The It Girls

by Karen Harper

  Elinor had seldom been so excited. The Wild West of America was a whole new world, a land she was coming to think of as the realm of rawhide romance—that is, romance in the truest sense of the word, a story with heroism, adventure, and even mystery. She was already planning a novel called Elizabeth Visits America, which would present her experiences here. Years ago, she’d devoured Western-themed books by writers like Bret Harte and Owen Winter, and what she saw now brought all that to life. The dashing heroes of those stories were her hosts today, for she was visiting a primitive mining camp called Rawhide, about an hour away from another picturesque place called Goldfields, Nevada. Indeed, this was a distant land, so different from anyplace she’d ever seen.

  What impressed her most was not the sagebrush bumping past her skirts in the wind when she was helped down from a stagecoach they had sent for her, nor the tents and board shanties, nor the signs of DANCE HALL AND SALOON where they went inside. It was the men themselves, who, through her host, had invited her here. They were polite and had a strict moral code. She had heard there was no lawlessness here, or else they meted out justice themselves. She’d seen a hand-printed sign that read, DON’T CROSS THE LINE!

  But what moved her most was that these miners had read her book and wanted to thank her for writing it! She’d take that praise any day over snide English hypocrites who attacked her and her writing without reading it, or, if they did, without grasping that what made an out-of-wedlock love right was real romance. Besides, the uppers of England were deep into illicit, serial affairs themselves, including the King!

  “We got us two things we want to present to you today, Mrs. Glyn,” a weather-faced man named Wally something or other told her after their meal in the cleared-out dance hall. “From me and the men, here’s a medal saying much obliged for your visitin’ us in Rawhide and for your fine writin’.”

  Applause and a yippee or two followed. She was so deeply touched. On the oil-cloth-covered lunch table she’d shared with them still stood a small, ragged bunch of yellow daisies that someone had ridden nearly ninety miles to bring back, since it was such barren land here. That meant more than a bower of roses at the Vanderbilt house or the clouds of fragrant gardenias at one of Lucile’s mannequin parades.

  Looking down at the medal with her name and Special Guest of Rawhide engraved on it, she told them in a loud voice, “I thank you so much for your hospitality and kindness to me. I will always treasure this and the lovely time here.”

  “That’s not all, though,” another lanky man told her, standing up. He wore a six-shooter at his side, and his spurs clanked, though most of the men had forgone spurs today. She believed he was the one they called simply “Irish.” His freckled skin looked like leather, and his hair was bleached blond in the sun. Bowlegged and dusty as he was, she thought of him as a real hero, one who would appear in her new novel.

  He cleared his throat and went on in a raspy voice, “We thought a lady like you better have some hidden protection when she travels. Not for here, ’cause we’d fight for you to the death if some polecat came near, but out in so-called civilized land.”

  Murmurs and nods. Someone at the back of the group evidently hacked into one of the spittoons. How she wished she could explain to these men what an English “dance hall” was like at a grand London town house or country home—and that this place was just as good—but that was impossible. Besides, somehow, right now, this was better.

  Irish gave her a small, mother-of-pearl-handled pistol. “We give you this here gun, Mrs. Glyn, ’cause we admire your damn—I mean, darned—pluck to write your book and then stand by it. You got courage, just like us.”

  Tears blurred her view of the pistol. “Again, I cannot thank you enough,” she told them. “This means so much to me because it is a true gift, one from the heart and one that symbolizes—that is, stands for—the fine, upstanding men you are. No matter if I visit New York City or San Francisco or Los Angeles, where I am headed next, I will never forget the men of Rawhide.”

  The applause and whoops rang in her ears. Even when she rode away in the coach, the whole thing seemed like a fantasy. She looked down at the medal and the pocket pistol on her lap and realized how far away she was from what she knew and what she loved. But it was true that she’d always remember Rawhide and the chivalrous men, like knights in shining armor, like the lords of their own exotic realm. She’d always picture them in what they’d called their best duds with their fine, saddled steeds and high moral code. She decided then that the only man she’d ever admired more than the lot of them was Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, and he was as far from her in possibilities as the miners in Rawhide, Nevada.

