approach to familiarity with any of the gentlemen . . . should you so far gain the affections of any of the young gentlemen as to induce him to marry you.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
It must not be supposed that Charlotte did not have suitors while she loved Johnny. There are always those who appreciate a lady with a cooler eye, a stiller heart. Of these, two such gentlemen had, in Charlotte’s third season, begun to pay her court in earnest. The first was Lord Robert Deane, fifth Baron Muskerry. The second was an American named Elijah Dawson. I did not particularly care for either of them.
The Parting Glass Page 5