Winter Sisters

by Robin Oliveira

  Emma buried her face in her sister’s hair, chewed the edges of her tongue, and willed herself into silence.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Van der Veer mansion harbored a carriageway that led to a large courtyard, fashioned of intricately patterned bricks, that was filled this evening with a throng of carriages and their drivers.

  “Did the invitation say it was a party?” Amelia asked.

  “It didn’t,” Mary said.

  William shook his head. “Shanghaied.”

  The handwritten invitation had arrived in a cream-colored envelope several days before.

  “Do you want to go?” William had said.

  “It feels too soon.”

  “I know, but Elizabeth needs to get out.” William never directly refuted Amelia or Mary about Elizabeth; instead he made only gentle suggestions from time to time, which they never mistook for anything less than a very strong opinion. So, the invitation had been accepted, and now Elizabeth glowed in a midnight blue dress that Amelia had bought her in Paris. The cabal of drivers gaped when Elizabeth alighted from the carriage and trailed across the bricks, gossiping about her beauty until she disappeared inside the mansion, where an echoing foyer checkerboarded with black and white tiles took up half the first floor. A crisply attired maid in a black dress and starched white apron took their coats, and a footman swept them all upstairs and down a wainscoted hallway. They passed a set of double swinging doors, from which emerged the sound of pots and pans above a steady murmur of chatter and scold, along with an enticing smell of puff pastry. Farther down the long corridor, a music room glimmered with painted murals and a golden harp in a far alcove. And a peek through a door standing slightly ajar gave a glimpse of an elegant dining room. Finally, at the far end of the hallway, in a French parlor that stretched the width of the house, a dozen people stopped their conversations to behold the newcomers. The group represented a select portion of the cream of Albany aristocracy, with the exception of one burly man who stood apart, a confused scowl of disorientation affixed to his weathered face.

  Gerritt Van der Veer emerged from a clutch of men already gathered by the large fireplace, its blaze illuminating the women’s silken skirts and the high gloss of Macassar oil in the men’s hair.

  “Viola,” Gerritt said, waving a hand. “Come.”

  She rose from an armchair and glided to his side, a rictus of a smile affixed to her pale face. This evening she was clad in a swath of violet froth, lavishly beribboned and pleated. This plethora of color and light only enhanced her childish beauty, making her seem too young to be the mistress of such a magnificent home.

  “We are both so glad you could come,” Gerritt said. “Allow me to introduce you to our guests.”

  He was possessive in his certainty that the Stipp family could not possibly be acquainted with any of them, though unknown to him they were almost to a person the Stipps’ patients. Physicians lived in an obligation of social purgatory, one in which they would never acknowledge their patients in a social setting. Gerritt reeled off the gilded names: Mary Pruyn, widowed at the age of thirty-nine and unescorted this evening; Mary and Erastus Corning of the Albany City National Bank, the word bank emphasized; Erastus Corning’s in-laws the Amasa J. Parkers, parents to Mary Corning and head of the legal firm Amasa Parker & Countryman; the Abraham Lansings of A. & W. Lansing, lawyers, too; and the Robert H. Pruyns, of the National Commercial Bank.

  Albany wealth, rooted in the merchant class—as was all wealth in America—disliked any overt statement of it, and Gerritt, with his propensity for the ostentatious, obviated the very thing his guests were disposed to censure, forgetting that their roots were just as commercial. This unassailable difference was that his guests’ mercantile associations were of a certain, august age and long-distanced from their current prosperity, now anchored in vast holdings of property that manufactured wealth without an obvious need to work for it. It had recently been whispered in certain circles that Viola suffered this divide acutely. Any cachet from her elite Manhattan family and inherited standing among Manhattanites had been diminished in Albany’s provincial eyes by her marriage to the crass and grasping Gerritt Van der Veer, no matter that his accumulated wealth far exceeded theirs by a good deal more than any of them would ever admit.

  Viola’s smile now seemed cemented in place, while Gerritt exhibited no consciousness of this social divide. He beamed at them all and gestured to his son at the end of the carved fireplace mantel, where he cut an elegant figure in an evening coat. “And you know Jakob, of course. And may I present my overseer and head stevedore, James Harley.”

