A Spirit of Electricity
THERE WAS A MOMENT AS THE VAN DER LEYDEN family stood at the top of Sans Souci’s famous double staircase, waiting to be announced, when Teddy Van Der Leyden thought his mother might have regretted her choice of costume. To be wearing plain dimity and fustian in a room full of satin, velvet and diamonds took an effort of will. But Mrs Van Der Leyden had wished to make a point and it was a point worthy of sacrifice. The family’s sober dress was a silent reminder to the assembled guests and particularly their hosts that the Van Der Leydens could trace their lineage all the way back to the Mayflower. Their lineage did not peter out in a floury dead end. The sombre black and white was a sign that even here in Newport, some things could not be bought.
Teddy Van Der Leyden knew his mother’s purpose and was amused by it. He was quite happy to wear a starched white neckband and black cloak, although he would have preferred to be one of the founding fathers, Jefferson perhaps. He understood her need to distinguish herself from all this unvariegated opulence. Every corner of the mirrored ballroom glittered, each jewel reflected into infinity.
He had been coming to the resort every summer for as long as he could remember and had been happy enough, but this year was different. Now that he had decided to go to Paris, he felt impatient with the observances of the Newport day. Every hour was accounted for – tennis at the club in the morning, carriage drives in the afternoon, and every night there were balls that started at midnight and did not end till dawn. Day after day he met the same hundred or so people. Only the costumes changed.
There was Eli Montagu and his wife dressed as Christopher Columbus and what Teddy took to be Madame de Pompadour. He had already met them that morning at the Casino, and yesterday on the bicycle excursion which had ended so precipitously. He would meet them again tomorrow at the breakfast given at the Belmonts and then at the Schooner picnic. He didn’t wince as his mother did when he heard Eli’s vowels or shudder at the brassy tint of Mrs Montagu’s hair; he rather liked the fact that when she smiled she showed her teeth. But he didn’t want to talk to them nor did he want to make a point by not talking to them. He looked around for Cora. She was the only person he wanted to see. She was always surprising. He remembered the way she had blown the hair out of her eyes when she was cycling yesterday, the way the offending tendril had fluttered and then rested on her cheek.
He moved out of the receiving line and over to one of the champagne fountains. A footman in full Bourbon livery offered him a glass. He drank it quickly, watching the arrivals flooding in through the great double doors. Most of the guests had chosen to come as ancien régime French aristocrats – he had seen three Marie Antoinettes and innumerable Louis already. Perhaps it was a compliment to the Versailles-inspired surroundings; perhaps it was the only period of history that matched the opulence of the present. Now he felt glad of his Puritan clothes. There was something uneasy about railway barons and steel magnates dressing up in the silk hose and embroidered tailcoats of another gilded age.
And then he saw Cora and his discontents were forgotten. Her dress was ridiculous; her skirts stuck out so far on either side of her that she would clear a path through the ballroom like an oar through water when she danced, but even in the absurd costume she was radiant. Her red-brown hair hung in ringlets against her white neck and shoulders. He thought of the small beauty spot he had noticed yesterday at the hollow of her throat.
She was standing just below her parents who were installed on a velvet-draped dais. She was surrounded by young men and Teddy realised that he must ask Cora for a dance or he would never get a chance to talk to her. He walked towards her, passing a Cardinal Richelieu and a Marquise de Montespan. He waited for an opening among the young men and then he caught her eye. She squinted a little to make sure it was really him and then went back to her dance card, but Teddy knew she was waiting for him to approach. He walked round the scaffolding of her skirt and stood behind her.
‘Am I too late?’ he asked her softly.
She turned her head in his direction and smiled.
‘Much too late for a dance. They all went ages ago. But I guess I might need to catch my breath after a while. Maybe around here?’ She pointed to a waltz on her dance card with her little ivory pencil. ‘We could meet on the terrace.’ Her eyes flickered towards where her mother was standing in majesty. Teddy understood the look – Cora did not want her mother to see them together.
Did Mrs Cash think he was a fortune-hunter then? He shuddered to think how horrified his mother would be if she imagined that he was making advances to Cora Cash. Mrs Van Der Leyden might attend a ball given by Mrs Cash but that did not mean she saw Cora as a suitable wife for her son, no matter how rich she was. They had never spoken about it but Teddy sensed that his mother thought that his desire to go to Europe and paint was the lesser of two evils.
In the winter garden, Simmons the butler was inspecting the supper tables. Down the length of each one ran a stream contained in a silver channel, agitated by tiny pumps so that it sparkled with an effervescent current. At the bottom of the stream was pure white sand and Bertha was pushing stones into the sand to look like submerged boulders. Each of these boulders was in fact an uncut gem – diamonds, rubies, emeralds and topazes. Beside each place setting was a miniature silver shovel so that the guests could ‘prospect’ for these treasures. Bertha had been told by the butler to make sure that the ‘boulders’ were distributed evenly. Despite the enormous wealth of many of the guests, there would be fierce competition among the ‘prospectors’ to amass the most rocks. There had been an unseemly scramble for the Fabergé bonbons at the Astor ball the week before.
