With the early arrival of Admiral Dewey’s fleet in the New York harbor yesterday, and the frenzied preparations for the two parades one by sea on Friday, and one by land on Saturday it would seem that the city will finally have something to talk about besides the engagement of society scions Mr. Henry Schoonmaker and Miss Elizabeth Holland.
— FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL PAGE, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27,1899
“COME ON, RINGMASTER!” CRIED TEDDY CUTTING, shaking his fist in the air.
“Move, you old nag!” Henry added in a somewhat less generous tone. He was sitting beside his friend in the steep and rickety wooden grandstand seats at Morris Park, drinking Pabst from bottles with blue ribbons on them, eating salted peanuts, and generally acting like a man several notches down in class. The racetrack in the Bronx was much prettier from his family’s box, but on this particular day Henry was avoiding the judgmental specter of his father, and the Schoonmaker box was a show of opulence intended to make its visitors ever-mindful of its owner’s worldly accomplishments. Henry’s worldly goal at the moment was drinking enough beer to be happy and forgetful. “Mooooove!” he cried, in the direction of a mahogany blur of thoroughbred.
Teddy tipped his brown derby back on his head, so that tufts of blond hair emerged from under his hat, and clapped his hands together rowdily as their horse approached the finish line. Ringmaster, with the little red-and-white-clothed jockey on his back, was in second, but as he approached the finish line, he was overtaken. Teddy clapped his hands once in frustration when he saw that his horse had come in fourth. “Well, there goes another twenty bucks,” he said, tossing his racing card under their seats.
“Oh, come on,” Henry replied, moving his black straw boater to a jauntier angle and leaning his elbows on the seat behind him. “It’s not all about money.”
“Says you.” Teddy smiled good-naturedly. “So who’s our money on next? La Infanta?”
“Why don’t we just bet on all the horses next time, and then we won’t have to worry about losing. I for one am just glad that we’re out of the city, and away from all that madness.”
Teddy raised both of his fair eyebrows in Henry’s direction and took a long sip of his beer. Henry ignored the skeptical look and turned up the collar of his tweed jacket. Morris Park, where the Belmont Stakes were run, was situated in a far corner of the Bronx, a borough that still did not feel like part of New York City. It had been annexed on January 1 of that year, along with Brooklyn and Queens, but it still looked sleepy and rural and felt very far away from the rumbling grid of Manhattan, which was currently being taken over by revelers and patriots. The city was busy preparing the fireworks and streams of confetti to welcome home those who had triumphed in battle.
“I meant the celebration,” Henry said, trying to dispel his friend’s accusatory look with a serious expression. “Our yacht is going to be in the water parade, of course.”
“Ah, yes.” Teddy did not appear convinced. Nor did he appear particularly troubled by the lie either. He looked into his beer. “The hero of the South Pacific.”
“The Philippines,” Henry went on in a far-off voice. He had been reading the papers carefully, ever since the Hollands’ coachman had accused him of being ignorant. “What a lot of trouble for such a distant country. The war in Cuba that was a war I might have gotten behind.”
“Yes, we all would have enlisted, if only we’d had the time.”
“Are you making fun?”
Teddy shrugged. “If you don’t want to admit what you’re running away from, I’m certainly not going to force you.”
Henry sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. Teddy lit a cigarette, which filled the air around them with sweet-smelling smoke. “I live for days like these,” Henry said, casting his eyes at the handsome horses, shiny and groomed, being led out to the track.
“Yes, I know, and it’s so awful when we’re all dressed up and the ladies are fawning on you and the champagne comes in magnums and the plate is made of gold. You just hate that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Well?” Teddy exhaled in exasperation. “What seems to be the problem?”
Henry looked at his friend warily, pausing a few moments to find the words. “I’m just not sure about this engagement. Now that actual wedding clothes are being discussed, I’m getting sort of skittish. Details like that make the whole thing feel, I don’t know, real somehow. I mean, imagine hosting lunches with the Mrs. on a day like today, instead of taking in the horses with you. Instead of doing whatever I pleased.”
“But will you think of that, when you have such a pretty Mrs.?”
Henry tried not to frown, but failed. He tried to think of his fiancée as a woman he was attracted to, but the same stiff girl kept souring his thoughts, the one who, on their carriage ride through Central Park, had flinched at his every word. She’d been barely able to look at him, and seemed, especially next to the exuberant sister, with her pink cheeks and carelessness, like a cold fish. “Everyone says she is very pretty,” Henry agreed bitterly.
“I say she is very pretty. In fact, I’d say that was under-stating the situation.”
“Then you marry her,” Henry replied.
“I would.” Teddy laughed. “But she is already engaged, I’m afraid. Now, would you care to bet her hand in marriage on the next race?”
“What a scandal that would be. ‘Society Boys Horse Trade with Their Brides.’ And you know how the papers recount every blow of my nose.”
“I wasn’t serious, man.” Teddy clapped his hand on Henry’s shoulder and gave it a little shake.
“I know.” Henry looked at his hands, with their long, unblemished fingers. They were hands that had never seen a day of work. “I’m just not sure she’s right. I mean, Elizabeth is so shy and polite, and you know very well that I am neither.”
“Well,” Teddy said, draining his beer and tossing the bottle under the seats, “she is definitely not the lady version of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, she is not.”
“But she has taste and manners.”
Henry rolled his eyes.
“And she will be impeccable in all the areas one marries for. She will host good entertainments, oversee a perfect household, she will give you handsome children, and she will not complain about any of it. You, meanwhile, will sit back and enjoy, and nobody will think twice about you discreetly living your private life on the side, with the same friendships with the same girls and new ones, too. None of your passions last, no matter who it is. So really, Elizabeth is just as good, and probably much better, than anyone you’d likely exchange vows with at any other time.” Teddy seemed to think he had put an end to the discussion and he motioned for a passing boy, with a wooden ice chest full of Pabst, to stop by. When Teddy had paid for both of their beers, he handed one to Henry and knocked it gently with his own. “Cheers, my friend. I think you have made an excellent choice.”
Henry drank, but continued to look dourly out at the race. It had begun sometime during their discussion, and was now swiftly and loudly reaching its denouement. “Maybe marriage just isn’t what I want,” he said finally.
Teddy gave a wan smile to that and looked out at the horses, who were coming breakneck around the bend. The men in the crowd were on their feet and whooping, hoping with their whole bodies that the speed of one filly would change their lives. “Well, then, what do you want?” Teddy asked, exasperation breaking through his tone.
The horses crossed the finish line, and Henry realized that it had been the last race of the day. Most of the crowd were ripping up their cards or cursing or shuffling away, gazes focused on their feet as they headed back to their dingy little lives. One ruddy-faced man, however, was jumping up and down and pumping his fists in the air. “I’m made!” he cried. “I’m made!”
Henry turned away from the gauche display. His friend was looking at him as though he might not have heard properly. But Henry had heard, and the question what did he want? was marching around in his head.
But when he closed his eyes, all he could see was Diana Holland running across the grass, pulling her skirt back to reveal her lovely white calves and yelling at him. Her voice was full of heat and mischief, telling him that he had better not let the ribbon of her hat escape, or her mother would have his neck for letting her get so freckled in the sun.
Henry knew exactly what he wanted; it was just that he had no earthly idea how to get it.