  James Harley bowed stiffly but did not relinquish his square of real estate where he stood alone, adjacent to a heavily draped window. Three enormous windows along that wall opened onto the interior courtyard, where torches licked flickering yellow shadows onto the golden weave of the curtains, and the splash of the fountain muffled the drivers’ laughter.

  Gerritt beckoned to Harley with a surprisingly thin, delicate hand, and the man skirted the crowd, an untouched glass of champagne bubbling in his hand.

  “My dear Doctors Stipp, this is the man I trust most in the world,” Gerritt said, whacking Harley on the back with approval. “Do you know that he has worked for me for twenty years? Twenty. He manages everything at Van der Veer Lumber. Except the books, of course. And he sails my ice-yacht for me. Honey Girl. She’s a beauty. No one can skate an ice-yacht like Harley. We race on Saturday—if the ice holds—which I fear it won’t.”

  Harley was not wearing an evening jacket like the other men, but a tight worsted woolen suit stretched across a muscled expanse of chest. If physicians existed in social purgatory, a foreman drowned in obscurity. Why Gerritt had invited both Harley and the Cornings to the same party surpassed even Mary’s democratic understanding. Harley murmured How do you do and fixed a pleading gaze on Gerritt to be excused.

  “I’m a champion of everyone, loyal to the people who are loyal to me,” Gerritt explained. “And I like to put people together. Harley, do you know that these doctors are to be celebrated? Celebrated! They went to the war. Even Mrs. Stipp—a woman! Can you imagine?”

  Occasionally men discussed Mary’s service during the war in this way, as if she weren’t in the room. Generally this conversation occurred when they could not bring themselves to admit their own, lesser roles.

  “Now,” Gerritt said, spouting on in a confiding voice, “I’m not ashamed to tell you that Harley and I labored here, in Albany, in the district. The army needed lumber, and we worked like the devil to sell it to them. I dare say that we were just as instrumental in the Union success as the soldiers—I’ll even wager just as much as you doctors were.”

  “How interesting,” Mary said, catching William’s eye and raising an amused eyebrow. “Yours must have been a great sacrifice.”

  At the word sacrifice, Harley, understanding Mary’s undertone, looked away. But Gerritt was unfazed.

  “Have you had any champagne? It’s Veuve Clicquot. The best. I sent to Paris for a dozen cases.” Gerritt gestured to a footman, who glided over bearing a tray of bubbling glasses. Gerritt handed them around, then steered both Harley and William toward the erect forms of the two bankers, Erastus Corning and Robert H. Pruyn, who were engrossed in a discussion about interest rates that they abandoned at the approach of the outsiders.

  Viola, who had retreated into the background, now confided to Mary, “Tonight was meant to be an intimate dinner with just our two families, but sometimes Gerritt cannot help himself. He invited the other guests without informing me. He told the cook only this morning. She had to scramble to find enough oysters.”

  She delivered this spousal treason with a shy smile.

  “You are not privy to your husband’s decisions?” Mary asked.

  “Not even his whereabouts. I never have any idea when Gerritt will be anywhere. He is never at home during the
day. He lunches at the Oyster House, he tells me, and most nights eats dinner at his club. Occasionally, he comes home in the evening, but then he goes out again. The problem for me is that I am very shy, and so I am left alone a great deal. It is difficult for me to be out in company and offer invitations; I prefer quiet chats with a good friend. But you see, society—this kind of society—isn’t really about friendship, is it? That’s why I liked Bonnie so much—she was a confidante whenever I could get the courage to visit her. She used to hide me in the back room when any other customers came in so that I wouldn’t be discovered lurking about so helplessly. She said I helped her business, though. She said I had an eye for millinery, and whatever I asked her to make for me the other women all had to have, but I think she was being kind. She was the one who was brilliant.”

  Viola let her smile flag and looked furtively about the room, and Mary felt terrible about her and William’s vaguely disparaging assessment of her. Bonnie had clearly liked Viola and even, it seems, taken care of her by not gossiping about her wealthy friend to anyone, even Mary.