Bertha pushed sand artfully around a ‘boulder’ so that a crystalline spar just punctured the surface. Simmons had told her not to make them too easy to find. He was meant to do this task himself but Bertha knew he felt it beneath him. He hadn’t told her what the rocks were but Bertha well understood their value. She would wait until they got to the end of the last table before taking one. Supper was to start at midnight when Mrs Cash would go on to the terrace to light up her costume and lead her guests into the winter garden like a star. At the same time the hummingbirds would be released to create the illusion that the guests were entering the tropics. Bertha reckoned that Simmons would be so involved in ministering to this procession that he would hardly notice a missing gem.
Teddy waited for Cora on the terrace. It was a hot, still night. He could hear a cicada somewhere near his feet. An orange moon lit up the pale stone surrounding him. The slabs of marble covering the terrace were not smooth but had been worn into grooves by generations of feet. The entire terrace must have been brought over from some Tuscan villa, reflected Teddy, so that the Nine Muses who stood on the balustrade would not look their age. He could only admire Mrs Cash’s thoroughness. Nothing, in her world, was left to chance. And yet here was Cora, screwing up her eyes to find him on the terrace, unchaperoned and uncaring. He knew from the way that Mrs Cash had pedalled after them yesterday when they had pulled ahead of the cycling party, her marble complexion turning quite pink, that she would not approve of her daughter being here. He knew, too, that he should not be alone with Cora, she was not part of the future he had decided on, yet here he was.
As she walked towards him through the apricot-hued pools of light cast by the Chinese silk lanterns hanging in the trees, he could see a red filigree dappling her collarbone and throat. She stopped before him, the panniers of her skirt making it impossible for her to stand anywhere but straight in front of him. He could see a faint prickling of flesh on her forearms that made the soft golden hairs stand up like fur. There was, he knew, a tiny scar on the underside of her wrist. He would have liked to take her hand to reassure himself it was still there.
‘It is the most beautiful night,’ he said. ‘I was worried this morning that there would be a storm.’
Cora laughed. ‘As if my mother would allow bad weather on the night of her party. Only inferior hostesses get rained off.’
‘She has a remarkable eye for detail; she has set the standard very high in Newport.’ Teddy spoke lightly. They both knew that the old guard like Teddy’s mother thought that the parties thrown by incomers like the Cashes were over the top and vulgar.
Cora looked directly at him, her eyes scanning his face. ‘Tell me something, Teddy. Yesterday, if Mother hadn’t caught up with us, what would you have done?’
‘Continued our charming conversation about your chances of winning the archery and then cycled home to dress for dinner.’ His tone was deliberately light, he didn’t want to think about the colour in Cora’s cheeks yesterday or the gold flecks in the iris of her right eye.
But Cora was not to be deflected.
‘I think that you are being…’ she frowned, searching for the right word, ‘disingenuous. I think that you were going to do this.’ She put her hands on his shoulders and leant towards him, swaying unsteadily against the counterweight of the dress. He felt the warm dry touch of her lips on his. He knew that he should stop this now, draw back and pretend that nothing had happened and yet he wanted to kiss her so much. He felt her toppling in her ridiculous costume and he put his hands on her waist to steady her, and then he found he was kissing her back.
When, at last, they drew back from each other, neither smiled.
Cora said, ‘I was right then.’
‘You were right about the intention. Of course I want to kiss you, what man wouldn’t? There are fifty men out there who would give anything to take my place, but I had promised myself not to.’ Teddy smiled at his good intentions.
‘But why, if that was what you wanted?’ She sounded suddenly much younger than eighteen.
Teddy looked away from her at the horizon where he could see the moonlight playing on the sea. ‘Because I am afraid.’
‘Of me?’ Cora sounded pleased.
He turned to face her. ‘If I fall in love with you, it would change everything, all my plans.’ His voice trailed away as he saw that the flush had spread down across her chest; down, he was sure, beneath the infanta’s modest neckline. He picked up her hand and turned it over, pressing the scar to his lips.
Cora trembled and the shudder ran through the construction of her dress.
‘Do you know I am going away to Europe?’ she said in a strained voice.
‘The whole of America knows you are going to Europe, to find a suitable consort for the Cash millions.’ Teddy tried to bat away her emotion but Cora did not respond in kind. She leant towards him, her eyes dark and opaque. When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper.
‘I don’t want to go, you know. I would like to stay here – with you.’
Teddy dropped her hand and felt the heat of Cora’s stare. He wanted to believe her, even though this would make his choice so much harder. She kissed him again, more fiercely this time. It was hard to resist the foxy smell of her hair and the downy smoothness of her cheeks. He could hardly feel her body through the architecture of her costume but he could feel the pulse beating in her neck. Who was he to resist Cora Cash, the girl that every woman in Newport envied and every man desired? He kissed her harder, grazing her lip with his teeth. He wanted to pull the combs and jewels out of her hair and take her out of her prison of a costume. He could hear her breathing quicken.
The music stopped. Then came the crash of the supper gong rippling out into the still night air.
