Beautiful Days

  “Ah,” her mother announced, “the Duchess of Malden is here.”

  For a moment Astrid remained at the vanity, drawing her fingers over her wishbone cheeks and along her taut little neck. She was especially pretty that summer, and suddenly it did seem a shame—a tiny one—that Charlie should be the only beneficiary of her radiance. Astrid’s ears rung and her skin itched, as they always did when her mother said something logical. Then she quickly blackened her lashes and fluffed her hair.

  “That is quite a dress,” the older woman said, in a tone that was equal parts admiring and disdainful, as she watched the latest arrivals parading from their car to the house. Astrid stood and joined her mother by the window. Already several cars were parked on the front lawn; out beyond them the sun was going down over Long Island Sound. On the first floor of the house, her mother’s guests would be ordering their first round of aperitifs and growing rosy as they waited for their hostess. “And that must be the Irish boxer she has escorting her these days.”

  At first Astrid was disappointed to realize that the boxer in question was a man and not a puppy, but as the couple crossed the lawn, she found that she did want to know more about them both. They were undoubtedly worthy of collection. The duchess was wearing a gown of cerise chiffon, which showed off her calves but trailed behind her almost to her ankles. A gold turban covered her hair. Her limbs were so long and delicate and English that she seemed hardly able to stand up on her own, and she leaned heavily on the large fellow next to her, who was handsome despite the fact that his face appeared to have been rearranged once or twice.

  “I thought you would have wanted me to marry Charlie,” Astrid said quietly as she and her mother watched the couple disappear into the foyer below. It would never have occurred to her to do anything to please her mother, but their conversation by the vanity had left her feeling muddled and confused for reasons she could scarcely understand.

  “Oh, darling, I want whatever makes you most happy.” Her mother turned from the window, so that the last of the daylight lit up the edges of her features, and sighed. “Only—think about what I said. It has always been my wish that you will benefit from my mistakes.”

  And there have been a lot of those, Astrid briefly considered replying. But her mother really was being unusually decent, and it seemed unsporting to reply harshly. By now the wheels in Astrid’s head were turning, and she was beginning to wonder if a husband wasn’t always an encumbrance, no matter how shiny and tall. “Thanks, Mummy, I promise I’ll think about it very carefully.”

  As they descended the stairs toward the party, Astrid even reached out for her mother’s hand, and the two exchanged a fleeting smile of understanding. A quarter of an hour ago, all she had wanted was to get the evening over with so she could be with Charlie, but now she wanted to stay here at Marsh Hall as long as there was laughter.

  “Ah, you see,” Virginia whispered, lifting their joined hands as they descended the final stair. “I needn’t have worried about it being too serious. He hasn’t even given you an engagement ring!”

  Then the third Mrs. Marsh let go of her daughter’s hand and stepped forward into the room with her arms raised. “Oh, you’ve all arrived early, you good little darlings!” she crowed as she began circling the room and planting kisses on her guests’ faces.

  Astrid hesitated a minute in the door frame, looking at her naked finger. It was a pretty finger, but now it looked sad and neglected to her.

  “And this, I presume, is your beautiful daughter,” the Duchess of Malden said in her crisp accent.

  Astrid glanced up. The Englishwoman’s eyebrows were painted on in high arcs.

  “We hear you are engaged to a bootlegger. How entertaining! You must tell us everything.”

  The other faces in the parlor turned toward the doorway, their expressions frozen in happy expectation.

  “I am!” Astrid smiled brilliantly, to distract from her lonely finger. She suddenly wondered if other people had noticed and secretly felt sorry for her, calling herself engaged when there was no jewelry to prove it. “But he’s a bore. I’m the bright one, so you see you are very lucky because tonight I’m not interested in telling you a single thing about Charlie Grey, and all I want to talk about is me, me, me!”

