Lord Deane had come to New York the previous spring with the purpose, it was said, of marrying an American heiress. Though he talked often of his ancestral home, it was rumored that Springfield Castle was badly in need of repairs, and that the fourth Baron Muskerry’s gambling debts had made the necessary refurbishments impossible. Though he was far too urbane and well regarded in society’s drawing rooms to be considered a fortune hunter, it was still worthy of note that, while eager, the baron could hardly be considered ardent. With a show of respectful formality, he had begun securing Charlotte Walden’s waltzes early in the season and had invited her driving more than once. Both Charlotte and her mother had been to dine with him at his hotel, and he had squired them twice to the opera.
On the subject of his suit to her daughter, Grace Porter told us, Augusta Walden was of two minds. It would be a fine thing to be the mother of a baroness, Augusta Walden had concluded, and, while Charlotte’s inheritance was substantial enough to support a failing barony for a generation or two, Mrs. Walden would have rather seen her daughter ally her great fortune with one of its like. It was therefore widely conjectured in the kitchen that Augusta Walden was merely encouraging Lord Deane’s suit as a means of creating jealousy in Elijah Dawson.
Elijah Dawson’s blood was far redder than his rival’s more aristocratic blue. The son of a Hempstead plantation owner, Mr. Dawson had lost both father and brothers when a fire broke out on the property in ’14 and become heir to the family estates at the tender age of seven. His country rearing at the hands of his grandmother had rendered him soft-spoken and frequently reserved, though his reserve seemed to melt away when he took Charlotte into his arms on the ballroom floor. Often I had observed the brightness in his eyes as he watched the grace with which my mistress flew across the floor. He had asked her three times for the waltz, which she had granted, and I could not tear my gaze from his hand resting gently but firmly at her waist.
Quite naturally, I detested him.
Of Mr. Dawson’s credentials, Augusta Walden was far more effusive. His grandmother, the formidable Geraldine Dawson, had insisted upon his education at Columbia College, and this familiarity with the City of New York disposed my mistress’s mother to him greatly. It was Augusta Walden’s considered opinion that Long Island was a rustic wilderness, practically a frontier, and had it not been for the civilizing influence of an education in the city, I do not think she would have considered Mr. Dawson’s suit at all. That he had returned frequently from his plantation showed, in her opinion, good judgment, and, while she could not see herself settled at such a remove from the city as Hempstead Plains, she held no such compunctions about her daughter’s future. That Elijah Dawson rented a house on Great Jones Street added to his many charms. The Grahams, in recognition of his suitability even for Prudence, had invited him to dine, and Charlotte had noted later to me how full of quiet praise he had been when she and her aunt sang. His one fault appeared to be his indirect manner, for, though he seemed eager enough to press his suit to Charlotte at every assembly at which they met, Augusta Walden had thus far failed to secure him for even a single dinner.
It was with this failure to bring Elijah Dawson into her home that Augusta Walden began plotting to assure his acceptance of her invitation to the St. Valentine’s Day ball. That the invitations themselves were exclusive—the Walden family’s ball was considered one of the events of the season—was not, on this occasion, considered allure enough to ensure Mr. Dawson’s attendance. Augusta Walden’s campaign, therefore, consisted of, in the days following her footman’s delivery of the invitation, conspiring to intersect with the poor man and, stopping him in the street, to force an acceptance from him with all the charm a society dam can bring to bear.
I remember a fairy story from my childhood, about a knight or warrior who was trying to reach the battle, and a great fairy queen disguised as a lovely young maiden who stood in his path. When the knight paid her no heed, she swore she would do everything in her power to stand in the way of his battle, and she turned herself into an eel and a wolf and a cow to try to get him to stop and show her the respect she was due. Finally, she took the form of an old crone, and, blocking his path, made him acknowledge her and grant her his blessing. It was this story I recalled as Charlotte told over her mother’s travails while I brushed out her hair for the night. Da used to say how it was a mark of the knight’s goodness that he could not be turned aside by beauty or force, but was compelled by his honor to show respect for a humble granny. Over this story I would worry like a loose tooth, for it meant to me that honor was a weakness, if it made a person so easy to compel. I was troubled that I could not remember how it ended.
