After she left, Lucy frowned at me. ‘I should have warned you not to accept any invitation that would have you alone with anyone.’
I glanced at Caroline, but to my surprise she didn’t seem perturbed.
‘You needn’t worry, Lucy. My sister handled herself with aplomb. Everyone was taken with her. And Grace isn’t a trouble-maker.’
Lucy scrutinised me in that condescending manner of hers. ‘Don’t get too complacent, Emma. Those ladies were only bait. Let’s hope they go out and do exactly what we want them to do: gossip. We have a much bigger fish to catch — and one that won’t be so easy to impress.’
I wondered whom she was referring to, but of course Lucy and my sister weren’t about to take me into their confidence. The ease between them grated on me, but I was pleased that at least my sister was starting to respect me.
Isadora excused herself to carry on with her sculpture; and I returned to my room and changed into my ordinary clothes. I had started a story in the morning based on the ruby and diamond ring I had been given to wear, and I wanted to continue with it before dinner.
But first I penned a letter to Claude:
I gave my first harp recital in New York today. I know you will be proud of me. It was well received, although I don’t think my audience understood too much about music . . .
When I’d finished, I collected the other letters to Claude I had written during the week and folded them all into an envelope. I rang the bell for Jennie, but when she didn’t appear I went downstairs to look for Woodford so I could give the envelope to him for the afternoon post and also return to the strongroom the jewellery I had borrowed.
I thought he might be in the scullery or china pantry, supervising the cleaning and return of the dishes and silverware from the luncheon, but only found a kitchen maid up to her elbows in hot water. She seemed flabbergasted to see me in that part of the house.
I asked her where I could find Woodford and she pointed back to the great hall. ‘You’ll find him in the smoking room, miss,’ she stuttered. ‘Refilling the cigar box and brandy decanters.’
I went in the direction she had indicated, passing a winter garden filled with palms and lilies and other exotic plants. Woodford hadn’t brought me here when he’d given me a tour of the house and I got the impression from the Turkish rugs and Moorish wallpaper in the hallway that this was the masculine wing. I opened one door and found a billiard table. I opened another, and reeled back in fright.
Stag heads hung from every wall, and zebra, tiger and giraffe skins covered the floor. By the fireplace a stuffed lion and lioness stared at the room with fixed glass eyes, while near a bookcase a grizzly bear stood at its full height with its paws raised, forever frozen in time by a hunter’s gun. I moved closer to it, filled with pity and horror.
‘It’s a magnificent beast, isn’t it?’ I turned to find Woodford in the doorway. ‘It was a female, extra fierce because she was defending her cubs.’
My insides turned hollow. The animals in the room must have been killed by Oliver, but what kind of man thought hunting animals for pleasure was a worthy pastime, let alone killing a female with young?
‘I thought you said my brother-in-law was a lover of animals? The day he ran over a dog with his motor car, you told me he was upset because he likes animals so much.’
Woodford’s face darkened, but he maintained his composure. He pointed to a painting above the fireplace of a labrador retriever with a duck in its jaws. ‘I meant to say that Mr Hopper is fond of dogs.’
The butler was all politeness, but the way he stood close to me and stared into my face was intimidating, and his tone contained a warning not to question him further. There was something he wasn’t saying — about the accident and about this room.
‘Could you kindly add this to the afternoon’s post,’ I said, handing him the envelope containing my letters to Claude. I tried to keep my voice steady but it wavered. ‘My sister said I should give my letters to you.’
He nodded, and I returned in the direction of the great hall. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. I reached the end of the corridor and looked back. Woodford was still watching me, my letters to Claude balanced in his white-gloved hand. I was sure that whatever I said to him would get back to Caroline. He was her eyes and ears in the house.
THIRTEEN
Two days after the luncheon, Isadora and I were on our way to her studio when Jennie caught up with us. ‘Mrs Hopper would like to see you in the drawing room, Miss Lacasse. Her Grace, the Duchess of Dorset, is here.’
