Newport Summer

by Nikki Poppen

  Not even Heinrich Woerner knew what she had done. So precious was her secret, she couldn’t risk telling a single soul. Mastering this final piece put her one step closer to her dream of studying and playing piano professionally. Now all she had to do was wait for the acceptance letter and survive the summer without becoming engaged.

  The last was easier said than done. Evading her parents’ matchmaking efforts was no easy task. Their persistence and social connections, combined with her father’s obscene amount of wealth acquired in textiles, made her a very eligible candidate for marriage.

  “Well done! Well done, Fraulein.” Woerner stood up and walked toward the piano while her mother gave an audible sigh.

  Her parents tolerated her passion for the piano, going so far as to bring Herr. Woerner out to Newport once a week in the summer for instruction. But Audrey knew they wouldn’t have tolerated it if music had been unacceptable as an activity for a cultured, well-bred daughter. Still, there were limits to what they would tolerate. They would definitely not countenance their daughter’s going off to Vienna alone and taking up a career of performing the piano publicly.

  “Shall we try the new piece?” Woerner suggested eagerly. “I think we have just enough time.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so” Audrey’s mother, Violet St. Clair, swiftly rose, her tone polite but not warm. “The hour has passed so quickly. Audrey has to dress for the evening, and I wouldn’t want you to miss your boat, Herr Woerner. It’s five o’clock already.”

  It was common knowledge that the Fall River Line steamers that ferried passengers from Newport to New York left for their overnight trips in the evening. Audrey could imagine her mother’s status-conscious horror over being burdened with the presence of a shabbily dressed music tutor in the house for the span of an extra day if he missed the steamer.

  Woerner might admire Audrey’s skill, but he knew which side his bread was buttered on, and he acquiesced with her mother’s dismissal of him. “Then we’ll start with the new variation first next week” He gathered up his battered traveling valise and headed toward the door.

  “Speaking of next week, Herr Woerner,” her mother called out. “Perhaps you could teach my daughter to play something more ladylike.”

  Audrey watched Woerner’s shoulders sag at the “suggestion,” which all three of them knew wasn’t a suggestion at all. Violet St. Clair didn’t make suggestions. She gave commands. There were some in Newport who said only Violet St. Clair dared (and had permission) to advise Caroline Astor with singular regularity.

  “As you wish. I can suggest some lieder by Schubert that would be quite becoming for a young lady” Woerner gave Violet a stiff bow and exited quickly. Probably, Audrey thought uncharitably, before her mother could make another demand.

  “Mother, you don’t have to badger the poor fellow,” Audrey said, turning on the piano bench to face her.

  “Darling, why do you insist on such music? Beethoven puts one into such an irritable mood” Violet swept toward the polished beechwood grand piano with the same innate grace with which she swept across Caroline Astor’s ballroom to join Mrs. Astor on the revered red sofa.

  “Beethoven is perhaps the greatest piano composer of our century,” Audrey began, knowing it was futile.

  Violet shook her head. “I vow, I don’t know what’s come over you. It’s more than Beethoven, darling. Whatever were you thinking to wander off during the Casino picnic? You were unchaperoned, to say the least, and worst of all, you missed your chance to meet the Earl of Camberly”

  That got Audrey’s attention. “An Englishman?”

  “Not any Englishman, an earl. Weren’t you listening?” her mother snapped. “All the other girls got to make his acquaintance. You should have been first in line.”

  Audrey rose from the piano bench and said with more nonchalance than she felt, “What do I care about an earl? He’s undoubtedly scandal-plagued and landpoor like the rest of them” She should have been more careful with her words. But her thoughts were racing as she thought of Gannon. Images flashed through her mind: trouser cuffs rolled up and damp from the waves, dark hair ruffled by the breeze. It was difficult to merge those free, natural images with the idea that he might somehow be connected to the arrival of the earl.

  What was he to the earl? A brother? A friend? The thought of seeing Gannon again was irrationally exciting as much as it was dangerous. She wanted to see him again, but she didn’t need an earl to fend off all summer any more than she needed Gannon letting it slip that they’d met before in a highly inappropriate manner. All she wanted to do was escape to her room and mull over what she knew. But her mother would have her say first.