Looking at Elijah Dawson now, standing against the edge of the assembly in the makeshift ballroom, his face set stoically, I followed his gaze to where Augusta Walden stood speaking with her father across the room. Though long since past her mourning period, Augusta Walden honored the memory of her husband by donning a ball gown of black velvet. Her mother’s rubies were fastened in her dark hair, and a massive square pendant of the same gem hung at her throat. The contrast of her dark hair and gown made her skin seem unearthly pale, against which the rubies showed like drops of blood. I suddenly recalled the rest of the fairy story that had troubled me before. The queen had changed her shape to take the form of a raven, and watched the knight on the field of battle. She circled high above until she saw him mortally wounded, then came to perch upon his shoulder until he died of his wounds. I shuddered, suppressing the urge to cross myself at such a grim recollection. Mr. Dawson hardly looked like a knight or warrior; he looked like a scholar or a minister or something else genteel and dull and serious. Such a man hardly seemed fair prey for a fearsome queen like Augusta Walden, bent on marrying off her daughter.
I must here remark that I have always thought anyone laboring under the delusion that women are the weaker sex is unfamiliar with the field of battle that is a society ballroom. For the ballroom is not the place of leisure and frivolity it purports to be. The music is there, I’ve always felt, to drown out the drums of war.
Let us begin with the principal warriors—the debutantes. With their ladies’ maids acting as their faithful squires, the armor they don must surely compare to the maille and plate worn by the knights of old. Beneath the silk and taffeta, the insubstantial gauze, are whalebone and horsehair, cordage and steel. Every demoiselle has been laced tight, wasp-waisted above the gracious swell of her skirts, her stays stemming her in. The curved bell of her gown, made possible by her corded crinoline and three or four more petticoats, hangs ponderously from her hips. Even her arms, though bare below the elbow, are encumbered with sleeve plumpers, filled with feathers. She is girded for battle beneath the clothes the gentlemen see, the gentle slope of her shoulders rising above the layers of fabric that weigh her down. Atop her head, the precarious Apollo knot, filled with feathers or decked in jewels, strains her neck, and her throat is wrapped in beads. Thus laden, she is meant to smile as she glides through the room, the thrusts and parries of each conversation and dance dealt with grace and dignity.
And who is orchestrating these forays onto the field of amor? Why, the old generals, their mamas and grandmamas, the veterans of a thousand such campaigns. Grouped together along the fringes of the room—never huddled, for one does not huddle when surveying one’s domain—their feints are subtler still. No less bedecked than the young ladies in their care, no less intent on those matrimonial objects, theirs is no longer to smile or simper for the gentlemen themselves. They vie behind the scenes. A word dropped here, a hint or suggestion there—she’s looking pale, she dined with him, he lingered long at tea—a whiff of scandal on the wind. With a well-turned phrase, alliances are made, reputations ruined, fates sealed.
The gentlemen, eligible bachelors, thinking that, because it is theirs to ask, they hold all the cards, have no notion of the machinations, the artifice of all that lies beneath. They see vacant, lovely faces; they see innocence and p
urity. They see what the women want them to see. Little do they suspect the gears behind the faces that they meet are churning, churning, churning.
Lord Deane was able to secure the opening quadrille with Charlotte, while Mr. Dawson, with a fervor of which I had not suspected him, wrung from her a promise of, by my count, his fourth waltz this season. Mrs. Walden seemed pleased with this arrangement, and, from our place behind the screens along the wall, Grace grinned at me with yellow teeth. I smiled back, as thin-lipped as politeness would allow at her sallow grimace, and turned my attention to Charlotte.
Candlelight is always flattering, particularly with the soft gleam of ball gowns and gems, but Charlotte looked radiant, as if lit from within. She was assuming her place to lead the quadrille—taking the role of the hostess, for Mrs. Walden never now danced. Her features looked as composed as Grace’s were anxious, and, though all eyes were on her, she held herself naturally, with none of the self-conscious stiffness so often seen in girls her age. As the music played, she and the baron began the intricate steps, and I began to wonder at her placid comportment, for her partner was not her equal.
