TRANSATLANTIC CABLE MESSAGE
THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY
TO: Penelope Hayes
ARRIVED AT: New York, NY
1:25 p.m., Tuesday, September 26, 1899
Dear Penelope
Reports of your dinner party episode have reached me even in London. I have been meaning to send you a real letter, and will do so. In the meantime, remember that we were born of the same blood. Be fierce, little sister, or the world will handle you fiercely. No more public vomiting.
Grayson L. Hayes
PENELOPE HAYES GRIPPED HER BOSTON TERRIER, Robber, as she read the telegram. She peered across the grand drawing room, with its matching blue-and-white silk-upholstered pieces from the Louis XV period and its polished black walnut floor, to where her mother was sitting with Webster Youngham, the architect. Mother wanted it known that the Hayeses were commissioning him again, this time to build a “cottage” in Newport, the kind that came with fifty-six rooms and marble floors throughout. This was not the sort of news one kept to oneself, so she was going on in marathon-style in the hope that he would be forced to stay and thus seen by as many visitors to the Hayeses’ as possible.
Penelope examined her mother, Evelyn Archer Hayes, who was wearing a dress of a lavender shade that she was really much too old for, and that cinched her girth unpleasantly. Penelope promised herself that she would never get half that big. Then she stood, letting Robber fall and skitter across the floor, and walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling ormolu-encrusted mirrors that filled the spaces between Old Master paintings, to look at a more visually appealing subject.
“Penelope, watch that animal on my floor,” her mother called from the sofa where she was lounging.
Penelope rolled her eyes at herself in the mirror, and then puckered her lips to assess their fullness. “You know his nails are clipped,” she replied. Mrs. Hayes had always been annoying, but ever since Penelope had discovered the engagement of her Future Husband and her Former Best Friend, she found every swallow or breath her mother took to be a personal affront to her sensibility. She listened for rotund Mrs. Hayes to go back to her yapping, and then crumpled the telegram and dropped it into a silver vase bursting with yellow roses. She wished her big brother was in New York to defend her, but a reprimanding telegram from abroad made her feel precisely the opposite of protected.
Penelope’s dark hair rose in a dramatic pompadour up from her forehead, and was collected in a small bun at the nape. Grand curlicues and frizzy ringlets were the fashion for girls her age, but Penelope knew perfectly well what suited her already dramatic face. She checked her eyebrows and rubbed the soft skin over her cheekbones so that it took on some color. She was happily examining the sea-foam-blue acres of her dress when the enormous arched pocket doors were pulled open by one of the maids.
Her mother gestured at the maid as though she knew the visitor was for her, but the maid nodded politely and proceeded to Penelope. Of course.
“Miss Holland has just presented her card,” she said.
Penelope exhaled sharply at the sound of that name she hated, and went back to looking at herself in the mirror. She crumpled the card and thought for a moment. She would have liked nothing more than to give Elizabeth the full brunt of her cold shoulder, but that would only result in a rather pedestrian, unfulfilling revenge. Be fierce, she reminded herself.
“Miss Holland can visit with me if she must.”
“Very good,” the maid said as she backed out of the mahogany-framed doorway.
Penelope looked around the room and took great satisfaction in the fact that it was better than the room the Hollands received in, and also in the fact that her mother was there but distracted by the architect. That would prevent her, in any event, from slapping Elizabeth across her stupid blond head. The dress Penelope had on was exceedingly flattering, she reminded herself the elaborate bodice, the mandarin collar with the keyhole opening at the chest and it was embellished all over with tiny waves, embroidered in real gold thread. She went over to where Robber was curled, in a gold trough that was lined with aubergine velvet, scooped him out, and walked moodily across the floor with her small creature snuggled against her chest.
She listened to the housekeeper’s formal announcement of the visitor, which included a loud and grand enunciation of that incredibly distasteful name: Miss Elizabeth Holland. It brought the delicate hair at the nape of her neck to standing. Penelope kept her face down, close to Robber’s black head, and listened to Elizabeth walk, on timid little feet, across the Hayeses’ precious polished floor. When Elizabeth was close enough that Penelope could hear her nervous breathing, she looked up and met her eyes.
“Penelope…” Elizabeth’s brow creased and her mouth quivered around the name.
Penelope stared back at Elizabeth, who was wearing a dress of camel-colored silk, for a healthy interval before she even thought about saying anything. “What? You came this far uptown, and you still can’t think of anything to say?”
“No, I…I have so many things to say. I feel awful about the other night, and ”
“It’s really pathetic,” Penelope interrupted then, “that you would have to compete with me in this way.” She looked past her former friend and saw that her mother was overjoyed to be greeting Ava Astor, daughter-in-law of the great Mrs. Astor, who was apparently her new best friend.
The whites grew around Elizabeth’s hazel eyes. “No, no, it’s not like that at all. I had no idea that you were so in love with Henry Schoonmaker. You never told me. Penelope, you’ve got to believe me, I am so, so sorry about everything.”
Penelope snorted and pretended to look everywhere but at Elizabeth. She could not help a few good sideways glances at the enormous diamond on her left hand. “You don’t know him like I do. Believe me, it’s not going to be all lovey-dovey for you.”
“Penelope.” Elizabeth reached for a hand that her friend quickly snatched away. “I can’t explain right now, but you have to believe me that I didn’t pursue Henry, and that when he proposed to me I swear, someday I will explain everything I had to accept.”
