Ruby took Faye’s arm and led her to what was supposed to have been her place, on the left of Elias, but Rochelle Prud’homme, firmly entrenched in her usurped seat, showed no sign of surrendering it. Blocked by silence from Elias each time she attempted to engage him in conversation, Rochelle assumed that he was a nervous host, which was not the case, and she called across the table to Ezzie Fenwick, as if Ruby and Faye Converse were not standing there.
“The Duchess left me some gold plates,” Rochelle called out. “What do you think I should do with them? Use them for ashtrays?”
“Or earrings,” answered Ezzie, who had turned over his plate to examine the markings on the back. “China like this you only see today in the showcases of dukes’ houses open to the public,” he added.
“We’ve had a mixup with the place cards,” whispered Ruby to Faye. “You were supposed to sit next to Elias, but someone, who shall be nameless, switched the cards.”
“Sounds just like Hollywood,” answered Faye, who couldn’t have cared less. “That’s what they do out there. Why don’t you put me over there next to my friend Gus Bailey?”
When she was seated, Gus said to her, “It was to avoid sitting next to me that Mrs. Prud’homme switched the cards.”
“How lucky for me,” said Faye, as she picked up her napkin and looked around. When a waiter started to pour wine into one of the four glasses in front of her, she put her hand over the top of it to stop him and ordered a glass of water instead. “Who the hell are all these people, Gus?” she asked.
“To your right is Lord Biedermeier,” said Gus.
“Oh, Lucien, how are you, darling? I didn’t see you,” she said with a laugh that indicated she had known Lucien way back when.
“Next to him is Janet Van Degan, as in Mrs. Laurance Van Degan, and next to her is Herkie Saybrook, and then—”
“Cute, Herkie Saybrook,” said Faye. “My third husband looked sort of like Herkie Saybrook.”
After the sorbets in assorted colors had been served, Elias rose and tapped a fork engraved with the letter R against a champagne glass engraved with the letter R, and the room was silenced. He thanked the Earl and Countess of Castoria, whom he called Binkie and Antoinette, for the marvelous friendship they had shared with Ruby and him, although, in fact, the friendship was of less than a year’s duration, and he told an anecdote about a visit they had made to Castle Castor the previous winter where Ruby got lost in the halls finding her way to dinner. Elias spoke charmingly and received laughter and applause. Then the Earl rose and made a similar toast to Elias and Ruby, thanking them for their friendship and this marvelous party, with the ball still to come, which was being given in their honor. No mention was made in either toast that the Earl of Castoria was a member of the board of directors of Miranda Industries.
Then Elias moved across the room to the table where Faye Converse sat, and spoke about the great star’s marvelous career and the forty pictures she had made.
“Sixty, not forty,” said Faye, correcting her host, and everyone laughed.
“Isn’t she marvelous?” said Maude Hoare.
Elias went on with his toast and told about the good work that Faye Converse was doing with the private time of her life, working to raise funds “toward a cure for the pestilence that is dwindling the ranks of the artistic community.” With that, he presented her with a check.
Faye rose to great applause and thanked Elias and Ruby for the wonderful evening that was just beginning and for the check, which she then opened. “My God!” she said, “two million dollars!”
Again the dining room rang out with applause.
“We are an army fighting an enemy that has no allies,” said Faye, as she became serious and started to talk about her mission.
“What’s she talking about?” asked Fernanda Somerset, who was hard of hearing.
“AIDS,” said Lil, mouthing but not speaking the word.
“I thought she said something about an army,” insisted Fernanda.
“Look at Aline Royceton’s teeth,” said Ezzie.
“Still looks pretty, doesn’t she?” said Rochelle.
“Who, Aline, for God’s sake?”
“No, Faye Converse.”
“The speech is too long,” said Ezzie.
“Shh,” said Ruby.
“How old do you think she is?” asked Rochelle.