  Everyone laughed and raised their glasses to the young girl. At just that moment around White Cove, groups like this one were coalescing, and who knew what modish clothing would be removed or bizarre confessions made in the course of the evening. The Irish boxer cracked a grin, and Astrid caught a flash of gold amongst his disordered teeth. A little steel settled in her heart, for she wasn’t the kind of girl who hurried off to anybody, especially if that somebody wasn’t in the habit of buying engagement rings.

  Chapter 3

  “OH, TERRIBLY SORRY!” LETTY LARKSPUR EXCLAIMED, even though the man with the straw boater perched far back on his head had, in truth, knocked into her. Perhaps she seemed somehow unworthy of acknowledgment; maybe her lack of height, or something about her dress, marked her as a humble and inconsequential kind of girl. In any event, he went on ignoring her, positioning himself so that he separated Letty from her friend Cordelia. At the center of the circle stood Cordelia’s brother, Charlie, in a lemon yellow suit, loudly telling a story and waving a half-full mint julep around. There was something she secretly disliked about Charlie’s stories, and she had more or less given up trying to follow this one.

  All across the vast, low-lying lawn, young people in summer-weight suits and little white shifts gathered in groups, laughing and eating fried chicken from china plates. It was the Fourth of July, but a Fourth of July party hosted by Astrid’s swanky friends was unlike any Independence Day celebration Letty had ever witnessed. The hosts lived in a gigantic white house with tall columns on both sides, and their substantial grounds had been given over to the cause of celebration. A large band played animatedly on a wooden platform, but the sun was still high in the sky and it was too hot for anyone to really consider dancing. A few billowy clouds hung over the reflective water, threatening nothing. The sky was a very rich blue.

  Letty leaned forward, trying to catch Cordelia’s eye to see if she might want to walk down by the shore and look at the boats. But the man in the pink seersucker was guffawing and slapping his knee now, so it was difficult to get a proper view.

  “Oh, well,” Letty sighed out loud. And when Cordelia didn’t look over, Letty turned and walked down toward the water alone.

  She supposed she ought to hang on Charlie’s stories the way everyone else did, and of course it was very grand of him to let her live with Cordelia in the beautifully decorated suite on the third floor of Dogwood, and to eat the food and wear the clothes his criminal activities paid for. But she had never been able to shake her first impression of Charlie, when he had mocked her for being surprised by the taste of beer. Of course she had never tasted beer before—up until then, her name had been Letitia Haubstadt, and she had lived according to the strict rules of the dairy-farming Haubstadt family of Union, Ohio, which made no allowances for soda pop, much less alcohol.

  She could still hear him as she meandered over the grass toward the high reeds that marked the edges of the estate. Beyond them sand stretched out to the glassy surface of the cove, and she began to smell the salt water and hear the sounds of birds. In this part of the world even the wildness appeared contained and somehow genteel, and when she stood here, alone, with her spectator heels half sunk in the ground and her pleated white skirt blown against her legs by the wind, she was able to imagine, just for a moment, that she was one of those fancy girls who laughed so easily with boys in blazers whom they’d known since childhood.

  “Miss Letty, we haven’t received your RSVP for the garden party!” she tried to imagine Cass Beaumont (to whom Astrid had briefly attempted to introduce Letty on their way in, before being distracted by a classmate) calling to her. And then Letty would widen her eyes, lower her bottom lip slightly, and gasp that she was so sorry, it was on
ly that she’d had such an unusual number of invitations that month—it was an oversight, and she would see to it immediately.

  “Letty—is that you?”

  It took her several seconds to realize that this time someone really had said her name. Blushing despite her best efforts, she turned to see who might possibly have recognized her among all these fine folks. When she saw him, half of her wanted to leap in joy at the sight of a familiar face, and the other half recoiled in shame for what the writer Grady Lodge, emerging improbably from among the White Cove gentry, knew about her.