On my way to the great hall, I glimpsed Oliver slipping into his study. It was unusual for him to be at home during the day. Since my strange encounter with Woodford, I had only seen my brother-in-law once, at dinner. He had cut his food as if in a trance and given perfunctory answers to any questions he was asked.
‘A busy day at the office, I see, my dear,’ Caroline had said, nodding to Woodford to refresh the wine glasses.
Oliver had roused himself then. ‘Yes, indeed. I think I will retire early tonight.’ He’d looked apologetically at Isadora and me, but not at Caroline.
Being with my sister and her husband was like watching a play, I thought now, where nobody’s lines indicated what they really meant.
I forgot about Oliver when I saw Lucy waving me into the drawing room. ‘I didn’t expect things to happen so quickly!’ she said, holding up a letter and seating herself next to Caroline on the sofa.
I sat in an armchair opposite them.
‘Lucy received this letter this morning,’ explained Caroline, and nodded to her friend who read the note out loud.
Dear Duchess of Dorset,
It has come to my attention that a certain Mademoiselle Lacasse is in New York, and that she is a skilled harpist and a writer of some fame in her own country. For reasons you well understand, I cannot call upon her hosts in New York, and so I wanted to extend this invitation through you. I would very much like you to bring Mademoiselle Lacasse to my next Thursday night dinner. However, if you do not consider her a suitable person to be invited into my home, I trust that you will inform me of this before inviting her . . .
‘The old dragon!’ said Caroline, hissing out a breath. ‘I’m sure she’s up to something, Lucy. You should reply that Emma is engaged on that night.’
Lucy rubbed her temple. ‘Yes, she could be drawing us into a trap. On the other hand, her formal dinners are so boring that the younger set often search for excuses not to go. I’m guessing she’s afraid of losing some of them to newcomers like Addie Fishburn. She might regard Emma as a chance to add some novelty.’
I didn’t like being a pawn in the game between Caroline and Augusta Van der Heyden, and was about to say so when Caroline turned to me with a grave expression on her face.
‘Everything you do will be scrutinised, Emma. Everything! For Isadora to be a successful debutante she must be welcomed by the old New York elite. It is among those families that we are likely to find a suitable husband for her: someone with good values, judgement and refined taste. You are part of the Hopper family now and you must represent yourself that way, for Isadora’s sake.’
‘Of course I will behave honourably,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise Isadora’s future.’
Lucy puffed up her shoulders. ‘Then I shall accept the invitation at once.’ She ran her eyes over me as if I were a charity case. ‘If Emma is going to represent the Hopper family she needs a suitable wardrobe.’
Caroline nodded. ‘I’ll organise Madame Bertin from Fifth Avenue to come.’
When I eventually entered Isadora’s studio, Mr Gadley was already there. Teacher and student looked up at the same time, their faces beaming.
‘Aunt Emma! The bust is finished,’ cried Isadora, indicating the object hidden under a piece of white silk. ‘Please, have a seat so we can reveal it to you.’
Like a magician tugging away a cape, Isadora lifted the cloth. Goosebumps ran over my skin. My face was colder
in stone than it had been in clay, and a subtle change had taken place in the expression. While the clay model had looked serene except for a slight frown, now that it was rendered in white marble my face was prouder, perhaps even a touch haughty around the eyes. I was disconcerted and delighted at the same time.
‘It’s magnificent!’ I told Isadora. While I had been reluctant to sit for her, now I was seeing the end result I couldn’t deny that its beauty appealed to my vanity.
‘It’s her finest work yet,’ said Mr Gadley, jutting out his jaw with satisfaction as if he had carved the bust himself. ‘Her artistry improves in leaps and bounds.’
There was something infinitely likeable about Mr Gadley. He had the warm, kind personality that tended to draw in children and animals; and I could imagine him discussing art with Claude and Belda, and charming everyone at the Montmartre café.
