Chapter 5 30 September 2016
It was eight o’clock on Friday night and the Harringtons’ annual autumn soirée, designed to mark a return to the city after summers spent on Martha’s Vineyard or abroad, was just getting started at their Fifth Avenue penthouse.
Hannah hadn’t expected an invitation from Elle – or for her parents to allow her to go – but here she was, stepping out of the wood-panelled elevator and into a private vestibule with marble walls.
Across from the elevator hung a small, ancient-looking portrait of someone named Claude Louis Harrington Devereaux.
The plaque noted he had been an ambassador to France nearly a century ago.
Ever since Hannah, Beatrice and Bash had joined Elle beneath the oak tree on the Prescott courtyard three weeks ago, silently showing their support and giving Theo the benefit of the doubt, at least for the time being, Elle had been slowly including Hannah more and more at school, while Madison gave them all the cold shoulder.
Still, Hannah had been surprised when Elle handed her a formal invitation, letter-printed on ecru card stock, this morning.
It was last minute – surely Elle had waffled to the end about including a Fellow (gasp!) in a family gathering so steeped in tradition and the warm glow of the season – but it was, nevertheless, a nod of acceptance.
So here she was, entering the largest – yet most understated – apartment she’d ever seen. Occupying the entire top floor of a pre-war co-op overlooking Central Park, the Harringtons’ home had been arranged for the kind of old-world entertaining that encouraged discreet conversation, not selfies.
Bash Beaumont was perched on the roll-arm of a pale blue damask sofa in the formal living room, sipping a single-malt scotch and garnering a disapproving glare from the Harringtons’ butler.
He wasn’t Hannah’s favourite person at Prescott, but right now, a conversation with Bash seemed far preferable to navigating the party alone.
Much to Ami’s dismay, and Hannah’s too, the younger Miller sibling hadn’t been invited, and so Hannah had arrived feeling at a loose end.
‘Bash,’ she said, slipping onto the unoccupied cushion beside him and hoping she didn’t look too out of place in a simple black dress and the soft taupe cardigan Ami had insisted she borrow.
‘Miss Miller,’ he replied, raising his glass and peering down at her from his perch on the sofa arm. She adjusted her cardigan to cover her modest cleavage, suddenly glad for Ami’s loan. ‘Allow me to welcome you to your first Upper East Side soirée.’
Hannah’s eyes travelled around the room.
Several well-heeled middle-aged couples mingled among Elle’s select list of invitees from Prescott.
The gathering was intimate, but the apartment felt full.
A young pianist wearing a royal blue gown played softly at the grand piano in the corner, and candles glowed in hurricane lamps on antique side tables.
Everyone was drinking – scotch, dry gin martinis, a deep red Bordeaux.
‘Who are they?’ She gestured to the adults gathered beneath a pair of nineteenth-century landscapes in gilt frames.
Bash took a sip from his tumbler, then nodded first to Mrs Cynthia Harrington, née Kingsley, a petite woman with medium brown skin wearing a tea-length Gabriela Hearst evening dress, a pair of low-heeled Ferragamos and an unironic strand of natural pearls.
‘Kingsley as in The Kingsley Room?’ Hannah asked, recalling the lavish auditorium at Prescott.
‘Naturally,’ Bash replied with a smirk.
Her long black hair had been done in a twist, then fastened into place with a tortoiseshell comb.
It was easy to see the source of Elle’s perfectionist tendencies.
Beside her was a tall, clean-shaven white man in a navy tuxedo jacket, high-waisted trousers and patent leather opera pumps.
Mr Andrew Harrington. Bash then rattled off the names of Elle’s parents’ closest friends and a few trustees from Mrs Harrington’s foundation.
‘And of course you know everyone from Prescott.’
‘Where’s Madison?’ Hannah asked.
Bash shrugged. ‘Elle’s in the library, which means Madison is out on the terrace with Bruno and Ethan.
It’s a cold war. They’ll thaw eventually.
’ He gave her a bored little eye roll that was so typically adolescent, it hardly seemed in accord with his burgundy pocket square or the muscles rippling beneath his double-breasted Brunello Cucinelli jacket.
‘Sure is taking a long time for the ice to melt. I thought they were best friends.’ Hannah leaned around Bash to peer into the library, a cosy room lined in walnut bookcases stuffed with leather-bound volumes.
Elle sat on a worn-in club chair by the fireplace, which had been lit for the first time since spring, holding court.
Theo sat stiffly at her feet. Elle wore her mother’s vintage Carolina Herrera, a cream silk dress with navy piping.