Lord Deane danced badly, perhaps suffering from the misconception that simply being of the gentry made him genteel. His steps were too high, his tempo was off, and he danced with alarming little kicks and flourishes that suggested an inflated notion of his abilities. Not a few suppressed titters flitted through the room at his performance. Grace turned to me, bald disapproval on her face, and tsked disparagingly. I rolled my eyes, and we turned back to the display in time to see the baron’s bootheel catch on the hem of Charlotte’s gown. I watched in horror as time seemed to slow down and Charlotte stepped quickly away before he could remove his foot. The sound of her gown tearing surely could not have been heard above the music, but, whenever I think back, I seem to hear it anyway, drowning out the clarinet, the flute, the pianoforte, and the bass. The seam between the skirt and the bodice gaped, revealing Charlotte’s corset and her outer petticoats. My mistress froze, the dance faltered, and all eyes turned to her where she was exposed. Charlotte colored, then fled.
Grace jabbed me with her elbow. “Go!” she hissed, and I dashed for the stairs.
What I would particularly caution you against, however, in this respect, is giving advice when you are not asked, or thrusting your opinion upon your mistress, whether she seems desirous of having it or not.
—The Duties of a Lady’s Maid
By the time Charlotte gained the door to her room, I was ready with my sewing basket, unspooling a length of blue silk and threading my needle with it. Charlotte, red-faced and breathless, caught sight of me and smiled her relief.
“Oh, Ballard, bless you!” She was by my side in a moment, grasping my hands and forcing me to drop the needle and thread. “I might have known! Did you see it? Did everyone see? How bad is it?”
I squeezed her hands and smiled at her. “Be easy, Miss Charlotte. Stand stock-still, and I’ll do what I can.”
“Oh, bless you, Ballard,” she said again, as I ducked to retrieve the needle. Threading it at last, I jabbed it into a pincushion, which I handed to Charlotte. She took it obediently, and stood with her arms held out from her body as I began to unbutton her from behind.
I slid one hand along her back, worming between the heavy taffeta layer of her gown and the lighter taffeta of her petticoats, the backs of my knuckles sliding up against the laces of her stays, pressed against the contours of her waist. Holding the material taut, I examined the tear.
“Well?” she asked, her arms uncomfortably akimbo, looking back over her shoulder expectantly.
“He’s done his work thoroughly, miss,” I said. “Shirred the seam, for it was cross-stitched here, and the fabric along it’s frayed. I can tack it back together and it should hold for now. There’s just enough seam left to hide it, I think.”
She leaned back, arching her white neck toward the ceiling and sighing as deeply as her stays allowed.
“Thank you, Ballard. I suppose I shall have to send for Marguerite’s girl?”
“More than likely, miss. It should be reinforced with another piece of taffeta, and Mademoiselle Claire will certainly do better than I.”
“Well, do what you can, Ballard.”
As I bowed my head to the work, the fire glinting off the fine weave, there was a rap at the door, which flew open before Charlotte could answer. A swirl of skirts dashed into the room, depositing itself on the chaise longue with unexpected grace. Charlotte twisted to see the interloper, and I stabbed myself in the hand with the needle.
“Lord!” I heard from the other side of the gown. “It has turned quite grim down there, you know. Though it was hardly impressive before—what is Augusta on about, to hire musicians and then force them to play so insipidly?”
Charlotte made a face. “Is no one dancing? Mama will never speak to Lord Deane again.”
“The question, Lottie,” said Miss Graham, who was of course the only person in the world with enough ill grace to enter the hostess’s bedroom during a ball, “is whether you will ever speak to him again.”
I peered at her from around Charlotte’s skirt. Prudence Graham’s gown was a silk brocade of rich burgundy hue, which had been adorned with jet beads. Her heavy dark tresses were caught back with combs that had been inlaid with diamonds, and that same stone glittered from her earbobs and wrists as well. She shone so it bordered on vulgar, even to my eye.
