Bright Young Things

26

THE LIGHT ON THE SIXTEENTH FLOOR OF THE ST. REGIS was very good, and Astrid took advantage of it to contemplate the lovely robin?s-egg blue wallpaper in their suite. Her thoughts were all over the place, and she began to wonder at the relative simplicity of her name, with its four up-down syllables, especially when compared to her mother?s. But perhaps by the time she was her mother?s age, she might have a string of surnames, too—that was an unromantic notion, but one she regarded as more or less inevitable, especially that morning, when her head hurt and the whole world seemed rather blah.
Her mother sat only a few feet away from her, on the twin bed next to Astrid?s, her dark hair wrapped up in a towel and her shoulders resting against the gold brocade upholstered headboard. In between them stood the room-service cart, laden with breakfast things. Astrid was trying to eat a soft-boiled egg out of an eggcup, but it no longer held any interest for her.
“What a drab breakfast,” she said, looking down accusatorily at the half-consumed yolk.
“Eat it,” her mother replied, without glancing up from the society column, which she was currently reading. It was Virginia Donal de Gruyter Marsh?s standing order, at all the hotels in which she was likely to take occupancy, that the papers arrive for her open to the society pages, folded so that she would not have to read any actual news before her delicate retinas were good and ready. “Who knows when we will be able to buy another,” she added darkly.
“I think we should go to the Egyptian section of the Metropolitan,” Astrid said, throwing off the covers and standing up barefoot on the soft carpet. She was wearing what looked like red pajamas with the St. Regis name sewn into the breast pocket, but upon closer inspection it proved to be a bellhop?s uniform. Although she did try for at least five seconds or so, she could not remember how she had come to wear such a thing. “And then afterward go for watercress sandwiches at the Plaza.”
Her mother gave her an unamused look, and Astrid pulled her sleeping mask, which had been high on her forehead, keeping her hair away from her face, down over her eyes, blindfolding herself so that she wouldn?t have to see the older woman. Fixing her hands at her waist, Astrid thrust one foot forward and bowed, just like the Little Tramp might have done. When her mother made no response—no spoken one, anyway—Astrid sighed and turned toward the window, ripping her sleeping mask off and dropping it on the floor.
“Pick that up,” her mother said.
“No,” Astrid replied. They both knew someone else would.
Astrid pursed her lips, and peered over the windowsill at Fifty-fifth Street below. For a moment, she entertained herself by imagining that if she dropped down, the red awning over the front entryway would save her from her fatal fall, and she would be bounced back upward toward her suite, where her mother meanwhile would have been scared into behaving like the lady she had been brought up to be.
“Don?t be a headache, darling,” her mother said before taking a noisy sip of coffee. “I already have a mean, throbbing one, and it?s all I can handle, really.”
“Who was that British man?” Astrid diverted the conversation, a touch cruelly, since she knew perfectly well it had smarted when his attention switched from mother to daughter.
“Spencer Gridley,” her mother replied blithely. “Though apparently he is no one at all, since the society column has not marked his arrival on these shores, much less in this hotel.”
“Have they mentioned our arrival?” Astrid asked in her softest, most innocent voice. “In this hotel, I mean.”
This time her mother did not respond, except by ruffling the papers, and Astrid, who wasn?t sure why she was playing such an absurd game, decided she would go to the Metropolitan by herself. There could be no objection to that, since after all, it was free. She crossed the room and was on the threshold to the adjoining sitting room, when her mother exclaimed, in quite a changed tone, “Oh, my.”
“Whatever could it be?” Astrid replied ironically as she turned to face her mother. “Spencer Gridley?s a lord, as it turns out, and now he?s seen us on our wuhst behavior.”
But her mother didn?t answer her. She only draped the broadsheet across the coverlet so that Astrid could read the headline on the front page: GREY THE BOOTLEGGER ASSASSINATED IN L.I. HOME, it said, and then just below, in slightly smaller type, WHITE COVE NEIGHBOR MRS. DULUTH HALE SAYS SHE WILL PROCEED WITH TONIGHT?S GARDEN SOIREE.
Astrid craned her head back and turned her face at an indifferent angle.
“Well?” her mother went on breathlessly. “Aren?t you going to say something? How horrid!”
“He drank too much,” Astrid said flippantly.
“I might say the same of you …,” her mother replied, bringing the paper closer to her face, her eyes darting over the details. “Well—they say he?ll be buried tomorrow. You must go immediately, darling.”
“I certainly will not.” Astrid lowered her chin and tried not to be interested in the article her mother was now devouring.
“You?re right,” her mother said, extending an index finger but not glancing up from the paper. “You must have a new black dress. We?ll go to Bendel?s and charge it to old Harrison. He won?t have thought to cancel my account yet. Now that I think of it,” she went on, brightening considerably, “we ought to get you a complete little wardrobe, so you won?t have to go back to Marsh Hall at all. Nothing extravagant—two day dresses, two for night, a smart little jacket, a cardigan, two sets of heels, two flats, hose, under things, a hat—three at most. Then you can take the train back to White Cove to attend to Charlie, and—”
“No!”