‘I asked Mother if I could place the bust in the music room,’ Isadora said. ‘Normally she hates my art anywhere in the house. But for this she has made an exception.’
The idea that Caroline had liked a piece of art representing me was gratifying, especially after her comment about me being part of the Hopper family. Perhaps our relationship was improving more than I had realised.
‘Well, I must get going,’ said Mr Gadley. ‘I have a class at the art school in half an hour.’
Isadora opened a drawer in the bench, took out an envelope and handed it to Mr Gadley. ‘That’s reimbursement for the marble as well as the lessons.’
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another envelope. ‘And that is your receipt.’
I had observed that Woodford handled the household money, paying for all the food and flower deliveries, and wondered why he didn’t settle the fee for Isadora’s lessons as well. But perhaps my niece preferred to pay for everything herself out of her allowance given the resistance Caroline showed to her art.
‘Mr Gadley’s students are so lucky,’ said Isadora with a sigh after he’d left. ‘I get him for a few hours a week, but they can have classes with him anytime.’
‘Yes, but when he’s here you have him completely to yourself,’ I said.
Isadora’s cheeks turned pink and she scooped up her artist’s notebook and the receipt. ‘I’d better clean up and get dressed for dinner. Mother hates us to be late.’
Caroline’s dressmaker, Madame Bertin, arrived the following day to measure me for a wardrobe that included outfits for different times of the day, as well as for visiting, promenading and attending the opera. She burst into the morning room where I sat awaiting my fitting, and plonked her thick style books on the table in front of me.
‘You are French, yes? From Paris?’ she asked me. Her oval face was accentuated by her high coiffure, which bobbed each time she moved her head.
‘Well, actually . . .’
‘I am too,’ she said, her pert nose wrinkling as she smiled. ‘It is not difficult to dress a French woman well. Even when I make a beautiful gown for an American woman, she cannot seem to wear it properly. It is we Parisians who have the artistic taste.’
She indicated for me to stand up so she could take my measurements. She draped the tape around my neck and made a note in her record book, then looked around the room. ‘Even this magnificent house — you can tell it belongs to a woman who lived in Paris a long time and has French blood. American houses resemble museums or hunting lodges.’
I nodded to be agreeable with a fellow Parisian, but in truth I had only seen this house and that of Florence’s aunt. Aunt Theda’s house was stately and graceful, and although perhaps one-twentieth the size of this one it had the atmosphere of a home. As for American women, it seemed to me that Florence, Grace Hunter and Isadora each had a style that was uniquely their own.
After recording the rest of my measurements, Madame Bertin turned to her books. ‘The princess line will be most flattering for you for a dinner dress,’ she said, pointing to a gown whose front extended to the feet at the centre, while a circular flounce draped down the sides and back to create a panel effect. ‘A combination of plain and spangled floral satin will make this dress dazzling.’
‘Oh, yes indeed!’ I said. I had to pinch myself as she flipped through the style books, suggesting some of the most beautiful gowns imaginable, with no thought to cost.
‘This velvet afternoon dress will look beautiful on you in marine green,’ she said. Smiling, she added, ‘I believe you need the visiting dress and dinner gown post-haste, so I will cut the patterns this afternoon and my girls will start on them immediately. I will return in two days’ time for another fitting. Everything must be done perfectly, yes? Your sister instructed that you shall have the best.’
She gathered her things, then winked at me. ‘I would not take an order as large as this or as urgent from any other woman on Fifth Avenue, no matter how rich. They are all cheats. I cannot tell you the times a woman has tried to return a dress after wearing it once and claiming she never did. Others refuse to pay when one of my girls delivers their order, making excuses that their husband or butler will settle the account, but that never happens. Their husbands have millions of dollars and they want to cheat my girls out of their eight dollars a week and me out of the cost of the materials. But Mrs Hopper always pays a deposit, then promptly settles her account.’
