Beyond the lights lining the edge of the proscenium, beneath the darkened stained-glass chandeliers, sat the hushed, breathing beast that was the audience. Except for the occasional muffled cough, the subtle twinkle of diamonds in earrings and collars, the beast was unseen, unheard. It was there and not there, anonymous. At least until it roused itself into applause.
But—
On her third twirl （“You promised me to wed. So would I ha’ done, by yonder-sun—”）， she saw him. She had no idea how she’d missed him before; he was in the front of the house, very nearly center. A demon or a ghost could not have materialized more suddenly out of the shadows. Colonel Astor kept his focus fixed exactly on her, his hands folded in his lap. In the half-light cast from the stage, the planes of his face gleamed dim and harsh.
The toe of one boot scraped the stage; Madeleine stumbled. She stopped and turned in the abrupt silence, then looked upstage and realized the other members of the cast were all staring expectantly at her.
It must be her line. Her mind was a fizzy blank.
She stared back at them helplessly, the roar of her blood louder and louder in her ears.
In the back of the house, someone sneezed once, twice.
Dorothy Cramp, who had been so bitter with envy that Madeleine had won the part of Ophelia that she’d threatened to renounce the League, glared at Madeleine from beneath the tin of King Claudius’ crown.
“How long has she been thus?” Dorothy said again, biting off every word.
The fizziness in Madeleine’s brain cleared; she remembered her song, her wild dance, what to do. She got through her next lines and then swept off the stage in a storm of petals and leaves, and spent the rest of the show watching him from behind a slit in the stage right curtain.
*
After the curtain call, which included a pelting of bouquets, backstage was a jumble of cast and crew, everyone talking and laughing. Props teetered in precarious piles; willowy young women in wigs and trousers jostled back and forth, abandoning their wooden swords and bulky vests, hugging and kissing and telling each other how perfect it all was, how spectacular, and how next year they would tackle Molière or Marlowe and all the world would bow at their feet.
Madeleine accidentally bumped shoulders with Dorothy and smiled—part apology, part dare—but Dorothy ignored her and walked away.
By the velvet-swathed entrance to the house stood Mrs. Ogden Mills, a matron so prominent and formidable that Madeleine could not recall seeing her even once without at least four strands of pearls around her neck, no matter the time of day. Amid all the bustle and mayhem of the play’s aftermath, she remained as motionless as a graveyard statue; even caught up in the giddy we-did-it silliness bubbling around them, none of the Junior League débutantes dared to venture too close.
“Miss Force,” Mrs. Mills said, lifting her brows and tilting her head toward the man standing, also unmoving, slightly behind her. “Have you met the colonel?”
Of course Madeleine hadn’t; she wasn’t even officially out yet. There was no reason at all for someone like John Jacob Astor IV to have taken notice of her.
She was still in her mad weeds. She dripped with wilted petals and curling leaves. Her hair was fraying from its braids; candytuft dribbled down her shoulders, teeny white starbursts at a time. A stolen glance in a small rectangle of a mirror tacked to a flat revealed her eyes, pale blue smudged with kohl, her skin plastered white, cheeks and lips still painted red as blood.
The colonel glanced where she did, noticed the mirror. The skin along her cheekbones began to prickle with heat.
“Jack,” continued Mrs. Mills, oblivious, serene, “I would like to introduce you to Miss Madeleine Force, daughter of William and Katherine Force of Brooklyn and, of late, Manhattan. You saw her as our Ophelia tonight. Madeleine, Colonel John Jacob Astor.”
There was no choice but to extend her hand. He accepted it, his fingers folding firm and warm over hers.
“How do you do?” she asked faintly.
“How do you do,” he echoed, soft.
It was as though her vision failed and she could not see him, in spite of the fact that he was right there in front of her. She didn’t see him so much as feel his presence; the warm, tanned glow of his skin, the knowing curve of his mouth, the air of a man who knew what he wanted and was not bothered by the wanting, because everything he touched was already his.
Madeleine felt thirteen again, back on that rock-scrubbed beach—that moment when their eyes had met, and his smile seemed just for her.
From somewhere near her left shoulder, a pop of light flared, died, but she didn’t turn her head to see what it was.