No one in the room clapped harder than Lil Altemus at the end of Faye Converse’s speech. “So marvelous,” she said. Lil, whose own son was at that very moment, a mere sixty blocks to the south of her, being checked into St. Vincent’s Hospital by Boy Fessenden, repeated to the Honduran ambassador what she had repeated to her daughter a few weeks earlier. “Bobo, my hairdresser Bobo, says there won’t be a man left in New York to hem a dress or hang a curtain,” she said, shaking her head sadly for those poor souls, as if it were a thing far removed from her own door and the doors of her friends.
Binkie Castoria, getting drunk, turned to ask Ruby what was this pestilence that was dwindling the ranks of the artistic community, and Ruby turned her attention to him. A waiter named Chet, from the catering service, while nodding a greeting to Gus Bailey, whom he knew from A.A. meetings, inadvertently collided with the waving arms of Ezzie Fenwick, who was keeping his table in convulsions of laughter with an imitation of a model on the runway at the showing of Nevel’s new collection the day before, and the bottle of red wine, Lafite-Rothschild, that the waiter was carrying flew from his gloved hand and spewed its ruby content all over the white satin dress of Ruby Renthal. There was a gasp from the Earl, who liked being on the board of directors of Miranda Industries, as well as the other guests at the table, for the ball would shortly be starting, and they all turned to look at the unfortunate waiter whose face turned crimson with embarrassment.
“Oh, Mrs. Renthal, I can’t believe I did that,” said the waiter, who expected to be fired on the spot.
“Don’t be upset,” said Ruby, looking down at her ruined dress. “White is such a boring color.” Chet, the waiter, looked at her with adoration. With that Ruby left the dining room to change, after asking her guests to go to the drawing room for coffee.
“How marvelous Mrs. Renthal is,” said the Earl. “A duchess couldn’t have handled that better.”
Patriotic since her elevated position as a frequent guest at the White House, Ruby had recently abandoned the French couture, “given up the French,” she called it, for its American cousins, like Nevel. On the advice of Ezzie Fenwick, who had the ability to minutely observe a woman’s dress, tell at a glance if it was from the couture or ready-made, identify the designer, quote the price, and remember its distinguishing details days later, Ruby had ordered three different dresses for her great night when she told Ezzie she couldn’t decide what to wear. Changing, she also changed her jewelry, her pearls and diamonds making way for her emeralds and diamonds. She remembered a line from a movie she had loved: “If you got it, flaunt it,” she said to herself in the mirror.
Returned, redressed, Ruby looked better than ever.
Elias, taking her in, leaned down and kissed her bare shoulder.
“Elias, how sweet,” said Ruby.
“You look good enough to eat,” he said.
“Watch your language, big boy,” she said, in her Mae West accent.
“I love you, Ruby Renthal,” said Elias.
Ruby blushed prettily. “Ditto,” she said.
“Who woulda thought, the two of us?” whispered Elias.
“Who woulda thought?” Ruby repeated.
Ruby, with Elias by her side, stood in the receiving line, greeting, by name, her four hundred guests, including the French ambassador, the Spanish ambassador, the British ambassador, and various members of the deposed royal families of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Rumania, who recognized certain of the pieces of marvelous furniture in the Renthal apartment as having come from palaces that had once been theirs. In the splendid crowd promenading from room to room, where gypsy violinists
played, before descending to the ballroom, where a dance band played Cole Porter music, people who had seen each other as recently as lunch shrieked hellos like long-lost friends and exchanged kisses on each cheek. There were an abundance of social commentators, guaranteeing that the Renthal ball would be duly recorded for social posterity. Strobe lights flashed and the blinding lights of the television cameras went on and off as recognizable faces entered the marble front hall of the vast apartment. In addition to Dolly De Longpre, who was the only member of the press who had been invited to dinner, was young Florian Gray, as well as Mavis Jones, of the show-business columns, who usually did not attend the same parties as Dolly, nor Dolly the same parties as they, but the curiosity value of the Elias Renthals was such that all decided to overlook their differences and attend.