  Even Elinor’s visit to the two, vibrant young cities in California—young by British standards, at least—could not top her day in Rawhide and Goldfields. Especially because the San Franciscans criticized Three Weeks nearly as much as some English had. The city was recovering from a devastating earthquake, and the condemnation of Three Weeks shook her to her core after her acceptance in the East.

  What fascinated her the most about Los Angeles, which meant “The Angels,” was not the city itself but the small, nearby growing but grubby set of cinema buildings in a small town called Hollywood where Americans produced the new fad they called moving pictures.

  Later, as she made her way back home, she stopped in New York and saw one for the first time. She was fascinated by the medium, but dismissive of the title cards—words written to convey dialogue or emotion that appeared on the bottom of the black-and-white screen. “It will never replace the written word as experienced in book stories,” she told anyone who would listen. However, she was fascinated by the idea that maybe, someday, some way, her work, especially Three Weeks, might be made into a moving picture.

  She herself moved in a dream after her adventures in America, planning her next book, lost in thoughts that she was at least famous some place for the right reasons. It seemed a dream, that is, until she returned home and saw Clayton.

  When he greeted her, she tried not to show her dismay. He looked dreadful. Stouter. Bloated. Distracted. His cheeks had a violet tinge to them. Heart problems? Her mother’s letters had said nothing of this.

  “Were you ill on the trip?” she asked him, trying not to show her surprise. “I know Mother was, but I—”

  “It’s not only that. I need to explain—some things.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sure a lot has happened since I’ve been gone, and I want to hear all about your trip.”

  “Elinor, let’s sit down. Here, over by the window at the table.”

  “Are you quite well? The girls looked fine, so it isn’t that and—”

  “I am not quite well, but it isn’t what you think. Haven’t you seen the signs, my clever observer of people and things? What the deuce!” he swore. “It’s not my physical health, but my—our—financial health.”

  “Oh. Bills coming in from the long trip you all took, or mine. Clayton, the royalties from Three Weeks and those yet to come after my tour should cover all that, and I’m hoping to eventually stage the story here in the theaters, if I can just make the right contacts, maybe with Lucile’s help, so—”

  “Can you just listen for a moment without words, words, words!” He smacked his fist on the table and the inkwell shuddered. She saw he’d been writing out a long list of numbers. “Your ship may have come in but mine’s sinking. My debts have finally caught up with me and everything’s caved in. Creditors, threats, gambling IOUs.”

  “Gambling! Not again! I—you should have told me earlier. I guess I should have known.”

  “You’re seldom here! And when you are, your head is spinning with flights of fancy. I just wanted to live well, live fully. I have no illusions that I will live long, never thought I’d outlive what I inherited or could get in rents from Durrington House. I did not worry about you, because you have your original marriage settlement from me as well as so many admirers and could surely marry one of them.”
/>   “Clayton, I have been faithful to you, and—”

  “Physically, perhaps. But I was never the knight in shining armor you once fancied me to be. We haven’t been truly wed in a heartfelt way for years now, have we? And you have that restless, what you call romantic, spirit. Elinor, no more fantasies for either of us! We are going to have to move out of here and in with your mother in little Lamberts. Sheering Hall will be sold. We must cut back expenditures severely. Your books or not, good foreign reviews or not, we are worse off than deep in debt, we are bankrupt!”

  “Celia, I believe we have found the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow here in New York,” Lucile told her store manager she’d brought with her from London. “I cannot keep up with orders and even charging five hundred dollars for a personal consultation has not kept American mamas from scheduling with me for their daughter’s coming-out seasons or their own events.”

  “And you’ve buffaloed the newspapers, Madam Lucile. Buffaloed—that’s something I heard here the other day. Despite that one sniping paper which called you Lady Muff Boredom because your self-advertisements are all over, everyone is singing your praise.”

