The Invitation

by Belinda Alexandra

  I tried to continue writing in third person, but it was like wrestling an alligator. I poised my pen over my notebook and switched to first person.

  One of New York’s richest society matrons, Carrie Weppler, organised a motor car obstacle course at her family’s summer mansion, Waverly. I watched the participants arrive in their shiny De Dion-Boutons, Renaults, Panhards and Fiats. The motor cars were elaborately decorated with garlands of flowers and vines.

  Among the guests were Ralph and Fannie Richards. Always ahead of everyone else in fashion, Ralph wore a white flannel long-roll sack suit with a striped shirt and bowtie. Fannie was stunning in a pastel blue chiffon and lace dress with a monobosom bodice. She held a matching parasol, and with her dark hair and her fine features she looked like a pretty bellflower.

  Beulah and Alvin Dipple arrived in a motor car covered in yellow and white daisies. From the arbour frame dangled dozens of taxidermied canaries.

  ‘I had to have Beulah’s entire aviary gassed for this display,’ Alvin said, helping his wife out of the car.

  ‘Their songs became annoying after a while anyway,’ said Beulah.

  I was about to strike out the part about the taxidermied canaries, but then I remembered the hummingbird on Oliver’s mother’s hat. It had obviously left an impression on me as a child. Besides, New York society was terribly callous towards animals and nature. I would leave the canaries in.

  I picked up the copy of New York City Magazine where I’d seen the description of Oliver and Caroline’s Newport estate and knew exactly how I was going to dispose of Ralph Richards. A smile came to my face. People really shouldn’t upset writers. We might put them in our stories . . . and kill them.

  Before the obstacle course, the guests picnicked on the beach at the foot of the steep craggy cliff for which Waverly was famous. It was the largest drop from any of the properties along Bellevue Avenue. Afterwards, tipsy from all the champagne we had consumed, we made our way back up the cliff stairs to the obstacle course.

  Golf flags marked the path the contestants would take. The obstacles included carriage tyres, potted shrubs and bales of hay, but also wooden cut-outs fashioned into the life-sized forms of pedestrians: policemen, newspaper boys, old men, ladies with their arms full of packages, nursemaids pushing prams, and tramps. The artists had given each cut-out a lifelike expression of terror.

  A stand with a striped canvas roof had been erected to one side of the course for the spectators. We applauded as the contestants approached their automobiles and were assisted into them by Jake, the Wepplers’ chauffeur, and some footmen.

  Jake had lined up the motor cars in the order the driver was to compete. More glasses of champagne were offered around and Carrie Weppler proposed a toast: ‘May the best man — or woman — win!’

  Wallace Gartside was the first driver onto the course. He drove so slowly and carefully that the guests playfully jeered him.

  ‘It’s an obstacle course not a parade!’ Unwin Langsdorf shouted at him. ‘The pedestrians aren’t real!’

  Wallace’s wife, Evelyn, who was riding as his passenger alternately pulled faces or blew kisses at the spectators.

  Lester Weppler was next. He drove his Panhard skilfully but at speed, taking risks just as he did in business. While his timing was good, he misjudged a turn and drove straight into a bale of hay.

  Lulu Kinkle drove so recklessly that when she swerved to avoid hitting a tramp cut-out, her pet cheetah leaped out of the motor car and ran down the course. Footmen fled in all directions in terror.

  ‘He won’t hurt you!’ Lulu called. She stopped the motor car and chased after her pet. ‘Zishe! Zishe! Come back to Mommy!’

  A footman who had been raised in Texas tried to lasso the cheetah. The spinning rope spooked Zishe and he ran straight back into Lulu’s arms.

  ‘Oh, my baby,’ she said, cuddling him to her. ‘Did those men frighten you?’

  The next contestant was Ralph. He handed his glass of champagne to Jake and lifted his arms in the air to stir up the crowd.

  I hesitated. Writing was more than merely putting words on paper. It was about imbuing those words with emotions, desires . . . Should I really be pouring out my anger and thirst for revenge through this story?