  The last time she’d seen him was the worst day she had spent in New York yet—she had lost her job and been thrown out of her apartment, her head hurt on account of drinking gin, and she was facing the unhappy prospect of returning to Ohio and all her father’s wrath. Grady had been the only person she could think of who was kind, and she had been searching for him to ask for help. But when she found him he’d had a pretty lady on his arm, and she had not had the courage to interrupt. And Grady knew more about her than that—he knew she’d been taken in by a snake in the grass named Amory Glenn, who purported to be a theatrical producer but who was in fact a letch. He also knew that for a while she’d worked as a cigarette girl, which was not something she’d thought to feel ashamed of until she started going to parties like these ones, where everyone belonged to a country club and knew each other from boarding school.

  For another few moments she blinked her lashes and straightened her spine and tried to look like a Miss Porter’s girl. But then she saw the way Grady was smiling at her, and her face broke into a smile back. They had never so much as kissed, but she’d known from the way he used to watch her from his bar stool at Seventh Heaven that he fancied her, and it was pleasant to be admired again. The sun had turned his fair skin a little pink, which made his hair appear especially light. It was parted down the middle and rose up on either side, and he was wearing an ivory suit not unlike those favored by the other young men at the party. Although his eyes were set deep in his face, they had a fine, clear quality that had always made her trust him. There was no pretending not to know him now, for he had come forward and taken her hand and kissed it.

  “Why, Miss Larkspur, I thought we’d lost you for good.”

  “No, no . . . it’s only that I thought I’d try the country for a while.”

  “It suits you.” Grady beamed. “Shall I ask you how you came to be here, or would I be wiser not to count my blessings?”

  Letty’s little mouth hung open, but before she could begin to explain, she saw a woman approaching over Grady’s shoulder. Her thoughts scattered when she realized it was the same woman he had greeted on that cruel sidewalk. Clusters of diamonds and pearls dangled from her earlobes and shone from her wrists, and her skirt swished confidently over her feminine thighs. Letty stepped backward, thinking that perhaps Grady would not want his new girl to see him talking to his old crush. But this step did not result in her being any less conspicuous. She felt her shoe sinking into the soft, muddy ground at the edge of the reeds and her arms flailed gracelessly.

  “Careful!” Grady reached out and pulled her back to more solid ground.

  Meanwhile, the woman with russet hair had arrived at his side. Her eyes, wide with curiosity, moved back and forth between Letty and Grady, whose strong arm was still holding her up. Letty’s breath began to settle and her heart to slow to normal, and though she knew the appropriate thing to do would be to draw away from him, she remained as she was, leaning on him for support.

  “Dorothy, this is a friend of mine.” Grady’s lady friend did not seem in the least put out by the presence of another female; her red lips bent upward into a sincere smile. The rather pathetic thought that she herself must not look like much of a threat was just beginning to dawn on Letty when Grady announced: “Letty Larkspur, meet my sister, Dorothy Cobb.”

  “Oh!” A moment ago Letty had been embarrassed by the sight of Grady Lodge—but now the revelation that the girl she’d believed to be the object of his affection was in fact a relation filled her with relief. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she went on, taking Dorothy’s hand and shaking it perhaps more exuberantly than was necessary.

  “Not the Letty?” said Dorothy.

  “Yes.” Grady gave Letty a sheepish look. “I’ve told Mrs. Cobb a thing or two about you, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s all right!” Letty had spent the morning feeling almost invisible amongst the crowd, and being recognized even in this tiny way made her smile genuine and wide. “Grady was one of the first people to be kind to me when I arrived in the city.”

  “Oh—you’re not from New York, then?”

  “No, I—” Letty broke off and glanced at Grady, wondering what exactly he’d told her, if the part about running away from Ohio had not been included. “Not originally,” she concluded vaguely.

  “Well,” Dorothy replied, with exaggerated politesse, “it’s certainly wonderful to have finally met you.”

  She bowed her polished head and turned to walk back across the lawn, where she was quickly intercepted by a woman similarly adorned with jewels.

  “My sister married Stillwell Cobb, of the logging fortune Cobbs, hence the invitation to this soiree.” Only now did he let go of Letty’s arm. He put his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight forward and back on his heels. “She’s pretty well taken care of, as you can see.”

