to her bedroom, where she could do what the rest of the girls of her set were doing: sleeping off the first ball of the season, content in the knowledge that they could doze into the afternoon, dreaming all the while of the dresses they would wear and the boys they would dance with in the coming months.
“Morning, Miss Holland.”
Elizabeth turned to see Lina, sitting in her constant black dress at the heavy, uneven table in the kitchen where the cook took her breaks. While Elizabeth was in Paris, her maid had grown longer and skinnier, and the freckles splattered across her nose had increased in number. The sight of her, looking plain and a little sullen in the early morning, caused Elizabeth to gasp. She could feel sweat collecting in the small of her back, and closed her robe around her to disguise the flush that was spreading to her throat. Elizabeth was surely beginning to panic, so she was shocked by the calmness in her voice: “I have been looking for you everywhere. I am ready for my bowl of chocolate now. And bring water also. I have been all night without it.”
Then Elizabeth turned for the stair. “Where were you last night, anyway?” she added as she hurried out of the kitchen. She tried to tell herself that she had pulled it off—Lina was too sulky 37 ♥elavanilla♥
a girl to pay attention to Elizabeth’s doings. And anyway, how long could she really have been sitting there?
Seven
At the Richmond Hayeses’ ball, on the evening of September the sixteenth, the young lady of the house was seen dancing quite amorously with a certain young man whom we shall refer to by the initials HS. They were a pair so obviously pleased by each other’s company that members of society are whispering that an engagement is not far off, though an announcement had yet to be made by press time….
––FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE , SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1899
“T HE PAPERS WERE JUST FANTASTIC,” ISAAC PHILLIPS Buck put in, extending his pinkie as he sipped from his porcelain teacup. “Most fun I’ve had since Remington Astor was caught kissing one of the kitchen boys. That was a good scandal.”
“Oh, they were ridiculous.” Penelope drew her long, ringed fingers over the head of her Boston terrier, Robber, and smiled absently. She wore a dress of black faille with a low, square neck, tight waist, and tiered skirt and was looking especially slight next to Buck, who was sweating in the late summer heat. They were the only people in the large parlor room, with its twenty-five-foot ceilings and many pieces of French furniture upholstered in matching blue-and-white striped silk. “I don’t know why you bring them to me,” she added with a yawn. She had been resting all day, and her body still had that pleasant, lazy feeling she associated with the day’s first waking moments.
“Oh, what’s that old adage…heart-stopping envy is the sincerest form of flattery? You should learn to view the papers as I do.”
“I do try , Buck, but all of this God-this, God-that, God disapproves of your mansion…”
Penelope tried to seem more dismissive than amused, but she couldn’t help a little giggle. There was so much bombast out there. “I mean really, the man must have something better to do with his time.”
“He does have all eternity to use it up.” Buck laughed, and Penelope rolled her eyes. “Well, at least the papers seem to agree with you about a certain Schoonmaker. They’re predicting you and Henry will be engaged by the end of the season,” Buck told her, his eyes bulging with this news coup. “They even brought in an astrologer to confirm it.”
38 ♥elavanilla♥
Penelope felt a delirious surge of confidence in her chest, but restrained herself from actually clapping in triumph.
“But really, they could have saved the astrologer and just asked the Misses Wetmore,” Buck went on. “They looked like they’d been slapped when they saw you on the floor
“Morning, Miss Holland.”
Elizabeth turned to see Lina, sitting in her constant black dress at the heavy, uneven table in the kitchen where the cook took her breaks. While Elizabeth was in Paris, her maid had grown longer and skinnier, and the freckles splattered across her nose had increased in number. The sight of her, looking plain and a little sullen in the early morning, caused Elizabeth to gasp. She could feel sweat collecting in the small of her back, and closed her robe around her to disguise the flush that was spreading to her throat. Elizabeth was surely beginning to panic, so she was shocked by the calmness in her voice: “I have been looking for you everywhere. I am ready for my bowl of chocolate now. And bring water also. I have been all night without it.”
Then Elizabeth turned for the stair. “Where were you last night, anyway?” she added as she hurried out of the kitchen. She tried to tell herself that she had pulled it off—Lina was too sulky 37 ♥elavanilla♥
a girl to pay attention to Elizabeth’s doings. And anyway, how long could she really have been sitting there?
Seven
At the Richmond Hayeses’ ball, on the evening of September the sixteenth, the young lady of the house was seen dancing quite amorously with a certain young man whom we shall refer to by the initials HS. They were a pair so obviously pleased by each other’s company that members of society are whispering that an engagement is not far off, though an announcement had yet to be made by press time….
––FROM THE SOCIETY PAGE OF THE NEW-YORK NEWS OF THE WORLD GAZETTE , SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1899
“T HE PAPERS WERE JUST FANTASTIC,” ISAAC PHILLIPS Buck put in, extending his pinkie as he sipped from his porcelain teacup. “Most fun I’ve had since Remington Astor was caught kissing one of the kitchen boys. That was a good scandal.”
“Oh, they were ridiculous.” Penelope drew her long, ringed fingers over the head of her Boston terrier, Robber, and smiled absently. She wore a dress of black faille with a low, square neck, tight waist, and tiered skirt and was looking especially slight next to Buck, who was sweating in the late summer heat. They were the only people in the large parlor room, with its twenty-five-foot ceilings and many pieces of French furniture upholstered in matching blue-and-white striped silk. “I don’t know why you bring them to me,” she added with a yawn. She had been resting all day, and her body still had that pleasant, lazy feeling she associated with the day’s first waking moments.
“Oh, what’s that old adage…heart-stopping envy is the sincerest form of flattery? You should learn to view the papers as I do.”
“I do try , Buck, but all of this God-this, God-that, God disapproves of your mansion…”
Penelope tried to seem more dismissive than amused, but she couldn’t help a little giggle. There was so much bombast out there. “I mean really, the man must have something better to do with his time.”
“He does have all eternity to use it up.” Buck laughed, and Penelope rolled her eyes. “Well, at least the papers seem to agree with you about a certain Schoonmaker. They’re predicting you and Henry will be engaged by the end of the season,” Buck told her, his eyes bulging with this news coup. “They even brought in an astrologer to confirm it.”
38 ♥elavanilla♥
Penelope felt a delirious surge of confidence in her chest, but restrained herself from actually clapping in triumph.
“But really, they could have saved the astrologer and just asked the Misses Wetmore,” Buck went on. “They looked like they’d been slapped when they saw you on the floor
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