  I remembered a conversation I’d once had with Belda about a matador who had been gored to death by a bull in the south of France.

  ‘I couldn’t feel any pity for that man,’ she’d told me. ‘I was happy for the bull — although of course he was slaughtered anyway. It’s a one-way fight and the bull never wins.’

  ‘You’re identifying with the helpless animal,’ I’d replied. ‘You’re hoping fate will intervene on its behalf.’

  I turned back to my story. Perhaps it was time to stop waiting for fate.

  The butterfly wings attached to the sides of the motor car made it difficult to access the driver’s seat, so Jake had removed the wing on that side. He said something to Ralph, who nodded and climbed into the seat. Jake and a footman reattached the wing and locked it into position.

  Ralph waved to us spectators as he passed, and headed down the slight slope towards the obstacle course. The first part was straight, but at the first curve Ralph drove right past the flags, narrowly missing a clump of shrubbery that would have brought him to a halt.

  We clapped, amused by his antics. Ralph Richards, it was commonly said, could always be relied on to enliven even the most boring party.

  But a cry of surprise rose up when Ralph ploughed straight into the wooden cut-out of a policeman, knocking it flat, then proceeded to knock down a tramp and a lady carrying parcels in fast succession.

  From there, the slope got steeper and Ralph continued to gather speed.

  ‘Slow down, sir!’ one of the footmen shouted after him.

  The horse and carriage cut-out splintered as Ralph drove straight through it.

  Jake ran down the course after the motor car, waving his arms. ‘Turn to the left, Mr Richards! Turn to the left!’

  The real inkling that something was wrong came when Ralph struggled with the butterfly wing attached to the driver’s side of the motor car.

  ‘He’s trying to get out,’ said Margaret Altherr.

  ‘He’s getting faster!’ her elderly husband observed.

  ‘My God, the man is heading straight for the cliff!’ cried the Duke of Surrey, rising to his feet.

  Everything seemed to slow down. Except for Ralph’s motor car, which was speeding towards the edge of the lawn where the terrain roughened to rocky soil and low shrubs.

  Now everyone was on their feet. Jake and several footmen ran after the car, throwing off their jackets as they went.

  Ralph’s car hit a bump. It dipped, then rose into the air as if it were a butterfly taking flight. For a few seconds it seemed to hover in the sky, before it turned nose down and plunged off the cliff. The silence was broken by the bone-chilling sound of smashing metal.

  ‘Oh my God!’ cried Beulah, bringing both hands to her face.

  Suddenly all of us were running towards the cliff edge, stumbling and tripping in shock.

  My stomach lurched when I saw the rocks below. The motor car had landed upside down. One of the back wheels was spinning, while the two front ones had come off and were bobbing in the waves. The chassis was dented and crumpled as if the motor car had hit the rocks nose down then flipped over. Blood dripped into the ocean, turning the water red. It was impossible to believe that oozing mess had only moments ago been handsome Ralph Richards.

  Too sickened to look any more, my gaze travelled to Carrie Weppler. The dispassionate expression on her face was even more chilling than the carnage below.

  Carrie, I thought, how quickly you can turn against someone when they have crossed you . . .

  I was still feeling my way with the narrative and had intended for it only to be a short story. But my ideas were expanding and I wondered if I had the bones for a full-length novel at last. I’d never written a story so close to my
own life before. My other stories were complete fantasies that had come from who knew where. Although it was only a first draft, I’d found writing it entrancing. It was allowing me to make sense of all that had happened since I’d arrived in New York, to see things more clearly. Through writing about those events, I was able to step out of the drama and become the observer again.

  It was what Claude had said I would need to do in order to survive my sister. It finally dawned on me how wise his words had been.

  THIRTY

  I slept late the following morning and nobody disturbed me. When I woke, I squinted at the sunlight that was bright through the gap in the curtains and rubbed my head. A feeling that I had forgotten something floated in my mind. I sat up as I remembered dinner the previous evening with the Duke and Mr Whitlock. It had been another miserable affair. Isadora’s face had been swollen from crying at Harland’s cruel rejection of her work. Despite her obvious distress, the Duke didn’t make one reassuring gesture towards her. Damn that man!

