A Moment Forever

by Cat Gardiner

  The sisters passed by their father’s study as well as three sets of double doors opened wide to display the grand ballroom in all its finest Christmas décor. The massive tree, reaching to the frescoed ceilings stood twenty feet tall and was fully festooned in opulent gold and red.

  “You’re very quiet lately, Lizzy, ever since your arrival home from Florida. Is everything okay?”

  “Sure, everything is fine. The book collection is still going strong. Even the milkmen are involved in the collecting now, and the VBC is preparing for a nationwide campaign next month. There is even going to be an event held on the steps of the New York Public Library. Mrs. Tinsdale says that Merle Oberon and Danny Kaye will be there.”

  “Oh yes, I read about it. I wish I could go, too. If only to see Gypsy Rose Lee. She’s a campaign volunteer just like us! That would be such a kick!”

  Lizzy laughed. “The burlesque star? You’re nuts!”

  “I am not. She’s not trampy, Lizzy. It’s art what she does, and she won’t be doing it on the steps of the library with her feathers and fans, at least not in the dead of winter. I read in the newspaper that she actually wrote a mystery book for the boys. Something about a G-string murder.”

  “Do you even know what a G-string is?”

  Kitty glanced upward over the tall back of the chair, and she giggled. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “Mrs. Davis tells me that the Woolworth heiress is attending the ball here with her new husband.” Lizzy smiled wistfully knowing how her sister enjoyed reading Modern Screen magazine for all the latest Hollywood gossip.

  “The dreamy Cary Grant is coming here?” Kitty squealed, clasping her hands.

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Hot dog!”

  They turned down another hallway lined with potted palm trees, towering upward toward another frescoed cathedral ceiling. Lizzy loved this wing of the mansion. Tranquil and exotic, it reminded her of warm nights beside Sarasota Bay and that midnight skinny dip she and her flyboy had taken. Her eyes welled with tears, as they seemed to do with great frequency lately. She thought of his tender kiss when he carried her nude body up the stairs from the swimming pool.

  The warmth and quiet of the solarium greeted the sisters with streaming winter sun from the arched glass above. The delicate scent of crisp tropical greenery and non-seasonal flowers filled the peaceful sanctuary. It had yet to be turned into a Christmas explosion for the ball, but she was sure that her mother had dictated specific instructions for its transformation by the following day.

  A trickling stream moved around the intricately embellished, white gazebo that connected to a footbridge just wide enough for Kitty’s chair. “Shall we sit in the gazebo? I need to talk with you about something important,” Lizzy said.

  “I knew it! You had that look about you. Apart from your unusual fatigue, I could tell something was eating you.”

  A tender instinct unconsciously caused Lizzy’s hand to smooth over her tummy at her sister’s words. If her suspicions were correct, it wouldn’t be long before the new John James dress she wore wouldn’t fit properly, but she was torn between feelings of elation and fear.

  The chair rolled over the bridge, and she looked down at the ornamental Koi swimming below, colorful and content, the Japanese carp clustered as a family. “Aside from the water tower, I think this place is my favorite. It reminds me of Rosebriar in a way.”

  “I’m keen on it, too. You can almost guarantee that neither Gloria nor Ingrid will ever come here and mother says the heat frizzes her hair,” Kitty stated.

  “Yeah, well, there are many reasons her hair frizzes. She’s still using tonic from the 1910s, swearing it will grow her hair.”

  “Then I’m surprised she doesn’t drink it!”

  Lizzy shot Kitty a humored, wry smile, took a seat on the bench facing her dearest sister, and reached across to clasp their hands together. “What I have to tell you, you have to promise to take to the grave.”

  “Sure, you know me. I’m great at keeping secrets, not as great as Lillian, but still good. Like the time you and Henry broke Father’s model of the Odin. I never told a soul.”

  “This is different, Kitty, and I need your advice.”

  Tears welled and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

  “You’re worrying me, Lizzy. Please tell me. I promise to help you any way that I can. Whatever it is we’ll find a solution … together.”

  Lizzy looked out beyond their small shelter, her eyes locking on the amaryllis at the far corner of the room. “At Rosebriar, Will and I … um … remember the book you and I read?”

