Astrid had never ridden on a commuter train before. It was shabby, she had to admit, but she rather liked being surrounded by people and hearing all their voices blur acrimoniously together. She liked the names of the places they were passing, too, and she rested her cheek against the window, listening as the conductors informed them that they were in places called Hunters Point, Woodside, Corona … At Flushing, the woman who insisted it was all about love got out, and her friend exited at the stop after that. When the conductor made the announcement for White Cove, Astrid was almost surprised; even once she‧d stepped out on the platform, it didn‧t look remotely like the White Cove she knew.
She pressed the wide-brimmed black hat to her head and bent backward to see that the seams of her stockings were straight. Before she could really worry that she might have to walk to her destination, a cab pulled up.
“Where to, miss?” the driver asked, as she climbed into the backseat.
“To Dogwood, please,” she said, looking down at her black wrist-length gloves to avoid the stare she knew this would invite. After a minute, he started the engine, and they rolled on through the leafy suburban roads.
As they approached the Greys’ place, she saw great, black silk bows dotting the high iron fence. Danny was at the guardhouse, and his face was puffy, and she knew that he‧d been up all night drinking and was now in the worst way. A machine gun was slung over his arm, and he did not smile when he saw her approaching.
“No cars allowed,” he said to the driver, so Astrid paid the man, thanked him, and got out.
“You missed the service,” Danny said coldly once the car had backed up and gone away down the road in the direction from which they‧d come.
“Oh, dear.” Astrid bit her lip. She had known she was going to be late; one might almost say she had planned to be, because she‧d gone on putting herself together even when she knew it would mean missing the 11:31 train from Penn Station. She hadn‧t really wanted to get there in time to be at Charlie‧s side. She had, however, hoped to creep up and take Cordelia‧s hand, just before they lowered her father into the ground. “Where was it?”
“In the ballroom. There‧ll be a reception after the burial—they made a plot over by the orchard.” He paused and pointed. “You got me in a world of trouble, miss,” he added, his voice cracking. As he said it, he kept his face directed up the hill and his eyes away from her.
“I‧m sorry, Danny,” she said softly. “I‧ll make it up to you later.”
She smoothed her skirt and walked up the hill. She cut across the lawn, and when she came over the rise just to the south side of the house, she saw the procession coming down the steps. Charlie was among the pallbearers in black suits who ferried the white coffin. Just behind them Cordelia walked alone, followed by Elias Jones and a herd of people clad in black, some of whom were customers and some of whom were colleagues. Astrid caught up with them right before they entered the allée of elm trees. Cordelia kept her chin up and her gaze steady on the back of her father‧s coffin, but without saying anything, she reached for her friend. Any outside observer would have said she looked preternaturally calm, but as the girls came side by side, Cordelia put her weight on the latecomer, and Astrid suddenly felt how unsteady she in fact was.
They didn‧t speak until after the ceremony. Astrid watched in silence as Cordelia and Charlie shoveled dirt over their father‧s grave. The sunshine was bright—each day was warmer than the one that preceded it now—and the pallbearers’ shirts had become soaked with sweat under the armpits. Charlie tried to catch Astrid‧s eye a few times, but she kept her gaze resolutely on the coffin, and then when the group of mourners turned back toward the house, she put her arm around Cordelia‧s waist.
“I am so sorry,” Astrid said, brushing a few strands of Cordelia‧s hair behind her ear once they were back in the ballroom, where refreshments were being served and people had begun to talk again. Towering floral arrangements lined the room, many of them from the city‧s finest hotels and oldest families. The largest had been sent by Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Marsh II.
Cordelia glanced at her. She had those washed-out eyes that are the product of many tears, and her chapped lips twitched at the corners, as though she were trying to smile but couldn‧t. “Oh, Astrid, you have no idea how awful …”
“I know, baby.” Astrid sighed and puffed out her pink lips. “I know, I know.”
The French doors of the ballroom were thrown open so that the mourners could gaze out on Dogwood‧s gorgeous vistas, those vast, exquisite grounds that Grey‧s illegal dealings had reaped. Women in slim black dresses glanced about, seeing who else was there, and men talked with one another quietly but still with more verve than was really appropriate for a funeral. Some of them did not seem particularly bereaved, Astrid realized; they had come because it was a curiosity and a local event of much interest, and she couldn‧t help but feel a little bad for Charlie, who was accepting condolences on the other side of the room. Meanwhile, she huddled with Cordelia by the grand piano, and whenever anyone glided too close to the girls, Astrid shot an uninviting look their way.
“I think I need to lie down,” Cordelia said after a while. “Could you walk me up to my room?”
“Yes,” Astrid said immediately.
As they crossed the waxed floor of the ballroom through the mingling guests, she let her gaze rise from her shoes and dart backward, to the place where Charlie stood surrounded by men in dark suits. His eyes were sad and tired, and they followed her as she passed through the double doors, his brows drawing tenderly together and his lips parting as though he wanted to call out to her. But she looked away quickly and let Cordelia lean on her as they went up the stairs.