  “Not care? That’s nonsense. You should care immensely. You’re the richest girl in Newport. You deserve an earl’s attention. His attention is yours by right.”

  Audrey sighed. Arguing with her mother wasn’t going to facilitate a quick exit. But placation would. “I am certain I’ll have a chance to meet the earl soon, maybe even tonight.” The Casino’s weekly ball was that evening. They’d be attending after a light supper at home with some of the St. Clairs’ closest friends.

  “You’re probably right, darling,” Violet said, somewhat mollified, if not surprised, by her daughter’s change of tack. “Wear something pretty”

  After rejecting the tenth gown her maid paraded in front of her, Audrey began to despair of finding anything “pretty” in her wardrobe. It wasn’t that her wardrobe was short on elegant, Worth-created evening gowns. Most Newport debutantes recognized the necessity for at least eighty gowns to get through the summer. Violet had insisted on that number and twenty more for her daughter.

  No, it was not the paucity of choices that caused Audrey to despair. She was distracted. She was going to see the elusive Gannon again. She was certain of it. The thought brought a strange thrill with it and an element of peril on two fronts. She was in danger from the earl, whoever he was, and her mother’s incessant matchmaking efforts, but she was also in danger from Gannon.

  She didn’t want him either purposely or inadvertently exposing her secret. Such a tidbit that she’d spent an afternoon with a stranger on the beach would be the worst sort of gossip to have put about Newport and the fastest way to find herself engaged, Vienna becoming nothing more than a fading dream. Her plan for the evening was simple in the extreme. She had to find Gannon first and ask him not to say anything about their prior acquaintance. If he was keeping company with the earl, it wouldn’t be hard to find him.

  Audrey finally settled on a taffeta gown the color of soft butter. Although the trend in gowns for married women was bright colors, unmarried young women were expected to wear pastels. The butter taffeta stood out to her as being not so pale as white and not so conformist as the popular pink preferred by so many other girls.

  The gown was trimmed and ornamented in robin’s egg blue to match her eyes and to avoid any tendency to blend into the background, not that there was any chance of that with a gown by Charles Worth. The great man himself had deigned to design her gowns, declaring her slim figure perfect without flaw for carrying off the cuirassed bodice and trained skirts.

  In all, Audrey had to admit the effect was stunning, from the patterned blue Murano glass beads dangling from her shoulders acting in lieu of sleeves to the pearlembroidered petticoat beneath the taffeta, hidden from public view.

  Audrey surveyed the effect in the long pier glass in her rooms and was pleased. She looked regal, commanding, yet the gown gave her an air of beauty that softened her belligerent edge just enough. She slipped her feet into kid slippers dyed to match, her arms into long gloves that ended at her elbow, and snatched up a gauzy wrap in the matching blue to drape about her shoulders for effect. She was ready to face the evening and whatever it might bring.

  Bellevue Avenue was already crowded with dancegoers when the St. Clair barouche entered the fray and made its way toward the east end of the Casino, where the theatre-cum-ballroom was located. Violet St. Cla
ir wouldn’t have planned it any other way.

  “If we left earlier, we could have avoided all this,” Audrey groused as they moved forward at a snail’s pace. “I could have walked there faster”

  “Never say so!” Violet snapped in what Audrey could only wish was mock horror. But it wasn’t. Newport was run by women, and those women were run by Violet St. Clair and her select few friends at the top of the social hierarchy. Only the constant maintenance of status would maintain status.

  Audrey grimaced and said with a touch of obvious sarcasm, “Oh, yes, I forgot. We have to give the plebians their show.” Much of the crowding was due to the middle-class citizens and vacationers at Newport gathered to watch the ultrarich make their way to the night’s entertainment.

  Violet narrowed her eyes and focused on her daughter. “Audrey, never forget that here, even more than in New York, society is on display constantly to those of the other classes as well as on parade among itself. What do you think would happen, darling, if I simply disappeared into the country for a few months? Do you think I would have my position when I returned?”

