Chapter 12 Fine Gems
Fine Gems
Vandemeer
Angle: Vainglory
Olivia Vandemeer feels another headache coming on. If they expect her to host graciously, beautifully, impeccably—and they
do, for everything in her husband and daughter’s life seems to rest heavily upon her own slim shoulders—then perhaps they
could take care in the moments before a dinner party to maintain some level of quiet.
“I don’t see why I can’t take dinner in my room.” Mimi trails her mother relentlessly through the house, barking like a Pomeranian.
“It’s not as if there’s any purpose in my being there, given that you’ve not invited any young men who might possibly show
any interest in me.”
Olivia glides past the parlor, hoping James might intercept their daughter in conversation, appeal to her himself, so she can see to the last-minute arrangements with the servants.
No such luck.
“I hope to hell you haven’t put McAllister near the head of the table,” James Vandemeer shouts into his brandy glass. He steadies
himself against the marble fireplace. “He likely expects it. Don’t know why we had to invite him in the first place. We’re
the ones honoring the duchess and that niece of hers.”
“Cousin,” Olivia puts in quietly.
“We deserve every bit of the credit.” He slams the crystal lowball glass against the mantel.
Olivia closes her eyes. “It will be through Mr. McAllister that we receive credit for being the first to host a dinner party
in their honor. No one is a bigger gossip, I assure you.”
That assuages him a little. The level of red in her husband’s old Dutch face has at least receded a shade. “And you’re quite
sure we are the first? This late in the season?”
“Apart from Mr. McAllister, only the Ames family have enjoyed the company of the grand duchess in any intimate capacity. Tea,
I believe, if Mrs. Witt is to be trusted.”
“Mrs. Witt? Trusted? That blasted woman is the very last person . . .” James launches straight into a vitriolic rant, and
Olivia curses herself for even mentioning the name.
“That’s another thing!” Mimi stomps her foot, rattling the beading in her gown—and the teeth inside her mother’s head. “I’d
thought surely the Witts would be invited tonight. Not that I’d ever entertain Beau’s affections, but at least there would
be the appearance of someone courting me. Mother? Mother! You don’t seem to take any of this to heart.”
Mimi’s voice raises to the pitch of a buzzard cry.
“Three seasons stand between me and spinsterhood and . . .”
As she continues her tirade, Olivia studies her daughter afresh. Pretty enough, certainly, but the sourness emanating from
the girl’s every pore is a powerful repellent. She’ll never be as beautiful as her mother and she knows it, siphoning attention
instead through sheer force of noxious personality.
“All will be well,” Olivia announces, as much to herself as to her family. “You will attend dinner, Mimi. I’ll make it worth
your while, I promise. And James, you’ll be at the head of the table, as you always are, and by noon tomorrow, every family
on Madison Avenue will know that we are the favored first to host a duchess at our table.”
Then she slides down the hall, away from their droning voices.
Whether it’s the spate of strategizing she’s just undertaken or the predictability of her daughter’s and husband’s responses,
she feels abruptly and utterly drained. James has always been like this. Everything is a competition, a race to the top. She suspects it ultimately has to do with him being hungry to prove himself better than
his forebears with their Knickerbocker pedigrees.
She may be a second wife, but fast upon their wedding—the first of that season—James insisted upon becoming the first new family to build a manse along Fifth, just as he longed to be the first to garner a central box at both the Academy and the Met, the first of the old families to invest heavily in railroad, and the first to break ground with a vacation cottage in Newport.
She suspects these feelings of inferiority also drove him into that messy
Manifest Rails debacle, now that she thinks on it, which she tries not to do unless absolutely necessary. Thinking about matters
of money, apart from spending it, aggravates her nerves almost as much as her husband.
Olivia cannot wait to be rid of the man. Him and Mimi both. But one step at a time. Marry off the girl, encourage James’s insatiable appetite for brandy in the hopes it brings about
an expedited death, and then . . . freedom.
Freedom and exorbitant wealth. Thirty-five isn’t so old to begin a new chapter, after all. She’ll just have to drift along
in the meantime.
And to that end . . .
She finds she’s drifted into her own, blessedly dark bedroom, a small glass bottle of laudanum now in her hand. Final preparations,
indeed.
“What would I do without you, my darling?” Olivia coos to the bottle, uncorks it, and drinks.
Alice and Cora are already dressed, powdered, and coiffed when the messenger boy arrives with a note written in Mr. McAllister’s
hand. The message inside precipitates a few adjustments.
“We’ll need rouge after all,” Alice calls over Cora’s shoulder to Béatrice. “Perhaps a bit on the lips. And bosom.”