“Can I get you anything?” Astrid asked once they stood on the threshold of Cordelia‧s room.
“No, nothing. I‧m just so very, very tired.” Cordelia walked slowly to the bed, unpinning her hair and sinking down into the pillows. “Go take care of Charlie,” she said after a moment, without opening her eyes.
Backing out of the room, Astrid nodded, as though this was exactly what she had planned to do, when in fact she was already considering various routes out of the house that might save her from coming face-to-face with Cordelia‧s brother. Quietly, she pulled the door into its frame, and then with a sigh, turned around. There, down the hall near the stairwell, stood Charlie, his legs wide apart and his back slightly hunched, waiting for her. Neither said anything for a moment, and she lifted her chin and walked straight for the stairs, as though she didn‧t see him at all.
Just as she was about to pass, he reached for her arm, and while she did make an effort to brush off his grip, she didn‧t struggle. “Astrid …,” he said in a low, broken voice.
“I am very sorry for your loss,” she replied with prim formality, holding her head so that her profile was to him. “But I cannot feel pity for you just now, so I think it‧s better not to speak at all.”
“Astrid, don‧t give me any trouble,” he pleaded, sinking onto his knees and wrapping his arms around her legs and laying his face against her stomach. “Not now.”
From above, she contemplated his head of polished hair, rested like a naughty child‧s against her middle section and probably ruining her brand-new dress. He was so helpless and harmless like that, and no matter how she tried, she could not maintain the disgust she‧d felt for him a few seconds before. Already, it was slipping.
“Oh, Charlie,” she said in a weary, hopeless way, thinking of the tragedy that had befallen him, and the betrayal he had committed against her, and the sad story of the girl in the room at the end of the hall. “Come on,” she urged, and helped pull him back up to his feet.
Silently they walked together to his room. For a moment she did feel sick again, the way she had the last time she‧d stood on that spot, but there was something purifying about seeing his brass bed neatly made and empty of any strange girls, almost as though there had never been one there. She walked over to it and lay down o
n her back. He wavered in the doorway a minute, his big body framed by the afternoon light falling from the high windows of the front facade. Then, with a few long strides, he crossed the room, fell down beside her, and began to weep. He buried his head against her breast and wrapped his arm tight around her waist, so that she felt his shaking as he soaked her dress with tears.
“Don‧t ever leave again,” he said, when he was done crying. “Promise me you won‧t ever leave again.”
“Charlie!” she exclaimed. “The last time I saw you—”
“I didn‧t mean it. That was nothing. That was a real moron thing to do, and I‧ll never do anything like that again,” he replied in a quick burst. “I‧m sorry—can‧t you see I‧m sorry?” he went on, almost shouting. “Don‧t you believe me?”
Astrid rolled her big eyes toward the windows, which framed a green-and-blue slice of the landscape. She didn‧t know if she believed him or not—it did not suddenly seem like a very interesting question—and her thoughts returned to the night before, and how she and her mother had danced with two sailors on the St. Regis rooftop and afterward gone down in the elevator, shrieking, to hail them a cab. Whose idea that was or how long it had taken, she couldn‧t remember, although she had a distinct memory of standing on a pier somewhat later, in a shell pink evening gown, and waving up toward someone on the deck of a very high ship.
“Astrid?”
Charlie was staring up at her with pleading eyes. He pushed himself up and took her face in his hands, and began to press his lips against hers. At first she didn‧t want him to, but then something in her stirred and she began to taste the sweetness of his kisses.
“Charlie,” she said, pushing him back. “You don‧t—you don‧t think she‧s prettier than me, do you?”
“Gracie?” For the first time that day, Charlie let out something like a laugh, albeit a brutal one. “She‧s a dog. You—you—you‧re the most beautiful girl I know!”
Tears had begun to collect at the corners of Astrid‧s eyes, but she tried not to look like the last of her fury was dissolving as quickly as in fact it was. “Swear it,” she commanded.
A pause followed, during which Charlie remained motionless, blinking at her, his large palm resting against her hip. Then he stood up, hovering over her in shirtsleeves—he must have left his jacket down in the ballroom—looking very broad and very serious and, despite the solemnity of the occasion and all the many things he had done wrong, very handsome.
Then he sank to one knee and picked up her small, gloved hand. “Astrid Donal, will you marry me?”
Her bottom lip fell, and her black lashes batted back and forth in confusion. “Marry you?”
“Yes. I don‧t have a ring or anything yet, but I‧ll get you a big one, whatever kind you want. Only, don‧t ever leave. I want you to be mine. Forever. Okay?” He bent, so that his head was resting over her hand. “Just say you will.”
She drew her fingers along the back of his thick neck. Suddenly she knew she couldn‧t go back to living in hotels or traveling around Europe where divorcées with high standards of living could get by cheaply. The thing to do, she knew, was to draw her answer out, let him get nervous, punish him a little for what he‧d done. But already she was picturing the big ring he was going to get her, and her lips had spread into a soft smile, so there was no point in saying anything but yes. He did love her, despite his actions to the contrary.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes?” He stood and picked her up, holding her close at the chest and swinging her feet off the ground. She was just seventeen, and he was twenty, and she was going to spend the rest of her life with him.