  It was a rhetorical question. Audrey waited for the customary answer.

  “No, of course not,” Violet supplied. “If I were to disappear, someone else would attempt to take my place. Every day is a subtle battle, Audrey darling, one I wage gladly for the sake of seeing my beautiful daughter wellsettled with a husband worthy of her.” Violet turned to her husband seated across from her and Audrey, his back to the driver.

  “Doesn’t Audrey look wonderful tonight? I think Worth has done her an especial favor. She’ll outshine all the other young ladies, and she needs to. Don’t forget, we must have an introduction to the Earl of Camberly, even a dance, one of the first waltzes if possible. We want people to know Camberly favors us.”

  Her father exchanged a long-suffering look with Audrey that didn’t go unnoticed. Violet leaned across the carriage and rapped him with her fan. “A titled son-inlaw wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I suppose the next thing you’ll say is that `everyone is doing it,’ ” Wilson St. Clair added wryly. “Husbands are not things to be collected like so much bric-a-brac. They are forever, and one only gets to choose once. I want my girl to be happily settled with more than a title to see her through life.”

  Violet bristled at Wilson’s scolding. “I’m not talking about shackling her to a monster. I hear Camberly is handsome and young.”

  “And broke, I don’t doubt,” Wilson groused. “I wish these English boys would learn to make their own money instead of marrying for it. Where’s their pride in being a self-made man?”

  Violet groaned. “If they worked, they wouldn’t be gentlemen. It’s the last distinction left between a gentleman and a rich merchant. I’ve explained this to you before.”

  Audrey stifled a groan of her own. Explained this before was an understatement. Harped on the subject was more like it. This was oft-plowed ground. “We’re here.” Audrey drew their attention to the Casino with its clock tower front, the east side of the building ablaze with lights for the occasion. People dressed in elegant clothes filled the promenade as they strolled toward the lights and the evening’s entertainment.

  “Remember,” Violet whispered to Audrey as they were handed down from the carriage, “an earl is addressed as `my lord.”’

  Audrey barely heard the comment, so eager was she to get inside and locate Gannon. If Camberly was to be present, she was certain Gannon would be too. She had to find him.

  Inside, the balcony overlooking the ballroom floor was already crowded with viewers who had paid a few dollars to come and see the wealthy at play. Below, the ivory interior trimmed in gold finishings was elegant in its simple decoration.

  Tonight’s ball was sponsored by the Rose Club, a group of wealthy horticulturalists who gathered for the summer at Newport. They had decorated the ballroom throughout with luscious arrangements of flowers, several of the copious bouquets featuring the expensive but popular American Beauty rose. At two dollars a stem and not as long lasting as their tea-rose counterparts, they were the trademark of wealthy opulence. Already the air was delightfully scented with the delicate aroma of the blooms.

  Violet took it all in with a practiced eye, commenting on and complimenting the exquisite decorations. Audrey hardly noticed, her eyes rapidly scanning the crowd. But to no avail. By the time the dancing started, she still had not found Gannon, and her dance card was full of acceptable partners, approved by her mother’s judicious eye.

  By the fourth dance, Audrey was heartily sick of having the same conversation. Everyone wanted to talk about the new earl in town.

  Between dances, the girls of her set gushed about his good looks and fine manners. A few even claimed to have seen him that night, although Audrey had yet to catch a glimpse of him in the crowded ballroom. During dances, her partners mentioned what a fine billiards player, horseman, and sailor the earl was reported to be. He was polite to mothers and sisters-even the ugly ones-one partner remarked indiscreetly. The earl had succeeded in making himself welcome to both sexes.

  To Audrey’s skeptical mind, that meant only one thing. A man making such a great effort to travel so far and to be so ingratiating was looking for a wife. She suspected she knew just what type of wife the man was after-a wealthy one who had not yet heard of whatever scandal of infidelity or finance he’d left on the other side of the Atlantic.

  By the supper dance, Audrey concluded that the Earl of Camberly, whoever he was, did not carry any credentials that recommended him to her.

