“Washington does not matter, dear child. If you like that sort of a place, try Charleston, during the azalea season, or New Orleans, where Mrs. Delacroix still keeps slaves. Oh, she’ll deny it! But the war has never been accepted in that part of the world. Just as we don’t accept Washington. Are you quite sure you don’t want to marry one of us?” The question was delivered with the famous Mamie Fish drawl.
Caroline was surprised to find herself blushing. “There is so much to choose from.” Caroline indicated the nearest man, James Van Alen, a moneyed widower, who had modelled himself on the sort of English gentleman seen not so much in London society as on the Broadway stage. When Van Alen had first met Caroline at Mrs. Belmont’s, he had said, loudly, “Zounds!”-a word Caroline had never before heard spoken in real life-then, as he withdrew, still staring at her, he announced, “A most delectable wench, forsooth”; and placed a monocle over one eye.
“I think,” said Mrs. Fish, “nothing could be simpler than for you to become the bride of Mr. Van Alen.”
“I am rather near-sighted.” Caroline blinked her eyes. “I didn’t see who it was.”
“But then you are going to marry Del Hay. You see? We do keep up. But when will he come back from South America?”
“South Africa.”
“It’s all the same, sweet pet. Anyway, here’s Helen. And Payne.”
Caroline and Helen embraced. Payne’s wrist was in a sling, from tennis. “Otherwise, I’d be in the race today.” He looked with youthful displeasure at the room filled with elderly beaux, each armed, as it were, with his hereditary silver spoon as well as fork.
“Father’s in New Hampshire. New Hampshire!” Helen seemed more than usually exuberant. “He’s been told to spend at least two months there, even if all his open doors slam shut.”
“Has he heard from Del?”
“Nothing since you heard last week. Everything’s diplomatic pouch. So he can’t say what he means. But the English are losing. Losing! It’s horrible!”
At that moment Morton, ominously, announced lunch, and, dutifully, even hurriedly, Mrs. Fish took the ranking gentleman’s arm and hurried to her place at the Sheraton mahogany table, which, although set for Morton’s optimum sixteen, had all its leaves in place, giving each guest a considerable amount of room to accommodate the season’s enormous skirts. Down the center of the table an elaborate solid gold series of pagodas and bridges complemented the somewhat chinoiserie appearance of the hostess.
Caroline was placed-as she knew that she would be-between Lispinard Stewart and James Van Alen. Longingly, she thought of her small office in Market Square, and of the flies, both living and dead, her familiars.
“The test of a good cook,” announced James Van Alen, “is codfish cakes.”
“Is Mrs. Fish’s cook going to give us some?”
“Egad, Miss! This is not breakfast.”
Lispinard Stewart explained to her, in elaborate detail, his relationship to the Stuarts, and why his family had modestly replaced the “u” with “ew” in order not to embarrass the current ruling house of England, who feared, more than anything else, a claimant from his family to their throne, “which, by rights, is ours, as they know.”
“And of what kingdom,” asked Caroline, remembering at last how to make conversation, “is Lispinard the royal house?”
There was a dance that night at The Elms, given by the Burke-Roches. When Mrs. Delacroix announced that she was going home early, Caroline went with her. “Tomorrow,” she said, “I must spend the morning on the telephone, talking to Washington.”
“When I was young, I danced all night. I was always in love.”
“I am not in love, Mrs. Delacroix. So I sleep… and talk on the telephone.”
“We enjoyed ourselves more. There were no telephones, of course.” They were seated in the small study off the drawing room. Although it was late July, the night was cool and a fire was burning. Mrs. Delacroix poured herself brandy, while Caroline took Apollinaris water. The old woman laughed. “Mamie’s completely under that butler’s thumb. He’s convinced her that in all great English houses, Apollinaris water must first be boiled.”
“I would boil him if I were her.”
Mrs. Delacroix held up a small painting on ivory. “This is your father, and my daughter.”
“I thought you had no painting of him except in uniform?”
“I suppose that’s because I never look at him when I look at this. I see only Denise. She was so happy. Can you tell?”
But Caroline, like the old woman, only saw what she wanted to see-not the pretty rather banal girl but the round-faced, small-lipped young man whom she had never known, and could not associate with the red-faced loud figure of her own youth. “They were both happy,” said Caroline, neutrally; and gave the picture back.
“Your mother came here once in the summer of ’76. She was beautiful.”
“She was happy, too. Wasn’t she?”
“My daughter died, giving birth to Blaise.” The spider’s web across the old woman’s face tautened suddenly: had a fly been trapped? was the spider, ever watchful, close by? “Your mother was her best friend, at that time.”
“This is all before I was born.” Caroline did not like the direction that the conversation was taking. “My father never spoke-to me, at least-of his first wife. He seldom spoke of my mother, either. So Blaise and I are each motherless.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Delacroix crossed her tiny ankles, just visible beneath the watered pale blue silk of her evening gown. “It is curious how Emma died in much the same way as Denise, as a result of giving birth.”
“Emma. At last. You have said her name. Now tell me, was she really so dark? And why?” Caroline hurled the question at the old lady, who visibly winced; then rallied. “Your mother,” she said, most evenly, “killed my daughter, and that is the precise nature-and quality-of her darkness.”
Caroline had often observed women swoon either from too-tight corseting or as an act of desperate policy. She wondered whether or not this was a proper moment for her to experiment, entirely as a matter of policy, with a sudden dead-faint. But she recalled herself. She would give blow for blow. “How was this… murder, as you do not quite call it, achieved?”
“Denise had been warned that she could never have a child. Your mother encouraged her to have one, by the man your mother wanted to marry, even then, your father-to-be, Colonel Sanford.”
Caroline bared her teeth in what she hoped might be mistaken by firelight for a young girl’s sweet smile. “I find no darkness here. Only your surmise. How does one woman encourage another to have a child, when each knows the consequences?”
“There was a lady-I use the word ironically-who specialized in such matters. Emma sent for her. Emma got her to say-paid her to say-that Denise would survive. Since my daughter wanted a child very much, she had one. Then she died, and her husband went on to marry…”
“Darkness?”
“Yes. Then you were born, and in due course she died, a proper vengeance I always thought.”
“I do not believe your story, Mrs. Delacroix, nor can I understand why you choose to tell me so terrible a thing, assuming you believe what you’ve told me, when I am a guest-briefly, may I say-in your house.”
“I hope not briefly.” The old woman poured herself more brandy. “I have told you because I cannot tell my grandson.”
“Are you afraid-of Blaise?”
The head, silver hair aglitter with diamonds, nodded. “I am afraid. I don’t know what Blaise might do, if I were to tell him.”
“As he seems to have been born entirely without conscience, he will do nothing at all. He will not be interested.”