I scrutinized my reflection in the mirror one final time as I prepared to go downstairs and greet my guests. I certainly looked the part, from my powdered and jewel-trimmed hair all the way down to my dainty pink silk heels.
Especially lovely, I noticed, was the natural flush that colored my cheeks. I smiled to myself, my entire body feeling soft with joy. I had just noted that morning that my monthly courses were a week late. This was not something that ordinarily happened to me, and thus I felt very confident that I was carrying Ned’s baby. I had yet to tell him; he’d been out all morning playing golf, and then we’d both been so harried with the final preparations for the evening and the three hundred guests we were poised to welcome. I wanted to tell him in private, when we could be alone to relish our joy. Tomorrow, I decided.
As I left my bedroom and descended the stairs, I realized that I had not seen Ned in hours, and I wondered if he was dressed and ready. That thought, however, was interrupted when I noticed that there, at the bottom of the stairs, stood my daughter, just home from school the day before and right on time for the party. “My darling girl!”
“Mother!” Adelaide looked lovely in a gown of lemon-yellow silk, her own hair powdered and teased. I gave her a kiss on the cheek as we giggled together, admiring each other’s elaborate attire.
“Is it true that there will be fireworks?” Adelaide asked.
I leaned close, pressing my finger to her lips. “Shh, it’s a surprise. But yes. After dinner.” Adelaide squealed in delight. And then she saw her friend arrive by chauffeured auto into our forecourt, and she pulled me by the hand to the front door. “Mother, this is my friend Dorothy. Dorothy Metzger.”
“Nice to meet you, Dorothy,” I said. “Glad you could join us this evening.”
“So nice to meet you, Mrs. Hutton,” the girl cooed in reply. As she and Adelaide chattered excitedly about the night ahead—my daughter’s first time attending a Gold Coast evening party, but not Dorothy’s, from the sound of it—I studied the girl. Dorothy Metzger looked barely seventeen years old, and yet she was dressed provocatively, with her fulsome décolletage on full display as it overspilled her scarlet gown. A decorative beauty mark had been propped alluringly on the mound of her left breast, a risqué touch that went with the theme of Marie Antoinette’s court, even if it seemed perhaps a bit precocious for such a young lady. Whereas Adelaide looked festive and sweet, a prim doll dressed for a costume party, Dorothy looked like she was channeling the aesthetic of one of Louis XIV’s bawdy mistresses. And where were the girl’s parents? I wondered. Off on the Italian Riviera, perhaps. Or yachting up the East Coast. Not minding their lively young daughter on what would undoubtedly be a raucous night of cocktails and dancing.
* * *
—
As the guests began to stream in and the party got under way, my servants bustled about in pale silk uniforms designed especially for the evening, resembling the livery of Versailles, and they offered chilled champagne, gin, and canapé plates of caviar, lobster, and paté. I’d hired an orchestra for the evening and had arranged with the help of Flo and Billie to line up some of his best tenors and sopranos to sing for my guests before the formal seated dinner that would take place under the twinkling tent.
Throughout the course of the evening, as ever more bottles were uncorked and popped, as ever more gin was poured and caviar tasted, my brightly costumed crowd became looser and louder. The night darkened overhead as the lanterns and candles cast a warm glow over our garden. I opened the dance floor with Ned, who looked comical in his silk overcoat and breeches, a long wig of white Louis XVI ringlets bobbing with his dance steps. I had been sipping water rather than champagne for most of the night, and so it was with a clear view that I watched and laughed as my guests wobbled out to the dance floor to join us in tipsy, giggly pairs. Something about the Versailles attire made everyone look even more ridiculous.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Your Majesty?” Ned asked. He seemed to be quite thrilled with the merriment of the evening.
“I am, sire,” I answered. But then my laughter turned to a sharp gasp when I spotted Dorothy Metzger, Adelaide’s guest, holding forth amid a group of men in the center of the dance floor. The nearest man, whose sweaty head was topped with a lopsided wig of flamboyant orange ringlets, was pawing her as he pressed his silk-breeched groin against her hoopskirt.
“Ned!” I pulled my husband closer. “Look at the Metzger girl!” At that moment, another man was plucking rolls of money with his teeth out of Dorothy’s ample, nearly-exposed bosom. “Ned, that’s Adelaide’s friend. We should do something.”