  Celia, so prim and plain looking amid the chaos of fancy fashions, goddesses, and rich clients, picked up another clipping scattered on the designing table. These last two months, Lucile could not have done without this young woman’s intelligence and energy. More than once Lucile had shooed someone away from trying to “pretty up” or change Celia, for Lucile admired how she dressed her personality in straight dark skirts and plain blouses or shirtwaist dresses. No-nonsense Celia was one of the few in the Lucile organization who knew the business was bringing in over forty thousand pounds a year, but, of course, not all of that was profit, and it did not count the swelling profits here in New York.

  Celia said, “Harper’s Bazaar says you are the marvel of two hemispheres. And this one says you offer ‘the Society’s 400’ New York ladies a ‘fairyland of frocks.’”

  “A fairyland of frocks. It sounds like something the famous authoress Elinor Glyn would say. My favorite quote is the one—ah, here it is,” she said, reaching for another newspaper article. “‘One of Lady Duff-Gordon’s allures is her talent with “the fascination of suggestion.” Just a slight revelation of an ankle here, or the shadow of a thigh, sets one’s thoughts to spinning for both sexes.’ My, that sounds like something my sister would write too. Perhaps Elinor and I are more attuned than we like to admit.”

  She plunged into fretting again the moment that was out of her mouth. Clayton had declared bankruptcy, and the family had moved out of Sheering Hall, when it had galled Elinor from the first that they did not live in the larger Durrington House on the estate. Lucile hoped her sister would accept a loan or even a financial gift when she returned to England, and Cosmo had offered some assistance already. Elinor had vowed to write books as quickly as she could to be able to pay off some of their debts, holed up as she was in a separate room in the small house called Lamberts, which Clayton had originally given to Mother. But of course she’d decorated her cubbyhole outrageously fancy, modeled after Marie Antoinette’s pied-à-terre Trianon at Versailles.

  “Here’s my favorite, though,” Celia broke into her agonizing. Again, she thought, what would she do without this woman? Her good business sense and organizational skills kept her from going crazy here, kept her, a little bit, from missing Cosmo’s financial aplomb.

  “Oh, the quote from Vogue Magazine,” Lucile said, peering over her shoulder. “‘Lady Duff-Gordon is the high priestess at the shrine of clothes.’ Still there’s a snide undercurrent in that comment. I am not asking my clients to worship clothes, just to enjoy them, though, I suppose, certain American women spend much more on their Lady Duff-Gordon wardrobes than they do at church, where they should be worshipping. But I strive to create an identity for individual women, not just a frock. I want them to feel confident, beautiful, interested, and interesting. That’s always been the goal of my gowns of personality and emotion.”

  “We all admire that, Lucile, your staff here and at home.”

  “I’m honored and grateful,” she admitted and reached out to squeeze Celia’s hand. “But the truth is, all that is not quite enough—and I don’t mean the money or the respect. I want to share my vision for how women should look and feel with more than the English, Americans, and a scattering of foreigners. Paris is in my sights, Celia,” she said with a little laugh. She loosed her hand and pointed her finger, as if it were one of Cosmo’s hunting guns, at the fabulous bridal gown just completed for a New York 400 daughter. “Sooner, rather than later, Paris, here we come!”

  CHAPTER Twenty-One

  Elinor drove herself hard, writing her book set in America. She felt as if she didn’t come up for air. She needed the money, needed to care for Clayton, needed to spend time with her girls before they went away to their boarding schools again—if they could afford that.

  But she forced herself to take a break and eat lunch with them.

  Mother presided now at the table. Perhaps because she had suffered through a dreadful second marriage with a tightfisted, irascible husband, she thought Clayton, with his apparent easygoing nature and generous spending habits, was an ideal son-in-law. Besides, he’d given her this house and taken her on trips.

  “Grandmama, remember how pretty the pagodas on our trip were?” sixteen-year-old Margot asked, dawdling with her spoon in her strawberry pudding. “I’ve drawn some pictures I want you to see.”