  I quickly dressed and went in search of Isadora. I wondered why she hadn’t sent Jennie for me when I didn’t come down to breakfast.

  I couldn’t find her in the sitting room off her bedroom or the music room. I was on my way to her studio when I heard Caroline scream. I had a terrible vision of Isadora hanging from her wedding veil — and ran to the salon, which was where the cry had come from.

  When I burst into the room, Caroline was holding her hand to her chest. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she said to Harland and Lucy, her voice shaking.

  She was pale, but not as distressed as she would have been if she’d discovered her daughter dead. Something else must have happened. Excitement flooded my mind. Had Isadora run away? Or perhaps the Duke had decided that marrying into the Hopper family wasn’t worth the money.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  Caroline turned to me. ‘It’s dreadful, Emma! Permelia Frances has bought a yacht!’

  It took me a moment to be sure that I’d heard her correctly. It was all I could do not to show my disgust as I said, ‘Do you know where Isadora is? I can’t find her.’

  Caroline waved her hand dismissively. ‘Rebecca Clark has taken her for a carriage ride. I couldn’t stand to see Isadora’s long face any more. The last thing I need is for the Duke to start viewing her as a melancholic.’

  There was no point expressing my concern for Isadora to Caroline. I turned to leave the room but she caught my arm.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said, Emma? Permelia Frances has bought a yacht!’

  ‘And not just any yacht,’ Harland added. ‘It’s a 323-foot steam-powered vessel. According to Town Topics no expense has been spared: the whole ship is decorated in the Art Nouveau style, with stained-glass interior doors and light fittings in the shape of exotic flowers. The petals conceal the electric light bulbs apparently.’

  ‘It sounds perfectly dreadful,’ said Lucy.

  That wasn’t the impression I was getting from Harland. Rather, he sounded envious of the yacht’s design.

  ‘It’s called The Blue Blazer,’ said Caroline. ‘Who names a boat after a cocktail? And she’s launching it the same night as the ball for the Duke and Isadora. She’s invited all my close friends to an exclusive dinner on board — the Grahams, the Potters, the Harpers!’

  So there was the real problem. Permelia Frances was doing to Caroline exactly what she had done to Augusta Van der Heyden.

  At that moment, I heard Isadora return from her carriage ride. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to Caroline and the others, and hurried out to catch my niece as she made her way upstairs.

  She turned when I called her name and it saddened me to see her dispirited face. Even the beautiful magenta dress she was wearing couldn’t lift her pallor.

  ‘Let’s have a chat,’ I said, inviting her to come to my room. I wished I could comfort her by taking her to the studio where she would be able to transform a lump of clay into something beautiful. But that pleasure was gone now. It had been destroyed by Harland and her mother.

  We sat together by the window and held hands. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, knowing as soon as the words left my lips that it was a foolish question.

  She blinked away tears, and I promised myself I wouldn’t pursue the subject of the sculptures — or Mr Gadley — while they were too raw for her.

  ‘The Duke’s got a headache so he won’t be coming here until later,’ she said. ‘He gets more headaches than anyone I know.’

  ‘Hopefully they’ll get worse after you are married, and he’ll leave you alone.’

  She half-smiled, then shook her head. ‘You’ve changed, Aunt Emma. New York has made you harder. I’m sorry for that. I hope you will be happy again when you return to France.’

  I doubted that I would be happy in France or anywhere else for a long time without Claude. But Isadora had too many griefs of her own to burden her with mine.

  ‘I needed to become harder,’ I told her. ‘Being too soft only makes you a target for liars and manipulators. I’m sorry you’ve had to learn that lesson too.’

  ‘I only pretend to be soft in order to protect myself,’ she said. ‘I’m more conniving than you think.’

  ‘You, conniving — I can’t see that.’ I remembered the inventive way she and Mr Gadley had exchanged love notes right before my eyes. ‘Clever maybe, but not conniving.’