“La! I could kiss him!” Charlotte said, at which Miss Graham actually looked shocked for once in her own rather shocking life. Charlotte smirked at the expression on her aunt’s face. “Oh, Prue, for pity’s sake, you know I wasn’t talking of that! I’m only grateful he got me out of waltzing with Mr. Dawson, yet again.”
“Yes, well, if Augusta insists on having them play the waltz as though it were a dirge, I can hardly fault you.”
Charlotte shifted from one foot to the other. “What would you have them play?”
“I wouldn’t,” Miss Graham said, absently flicking the jet beads on her daringly narrow sleeves. “I had rather play myself.”
“Tosh,” Charlotte said, more intent on her aunt’s gown than on her words. “You always say that. Who in heavens let you do those sleeves? It wasn’t your mama.”
Prudence looked up with a grin. “Like them? They’re très français. No one’s wearing those plumpers anymore this season—they’ve gotten so big now it’s impossible to play.”
“You mean no one’s wearing them to a salon or to dinner. Did Grandmama Sabrina let you?”
“Don’t be absurd. I had a word with the sempstress after. Mama does adore French fashion, but after all . . .” She trailed off meaningfully.
“She might adore French fashion,” Charlotte said. “But she detests your Viennese sensibilities.”
“Now, then, there’s a notion,” Prudence said. “You might, just might, be more inclined toward dancing the waltz if Augusta would let them play Schubert.”
“Not if I was dancing with Mr. Dawson.”
“I fail to see exactly what you find so objectionable about Mr. Dawson.”
Charlotte shuddered delicately, and I found my fingers once more imperiled by the needle. “Have you waltzed with him?”
“No such luck, and more’s the pity.” Prudence sighed.
“Pity me, rather,” said Charlotte. “His eyes, the way he stares at me!”
“I’d be flattered, myself,” said Prudence carefully.
“But he looks at me with such intensity! I hardly think it’s flattering to be so baldly assessed,” said Charlotte, a chill creeping into her voice.
“Perhaps you simply don’t care for the assessment,” Prudence teased. “Come now, he’s rich and handsome, and, moreover, dear Lottie, he’s the right age. Every other beau Augusta’s thrown at you has been far too old. Including Lord Deane, whom you seemed so eager to kiss a moment ago.”
I swallowed hard, keeping my face a mask of composure. The baron and his eagerness had
caused me no few sleepless nights. It had occurred to me before that any suitor of Charlotte Walden’s who might have an ear for my lilt if he heard me slip was a dangerous prospect indeed. Mrs. Walden, as I had said, was not at all averse to the idea of titled son-in-law, though Charlotte feigned indifference to the prospect of marriage altogether. Before Johnny, it had been a different matter, and I had been subjected to many an hour of hearing her and Miss Graham sigh over this or that gentleman that had paid them compliment.
Charlotte tossed her head. “Lord Deane is not yet forty. And besides, my mother’s taste in beaux runs along only one line. She has made her intentions for my future quite clear, Prue, and it is for me to say yes or no only in the particulars.”
“Which are?”
Charlotte colored, which I am afraid she never did prettily, for her Scottish came out and she went somewhat blotchy about the cheeks. “I should not wish to leave New York,” she said in what I’m sure she thought was a careless sort of way.
Miss Graham was not fooled. She smiled thinly and replied, “Yes, well, I’m sure there are things you would miss terribly. For myself, I’ve been longing to go back to Europe, but Mama won’t let me go as far as East Hampton until I’ve accepted a proposal. Now you, I think, would be happy if you could accept the nearest offer, wouldn’t you, Lottie?”
I realized I had been holding my breath and inhaled sharply as the edges of my vision began to blur.
“Ballard?” Charlotte looked down over her shoulder at me. “Is it very bad?”
“No worse than I thought, miss,” I replied, finishing the last stitch and tying off the thread. “Only, I should think that you’ll need to call for Miss Marguerite’s girl straightaway tomorrow. It ought to hold for tonight, but it cannot last forever, you know. After all, Miss Charlotte, nothing lasts forever, and you ought to remedy what you can.”
The Parting Glass Page 6