I was pleased to hear that Caroline was honest in her financial dealings. It reassured me that at the end of my stay in New York, and after Isadora was married, she really would pay off my debts.
Caroline herself appeared at the door, and Madame Bertin showed her pictures of the gowns she was proposing and the materials she was going to use.
‘Very good,’ my sister said. ‘You have chosen well, as always, Madame Bertin. And I may trust your discretion? You will not reveal that my sister’s clothes were not made in Paris?’
‘Of course,’ Madame Bertin answered, tapping the side of her nose. ‘It’s a secret!’
‘Woodford has an envelope for you then; and we will settle everything else when the dresses are delivered.’
After she had left, Caroline turned to me. ‘Are you pleased with the gowns?’
‘Yes, very much so. Thank you.’
She smoothed her sleeve cuff. ‘Of course the very best clothes are made by Worth or Doucet in Paris, but Madame Bertin’s designs will do nicely for now. Besides, with Augusta’s set, it’s best not to out-dress or out-jewel anyone.’
As arranged, Grace Hunter sent her carriage to take me to East 64th Street the following Wednesday afternoon. The house she lived in with Harland was an Italian Renaissance palazzo-style mansion with gilt-iron and bronze gates and a porte-cochère that looked as if it had come directly from Rome.
A butler, also English like Woodford, welcomed me into the grand hall. It was no less spectacular than Caroline’s, with an intricately carved and pierced foliated stair balustrade, mirrored panels and Venetian lanterns. The only incongruous piece of furniture was an antique sarcophagus planted with palms and ferns. It seemed irreverent to use a coffin as a decoration.
The butler showed me into a library that displayed further European plunder in the form of a Renaissance ceiling and marquetry panels decorated with religious imagery.
Grace, who had been tuning her harp, looked up when he announced me. ‘Emma, you escaped!’ she said with a laugh. She was beautiful in a cream tulle tea dress with yellow trimmings.
‘Let’s have a chat before we start,’ she said, directing me to sit in the armchair opposite her, and indicating a book on the low table between us. ‘Look at what I’ve started reading again.’
The book’s title was Laelius De Amicitia, by M. Tullius Cicero.
‘It’s in Latin?’ I said, astonished.
Grace grinned. ‘It often surprises people when they learn that I read Latin and Greek. You can blame my father for that. He was a true gentleman who devoted his life to cultivating his mind and didn’t see any reason why girls shouldn’t be as well-educated as boys.’
‘You are truly a Renaissance woman,’ I told her.
She picked up the book and ran her fingers over the cover and spine as if caressing a precious object. ‘It is a treatise on friendship by the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero,’ she explained. ‘He believed friendship to be the strongest tie among human beings; that it gives hope and lifts one’s spirits. A true friend is honest, outspoken and caring. There is no friendship when bonds are formed for one’s own advantage, and therefore friendship is not possible when there is rivalry in love, money or politics.’
I remembered the well-meaning but inattentive women who had attended my harp recital. If they were Grace’s only company, she must feel isolated. My mind drifted to Harland — I still couldn’t picture them as man and wife. She was so lovely, sensitive and well-mannered, while he seemed to mock everyone.
To my surprise, the man himself appeared. ‘There you are, darling,’ he said to Grace, filling the room with his blustering presence and booming voice. ‘I’m on my way out. Don’t wait up for me. I have a lot of work to do at the office.’
‘I understand, sweetheart,’ she replied. ‘But Miss Lacasse is here. Won’t you at least stop a moment to say hello.’
‘Goodness me,’ said Harland, striding towards me to take my hand. ‘I didn’t see you there, Miss Lacasse — you are so quiet. If my wife hadn’t pointed you out, I might have accidentally sat on you as I did on her ill-fated kitten.’
He chortled, and I swallowed, hoping it was just black humour.
Harland was popular with Caroline and Lucy, and he was married to the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. But when he was around, a nervous tension gripped me as if I was walking on the edge of a cliff and in constant danger of falling off.
The Invitation Page 15