Perhaps there was still bitterness in the remote chambers of Astrid‧s heart. But she had never felt so safe as she did held up in those big arms, and anyway, despite the sadness of the day, the air was warm and alive, and her body was light and comfortable. If she had wanted to, she could have gone on making trouble. But she didn‧t want to. She was relieved that she could stay here, in this house, and be Charlie‧s, and never have to worry about anything ever again.
28
“IT‧S NOT YOUR FAULT, DANNY,” CORDELIA SAID FROM the driver‧s seat of the Marmon coupe he had somehow or other secured for her, in a voice that made her sound entirely sure and controlled, even though her heart was like a butterfly trapped in a jar. Danny was standing by the guardhouse, his hat tipped down over his face, as though he wanted to hide from the world. Instead of responding, he glanced back up the hill crested by the roof of Dogwood, where the wake was still being held despite the encroaching velvety darkness.
“What‧ve you talked me into?” he muttered.
She ignored him. “Whatever you do, don‧t tell them you‧ve seen me, all right?”
He nodded and said, “Take care of yourself, Miss Grey.”
When she had gone a little ways up the road, she turned the headlights on and picked up speed. She had learned to drive when she was twelve—her uncle had not been precious about it—but she‧d never been behind the wheel in clothes like these. Her long hair was slick against her skull and tied back in a hard bun, and her body was covered in a dress of champagne-colored silk, cut in the preferred style of young women who frequented nightclubs: A long, fitted torso was suspended by thin straps, but the skirt flowed out below the hips, with enough frothy volume that no one would notice a flask or two hidden in a garter belt.
Now that she was driving faster, the breeze chilled her bare shoulders. She was thankful for this, for it numbed some of the sadness and self-loathing. She had always had a fine sense of geography, and had picked up the lay of the land in White Cove just from driving around with Charlie and Thom. But it was different to be in control of the car herself, navigating the narrow roads, and that calmed her.
The sign for Avalon, the Duluth Hale residence, came up sooner than she had anticipated. Already she could smell the sound over on the other side of the property and hear the voices rising up from the party Thom‧s mother had thrown, despite—or maybe because of—the tragedy at Dogwood. This thought caused a bitter twist in her stomach, but she put on a smile as she left the car on the lawn and went through the gated opening in the high stone wall.
“Do you have an invitation, little lady?”
She held the gaze of the guard. “I‧m a guest of Thom Hale‧s.”
He looked over his shoulder at a second guard. “Escort her up, and ask Thom if she‧s okay.”
As they walked across a manicured stretch of green, she contemplated the house, all lit up for the occasion. The white shingled structure was perhaps not as castle-like as the Greys’ place, but its wings and satellite buildings spread out like great, encompassing arms.
There was much noise inside. A band was playing, and there were conversations from every corner. Heads turned toward Cordelia as she glided through a grand ballroom that was obviously in more frequent use than the one at Dogwood. Perhaps that was because Duluth Hale‧s wife was still around, and she did not run her household like a sleepaway camp for a gang of boys. Some of the faces were familiar to Cordelia; they were people who had been just as happy to drink Darius Grey‧s liquor whenever he opened his property to them. But she did not dwell on this, and only followed the guard down a sweeping flight of limestone steps onto a grand patio that faced the water.
Avalon had its own pier, from which small vessels came and went, ferrying guests to shore, illuminated in the darkness by tiny electric bulbs strung up their masts. There was a second band playing on the patio, although the mood near the lapping water, under a bridal arch of stars, was more languid and romantic. The dancing was less frenetic here, and couples swayed together in the subdued shadow of the house.
“Mr. Hale!” the guard called out, and then a tall figure, who‧d been facing the black water with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets, turned around. His patrician lips parted, and his eyes became soft at the edges, in a show of sorrow that some foolish, feminine part of her believed in. “She says
she‧s yours.”
“Yes—she‧s mine.” Thom nodded and the man left.
For a moment the two stood there, a yard of air and all the things they‧d never told each other between them. She let her brash mouth spread and lengthen. It was a smile that said, despite everything, I know you.
“Aren‧t you going to ask me to dance?”
“Would you like to dance?” he replied, in a gradual, concerned way.
The touch of his hand, subtle and familiar at the small of her back, caused a flutter in her chest. She bent her elbow and rested her hand just below his neck, letting him lead her forward onto the floor. People had noticed the couple by then, and they were inclining toward each other to say, “Isn‧t that Grey‧s daughter?” and “What‧s she doing here, after all that‧s happened?”
Thom‧s cheek was inches away from hers, and she could feel the smooth warmth of his skin when it occasionally brushed her own. “Are you cold?”
“No, not at all.”
“I‧m sorry I couldn‧t call,” he went on, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I wanted to know if you were all right. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was. I wanted to tell you that no matter what rumors you hear, I had no part in—”