She didn’t know how to serve, really. She’d been pressed into duty today because Hannah, the more senior housemaid, whose job it was to attend the family in the dining room (along with beetle-browed Eunice, who bore a plate of sliced goose at the other side of the table) had taken sick after lunch and was now confined to her room upstairs. At home, even before Olive’s father died, meals had been a much more casual affair, served all at once instead of fashionably à la russe, in separate courses, as the Pratts insisted on dining even when en famille. Mrs. Keane had given her a two-minute course of instruction. Serve on the left, pick up on the right (well, she knew that much already; she wasn’t a barbarian), and never, ever disturb the family while they’re eating. Or talking. Or listening to someone else talk. How Olive was supposed to serve and clear up six different courses (soup, fish, meat, game, roast, salad, dessert) without once intruding herself on the family’s notice, Mrs. Keane never quite made clear.
The peas were heavy, swimming in a thick cream broth. August went on talking and gesticulating (something about railroads, or banks, or perhaps both) and paying her not the slightest notice. The fire sizzled and popped a few yards away, and Olive felt the first trickle of perspiration begin its slow, inevitable journey down her temple. In another moment, it would either roll underneath her jaw or drop from the edge of her chin. Possibly into the peas themselves.
“Gus, you big lummox, the peas are to your left,” said Harry Pratt.
Harry.
She had done her best to ignore the third man at the table, radiant and laconic in sleek black dinner dress, though his burnished hair kept catching the electric light, as if (so it seemed to Olive, anyway) to signal her, or else to taunt her. Every time she leaned next to his shoulder, offering him the newest dish to arrive steaming in the dumbwaiter, she felt the warmth of his neck on her arm, and smelled the curious mixture of pomade and shaving soap that characterized his evenings; every time she passed around the other side of the table, his face would half turn toward her, catching her gaze in an amused way that communicated the length and breadth of their secret in a single instant. (She snapped her eyes away at once, of course, but never soon enough.)
Harry.
“What’s that?” said August, wineglass raised.
Harry nodded at Olive. “The peas, idiot.”
August jerked to the left, knocking his elbow into the dish. Olive staggered and caught herself, while the creamy pea ocean sloshed dangerously to the edge of its Meissen shore.
“Clumsy girl,” said Mrs. Pratt.
“She wasn’t clumsy,” said Harry. “Gus was the clumsy ox who knocked into her. Are you all right, Olive?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How on earth do you keep all their names straight?” said Mrs. Pratt. “Especially the new ones.”
“Not difficult at all when they’re as pretty as this one,” said Mr. Pratt. “Eh, Olive?”
Olive’s cheeks burned. She righted herself, steadied the sloshing of the bowl, and then hesitated at August’s unpredictable elbow, not certain whether he had actually rejected the peas or forgotten she was there.
Mrs. Pratt said icily, “Well, as far as I’m concerned, I can’t tell them apart. I suppose it’s different for you gentlemen.” There was a slight ironic weight on the word gentlemen.
“For God’s sake, Gus, spoon yourself some peas and let poor Olive continue on her way,” said Harry.
“Poor Olive, is it? Friend of yours?” demanded Gus, in his voice that sounded like cigar smoke passed over gravel. He shared Harry’s golden good looks, but already his excessive habits were beginning to grind down and tarnish the gifts nature had bestowed on him. He ate too much and drank too much and—judging from that voice—smoked too much. In another hour, he would be off in a cab, visiting a series of establishments and acquaintances that knew him all too well, each one lower and rougher than the last. In another year, his last football season a distant memory, he would start churning all that robust muscle into fat.
Meanwhile, August, ignorant of either the corpulent future that awaited him or of Olive’s nearby disapproval, plunged the silver serving spoon deep into the creamed peas, carried them perilously to his plate, and went back for another spoonful.
“It’s not so different, is it?” Mr. Pratt was saying to his wife. “A gentleman notices a pretty woman, and I understand it’s much the same for the ladies. Noticing a pretty fellow. Don’t you think, Mrs. Pratt?”
Mrs. Pratt pressed her lips together and stared at her plate.
Mr. Pratt smiled and turned to his daughter. “Isn’t that so, Prunella? Your fiancé is handsome enough, for all he’s twice as old as you are.”
“Yes, Papa,” said Miss Pratt. That was all Olive had ever heard her say: Yes, Papa and Yes, Mama, and sometimes the opposite, when the occasion called for respectful negation. If Prunella Pratt had formed any chance opinions of her own in her eighteen years on this earth, she kept them to herself. The other housemaids liked to moan about her—she’ll catch you out; she likes to stir up trouble—but housemaids were always moaning about something, weren’t they?
“You see, my dear?” Mr. Pratt directed his jowly, bland face back to his wife. “It seems a woman’s head can be turned by a handsome face after all. Who’d have thought it?”
“Speaking of Prunella’s unfortunate victim,” Harry said, a little quickly, “does he have any idea what’s waiting for him at this engagement ball you’re planning? I happened to meet him yesterday over at Perry Belmont’s place, and he seems to be under the impression that it’s just a small family New Year’s Eve kind of thing. Bottle of champagne and canapés and everybody kisses at midnight. Won’t he be surprised by those swans? Ha-ha. Why, thank you, Olive. I believe I would enjoy a dollop of those delightful peas you’re offering.”