  Elinor crumpled her napkin in her lap. Why, she fumed, did Margot not want to show her own mother the drawings? The girls knew she used to sketch people and places. And why didn’t Margot explain what a pagoda was, especially since she hadn’t been along on their trip to Japan? She hated to feel stupid and left out. It seemed no one included her in their conversations, and when she tried to start a topic, it quickly petered out.

  Ten-year-old Juliet piped up, “And, Grandmama, I hope you’ll have time to help me hang the hem that ripped out. We can pretend we are Auntie Lucile—ha!” Juliet added with a little laugh. “That is, if you and Father aren’t going to play piquet all afternoon again.”

  “Oh, you know how your father loves card games,” Mother told her with a wink.

  “Excuse me, please,” Elinor said and rose from the table, tossing her linen napkin—a torn and mended one, no less—in her chair. She was afraid she would burst into tears. “Someone has to go to work here.”

  Juliet’s simple request galled worse than Margot’s. And her mother used to hate cards after all the hands she’d had to play with her own husband.

  “Ta, ta, Mother,” Margot said, then turned immediately back to those at the table. “And I hope you have time to look over my letter to the headmistress.”

  Elinor turned back, thinking finally she was to be included, but the girl was still talking to her grandmother. Drat! She was only half-finished with her novel, and the middle of the book was always what she considered the muddle of the book: too many plot lines and characters to juggle, like real life here lately. It made her as crazy as this skewed family did.

  And that last comment was the nail in the coffin. Who was the famous authoress here, who knew about writing, and who would be paying for a finishing school abroad for their eldest child and a boarding school for the other? Yet her own mother had supplanted her in her children’s interest and affections. Some of it was her own fault, of course, for being busy or away, but now, more than ever, she had to write to put so much as pudding in their mouths!

  Elinor bit her lip hard and blinked back tears as she hurried from the room, feeling as if she were running from her daughters instead of just Clayton this time. All of this was his doing, and there he sat, stuffing his face with food they could hardly afford and with his third lunchtime imported, expensive glass of brandy as if he ruled his world, when—as far as she was concerned—he had ruined it.

  Although Elinor had spent more time with her daughters before t
hey went off to school again, she had tried to avoid Clayton. She couldn’t help it. She was working herself to the bone and needed to get out of little Lamberts before she went quite mad. She needed outside stimulation, ideas. How could she write deep, emotional, fulfilling stories when her own heart was starved for affection and love?

  This autumn evening in London, where she was staying at Lucile’s for the night so she could see her publisher tomorrow—to ask him to help her find some fast money somehow, somewhere—she had accepted an invitation to a ball given by her friend Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester. She hadn’t seen her since their voyage to and time together in America. Fortunately, the duchess was also back in London, and the timing was perfect.

  This was also a reception for Russian royalty Elinor had met once before in London, the Grand Duchess Kiril, a client of Lucile’s. But while she thought this evening would be so relaxing, two men in attendance were making her more anxious. One was a Marlborough relation, a young man named Winston Churchill, who kept chattering and hanging on. And the other, the object of her secret affections for several years, Lord Nathaniel George Curzon, was just across the crowded room.

  This clever Winston had an American mother too, but Elinor wasn’t sure if she was a dollar princess or not and she wasn’t about to ask him. He could go off on tangents on absolutely any subject. Though she’d heard he was a climber, she thought the comment was intended to mean in career ambitions, for anyone related to the Duke of Marlborough must be well set in society.

  She finally managed to move past young Winston and head for Lord Curzon’s group when the grand duchess herself, with a small entourage, blocked her path.

  “Dearest Mrs. Glyn,” she said. “My mother-in-law and I so did like your novel. I meant to write, but I will ask. This winter, we would be honored to host you in St. Petersburg. Perhaps a new setting for a novel? We have a small society there, to compare to this,” she added with a gloved sweep of the room, “but we would count it an honor.”