Anna Godbersen: The Luxe

Elizabeth sighed. The warm thought of the one boy she knew would not be at the Hayeses’ costume ball that evening could not have made the looming prospect of Percival Coddington any less appealing. She had known Percival since they were children, when he was the kind of boy who avoided human contact in favor of intentionally harming small animals. He had grown into a man of welling pores and frequent snorts and was known as an obsessive collector of anthropological artifacts, although he himself was too weak-stomached ever to travel on an explorer’s ship.

“Stop,” scolded her mother. Elizabeth blinked. She hadn’t thought she’d betrayed any emotion. “You would not be so complaining if your father were here.”

The mention of Mr. Holland caused Elizabeth’s eyes to well, and she felt herself softening to her mother’s cause.

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth answered, trying to keep her voice level. She felt the dryness in her throat that always preceded tears and willed them away. “It’s just that I wonder if the accomplished Mr. Coddington will even remember me when I have been so long away.”

Mrs. Holland sniffed as the Misses Wetmore, who were one and three years older than Elizabeth, passed. “Of course he remembers you. Especially when the alternative is girls like them . They look as if they were dressed by the circus,” Mrs. Holland commented coldly.

Elizabeth was trying to think of something nice to say about Percival Coddington, and missed what her mother said next. Something about someone being vulgar. Just as her mother pronounced the word, Elizabeth noticed her friend Penelope Hayes on the second-floor mezzanine. Penelope was wearing a ruffled, poppy-colored gown with a low bodice, and Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel a little proud to see her friend looking so stunning.

“I shouldn’t even have dignified this ball with my presence,” Mrs. Holland went on. There was a time when she would not have so much as called on the upstart Hayes women, despite her husband’s having accepted a hunting invitation from Jackson Pelham Hayes once or twice, but society’s opinion had moved on without her and she had recently begun acknowledging them. “The papers will report that I condone this sort of tacky display, and you know what a headache that will give me.”

“But you know it would have been a bigger scandal if we hadn’t come.” Elizabeth extended her long, slender neck and gave her friend up above a subtle, knowing smile. How she wished she were with her instead, laughing at the poor girl whose bad luck had forced her to dance with Percival Coddington. Penelope, gazing down, let one darkly made-up eyelid fall her signature slow, smoldering wink and Elizabeth knew that she was understood. “And anyway,” Elizabeth added, turning back to her mother, “you know you never read the papers.”

“Right,” her mother agreed. “I don’t.” Then she jutted the one feature she shared with her daughter a small, dimpled nub of a chin as Elizabeth offered the subtlest shrug to her best friend on the mezzanine.

They had become friends during that period in her early teens when Elizabeth was most interested in what it meant to be a young lady of fashion. Penelope had shared that interest, though she was ignorant of the rules of the society she so deeply wished to be a part of. Elizabeth, who was only just beginning to care about all those rules, had cultivated her as a friend anyway. She had quickly discovered that she liked being around Penelope everything seemed sharper and fizzier in the company of the young Miss Hayes. And soon enough Penelope had become a deft player of society’s games; Elizabeth could think of no one better to have at her side during an evening’s entertainment.

“Oh, look!” Mrs. Holland’s voice rang out sharply, bringing Elizabeth’s focus back to the ballroom floor. “Here is Mr. Coddington!”

Elizabeth put on a smile and turned to the inevitable fact of Percival Coddington. He attempted a bowlike gesture, his glance darting across the low-cut square of her bodice. Her heart sank as she realized that he was dressed as a shepherd, in green jodhpurs, rustic boots, and colorful suspenders. They matched . His hair was slicked back and long at the neck, and he breathed audibly through his mouth as Elizabeth waited for him to ask her to dance.

A moment passed, and then her mother singsonged, “Well, Mr. Coddington, I have brought her to you.”

“Thank you,” he coughed out. Elizabeth could feel his eyes lingering on her uncomfortably, but she kept herself upright and smiling. She was, by training, a lady. “Miss Holland, will you dance?”

“Of course, Mr. Coddington.” She raised her hand so that he could take it. As his damp palm pulled her through the crowd of costumed dancers, she looked back to smile reassuringly at her mother. She could at least have the gratification of seeing her pleased.

Instead, she saw her mother greeting two men. Elizabeth recognized the slender figure of Stanley Brennan first, who had been her father’s accountant, and then the imposing figure of William Sackhouse Schoonmaker, patriarch of the old Schoonmaker clan, who had made a second fortune in railroads. His only son, Henry, had dropped out of Harvard back in the spring, and since then the daughters of New York’s elite families had talked of nothing else. At least, the letters Elizabeth received from Agnes while she was in Paris were full of his name, and how all the girls were aching for him. He had a younger sister, Prudie, who was a year or two younger than Diana, though she wore only black and was rarely seen because she disliked crowds. Elizabeth’s impression of Henry Schoonmaker was still vague, though she had seen him and heard his name spoken often enough in their younger years, usually attached to some prank or other.

Elizabeth’s partner must have sensed her thoughts going elsewhere, because he brought her attention back with a pointed comment. “Maybe you wanted to stay in the drawing room with the ladies,” Percival said, bitterness surfacing in his voice.

Elizabeth tried not to stumble on her partner’s poor footwork. “No, Mr. Coddington, I am just a little tired is all,” she told him, not entirely falsely. Her ship had missed its arrival date by three days; she had been home for less than twenty-four hours. She barely had her land legs yet, and here she was dancing. Her mother had insisted by letter that she not retain the services of her French maid, so she had been left to do her own hair and care for her clothing all by herself during the entire journey. Penelope had stopped by in the afternoon to teach her the new dance steps and to tell her how furious she would have been had the ship been any later and caused her best friend to be a no-show on one of the most important nights of her life. Then she’d gone on about some new secret beau, whose identity she would reveal to Elizabeth later, as soon as they had a moment alone. There were simply too many servants hovering during those pre-ball hours for the naming of names to be prudent. Penelope had seemed even more competitive about her looks and dress than usual because of the boy and because the ball was the debut of her family’s new home, Elizabeth assumed. Also adding to Elizabeth’s strain, of course, was her mother’s odd behavior.

Plus there had already been quadrilles, and dinner, and polite talk with several of her aunts and uncles. She had had to give the same account of her rocky transatlantic passage several times already. And just when Elizabeth had finally sat down with friends for a glass of champagne and a little talk about how absolutely stunning everything was, she had been forced back into the center of activity. To dance with Percival Coddington, of all people. But she kept smiling, of course. It was her habit.