Ezzie Fenwick spoke to Ruby’s maid, Candelaria, addressing her by name, establishing himself as a regular visitor to the household, known and smiled upon by its staff. Ezzie could hardly contain himself at the utter splendor of the Renthals’ night. He made a rapid tour of inspection of the sit-out rooms, not knowing where to station himself to full advantage to witness the evening, before deciding on a position at the foot of the stairs leading into the ballroom, beneath a weeping willow tree, where he would not miss a single entrance. He was surrounded by women who clung to him to listen to his comments about everyone (“Just the nice Europeans, none of the trashy ones,” he said) and compliment him on his pearl studs, as big as marbles, which all agreed, prompted by himself, stacked up to the pearls on any of the necks in the room. He greeted his particular friends, all women, with compliments on their dresses, and did not greet those he did not favor with his friendship. “Hello, Maude,” he said. “Hello, Lil.” “Hello, Dodo.” “Hello, Rochelle.” “Hello, Janet.” “Hello, Matilda.” “Hello, Maisie.” “Hello, Adele. Marvelous, that dress.” And they, in turn, all replied, “Hello, Ezzie,” and kisses on each cheek followed.
“You know everyone, Ezzie,” said Bijou McCord, the Texas millionairess who now sought New York recognition.
“Yes,” replied Ezzie, beaming with pride and satisfaction for his high position.
Several times his brow furled with displeasure, as someone walked down the stairway whose presence on the invitation list had been unknown to him. The entrance of Constantine de Rham, about whose exclusion he had been particularly vocal to Ruby, came as a shock to him, and he instantly expressed the thought to his companions that de Rham had probably crashed, just the way Mrs. Lupescu, his companion, had crashed the wedding reception of Justine Altemus. “Elias will get rid of him, you mark my words,” he said, but, at that moment, Elias, looking for Ruby, came upon Constantine and spoke a greeting to him, not a warm greeting, but the greeting of an important host to an unimportant guest.
Jamesey Crocus arrived with Adele Harcourt, whom everyone called charity herself, for all her good works for the city. Jamesey could always be pressed into service to escort Adele Harcourt, the grande dame of New York, and was inclined enough toward literature to have been asked to join Mrs. Harcourt’s book club.
“My God, they got everybody,” whispered Jamesey Crocus to Adele Harcourt, surveying the crowd through his spectacles, meaning that the haut monde had all turned out for the Renthals.
“Tout New York,” whispered Mrs. Harcourt.
“What are you whispering about?” asked Ruby, walking by.
“I was just saying to Adele that we should read Trollope next in the book club, now that we’ve finished with the Russians,” said Jamesey.
“I was saying what a marvelous job Mickie has done,” said Adele Harcourt at exactly the same time.
Mickie Minardos’s eyes were shining with the excitement of creativity fulfilled: a symphony composed, an epic written, a masterpiece painted. Compliments were being paid to him from everyone, even, he whispered to Loelia, who was bursting with pride for him, from Adele Harcourt herself. It was what he had always wanted, artistic recognition instead of shoe recognition. Modestly he brushed aside the compliments, without actually saying you-ain’t-seen-nothing-yet, but thinking it, because, at midnight, during the waltzes, the spectacle would be enhanced when the ten thousand butterflies, yellow and orange, flown up from Chile only that day, were to be released to fly around the ballroom, in the bowers of flowers and in the weeping willow trees, as the final culmination of what he knew would be called forevermore the most beautiful party of the decade in New York.
“There can’t be a yellow tulip left in all Holland!” cried Dodo Fitz Alyn Van Degan, looking at the ballroom.
“These people are spending a fortune to entertain us, and all they want in return is to be accepted by us,” said old Ormonde Van Degan, who had been brought down on the freight elevator to see the ballroom before repairing upstairs, away from the music and the crowds, to enjoy a cigar with a few old friends he had spotted, while Dodo and Lil watched the spectacle and the dancing.
“It won’t happen,” said Lil to her father.
“Oh, yes, it will,” said the old man. “It has happened.”