With them, also at Elle’s feet, were Beatrice Whitmore and three other girls from Mr Harris’s senior seminar group, of which Hannah was now a part.
The groups had been set since freshman year, and Hannah was the only new addition.
Bash laughed, and his lip curled into a sneer.
‘Prescott Academy is Elle’s domain, and Madison has the rest of New York.
For the most part, this arrangement holds, but when something happens to rock the throne, things get frosty.
Madison thinks she’s doing Elle a favour by steering her towards singledom now that Theo’s reputation is at stake, but Elle thinks Madison is interfering where she doesn’t belong. ’
‘What do you believe?’ she asked. ‘You and Theo are close.’
Bash shrugged again. ‘He says it isn’t him in the photos, and Gemma Phipps isn’t Theo’s type. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what Theo did or didn’t do. His character is on trial.’
Hannah’s head spun. Hadn’t Bash claimed he’d slept with fourteen girls over summer break? No one seemed to be slapping a red A on his Prescott blazer. Then again, Bash wasn’t in a relationship with Elle Harrington.
‘But why should—?’ Before Hannah could get the rest of her question out, a flurry of activity coming from the library caught their attention.
Because this was a Harrington affair, and no one would be caught dead raising their voice or making a scene, the flurry was limited to Elle standing abruptly from her seat by the low-burning fire and Theo stalking away from Elle, across the room.
He picked up a signed copy of a biography of Chief Justice John Roberts, which he almost certainly did not intend to read.
Beatrice rose to place a hand on Elle’s shoulder, then glared at the other girls from Mr Harris’s seminar, who scurried from the room.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked Alice St Clair, a round-faced and rather mousy girl from their class, as she hurried from Elle’s side into the living room.
Breathlessly, Alice collapsed on the sofa beside Hannah and Bash. Her dark eyes darted furtively between them, then she leaned in, keeping her voice at a near-whisper. ‘Theo has just broken up with Elle. In front of everyone.’
‘Oh, Christ.’ Bash placed his now-empty scotch on a Moroccan tile coaster and strode with purpose across the room and into the library.
‘So he was cheating?’ Hannah whispered to Alice. Her stomach clenched. Had she been wrong to trust Elle’s assertions that it hadn’t been Theo in the photos, to give him the benefit of the doubt?
Alice couldn’t keep the broad, and very much not reserved, grin off her face. ‘Maybe. Or maybe Theo was just sick of putting up with her.’
‘What do you mean?’ No one would deny that Elle was kind of a bitch, but Hannah had to assume Theo had known that going in…
‘Theo loves Elle,’ Alice continued. ‘Or at least, he used to. But Elle treats him like shit. Elle has their entire future mapped out, but last month, she joined Elizabeth Romero for a week in Mallorca instead of going upstate to support Theo when his family broke ground on Orchard & Vine.’
‘Orchard & Vine?’ She peered around Alice on the sofa.
Through the library’s open doors, she could see Bash standing beside Theo, giving him what looked like a stern talking-to, an odd sight given the half-head Theo had on Bash.
Elle and Beatrice were nowhere to be found, and Hannah imagined they’d probably retreated to Elle’s room.
Alice nodded. ‘It’s going to be Concord Hospitality’s newest venture, in the Hudson Valley. Farm-to-table, very intimate, located on the Fitzgeralds’ upstate property. The whole thing has been so hard on Theo.’ Her voice dripped with pity.
Concord Hospitality was the Fitzgeralds’ restaurant group, family-run for three generations.
It was expected Theo would follow in his parents’ footsteps.
The Concord Room, a French American fine dining establishment, had opened on East 87th and Lex in the late ’70s and still accepted reservations via personal concierge only.
In the decades that had followed, the group had opened three more restaurants in the city – a modern American brasserie in Tribeca, a formal event space near Rockefeller Center and a hidden cocktail lounge in the West Village.
‘Hard why?’ Hannah asked.
Alice’s voice dropped even lower. ‘With the Fitzgeralds constantly travelling to Hudson and back, Theo was on his own a lot this summer. Sure, Elle and Theo spent a week together in Paris with the Harringtons, but when Theo needed her, she had other priorities. It’s like she loves the idea of a life with Theodore Fitzgerald, but I’m not always sure she likes him that much.
’ Alice straightened up on the couch, small mouth twitching.
‘And after these past few weeks, all the speculation about the Gemma Phipps photos, I think Theo finally had enough. Maybe being with Elle Harrington just didn’t seem worth it anymore. ’