It’s just not how things are done.
“According to whom?” I’d asked, not bothering to hide my pique, and he’d simply shaken his head and left the room. Perhaps to pour himself a drink. Or perhaps feeling as weary of our distance, of our misunderstandings, as I myself felt.
But I could no longer listen to that refrain without finding it very difficult not to grimace. The Eddie with whom I’d fallen in love had been tall and handsome, with smiling blue eyes and immaculate manners. He’d been gallant and kindly, with an understated charm and a way of looking at me that made my heart tip lopsided. Perhaps Eddie was still all of those things. I knew he was still a good man. But I was no longer the timid, sheltered teenage girl whom he’d first asked to dance during her high school summer break. I was no longer a girl at all—the fact of the matter was that now I was a woman, and as I’d grown up, our love had grown cold.
* * *
—
For a while I considered that perhaps we should simply live apart, so that we could spare everyone the pain and scandal and maybe even both get what we wanted. Ed could be in Greenwich where he wanted to be; I’d stay with the girls in New York. Since his work so often brought him into the city, he’d get to see them regularly. It had been the arrangement my parents had turned to when they found they could no longer live together.
But then, considering that, I’d feel my stomach curdle. Such a course was untenable, a fool’s delusion. It had been the arrangement my parents had turned to indeed, and look how that had served them; it hadn’t truly spared anyone any pain, had it? No, I would not live the way my parents had. I would not simply bide our time in a loveless union, a family in nothing more than name. I would not put our girls through that.
I heard Ed in the next room, asking one of the servants to bring him a gin. Farther away, in the front hall, I could hear the sound of the girls giggling, excited that their friends would be coming over and that there’d be a parade and lemonade and heaps of sweets. I squared my shoulders and glanced in the mirror, giving my appearance one final sweep of scrutiny and bracing to start the party. This was a day for celebrating, and I would not let things between Ed and me cloud our good time.
It was a lovely September day, the mild weather cooperating with our weeks of planning for the garden and doing much to lift my mood. Church bells rang out. Crowds had gathered by the thousands to line the entirety of the parade route. As my guests filed in, their smiles brightened by the good weather and the excitement of the parade, my servants milled throughout the garden, offering chilled champagne and small bites of smoked salmon and deviled eggs.
I’d invited May Carlisle, Elsie Rockefeller, the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and I greeted my guests cheerfully. My smile went even wider as I saw my friend Edna Woolworth Hutton arrive with her husband, Frank. Beside them entered another couple, a pair so smartly dressed that they looked as though they’d just stepped out of a fashion advertisement. “Marjorie, dear, please meet my darling sister-in-law, Blanche Hutton.”
I looked into the pretty face of a brunette with high cheekbones and wide, dark eyes. “Blanche, thank you for coming. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“And you, Mrs. Close,” the woman replied, the smell of her fresh floral perfume filling the air around us. “I’ve heard such wonderful things from Edna.”
I turned back toward my friend and Edna smiled, then she turned with a droll look toward Blanche’s husband, saying, “And this is Frank’s brother, my rogue of a brother-in-law, Edward Hutton.”
I turned to the woman’s husband. Another Edward, but I couldn’t hold that against him. “Delighted you could join as well, Mr. Hutton.”
“Somebody had to hold Blanche’s purse for her,” Edward Hutton replied, winking at me, and I found myself shifting on my feet. As Edward Hutton wove his arm gently around his wife’s narrow waist, pulling her close with a gesture of casual, unselfconscious intimacy—a gesture that Ed Close would never have dared display in a group setting—I stole a closer look at the man. Edward Hutton was undeniably handsome, with a thicker frame than my own Ed’s and a straight, strong jaw. His dark blue eyes and light hair were not as fastidiously groomed, but that gave him an ineffably dashing quality.
I swallowed, forcing my gaze back toward the lady at his side, smiling as I searched for some cordial conversational morsel that I might offer her. “Blanche, I truly envy you. I love our Edna. I wish I could call her my sister.”