The Chameleon (18 page)

“‘Yes,’ said the great lady. ‘Wrap it in crocodile skins and I'll have it.’ She handed over a bag full of coins.

“How the godmothers rejoiced! There was food on the table again, coal for the furnace, and presents under the Christmas tree. The little girl was safe from harm and her little family was saved. The godmothers were so grateful for their good fortune that every Christmas thereafter they said a special prayer for the princess, prince, and their young son to safeguard their castle, Charlotte Hall, Winding Way Road, Tuxedo Park, New York. No number necessary.”

Claire beamed up at Harry after her tale. He looked down at her with a feeling so strong he could only imagine it was love.

Suddenly, he kneeled before her and, wrapping the plush towel tightly around him so he would be decent for his proposal, asked: “Claire Organ, will you marry me and be my princess?” The answer was in her kiss.

Slim sat slumped at her breakfast table, a puffy-eyed forty-something waif in a creamy satin robe, marabou cuffs wiping away mascara-tainted tears.

Cyrus had sacrificed her for his country. After all, this was war, no time to desert his nation and his family. Romantic notions of them joining the French Resistance together flew out the terrace window, along with the crumbled croissant she had flung at him when he had put his hat on his head and walked out the door, leaving a consolation prize from Cartier lying on the table. So this was appeasement.

Aside from how she had made little jokes to him about how she would do the patriotic thing and be his private lieutenant for the war's duration, or how she would go on as his mistress with a stiff upper lip, the fact remained, to paraphrase Churchill, that this was her darkest hour.

Glumly dejected, she didn't hear her front door open or Claire bounding over to greet her with all the elation of a child bursting in from school with a perfect report card.

“Auntie Slim!” Claire took her hands and pulled her from the table to whirl her around the room. Her face was radiant. Her eyes shone like amethysts.

“Oh gosh, I'm so happy! I know I didn't call you after Cilla's party like I promised. I'm a whole day late. But what a day!”

“C'est ne pas rien.”
Slim sighed. “Cyrus has been here. He's explained it all.” Her eyes wandered languidly around the room until they landed on the butter knife. “I know what I am. A woman tossed out on the seas. Another one of the war's casualties.” She lifted her arms and struck a pose worthy of Isadora Duncan.

“Oh, how could I be so selfish to burst into your sorrow with my happiness?” Claire's eyes moistened.

“Happiness? What happiness?” Slim was immediately alert, her arms dropping to her side.

“There's someone outside I want you to meet,” Claire said shyly, indicating the foyer.

“Someone?”

“Yes. William Henry Harrison the Fifth. My fiancé!”

Within the hour, pleasantries had been exchanged and the preparations drafted. Slim, her sorrow gone, wondered to herself just how the boy's mother, father, and the rest of the fine people of Tuxedo Park were going to react, but the young couple was eager to marry at once. Harry believed it was much better to bring home a wife man a fiancée. For practical reasons, he said. Slim heartily endorsed the plan, knowing it was much harder to return the goods after the merchandise had been sampled. “Besides”—she lifted Claire's chin with a slender finger so that their eyes met— “delay is no friend of love.” If they were going to land Claire on the beaches of Tuxedo Park without proper social credentials, they could at least arm her with a marriage certificate. But it had to be done fast. Tomorrow was too soon, but the day after would be perfect.

Back at the 28 Shop, Violet wrinkled her brow, dropping her engagement calendar and cool composure. Why such haste, she worried, gathering up the date pages. Couldn't they at least wait until after the holidays? Violet sighed. Of course she wanted the best for Claire. Indeed, her very existence had been a means to this end. But now that it was here it was happening too fast, like a tornado whirling by before you had gotten everyone safely into the cellar.

“Don't be a dark cloud!” Slim scoffed. “They don't have tornadoes in Tuxedo Park.” She dropped her voice. “Violet! Think. Winding Way Road.” She pronounced each syllable as if she were speaking to Helen Keller. Her lovely Claire had hit the jackpot; she wasn't about to allow the girl's mother to stand in the way.

Wren, swept along by Slim's fervor, begged to be a bridesmaid. After all, she was still single. She hurried off to purchase the hunter-green dinner suit that had just gone on sale in Matronwear.

By another happy coincidence, Slim just happened to have a wedding suit in her closet, a blue Mainbocher. Celine could alter it for Claire in a jiff. Something borrowed; something blue. What else was required?

