One of the many parties given last evening in celebration of Admiral Dewey’s return to our shores the fete in the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom was also expected to welcome the recently betrothed couple of Mr. Henry Schoonmaker and Miss Elizabeth Holland. While Miss Holland attended, looking exquisite as always, Mr. Schoonmaker never arrived, leading certain cynics to wonder if his passions have turned elsewhere so quickly.
— FROM THE “GAMESOME GALLANT” COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK IMPERIAL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1899
HENRY WAS AWAKENED BY THE ROUGH SWATTING of a broadsheet against his face. He reached down and felt his torso; he had slept in his clothes, and not on his bed, either. The inside of his mouth was chalky. His arms felt raw, as though they had been scratched at by a herd of feral cats in the night. He touched his forearms and felt cuts, bubbled over by new scabs. All of this dawned unkindly on Henry, who had been dreaming of Diana Holland’s soft white skin.
“Henry…open your goddamn eyes,” came the low, angry voice of his father. William Schoonmaker spoke in a nasal, irritated tone even in his carefree moments, and this did not seem to be one of those. “Do you want some orange juice?”
Henry cracked one eye and then the other. The looming form of his father came unpleasantly into focus. “Do you have orange juice?” Henry asked meekly.
“No.”
He was fully awake now, and he knew where he was. The little room where he was sitting, under the long shadow of his father, was the same room where he had laid down for a short rest last night, in order to recover from the epic party on the yacht. It was his own study, adjacent to his bedroom, a good, dark room to nurse a headache in. Though apparently that was no longer on the agenda.
Henry looked from the sneering face of his father to the pale maid who hovered behind him. She was wearing a black dress with white cuffs and a white collar, and she was holding a tray with a cut-glass pitcher full of a liquid that certainly had the appearance of orange juice. Henry opened and closed his pasty mouth, and then looked back at his father.
“Don’t give him any, Hilda.” Henry’s father took a few steps forward and clasped his hands behind his back. “Now, Henry, I see that you are in quite a state, and it seems possible to me that you don’t remember last night with perfect clarity. I have done some research, however, and I am here to help you remember. Hilda and I are here to help you remember.”
Henry looked back at the maid. She had been with his family for some time, and she had kept his secrets before. She wouldn’t meet his eyes now, however. Her skin was an unhappy pallor, and her eyes were fixed on her tray. Henry looked longingly at the orange juice, and then turned his eyes to his father, whose great frame was clothed in a three-piece suit of metallic brown-gray fabric. It was the kind of costume that impressed mid-level railroad employees and servant girls. Henry tried to give his father a look that showed it did not impress him.
“Go on, Hilda,” his father was saying. “Tell Henry what you told me.”
The girl paused as long as she could, which was long enough to make both herself and Henry wretchedly uncomfortable, and then said, “I saw a young lady leaving quite late last night. She wore a beaded gown of a reddish color, and she made quite a noise when she left. The dress looked new, sir, and quite expensive.”
Henry’s whole body went slack. He remembered Penelope’s coming there in her dramatic dress. He rested his forehead against his fist and listened as his father issued a swift, firm dismissal to Hilda. He could barely watch as Hilda gave a reverential nod, and turned for the hall, taking with her the sloshing pitcher of sweet orange juice that might have soothed his parched throat.
“I didn’t think she’d need to hear this next bit, Henry.” The elder Schoonmaker crossed his arms across his chest. “Do you remember how you got home?”
“No, sir,” Henry croaked.
“A hackney dropped you off,” Mr. Schoonmaker spat.
“You had bruises on the left side of your body, and cuts consistent with an unfortunate meeting with a rosebush. Any of this sounding familiar?”
Henry shook his head. “I was drunk,” he said, trying to sound both ashamed and firm in this belief. He remembered the rosebush incident very clearly, of course, but he knew that sneaking to the bedroom window of his fiancée’s little sister wasn’t something he wanted to explain to his father. Sometimes, Henry reflected, being taken for a perpetual drunk was sort of convenient.