“I thought I was meant to look wan, to allow the emerald to stand out,” Cora protests. She nods down at her gown’s low neckline,
the solitaire emerald necklace shining against her pale skin.
“We shall have to compromise.” Alice holds up the note so Cora can read it:
Mr. Peyton the Younger has accepted the invitation.
“We’ll have two gems in play tonight,” Alice says briskly. “Both it and you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Cora says, closing her eyes as Béa sees to her face.
Alice nods in approval, and they set out. The Vandemeers have sent one of their own carriages to escort them to the dinner.
It arrived half an hour ago and has been waiting ever since. They’ll be thirty minutes late for the party, by careful design.
As she patiently explained to an irritatingly confused Cora, “On time is embarrassing. Fifteen minutes late is polite, twenty-five
pushing the bounds of rudeness. Thirty will maximize our entrance. We’re not after decorum tonight so much as impact.”
Sure enough, when the carriage arrives at the Fifty-Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue beaux arts mansion belonging to the Vandemeers—the
first in its style to be built in New York City, James will have you know—Alice and Cora are introduced by an English butler
into a parlor already full of guests sipping champagne and nibbling canapés.
Relief breaks through the ever-present haze in Mrs. Vandemeer’s eyes when she turns from her conversation with Mrs. Ames to
greet the new guests.
Ward shoots Alice a surreptitious wink as she passes. He’s played his part well, then. Sowing doubt as to whether they’d turn
up.
“I must apologize wholeheartedly for our delay,” Alice says. “I received a telegram from my brother, you see, and it was such
news that we felt we had to reply tonight, which delayed our departure. I hope you don’t find us too terribly rude.”
“Of course not,” Mrs. Vandemeer murmurs distantly. “Not me, anyhow. Pearl thought it might be a European custom to arrive late.”
Over Mrs. Vandemeer’s elegant shoulder, Alice sees Mrs. Ames begin to sputter. “Not that I’ve ever observed you to be late, merely that I believe I read somewhere about the differing habits between our continents, perhaps—”
“In Württemberg, we are very prompt,” Alice cuts in. “Though I myself have set a poor example tonight.”
“Shall we to dinner, then?” Mrs. Vandemeer announces abruptly, drawing a look of reproach from her husband, who appeared to
be on the brink of offering the new arrivals aperitifs, as would be customary.
Her over-hastiness rather suggests an eagerness to get tonight over with, Alice notes, along with her hostess’s trembling
hand.
“Wonderful,” Alice agrees.
“Thank heavens you came at last,” Alice hears Arabella whisper to Cora as they progress down the checkered marble hall to
the dining room. “I thought I was going to be trapped alone with Mimi all night.”
Alice passes Cora a look of warning—don’t engage in petty gossip—but no need. Cora has simply flashed a brief, indulgent grin,
then gathered her composure once more. Just in time for Harry Peyton to step forward and offer her an arm, to Arabella’s thinly
masked discomfort.
It’s Mr. Vandemeer himself who escorts Alice into the dining room by arm, prompting a glower from Mr. Ogden worthy of Heathcliff
stalking the moors.
Alice is seated between Vandemeer and Ogden, the couples split up according to custom.
As she sits, she takes in the gathering around the candlelit table, noting their arrangement as if they are cutouts in a shooting gallery: immaculate Mr. Vandemeer at the head of the table to her left, then plump Mrs. Ames, Ward McAllister in a jaunty cravat, beautiful and glassy-eyed Mrs. Vandemeer, the thus-far entirely taciturn Mr. Ames, Cora seated beside Harry Peyton—Alice can only assume this was Ward’s influence—then sulky Mrs. Ogden, almost-as-sulky Mimi Vandemeer, little Arabella Ames, and Mr. Ogden to her right, already laying the smolder on thick.
“I’d thought the Witts might be joining us,” Ward notes lightly, reading the question in Alice’s expression.
Mrs. Vandemeer closes her eyes. “You had to mention the name.”
Too late. Mr. Vandemeer’s face has already gone red above his neatly trimmed beard. “That dreadful woman! That harridan! I
don’t know who she thinks she is, won’t listen to a word—”
“She retains her husband’s shares in Manifest Rails and refuses to sell,” Mr. Ogden breathes into Alice’s ear. She smiles
as if interested, while successfully fighting off a shudder. “I think Mrs. Witt enjoys turning up to shareholder meetings
just to watch the rest of us squirm. She’ll be back in Vandemeer’s good graces within weeks, though. We all fall out, again