  “I hate having to be on display,” Viola continued. “But this is what Gerritt wants, and so I do it for him.”

  Mary tried to imagine a life without agency and couldn’t. “How long have you been married?”

  “I always have to gauge it by Jakob’s birth. He is twenty-one now, so—twenty-two years.”

  “He went to Harvard, I hear?”

  “I missed him so much when he was gone. But he’s found Elizabeth, hasn’t he?” She nodded at Jakob, who had claimed not only Elizabeth’s company but Amelia’s, too, and had brought them each a glass of champagne. “Is she—she’s your niece, isn’t she?—back from Paris permanently?”

  “I hope not. I expect she’ll return to Paris shortly to continue her studies.”

  “One should always return to Paris as often as one can. It is my favorite city in the world, though I hardly ever get there now. My father used to take the family before he tired of traipsing back and forth across the Atlantic on his ships.”

  Catherine and Abraham Lansing appeared and, having overheard, announced that they were going to sail the Atlantic in June so that Abraham could attend the International Conference for the Codification of the Law of Nations in London. “We are going on to Paris afterward,” Abraham said. “You and Gerritt really ought to plan a crossing soon, Mrs. Van der Veer. And you and your husband, too, Mrs. Stipp. By the way, we plan on taking in a concert at the Conservatoire while we are there. Will Miss Fall have returned by then? We would like very much to hear her play.”

  Before Mary could answer, a liveried footman struck a triangle with a hand wand to announce dinner. Viola guided her chattering guests down the hallway and into the ornate dining room, where two enormous chandeliers blazed under a coffered tin ceiling, cornflower blue tapers paraded down a long center table decorated with a yellow tablecloth, and splashes of pink tulips and purple hyacinths overflowed cut crystal bowls.

  Place cards instructed the guests: Mary was seated in the place of honor at Gerritt’s right, William to Viola’s left. Jakob anchored the middle of the table, a cavalier in charge of Elizabeth to his right, and the widow Pruyn to his left, who was not thrilled to find that the man to her other side was a bemused James Harley, who held out her chair stiffly before surrendering himself with pained gravity to the brocade silk of his. Amelia was relegated to the care of Erastus Corning, who smiled and introduced her to his wife, whose five children Amelia had delivered over the course of fifteen years and whose astute skill with breech births had ensured that every one lived. Politesse prevailed as the rest of the guests accepted their lesser assignments with resentful grace.

  When the first course, soupe à la reine, had been served in footed bowls of gleaming gilt-edged china, Gerritt cleared his throat.

  “I would like to say something. It’s important that these things are acknowledged, I think. Viola and I want to mention that our new friends, the William Stipps, their niece, and Mrs. Amelia Sutter have recently suffered a great sadness, one in which Viola and I share. Some of you may remember that the Stipps were particular friends of the David O’Donnells. O’Donnell worked in my yard as a stevedore. Sadly, he and his wife were among those who died in the storm. I know the ladies will remember Bonnie’s millinery shop. And, of course, even more disheartening is that their children—the Stipps’ goddaughters, I believe—were lost, never to be found. Before we go any further with the evening, I thought we might wish to give the Stipps our humble regard and sympathies. They chose not to have a public funeral, and so I thought that now would be an appropriate moment to acknowledge their pain.”

  The awkward pronouncement ricocheted around the room. William projected a silent plea to Mary for forgiveness for having encouraged their attendance. Elizabeth blanched. Amelia’s hand floated to her throat. The bulk of the guests looked up from consuming their soup and locked eyes with one another. James Harley held himself perfectly still.

  Viola cleared her throat, a deep flush coloring her cheeks. “I adored Bonnie,” she said, linking herself with the Stipps in their sorrow, holding fast to the kindness she had already displayed. “I think every one of the women in this room owns at least a half dozen of her creations. Don’t we all?”

  “It’s such a pity,” Mary Parker Corning said, tilting her lace-capped head from her distant corner to address Mary. “Bonnie made the most exquisite hats. Now we’ll have to go all the way to Manhattan City to get them made.”