“I've got it!” Slim laughed, pulling a sleek Chanel with white collar and cuffs from her closet. “Something old.” The sparkle was back in her eyes, and the kick in her walk—she was the chicest maid of honor while Violet, in dove gray, pushed aside her better judgment and let the winds of love sway her. She gave her daughter away marching down the aisle of Reverend Caldwell's study; all the
A
s and
B
s in Violet's officiator's Rolodex being already booked.

Lieutenant Ogden Hammond, a Princeton classmate of Harry's, was commandeered from his bar stool at Trader Vic's to be his practically sober best man. Field's Services provided the narrow diamond-baguette wedding band; the lilies and gladioli; the wedding brunch of scrambled eggs with chutney, creamed chicken in noodle baskets, orange and grapefruit walnut salads, vanilla ice cream topped with fresh coconut; and the wedding cake—a ravishing four-tiered confection with chocolate frosting created overnight especially for Claire by Field's pastry chef. The champagne toast was full of good wishes: “Bless you both,” Wren said. “Live so that you keep the precious thing you now have. Keep patience in the daily rubs of life. Enjoy life together and with those you love.”

A smart set of matched leather traveling cases had been sent down, compliments of Field's president, who still looked on Claire as the store mascot. No bride had ever had a more quickly assembled trousseau representing the best in quality and splendidly tailored good taste, each garment selected by the doting Aunties. They had arranged for their surprise to be waiting for Claire on the train that would carry the newlyweds east to New York, to Claire's new relations, and to her new life. Slim had personally picked out the peignoirs. The ladies fervently hoped that they'd remembered to snip all the price tags off the new clothes.

The merry little band arrived laughing and twittering at Union Station, Claire clutching her groom's hand and her battered Earhart overnight case. Strings had been pulled to get the young couple a private compartment, and it was only as the train chugged slowly out of the station, Claire's white-gloved palm pressed against the rice-splayed window (Mother and the Aunties hadn't missed a trick), the women wiping tears and locomotive steam out of their eyes and waving, that Claire realized she was leaving the store, Chicago, and her family for the first time in her protected life.

When the porter brought in the ice bucket of champagne and pulled down only one of the beds, as he had been instructed, she wondered if it wasn't too late to jump off the train in Indiana and go back to her old life. It was only when Harry reached over Claire's shoulder to lower the window shade, shutting out the telephone poles and billowing furnaces of the steel mills rushing by, when he took her in his young muscled arms, that she relaxed and gave in to the movement of the train.

For the remainder of the journey, they never left their compartment, and the shade was never raised.

Harry placed the tree trunk-sized log on the Harrisons’ fire, now churned up like a homey hell. A spark popped out, landing near Claire's cheek and breaking her reverie. A stray cinder brushed her jawline. Was this to be an inquisition by torture?

“Claire, darling. Are you all right?” Harry was by her side in a flash.

“Oh, I'm fine. Really. How kind.”

“You're doing great. I think Mother really likes you,” he whispered into his bride's ear, as if being gorgonized by Ophelia Harrison were a social privilege.

“Perhaps Claire's chair is too close to the fire, Mother.”

“Nonsense,” Ophelia mumbled through her tightly controlled lips. She bore the pinched look of a peevish woman. “It hasn't been moved in twenty-five years.”

Harry gently brushed an imaginary ash from Claire's cheek, letting his fingers linger on her skin.

Ophelia pushed on her glasses to examine her besotted son. It was clear to her that Harry was under the young beauty's spell.

“But do go on, Miss Organ. Just how were you raised?”

“Very nicely, I can assure you.” Claire's voice was soft and apologetic. Had she really married Harry? It was as if she were back in the Pettibones’ sunroom with Cilla's snooty friends.

“No. No,” Ophelia bellowed impatiently, picking up her crewel from her lap. “I meant religion. Your religious instruction. In case of children.” Her unplucked brows dominated her face even with the wire-rimmed glasses.

“Well,” Claire stated, choosing her words carefully, “ecumenically. I was exposed to every organized religion. The Aunties and Mother felt God was everywhere.”

“Pantheists. Oh dear. That's quite a broad view. But what was your mother?”

“She's a Protestant. We both are.” The words moved invisibly out of Claire's mouth even as she maintained a courteous smile.