  Gannon Maddox looked up at the ballroom’s skyblue ceiling, exquisitely painted with golden stars. “I’m quite impressed. The place is lovely,” he commented to Stella Carrington as they strolled the perimeter of the vast room.

  “There’s a ball sponsored here once a week in the summer. Other nights, the seats are all put back in for theatre performances,” she told him. “The place can seat up to five hundred”

  “Very impressive,” Gannon said again. “Is everything in America so large? It seems to be a common theme. `Cottages’ the size of country estates, incomes the size of colonial bankrolls”

  “I’m afraid so” Stella laughed softly. “In the cities, the latest rage are buildings called skyscrapers. Lionel tells me there are plans to build several of these structures in New York. So far, it’s just all speculation but .. ” Her voice trailed off, implicitly suggesting the act was as good as done. She turned the conversation to a new topic. “How are you doing, Gannon? Have any of the American girls caught your eye?”

  Gannon shrugged. One had, but he knew only a name, and it was a useless fantasy to think anything could come of his afternoon on the beach. He could treat it as no more than an isolated moment in time, destined to be nothing other than a sweet, fleeting memory.

  “They take some getting used to, as you said,” he said noncommittally. In the past two days since his arrival, Stella and Lionel had filled his social calendar with no less than one yachting luncheon, a private picnic at the Elms, a visit to their second-row cabana at Bailey’s Beach, a formal, twenty-course dinner at the Oelriches’, and tennis at the Casino court.

  He could not remember a time when the London Season had felt so demanding. But perhaps if he’d been looking for a wife on the Marriage Mart, he might have felt differently about the pace. The activities had been designed for him to meet as many girls as possible. Indeed, they’d succeeded to the extent that Gannon was laboring under the impression there were few men in Newport at all.

  Lionel had laughed, assuring him that more men came down during the weekend and returned to New York for business during the week.

  “Who’s the richest girl in the room tonight?” Gannon asked.

  Stella sighed and patted her friend’s arm with her long, gloved fingers. “Oh, Gannon, don’t let it come to that. I am sure there’s someone who’s rich and likeable.”

  “Until then, I’ll stick with the richest. It’s what I came for,” Gann
on said stoically, although the words stuck in his throat. He’d danced a few times already and couldn’t imagine spending his life with any of his partners, no matter what size their fathers’ bank accounts might be.

  “Well, if you must know, the richest girl is the St. Clair chit,” Stella said, glancing around. “I know she’s here, but I haven’t seen her yet. She’s beautiful. Her mother’s a social giant, bosom beaus with Caroline Astor. Her father is a modern Midas. Everything he touches turns to gold. His choice of investments influences everything on Wall Street. I’ll make sure you meet her.”

  Stella paused for a moment. “I’m surprised you haven’t met her yet. She was at the Casino picnic.

  “Ah, there they are” Stella waved to an attractive middle-aged couple and approached. The woman held herself stiffly in the best of postures with an air of coolness about her that suggested she was no one’s equal. The man appeared more affable.

  “Violet, it’s good to see you. We didn’t have a chance to talk at the picnic. I want to introduce our houseguest to you. This is Gannon Maddox, the Earl of Camberly,” Stella said.

  All stiffness vanished from the woman. “Enchante, my lord” She focused all her attention on Gannon. He felt uncomfortable at the intensity of her perusal. Any minute now, she was going to ask him to open his mouth so she could check his teeth.

  “I wish my daughter was here, my lord. You must meet her,” Violet St. Clair said, apparently deciding he’d passed muster. “She’s dancing right now, but perhaps you’d like to come into supper with us? We’d love to hear about England. Oh, here she is.” The woman gestured to someone behind him. “My lord, may I present my daughter, Audrey St. Clair? Audrey, this is the Earl of Camberly”

  Gannon turned and found himself momentarily stymied, struggling to reconcile the young woman who stood before him. The perfectly coiffed vision in butter and blue was none other than the blunt-spoken girl from the beach. His barefoot Audrey was the richest girl in the room?