“Astrid, don?t be ridiculous!” She slapped her hands against the coverlet in emphasis. “You may think this sort of opportunity will come every month of your young life, but as your mother I am here to tell you, that will sadly not be the case. He?s about to inherit quite a fortune—and a man never forgets the girl who stands beside him in troubled times.”
“Well, I?m afraid I don?t like him anymore” was Astrid?s haughty reply.
Her mother cleared her throat and took a long time folding up the newspaper. Once she had put it aside, she gave her daughter what was probably intended as a compassionate look. “Who was she?”
“What?”
“Who was the girl?” The third Mrs. Marsh sighed patiently and pushed back the covers, turning so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor. “And did you catch him with her, or is it only an intuition?”
Astrid hung her head. A sheaf of blond hair covered her face. “Gracie Northrup.”
Her mother groaned. “Gracie Northrup? Her grandfather was a peanut farmer.”
“I know,” Astrid wailed into her hands. “I mean, I didn?t know, but what does that matter? It?s only—there he was, on top of her!”
“Oh, dear. Oh, there, there,” her mother cooed, taking Astrid by the hand and pulling her daughter so that they were sitting side by side on the bed. “He?s a lousy cad, dear, but they?re all like that. Don?t worry—you?ll get used to it, and you?ll get yours. There. Do cry a little, it will make you feel better, but don?t rub your eyes too much; they?ll get red and leave wrinkles.” Astrid?s mother sighed and brushed her daughter?s hair with her fingers. “Cry a little, and then we?ll go to Bendel?s, all right? We?ll get you the things you need for your wardrobe while we remain in the city, and if you want—only if you want—we?ll get you a very smart black dress to wear tomorrow, if you decide to go …”
“I don?t want to,” Astrid blubbered into her mother?s satiny shoulder.
“And no one is saying you have to! But come, darling, really, you will feel so much better once you are wearing something feminine and new …”
There were a few sobs left in her, and she let them out, punctuating the final one with a hiccup. “All right,” Astrid said eventually, wiping the moisture from her wishbone cheeks. “All right, let?s go to Bendel?s.”
“Good girl,” her mother replied, clapping her hands.
They dressed and crossed Fifth Avenue, where they were taken to a private room, and over several hours they selected precisely the items that Virginia Donal de Gruyter Marsh had suggested earlier: two dresses for daytime, two for night, a cropped jacket, a long cardigan, two pairs of heels, two pairs of flats, various undergarments, a cloche, a sunhat, and a beret. Plus a black crepe dress with pleated skirt and wide boatneck, and a broad-brimmed black hat with a velvet band and several gleaming black feathers. Astrid?s mother had been right; the Marsh account had not been suspended. Afterward, they had lunch at the Colony and charged a bottle of white wine and two orders of lamb chops to Harrison, as well.
When they stepped back onto the street, Astrid felt a little dizzy but also distinctly refreshed. The afternoon sky had begun to pale, and she caught sight of an afternoon edition hanging from a newsstand. There was a large picture of Darius that was at least a few years old—he was standing on the terrace at Dogwood in a summer-weight white suit, with his hands in his trouser pockets, his eyes squinting in the sun, and a half smile on his face. Below that, there was a smaller picture of Charlie in his green roadster, and beside that was one of Cordelia, unsmiling, stepping out of a limousine in front of the Plaza and looking straight at the photographer. Some irreverence went out of the afternoon for Astrid when she saw that picture of the girl she had begun to think of as her best friend.
“Oh, let?s take a cab, don?t you think?” her mother said, already moving to hail one.
“Yes,” Astrid agreed, though they were only a few blocks from the hotel and she suspected the walking might do her good.
She could scarcely remember her own father—he had still been at West Point when he and her mother had married, and then he had perished somewhere in France during the Great War, although she?d never been told much about it. “He died in a ditch,” her mother had said unceremoniously some years after the fact, when a young Astrid had woken up during a cocktail party, having had a dream about him. From photographs, she knew that he was handsome, and blond like her, but that was all. She suspected it was different for Cordelia—Cordelia had dreamed of meeting her father her whole life, but as soon as she had, he?d gone away.
The poor girl must feel like she had no family, which was just how it had always been for Astrid, and suddenly she disliked herself for being such a brat.
“Astrid!” her mother shouted, a little too loudly, as she stepped into a cab.
“I?m going to the funeral, after all,” Astrid told her as she climbed in after her mother.
“Oh, that?s wonderful, darling.” Her mother crinkled her eyes in Astrid?s direction, the same way she used to when Astrid was young and had performed well doing jumps with her pony at the White Cove Country Club while Narcissa and Cora Phipps were watching. “Remind me to call the florist?s when we get back to the hotel and have a big arrangement sent over!”