“And the other mothers?” Here Ophelia's brows arched into a circumflex.

Claire fought an impulse to rise out of her chair in anger but she heard the Aunties’ cheerful voices in her head: “Remember Claire, the best defense for insult is extreme courtesy.”

“All God-fearing women, I can assure you.”

“Oh. I thought your people, being in the retail profession, might be of the Jewish persuasion. So many are these days. More India tea, dear?”

“No thank you, ma'am.” Claire was so warm from the fire she was dying to unfasten the first velvet button on her suit, but didn't dare. She shifted uncomfortably in the heirloom chair, causing it to squeak. She blushed, turning her cheek crimson. Claire's pretty neck was still in line for the annulment guillotine and her lock-jawed mother-in-law was jabbing at her handiwork like a Locust Valley Madame Defarge as she fired off question after question at her new daughter-in-law, who apparently had no bloodlines whatsoever.

“And who are your people—on your father's side? You couldn't just have been born in a hatbox!”

Claire was exhausted. In the reckless course of the last seven days, she'd turned eighteen, lost her virginity, become a war bride, and made love for two whole days on the
Twentieth Century Limited.
She had also moved a thousand miles away from everything familiar. At this moment she was missing her mother and aunties with an ache in her heart. Nothing her new mother-in-law could say would tear Claire's loyalties away from her little family, even if they weren't cut in the conventional mode or up to society snuff.

“Minnie Mortimer's coming to dinner. With her father and mother. One of each. It'll be nice for you to have some friends your own age in Tuxedo.” Ophelia stabbed her long needle into the cloth and laid down her handiwork, darting a quick look in Harry's direction.

Harry's eyes were on his bride.

“Well, Miss Organ. What a perfectly ugly name. No wonder you were in such a big hurry to change it. I know you must be fatigued. After that long train ride and all. I'm sure your rooms should be ready by now. You've got a private sitting room and bedroom on the third floor. Harry can show you. Dinner's at eight. Please be on time. Mr. Harrison will be home.”

“Mother!” Harry flushed, suddenly full of confidence again. “This is my wife, Mrs. Harrison, and if you don't mind we'll be staying together.” He stood behind Claire's chair like the husband in an old-fashioned tintype.

My goodness, thought Ophelia. The girl must be a sexual sorceress.

“Really, Harry. Your father and I have never shared a bedroom.”

Claire stifled a gasp and didn't have to wonder why Ophelia Harrison and Millicent Pettibone were such good friends. She wondered if Mr. Harrison had an Auntie Slim too.

Freshly bathed and rested, Claire slipped down the stairs early. Her new dinner pumps were soundless on the deep pile carpet running down the mahogany stairs, garnished at each riser by a brass rail. The house was strangely silent. She had met six of Charlotte Hall's staff: the butler, the chauffeur who had picked them up at Penn Station that morning, the two upstairs maids who had unpacked Claire's new wardrobe, and the gardener and the groomsman who lived in the gatehouse at the entrance to the estate. She wondered where any of them might be. Perhaps she should find scissors or a letter opener to scratch up the soles of her new shoes so she wouldn't slide across the high-buffed floors. Where was everyone?

Did the Tuxedo people all take a siesta before their evening highballs? Or perhaps she had flunked the entrance exam into the Harrison clan and they had left her alone in this gray stone Tudor house to wander around like a character in a Charlotte Brontë novel.

Struggling to get her bearings, she looked back over her shoulder up to the top of the stairs and had to laugh. Harry was still asleep, exhausted from his Olympic lovemaking. She had suspected that he was athletic, but his attentiveness was going to leave her with little time out of bed. Claire wondered how her mother, having tasted love, could have lived without a man all these years.

She carefully turned a gold door latch almost as high as her shoulder and walked into what appeared to be a gentleman's study. The entire west wall of the room consisted of six French doors looking over a flagstone terrace, the doors each containing a dozen panes of beveled glass. She spied a letter opener on the desk and walked over to it.

Suddenly, something pulled Claire to the windows. She was startled to see Harry. He was coming up the snowy hill, two dogs jumping and running around him, obviously their master. How had he managed to be in two places at once? Did the man need no sleep? She instinctively opened a door, allowing an icy blast to enter the room, and called out a warm hello. The dogs lifted their heads. She held her arm in the air and stopped, frozen, when she realized she had the wrong man.