  “Yes, I do see.” So that was how Grady Lodge, who wrote short stories for little publications, came to be here at the Beaumonts’ on the Fourth of July.

  Letty averted her eyes self-consciously and pressed her palms into her white cotton skirt, smoothing out wrinkles that may or may not have been visible to the human eye. “Would you like to go down by the shore and watch the boats come and go with me?”

  “Nothing would suit me better.” Grady laced his arm through hers again and they began to amble slowly along the water’s edge. “But you must tell me—and start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out—everything that has happened to you since last we met . . .”

  Should she include the part about how Amory Glenn had slapped her face and insisted that she remove her clothes before an audience of howling men, or the long night she had spent alone in Pennsylvania Station wondering what would become of her? A mere glimpse of these memories made her cheeks sting, her pride ache. She took a breath of salty air and changed the subject by pointing at a passing waiter. “Would you like a drink, Mr. Lodge?”

  “No, thank you. I am perfectly content with my state of mind as is, Miss Larkspur.” Perhaps he saw how this made Letty blush, for in the next moment he added: “Plus, in my profession, when one is in a new social situation, one likes to have one’s wits about them, the better to observe.”

  They had reached the part of the lawn closest to the water and sat down on one of the beautiful blankets that had been spread out for the after-dark fireworks display.

  “Is that what you write about? Rich people spending carefree afternoons . . .” When she heard her words said out loud, they had a harsh sound that surprised her—all afternoon she had been intimidated by the gorgeous opulence of the Beaumonts’ party, and she still felt a little like a child staring through the plate glass at a sweet shop display that she hadn’t the coins to indulge in.

  Grady looked amused. “Among other things. But I’m still learning. I don’t know what my subject will be when I become a real writer.”

  “How do you know when you’re a real writer?”

  His deep-set gray eyes twinkled and he sighed self-deprecatingly. “I don’t know. I certainly spend plenty of time at my writing desk. When people are begging me to let them print my newest story instead of me begging them to read it, I guess.”

  “I’d like to call myself a real singer . . .” Letty shrugged and turned her eyes toward the blue expanse above them and trailed off. But as she fidgeted with her hem, considering whether to finish the thought, she sensed that he was watching he
r intently, and this made her feel she really should say something more. “But I can’t do that until I have a band to sing with, can I?”

  “Ah, but I’ve heard you sing, and you do it beautifully—a band won’t make you any more or less a singer.”

  Letty smiled faintly and turned her face away from the compliment. “I haven’t read any of your stories, but still—I might say the same to you.”

  “Fair enough.” Grady returned her smile. “You are a real singer and I am a real writer—and may we both find grander stages soon.”

  There was something handsomer in the architecture of Grady’s face than the last time she’d seen him, and she wanted to go on staring at it, to pinpoint exactly what that quality was and give it a name. Something inside her, despite her upbringing, even wanted to flirtatiously tell him about it . . . but instead she just smiled.

  And then she heard another girl, from quite close range, echoing her thoughts. “Grady Lodge, how very handsome you are this afternoon!”

  As the sun-drenched afternoon came back into focus, Letty comprehended first Grady’s boyish features and—when she turned her eyes toward the ground—Peachy Whitburn. She had thrown herself down on the blanket in between Letty and Grady, so that her strawberry-blond hair was fanned around her aristocratic face. Her nose formed a long, straight vertical line, and her lips made a long, straight horizontal one. She’d rested her hands on the chest of her eyelet shift and crossed her ankles so that her high-heeled, tan-and-white oxfords were placed rakishly close together, and there was a hint of amusement lurking below the surface of her expression. It twisted her face on one side, as though she were hiding a sour cherry in the corner of her mouth.

  “Letty Larkspur,” Grady said, “meet Peachy Whitburn.”

  Peachy offered a beautifully manicured hand for Letty to shake. “Awfully pleased to meet you,” she replied, without a hint of recognition, even though they had already been introduced by Astrid in the Beaumonts’ foyer. “How long are you in White Cove?” she went on, returning her attention to Grady.