“Henry, I am not a fool. I know very well you were drunk. Now, would you like to tell the story or should I?”
“You seem bent on it,” Henry answered bitterly.
“Read it yourself.” His father’s head snapped back in obvious disgust as he threw the newspaper in Henry’s direction. It made a rustling noise as it soared through the air and hit him on the forehead. Henry picked it up dutifully, avoiding eye contact with his father, who was, in any event, walking furiously back and forth across the elegant parquet floor. The paper was folded to the item in question, from that overwrought gossip column in the Imperial. It had been circled in red ink.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Henry said, when he had read it. Despite his ironic tone, he did in fact mean this. The picture of him as a drunk dandy about town was starting to bore even him. But more pressing at the moment was how very desperately in need of something to drink he was. If only he could get some liquid to his dry mouth, he might be able to handle this deteriorating situation.
“I should say so,” his father replied in a voice that matched, if not bettered, Henry’s sarcasm. Henry watched as his father slowed his pacing and walked toward the casement windows that overlooked Fifth Avenue, his arms stilled behind his back. He lowered his voice, which made it no less menacing. “Would you like to know where I was last night, Henry?”
The son kept his eyes on his father, and said nothing. He knew the answer would be forced on him sooner or later. Sooner, likely.
“I was at the Waldorf with the governor and Admiral Dewey himself. You know they say he may run for president? It was a tremendous political opportunity. Not that I expect that to mean anything to a wreck like yourself.”
Henry shifted on the couch. He tried to smooth his shirt with his hands and look indeed a little less like a wreck. His father turned back from the window and glowered at him again.
“I was expecting all the city was expecting to see you and your lovely fiancée acting like a couple at the Waldorf. Can you imagine the disappointment felt by all when you neglected to show up? It was an evening when the entirety of New York’s gossip-seeking class was out looking for color. And you gave it to them. You have proved yourself a liability yet again, Henry.”
The older man rocked on his heels with a look of regret, and Henry, still parched and deeply uncomfortable, could think of nothing to say that might make his father view him as something less than a disappointment. He watched as his father collected himself, and then went on in the usual, irritable, businesslike tone.
“Here’s what we’re going to do, Henry. Your little escapade last night made the engagement look like a sham, which some people surely take it as already. But the sham-engagement story won’t stick if we overwhelm them with an even bigger story.”
Henry, who had always made a dashing figure in the papers without really trying, looked up at his father with what he hoped was not a thoroughly confused expression. His father came walking slowly toward him. Henry contemplated the great red face, with its unfortunate contrast to the slicked, black hair, and wondered if he would ever make the old man happy. “A bigger story?” he repeated mechanically.
“Ah, you follow. How nice. Yes, an even bigger story. You go make nice with the Hollands tomorrow. I will send Isabelle to talk to Mrs. Holland this evening an advance guard, if you will. It’s perfect, really. And it only took from the time I woke up till breakfast for me to come up with it.”
Henry had been trying to appear attentive, but he was getting an increasingly sick and nervous feeling in his stomach. “So…what is this idea?”
William Schoonmaker turned his animated eyes on his son. He smiled, spreading his dark mustache across his face. “We’re moving the wedding up. The greatest wedding of the nineteenth century, that’s what they’ll call it in the papers. People will like that.”
“You’re talking about my wedding? To…Elizabeth?” Henry asked. His face had gone cold, and he could not get his mouth to shut. “Moving it up to what date?”
Henry watched as his father pulled his gold watch from his pocket. He was smiling, clearly amused by his own stunt, confident in his genius. He was enjoying this, it seemed, making Henry as uncomfortable as possible.
“If you prefer to be disinherited, I would oblige….” Henry’s father paused to give him a pointed look. “I’d rather not, but I will if it comes down to it.”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t prefer that.” Henry lowered his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to feel the full brunt of his cowardice.
“I mean, I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Well then, Henry, my boy, if you don’t have any other plans next Sunday that will be the eighth of October we’ll make you a married man.”
Henry watched as his father’s mouth spread into an almost gruesome grin and knew that, despite his misery, he had finally run out of time.