  Kitty furrowed her brow.

  “You know the one … with sixty-four positions.”

  “You didn’t! What was it like? How did it feel? Did it hurt?”

  “Yes, wonderful, incredible, and yes it hurt but only for a little while … and … I um, think I might be in the family way.”

  Freeing one hand, she covered her eyes and sobbed, feeling the relief of telling someone what she suspected after missing her menstrual cycle two weeks earlier. Tears wracked her body as Kitty’s hand squeezed hers tightly.

  “Oh, Lizzy. Could you be mistaken?”

  The sobs continued to come as Lizzy bent forward, resting her forehead upon their hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Oh G-d, I wish Lillian were here. She’d know what to do and say.”

  Lizzy nodded, but was sure that this was one secret she would never share with Lillian. “I have an appointment with a doctor in the city on Saturday morning.”

  “But that’s the day of the Christmas ball!”

  “It was the best I could do. I’ll have to think of some reason to go to the Bronx, maybe for last minute shoes or a purse, maybe to run an errand for Mrs. Davis.”

  “You can’t use shoes as an excuse; they’re on the ration now.”

  Anguished, Lizzy snapped, “Whatever, Kitty! I don’t know. This doctor has assured confidentiality.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If I am expecting, I need it confirmed as soon as possible.”

  Her sister sighed deeply, then focused her worried gaze intently upon her. “What will you do if you are preggers? Father will disown you!”

  Lizzy sniffled, removed the handkerchief from her pocket, then wiped her tears. “I don’t know. As soon as I’m certain, I’ll write Will and together we’ll decide. He’ll know what to do. Until then, I’ll pray the war will end before the year is out. There is talk of that, you know.”

  “And what if he doesn’t come home? Think about this clearly, Lizzy. Father will send you away, take away your Trust, abandon you. Girls of our society do not become unwed mothers!”

  “Don’t be so negative. You’re not helping the situation.”

  “I’m not negative. I’m a realist.”

  “There’s a difference between being a realist and a pessimist. I’m an optimist. Will is going to be home soon, mark my words, and as soon as he is, we’ll marry. No one will be the wiser.”

  Yes, she’d convinced herself of that over the last two days. There was no way she could leave this house—and Kitty—under any circumstances other than a marriage where she could bring her sister with her. Ingrid had just confirmed the necessity of that, less than fifteen minutes ago.

  “What could Will possibly tell you, Lizzy? He’s most likely in England by now and not coming back any time soon. If you are preggers and unmarried, then they’ll take your baby away!”

  Frantic fear shot through Lizzy. “Stop it. I can’t hear that. The war will be over by Christmas. He will come home.”

  Kitty reached over, clasping hands with her. “You have to listen. We have to have a plan.”

  Standing abruptly, breaking their joined grip, Lizzy paced the small confines of the gazebo, passing left and right before Kitty’s blanket-covered legs. She wrung her suddenly freed hands, attempting to literally hold herself together, already feeling nauseous for the sixth time today.

&nbs
p; “One step at a time. First, I’ll see what the doctor says. Maybe I’m just late. Perhaps, a solution will present itself beforehand. I have to believe that. Leaving you here alone with Ingrid is not an option and never will be.”

  “Maybe you should take Father up on his ultimatum to marry Mr. Gebhardt.”

  Aghast, Lizzy’s hands instantly flew to protect her tummy. She gasped. “Never! This is Will’s baby—I am Will’s. I would never consider accepting Gebhardt’s hand in marriage even if he was the last man on earth.”

  “But if it meant giving your child a name—legitimacy—then it seems a swell option. No one would know the baby wasn’t his, and I’d never tell. I could go to live with you both.”

  With a bleak expression, Lizzy sat once again before her sister. How could she tell her of the suspicions she had about where Ingrid came to believe such hatred and evil ideas? How could she elaborate about the pamphlets and National Socialism’s views of the “unfit”? How could she tell Kitty that she had already, firmly surmised Ingrid and Gebhardt were both fascists and that raising this child in any family other than Will’s was unacceptable?

