Anna Godbersen: Splendor

They had shared a few perfect days together in Florida — all swooning and dancing — but that was back in February. Once or twice she had imagined the words Marry me on his lips, although of course that would have been very quick indeed. When she last saw him, it was in New York and the winter had still been bitter, and she’d believed herself a ruined girl. Since then she had become very rich, truly rich — all her greatest fears had blown over. Now she dreamed every night of the moment when he’d finally walk through her doors and witness her in all her glory. Waiting was painful, and the only thing to assuage it was to look dolefully from her south-facing windows at his house, willing the lights to flicker on.

“Why, Miss Broad, whatever are you staring at?”

Carolina turned too quickly to disguise the blush on her cheeks. Penelope Schoonmaker was approaching, long and shimmering and bedecked in her old vermilion glory, which had not been on such generous display since her little “illness” of late spring. Miss Broad blinked and kissed Mrs. Schoonmaker on either cheek. Although Carolina’s presence in Penelope’s bridal party that past New Year’s Eve had announced the former as a young lady of sound importance, they were not the kind of friends who liked to show one another their vulnerabilities. The only person who knew the depth of Carolina’s feelings for Leland was her older sister, Claire, who still worked as a maid for the Hollands and who savored any small tidbit of her younger sister’s life among the fashionable people. But of course life was very busy, for an heiress anyway, and the sisters hadn’t been able to have one of their secret meetings in some weeks. Or was it months?

“Your house is exceptionally good,” Mrs. Schoonmaker remarked after a moment. The two regarded each other like wary allies. Carolina was gratified to see that Penelope’s best diamonds dripped from her slender neck and across her alabaster décolletage, and that her oval face had been made up with prodigious care. It was obvious, to the hostess and everybody else, that she had not taken the evening casually.

“You must come see it again soon, at a quieter moment, when we can talk more intimately,” Carolina replied, in a studiously refined voice. “Now that you are going out again.”

“I would enjoy that.” Penelope smiled crisply. A sharp quality came into her round blue eyes; when she spoke again, it was with counterfeit concern. “But now tell me — whatever is it you’re gazing at? You can’t afford to grow distracted during your first big party.”

“No.” There was irony in Carolina’s tone, even though on the surface she pretended to agree. Still she itched to swivel and glance again at Leland’s empty house. “I cannot.”

“I myself would not have invited Agnes Jones,” Penelope went on, turning to assess the other wealthy New Yorkers who packed the corners of the rooms and jammed the doorframe. “Although I was relieved not to see that divorcée Lucy Carr in attendance. Pity Leland Bouchard was not returned in time….” She paused portentously. “But, oh, look, the lights have just gone on in his house.”

Now Carolina felt her mouth grow dry and her lips part. For a moment she insisted to herself that she would not be obvious, and so continued to meet her friend’s archly knowing gaze. But the desire was too great. She turned her whole body and looked across the street. This scene, which she had seen so many times since moving into No. 15, had suddenly undergone a transformation. The lights were now on, and the windows had been thrust open. Many pieces of luggage were being carried from a motorcar, up the steps and into what appeared all of a sudden to be a very warm place.

“Excuse me,” she whispered. She did not pause to gauge Penelope’s reaction. She did not care what it was. She had to find her butler, immediately, and send him to summon Leland.

Now, hurrying back across the floor, her body had be come unusually light. The humid air was nothing to her, nor was the weight of her skirts. She was stopped only once en route to the second-floor landing, by a garish face she recognized a few seconds later as belonging to Mrs. Portia Tilt. That lady was wearing acres of green satin and sticking out among members of Manhattan’s best families like a fly on fondant; she had been the hostess’s employer for a few days during late winter, and had dismissed her then-social secretary after an episode of unforgivable insubordination. Of course, since then, Carolina had come into more money than the Tilts could ever dream of, and had been seen out with all the people Mrs. Tilt had hoped to get in with. Carolina stared at her for a moment, and then smiled in a partial way that did not really communicate hospitality — the invitation had served its purpose, and Mrs. Tilt now knew which of the two was the more consequential lady.

They exchanged careful smiles, and by the time Mrs. Tilt’s began to fade Carolina was already moving past her, onto the crowded staircase landing. She felt a surging agitation, because she feared the butler would be impossible to find just now, when she needed him so. The din was too loud for her to call for him, and meanwhile he was probably on some useless errand, trying to replace the melted ice under the oysters long after everyone had stopped caring about food. But in the next moment it became clear that she wasn’t going to need him at all. There, below her, Leland Bouchard stood in front of the door, glancing about him at the giddily shrieking partygoers, with their lit cigarettes and drained champagne flutes, looking adorably just a touch out of place.

“Mr. Bouchard!” she called, before pushing past the bodies crowding the stairs. None of the subtly dishonest ladylike quality that she had mastered over the previous season had been evident in her voice.

The lavender silk and chiffon of her dress fit her tightly in some places, holding her upright and imperious; in others it bloomed, as though all of her were some fragrant and enticing bouquet. She blinked and took in his height; his light brown hair, which was overgrown and tucked behind his ears; the pale, plainspoken blue of his eyes; the gorgeous width of his shoulders. All of these qualities contributed to the sense that her cool exterior was about to crack again.

Men in black jackets and women in sweet silks were still all around, but they no longer mattered. Carolina’s smile overtook her face before she could help it, and then Leland smiled back in a way that caused her chest to swell pleasurably with air. She took the final step down and joined him on the shiny granite. In her fantasies of their reunion, she began by offering him a tour of the house or a glass of Scotch, but neither of these seemed worthy of the moment. She was now close enough to grip his upper arm in welcome. What she most wanted to do was not very ladylike at all — but then, she was from a western state, and maybe he would assume that what was appropriate for girls was different out there.

When she next spoke, her voice had fallen to a near mumble: “How did Paris suit you?”

“Oh…wonderfully. I saw all variety of new automobiles and traveled a great deal. I…” He paused and shook his head, as though his travels had lost all importance. “I thought of you so frequently — it quite surprised me.”

For a moment the elegant Manhattanites leaning against the second-story railing, or pressed up against the cloakroom, or smoking on the landing, ceased to exist. It was late, anyway, and quite a few cases of champagne had been drunk already. She turned her face up toward Leland invitingly, and found that he scarcely hesitated before putting his lips discreetly against hers. When he pulled away, his eyes shimmered with silver and his voice had deepened.