Penelope examined her friend’s pleading face, her eyes welling to the brink of tears, and realized that Elizabeth didn’t even want to marry Henry Schoonmaker. It didn’t make any real sense to Penelope, as she herself had been physically ill for five days now with the thought of losing him. But it was perfectly clear that Elizabeth had not the tiniest inclination to gloat. She seemed, in fact, to be unhappy. And she was definitely sleep-deprived and not looking her best. These were consolations of a kind.
Penelope gave Elizabeth a softer look and began to walk slowly along the edge of the room so that her friend had to scurry along behind. “You humiliated me,” she said in a low, hurt tone.
“I know, Penny, but I didn’t mean to.”
“They were all laughing at me, you know.” She sniffed as though she were more hurt than she was angry. “It was the severity of the shock. Such a shock you gave me!”
“I know. I cannot even begin to tell you how sorry ”
“And you just said nothing. You just stood there. You listened to my story, and you might have warned me, but you said absolutely nothing.”
Elizabeth began to fidget with the embroidered edge of her camel-colored bolero. “I was speechless, Penelope, really or I would have ” She broke off, which was a happy thing for Penelope, as her voice had reached an almost whining pitch.
“Can you imagine what that silence must have felt like?” Penelope tried to look more wounded than exasperated.
Elizabeth looked down again and bit her lip. “No, I cannot.” Her eyes shifted, and she seemed to realize that all her fidgeting might soon damage her jacket. She clasped her hands together and went on, attempting brightness: “But just think, you will be able to meet and flirt with so many different men, while I will be married young and then for forever. You can still change your mind in love, again and again and again!”
“True,” Penelope said guardedly. She let her elbow float up and waited for Elizabeth to take it. They walked slowly past the great canvases and into the smaller adjoining navy-and-white toile-wallpapered sitting room, where Mother and Mr. Youngham and Ava Astor would not be able to watch them. Penelope took a breath and tried to ease into some kind of niceness. “Anyway, Liz, I couldn’t be mad at you for long. I’m just glad that you’ll be the one who gets him and not one of those other stupid girls.”
Elizabeth seemed momentarily taken aback by the mean sentiment, but then recovered her voice. “Thank you for being understanding. Thank you so very, very much.”
Penelope tried to return Elizabeth’s gratitude with a smile that might conceivably be read as warm. A little color was coming back into Elizabeth’s cheeks, and indeed she looked enormously relieved. But her guilt was still fluttering inside her Penelope could see it, and she was ready to take full advantage. They took a seat on a little cranberry-colored velvet settee, with Robber squeezed between them.
“I’ve been so miserable thinking I might have hurt your feelings. It would be terrible if, now that one of us is engaged, we wouldn’t be able to make good on our promise to be each other’s maid of honor.” Elizabeth smiled, almost shyly now, her eyes moving slowly up from the dog’s black eyes to his owner’s blue ones.
Penelope smiled back, widely and unabashed. She forced herself to take Elizabeth’s hand looking again at the ring as she did and gave it a little pressure. There wasn’t going to be any wedding, of course, not if Penelope got her way. And she was beginning to see that the closer she kept Elizabeth, the easier it was going to be to muck everything up.
“You really still want me to be your maid of honor?” she almost whispered.
“Of course, who else could I possibly?”
“Diana? I mean, she’s your sister; won’t she be hurt?”
Elizabeth looked pained by the mention of her sister, and Penelope had the happy realization that Elizabeth was sacrificing Diana in favor of her. She couldn’t help but laugh at a thought, and had to sputter out the name that went with it: “Agnes Jones?”
Elizabeth looked almost shocked by this suggestion, and then her face broke and she, too, was laughing at the hilarity of the idea. The tension between them seemed to evaporate. “That would be such a disaster,” Elizabeth managed, wiping away a giddy tear.
“Or Prudie? I mean ”
“Penelope, you’re the only one I can count on.”
“All right. Fine.” She batted an eyelash and took both of Elizabeth’s hands. “It’s done.”
“And there’s an event on Friday night the one for Admiral Dewey at the Waldorf-Astoria. That’s the first public event that Henry and I will attend, as a couple. Will you be there with me, as my maid of honor?”
“Of course.” Penelope tried not to smile too broadly. Already, she was being let in where she could do the most harm.
“I need a new dress for the occasion, of course, and I’m going to my final fitting at Lord and Taylor’s on Thursday.” Elizabeth’s cheeks were flushed with the relief of making plans now. “Come with me, and we can get something for you, too.”
“All right. But really, that’s not the dress you should be focusing on. You’ll wear white to the wedding, of course. But who will make your wedding dress? It will have to have quite a long train, and ”
“Oh yes,” Elizabeth interrupted, and before she knew what was happening, Penelope was listening to her friend go on about ivory versus ecru, and all the varieties of pink flowers, about whom she should ask to be the other bridesmaids, and what Penelope really thought of the ring, anyway.
Grayson Hayes’s little sister did not vomit in public again, though she did feel like it. Watching the bright eyes of Elizabeth Holland as she imagined out loud the garments of a very large, very rich wedding party brought Penelope’s anger back acutely. But despite the gales of bitterness that would have ruined the complexion of a weaker-willed girl, Penelope Hayes kept on smiling. A smiling friend was a true friend, she reminded herself, and that was how she had to appear for now, anyway.