  “Kitty, I know my imagination can run wild, but I fear that Gebhardt … um … may be a Nazi sympathizer and … and …” She whispered into her sister’s ear. “Not only would it be dangerous for you, but Will is Jewish and so is this baby.”

  Now it was Kitty who gasped.

  ~~*~~

  Twenty-Nine

  I’m Beginning to See the Light

  December 19, 1942

  Having arrived home from her doctor’s appointment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx with little time to prepare for the ball, Lizzy had retired immediately to her suite. She forewent the usual stop into Kitty’s bedroom, instead choosing a warm bath with a relaxing cigarette to soothe her nerves. The brief respite brought forth tears, which didn’t abate until the hot water turned tepid. As her mood vacillated, the pent up emotions of joy and fear commingled, one alternately displacing the other. In that soothing liquid cocoon, something happened, as though a baptism of a sort, whereby, sloughing off the impetuous debutante, she emerged from the water as a matured young woman.

  Now sitting at her vanity readying for the Glen Cove Society Christmas ball, her mind still whirled from the doctor’s visit. He had stated in a thick Eastern European accent, “Most likely with child, but we’ll await the results of the urine test.” She was to telephone on Tuesday for the results which he was sure would confirm her in a family way.

  A tender smile graced her lips. What would their baby look like? Would it be a boy or a girl? Will Ducky be happy? But the persistent question determined to undermine her happiness: What on earth was she going to do? She sighed, rubbing in awe the flat plane of her tummy for the one hundredth time that day.

  She gazed at her forlorn expression in the mirror. There is no possible way you could look beautiful tonight. Distressed from the recent weeks of never-ending sickness that plagued her and this long day’s travel, Lizzy chastised herself for not having driven her Zephyr, but she reconciled her decision that fuel was at an all-time low with shortages along the entire East Coast.

  An unwelcome knock upon her door snapped her from the distracting thoughts. “Come in,” she said mustering as much effervescence as she could, her wine-colored lips fabricating a false smile. Her heart was uncharacteristically disconcerted for the evening ahead.

  Dripping in diamonds and stuffed like a knockwurst sausage into a light grey, satin Paquin gown, Mother stood in the doorway, resembling holiday tinsel bursting from its package. Great-grandmother Elisabeth’s Austrian crystal tiara was perched within her overly elaborate blonde coiffure. As the namesake of the great Austrian Baroness, that tiara was to be hers one day, and in time it would be her daughter’s. Hers and Will’s daughter. Now that thought brought a genuine smile.

  Not yet outwardly inebriated, Frances spoke in her high pitched whining voice that went straight through Lizzy, grating whatever nerve remained. “It’s time, my dear. The Morgans and Phippses have already arrived and Mr. Gebhardt is eagerly asking for you. We must take our places within the ballroom to properly greet the arrivals. You must hurry. Your sister is ready to make her grand entrance.”

  Rising from the vanity stool, Lizzy was a picture of elegance and refinement. Wearing an exorbitant haute couture gown, a three-strand diamond and garnet necklace, and a fresh, floral hair adornment to remind her of Will and the ones he had given her. She smoothed her merlot colored chiffon skirt, adjusting the subtle train. Normally, the crisp rustling sound of the sumptuous fabric did something exciting to her, but not tonight. It was an unwelcome reminder that Ingrid would be making an announcement with John in a matter of hours. Her heart felt heavy for her friend and the precarious direction of his future, as uncertain as her own. She couldn’t help feeling fraught by the responsibilities suddenly laid at her feet, nor by the sudden maturity forced upon her: unintended pregnancy, motherhood, unmarried and alone without Will, and lest she not forget the worst of it—a possible forced marriage to a man she despised or the baby being taken away for adoption.

  With those thoughts fleeting through her mind, she struggled to force an amicable smile. “Yes, I’m ready, Mother.”

  “You look lovely. I’m sure you will have an announcement to make shortly, too.” Tapping her daughter’s chin, she examined her countenance on this rare occasion with clear, motherly eyes. “Smile, darling. This is a big night for your sister. Envy does not become you.”