  She nodded sadly and turned to my desk. ‘Where is your photograph of Great-Grand-maman Sylvie?’

  ‘I think your mother took it,’ I said. ‘For what reason I have no idea. I asked Jennie about it and she swore it wasn’t her or one of the other maids. I suspect it’s in Caroline’s desk drawer in the morning room because when I went to see her there, she closed the drawer as if there was something she didn’t want me to see in it. I haven’t had a chance to look. Every time I try to sneak in there, Woodford or one of the other servants appears.’

  ‘No wonder you write such good mystery stories, Aunt Emma, because your suspicions are right. It will be in that drawer along with the photographs she took away of Grandmother Hopper and Aunt Anne . . . and William. Mother won’t have pictures of departed family members in the house.’

  ‘Do they make her sad?’

  ‘They’re not reminders to her,’ explained Isadora. ‘They’re reminders to us. Mother doesn’t want us feeling loyalty to anyone but her. The drawer is locked, by the way. The key is in the majolica urn on the mantelpiece.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I asked.

  She lowered her eyes. ‘When I was younger I used to go in there to look at photographs of William. I wanted to etch him so clearly in my mind that I wouldn’t forget a single detail. One day, when I’m away from here, I will make a sculpture of him so he can always be with me.’

  I marvelled at how clever Isadora had been at circumventing her mother. Much cleverer than me!

  Until now, when it seemed there was no way out of her marrying the Duke.

  The New York Times report on the ‘Under the Sea’ ball described it as the most exquisite event Manhattan had ever seen:

  Forty tables were arranged in the dining room, each decorated with engraved scallop shells instead of place cards and a centrepiece of a glass tray of sand in which sat candles, cockle shells, and silver-painted starfish. Party favours were hidden in the sand too — Tiffany sapphire bracelets for the ladies and Cartier pearl cufflinks for the men. Miniature spades were provided along with the cutlery and the guests had a delightful time performing their own treasure hunts.

  The footmen were dressed as sailors; and in the ballroom a fishing net spanned the ceiling and was decorated with hanging artificial jellyfish, sea fish of all kinds and even a whale. Three orchestras played, and three sumptuous suppers were served. But perhaps the most exciting moment was when Mr Oliver Hopper announced the engagement of his daughter, Miss Isadora Rosamund Hopper, to the Duke of Bridgewater . . .

  On the surface the ball was indeed stunning, but each of us carried a burden
in our heart.

  The Duke did his best to maintain his act of the adoring fiancé while sneaking glances at the other beautiful women in the room. Oliver, who had agreed to return to the house for formal occasions, looked grim, no doubt contemplating the farce his life had become.

  Isadora stood dutifully between her parents and the Duke, smiling for the guests, but her sunken shoulders and grief-stricken pallor suggested one attending her own funeral. I did my best to support her, but my own heart ached to know that soon she would be off to England and I would return to Paris, to begin a new life without Claude. I had come to New York to discover my family, and now I felt more alone than ever.

  Caroline stood rigid, her eyes glued to each arriving guest, desperate to discover who would stay loyal to her and who had decamped to Permelia’s dinner on her yacht. She visibly relaxed when the carriages of the Grahams and the Harpers arrived.

  But when Lucy and Grace appeared without Harland, Caroline was put out.

  ‘He has a terrible fever,’ explained Lucy. ‘The thermometer went up to one hundred and three. After he left here today, he collapsed into bed utterly exhausted and Doctor Mitford has ordered complete rest. Harland sends his deepest apologies.’

  ‘It’s a great pity,’ said Caroline testily. ‘You know how popular he is, and the decoration is all his work. But it can’t be helped.’

  I knew she was worried about how Harland’s absence would be perceived. Nothing short of death should have kept him away from Caroline’s side tonight, especially as the stakes were so high.

  Lucy recognised it too. ‘He exhausted himself creating all this beauty,’ she said. ‘I’m sure people will understand when we tell them that. They know that Harland never does anything by halves. He completely throws himself into his work.’