Ruby and Elias then took to the dance floor, she with the Earl, he with the Countess, adhering to all the traditions, as if they had been giving grand balls all their adult years. People clapped, but no one clapped harder than Maisie Verdurin, her eyes glistening with tears of pride at the triumph of the Renthals, who had achieved business and social success without benefit of inheritance or heritage. “It’s the American dream fulfilled,” said Maisie, enthusiastically, to all around her as she continued to clap. Then Laurance Van Degan brought Faye Converse to the dance floor, and Jamesey Crocus followed with Adele Harcourt, and a Yugoslav prince with a Bulgarian princess, and then everyone was on the dance floor.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” asked Adele Harcourt.
“You’ve snowed us, Elias,” said Janet Van Degan.
When Elias finally danced with Ruby, he thought that she had never looked more beautiful.
“We did it, kiddo,” he whispered in her ear.
She smiled at him.
“We’re a team,” he whispered again.
“A team,” she whispered back.
At that moment an ambassador cut in on Elias, but Ruby, before giving herself over to the ambassador, whispered again to Elias, “Don’t forget, when the First Lady comes, you and I have to be at the front door to greet her and bring her in, and you have to have the first dance with her.”
“I won’t forget,” said Elias.
“Don’t go far. It’s getting close,” said Ruby.
It was only in retrospect, when the people who had not been invited read about the party in the News and the Post, and in this case, even the mighty Times, which did not usually cover private parties, that the Renthal ball began to develop as a legend that would make it stand out in peoples’ minds for years to come. “I read you were at the Renthals’ ball,” people said. “Tell me everything.”
Only the pool room, or the room with the pool table, had been declared off bounds, because the pool table, which had once belonged to Edward VII, still had its original felt, and Elias worried that people might place drinks on it. While Dodo and Lil watched the dancing, Ormonde elected to enjoy a cigar in the company of Lord Biedermeier in a small upstairs room, adjacent to the pool room, usually reserved for cigar smoking and poker playing, which Ruby didn’t allow in her main salons.
Lord Biedermeier, whose mind was always on books, even during social occasions, would have liked nothing better than to publish a biography of the Van Degan family, whose roots in the city and the nation—politically, socially, and financially—could be matched by no other family, and it was in this little smoking room that he broached the subject to the octogenarian Ormonde Van Degan, knowing that his cooperation in such a project might entice his son, Laurance, who was, on general principles, opposed to any form of publicity whatsoever, into agreeing to speak with the biographer he had in mind.
“You’re looking particularly wel
l since your marriage, Mr. Van Degan,” said Lord Biedermeier, although, in fact, Ormonde Van Degan looked very much at that moment as if he were about to expire. The old man, who usually went to bed at eight, was exhausted by this late-night venture into society, which his son, Laurance, had asked him to attend, and his wife, Dodo, had begged him to attend.
“Who the hell are these people?” Ormonde Van Degan replied, his voice so faint as to barely be heard.
“What people?” asked Lord Biedermeier.
“Who are using my friend Sweetzer Clarke’s apartment.”
“Oh, I see,” replied Lord Biedermeier, laughing. “Our hosts, you mean? Elias and Ruby Renthal. Elias Renthal is one of the richest men in the country.”
“I miss Sweetzer. Damn fine sportsman. And a good shot, as he should have been; his mother was a Phelps. Gentleman, too. Something Mr. Renthal is not,” gasped the old man.
Lord Biedermeier thought it best not to pursue this avenue of conversation and, instead, offered Mr. Van Degan a cigar, which had been the point of this visit to the smoking room in the first place. His cigars were from Cuba, by way of London, and he always felt proud when cigar smokers complimented him on their excellence.
“Cuba,” he said, offering one to Ormonde Van Degan.
Ormonde Van Degan gestured to Lord Biedermeier to ready the cigar for him. When its tip was cut, he handed it to the old man, who placed it in his mouth.
“I’ve been thinking, sir,” said Lord Biedermeier, as he lit a match and held it to Ormonde Van Degan’s cigar for him to inhale on, “what a marvelous and distinguished family your family is and has always been in the history of this state.”
People Like Us Page 31