  Lizzy didn’t argue. What was the point of it? Actually, she felt compelled to laugh because Ingrid was so sure that she and John were the “perfect” match. However, only she, his close friend, really knew that he was terribly infirm, a fact that would make him, by Ingrid’s so-called impeccable standards, an unacceptable mate for her sister, an unacceptable husband and father, and an unacceptable individual. It broke her heart that if ever discovered, Ingrid would make him pay for it. No, that wasn’t funny in the least. Envious? Definitely not. One could never be envious of such a malevolent creature.

  Frances hooked arms with her and together they proceeded out the door. Seeking strength and comfort, she glanced back over a shoulder, eyes settling upon the nightstand drawer where she had, once again, placed Will’s framed portrait for safekeeping.

  In the long corridor of the second floor west wing, Gloria ran past them, hiking the skirt of her immodestly draped, clinging velvet gown to allow for fast movement. She squealed in excitement, “Ogden Phipps has arrived!”

  “Gloria, he’s married!” Lizzy chastised, choosing not to recall all the times she had felt the same when Henry Sturgis Morgan, Jr. arrived at Meercrest.

  Her sister stopped and turned, placing her hand over her heart. “I don’t care. He’s a dreamboat in that Naval uniform of his! Positively creamy and I’m lulu over him.”

  Frances giggled like Baby Snooks. “That’s my baby, always eager to show herself before all these useless men of the Armed Forces. I thought Miss Chapin’s would have corrected her of that habit. Renners do not mix with soldiers. Ah, but your sister never does as told. La!”

  The cheeky deb in Lizzy couldn’t help to smirk. Will is a commissioned officer, a pilot, not a mere “soldier.” Would that make a difference, Mother?

  Lizzy ignored the remark. It was simply another example of her mother’s stupid comments. As vehemently opposed as her father was about those who supported or assisted in the war effort—they were, in fact, in attendance “mixing” with the Renners tonight. To exclude them at the ball would be a slight on the beau monde of the Social Club and the Yacht Club. Never mind that denouncing his own daughter Lillian for doing her bit wasn’t a concern to him. She took a deep breath. What did any of it matter, least of all her mother’s rude opinion? In another hour, her mother would be quite soused and making a spectacle of herself by saying all sorts of wacky things.

  They lingered at the top of the two-level marble staircase, prepared to make their descent to
ward the entry foyer below. Lizzy straightened her back, tightly clasping her hands at her waist when her mother said, “Your sister will be here any minute. She insists on making her grand entrance, as the honoree of tonight’s celebration, before us.”

  “Yes, of course she does.”

  Above the escalating din in the entry rotunda filled with arriving guests dressed in their finest evening gowns, furs, and tuxedos, Lizzy could hear the quartet playing Mendelssohn’s Weinhacten from the living hall. The music orchestrating the arrivals felt more like a dirge than a joyous Christmas musical selection, but it was German and a better choice than Wagner whose works she disliked even more. When in residence, it was her father’s choice of classical music.

  Her mother leaned into her ear, giggling, and it was then that Lizzy smelled the gin on her breath. “Look how they admire that Degas. Your father’s friends in the German government have been very generous indeed! I’ll be the talk of the Gold Coast.”

  Lizzy’s head snapped to take in her mother’s pleased expression and the startling admission inadvertently made about where that painting had come from. Disguised beneath heavily applied mascara, her still somewhat reddened eyes flashed, bulging with shock, but she said nothing. She thought of the Horch Roadster. Was that another gift and why?

  From her perch, she watched the assembled crowd below, some pointing to the painting, others preening while admiring their friends, and she couldn’t help but notice how many of these society crème de la crème barely acknowledged that a war had been on for one full year now. Some placed themselves above it until one of their own were sent overseas. They most likely didn’t even notice—or care—that tonight’s Christmas ball wasn’t dedicated to raise money for Liberty Bonds or the American Red Cross. More than likely, the discussions among them revolved around the recent marriage or engagement announcements listed in the society pages or the fact that they were inconvenienced by the fuel shortage. Men dying in Africa and the Pacific or the deportation of innocent European Jewish families to camps posed no significance in their elite lives. Already Lizzy felt as though she didn’t belong here among these people any more than Lillian did.