  “Which,” Mary Pruyn hastily added, “is a real testament to your friend’s artistry, Dr. Stipp.”

  They knew they had mired themselves in class. Bonnie was nothing to them but their milliner. In the ensuing silence, it was Erastus Corning who set down his spoon on the rim of his bowl and with this authoritative gesture seized command of the situation. “That storm was a terrible thing. We are all sorry for your loss.”

  “Yes,” Amasa Parker echoed, the deep gravel of his voice rumbling down the table, almost as a weapon. He was an elderly man, a former judge and congressman, whose dour face had long ago seared into disappointment when he lost his two runs for the governorship. His wife, Harriett, lifted her chin in response, the high black ruffle of her dress at its neck giving her an ecclesiastical air. “Yes,” she chorused. “Yes.”

  We are. Yes. All sorry. Relieved murmurs of agreement filled the room. Rescued, everyone took up their soup spoons again.

  Everyone, Mary saw, except Elizabeth, who was looking into her lap, her head bowed, the startling mass of her glossy curls glowing in the warm light of the chandeliers. They should not have brought her. They had questioned her surprising willingness, but she had assured them of her equanimity, which Mary was now certain had nothing to do with ease and everything to do with Jakob Van der Veer, whose sympathetic gaze was fixed on her.

  In the wake of Gerritt’s blundering condolence, no one could think of a thing to say. Spoons rose and slipped into the creamy broth, the tender stewed capon occasionally slithering from spoons back into the soup.

  The silence became unbearable.

  Erastus Corning lofted his glass and made a toast to Our Beloved Departed, a second deft intervention. He then remarked that the weather had turned warm, encouraging someone else to opine that the river must soon break up, which caused a successfully distracted Gerritt to again bemoan this year’s volume of snowmelt even as he expressed relief that navigation might soon be restored.

  “But,” he said, “lumber doesn’t move unless the river does. Until then, we Van der Veers are living on last year’s receipts.”

  Jakob leaned over to whisper to Elizabeth, “I am sorry about my father. He means well, but he can be clumsy in society. I don’t think he even realizes. I’m sure he meant well, bringing up your friends. I’m sure he meant to share your grief. But I am sorry.”

  “The hazards,” Elizabeth said, attempting a tremulous smil
e and lifting her spoon, “of appearing in society too early.”

  “You must blame me. I was the one who wanted you to come to dinner.”

  “You did?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, pausing bashfully. “I wanted to see you again.”

  Gerritt abandoned his loud talk of receipts and turned to Mary, saying of Jakob and Elizabeth, “They seem to be getting on well?”

  “Elizabeth is still grieving. We all are.”

  As Elizabeth managed another hint of a smile, Gerritt boomed down the table: “Miss Elizabeth. We have the most beautiful music room. And I’ve bought many instruments for when musicians come to visit: piano, violin, even a harp. Will you play for us? Show us what you’ve learned in the Conservatoire? Accompany us at dinner, perhaps?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened in panic, her gaze darting from guest to guest, finally landing on Jakob. “I cannot. I haven’t practiced in weeks. Not since Paris.”

  “But in one so accomplished, our famous violinist returned from the Continent, what is a few weeks?” Gerritt pressed.

  “Oh, do play for us, Elizabeth. How delightful!” This was the widow Pruyn, vying for position.

  Abraham Lansing stated that he was fond of Mozart. Preferable, he said, to that unreliable Bach.

  “Doesn’t our violinist look beautiful tonight?” Gerritt said, directing his question to James Harley, who had said nothing during the entire dinner, and did not answer now. “So young, and so accomplished.”

  Elizabeth flushed under the attention. “I will not, if you don’t mind. I haven’t played since I heard about the O’Donnells.”

  Of course, of course, came the sympathetic murmur, led by Erastus Corning. The fish course—oysters, on a bed of rock salt—sailed in on silver platters. “Oh, look,” Corning said. “Oysters.”

  “I apologize again,” Jakob murmured to Elizabeth. “My father is an admirer of anyone of fame.”