For the first time Cora looked nervous. ‘Mother will notice I have gone.’ She made a gesture as if to go back inside, but then she turned back and spoke to him in a torrent of urgency. ‘We could go now to the city and get married. Then she can’t touch me. I have my own money, Grandfather left a trust for me which is mine when I am twenty-five or when I marry. And I’m sure Father would give us something. I don’t want to go away.’ She was pleading now.
Teddy saw that it had not occurred to her that he might refuse to accept her proposal.
‘You are the one who is being disingenuous now. Do you really think that I can elope with you? Not only would it break your mother’s heart, it would surely break my mother’s too. The Van Der Leydens are not as rich as the Cashes but they are honourable. People would say I was a fortune-hunter.’ He tried to take his hands from her waist but she held them there.
‘But they would say that about anyone. It’s not my fault I’m richer than everyone else. Please, Teddy, don’t be all…scrupulous about this. Why can’t we just be happy? You like kissing me, don’t you? Didn’t I get it right?’ She reached up to stroke his cheek. And then a thought hit her, amazing her with its audacity. ‘There isn’t someone else, is there? Someone you like more than me?’
‘Not someone, something. I want to be a painter. I’m going to Paris to study. I think I have a talent but I have to be sure.’ Even as he said it, Teddy realised how weak he sounded against Cora’s passionate intensity.
‘But why can’t you paint here? Or if you have to go to Paris, I could come with you.’ She made it all sound so easy.
‘No, Cora,’ he said almost roughly, afraid she might persuade him. ‘I don’t want to be that kind of painter, a Newport character who sails in the morning and paints in the afternoon. I don’t want to paint pictures of ladies and their lapdogs. I want to do something serious and I can’t do that here and I can’t do that with a wife.’
He thought for a moment that she would cry. She was waving her hands in front of her face as if trying to push away his words, swaying clumsily in her galleon of a dress.
‘Honestly, there is no one I would rather marry than you, Cora, even if you are too rich for me. But I can’t now; there is something I want more. And what I need can’t be bought.’
She looked back at him crossly. He saw with relief tinged with regret that she was not so much heartbroken as thwarted. He said firmly, ‘Admit it, Cora, you don’t really want to marry me as much as you want to get away from your mother. A sentiment I can fully appreciate, but if you go to Europe you will no doubt find yourself a princeling and then you can send her back to America.’
Cora gave him an angry little shove. ‘And what, give her the satisfaction of being the matchmaker? The mother who married her daughter to the most eligible bachelor in Europe? She pretends she is above such things but I know she thinks of nothing else. Ever since I was born my mother has chosen everything for me, my clothes, my food, the books I can read, the friends I can have. She has thought of everything except me.’ She shook her head sharply as if trying to shake her mother out of her life. ‘Oh Teddy, won’t you change your mind? I can help you; it wouldn’t be so very terrible, would it? It’s only money. We don’t have to have it. I don’t mind living in a garret.’
Perhaps, he thought, if she really cared for him…but he knew that what he principally represented to her was escape. He would like to paint her, though, angry and direct – the spirit of the New World dressed in the trappings of the Old. He couldn’t resist taking her face in his hands and kissing her one last time.
But just as he felt his resolve weaken, as he felt Cora’s shudder, the Spirit of Electricity exploded into the darkness and they were illuminated. Mrs Cash stood like a shining general at the head of her legion of guests.
There was a ripple in the air as a sigh of surprise was expelled across the terrace.
The radiant bulbs cast harsh shadows across the contours of Mrs Cash’s face. ‘Cora, what are you doing?’ Her voice was soft but penetrating.
‘Kissing Teddy, Mother,’ her daughter replied. ‘Surely with all that candle power, you can see that?’
The Spirit of Electricity brushed her daughter’s insolence aside. She turned her glittering head to Teddy.
‘Mr Van Der Leyden, for all your family’s pride in your lineage, you appear to have no more morals than a stable hand. How dare you take advantage of my daughter?’
But it was Cora who answered. ‘Oh, he wasn’t taking advantage of me, Mother. I kissed him. But then my grandfather was a stable hand so you wouldn’t expect any better, would you?’
Mrs Cash stood in shining silence, the echo of Cora’s defiance ringing in the air around her. And then, just as Mrs Cash was about to deliver her counter blow, a tongue of flame snaked round the diamond star in her hair, turning her headdress into a fiery halo. Mrs Cash was all at once ablaze, her expression as fierce as the flames that were about to engulf her.
For a moment no one moved. It was as if the guests had all gathered together to watch a firework display, and indeed the sparks springing from Mrs Cash’s head shone prettily against the night sky. And then the flames began to lick her face and Mrs Cash screamed – the high keening noise of an animal in pain. Teddy rushed towards her, throwing his cloak over the flaming head, and pushed her to the ground, pummelling her body with his hands. The stench of burnt hair and flesh was overwhelming, a gruesome echo of that hint of feral musk he had smelt on Cora moments before. But Teddy was hardly aware of this; later, all he remembered was the band striking the opening bars of the ‘Blue Danube’ as Cora knelt beside him and together they turned her mother over to face the stars above. The left side of her face was a mess of charred and blistered flesh.
Teddy heard Cora whisper, ‘Is she dead?’
Teddy said nothing but pointed to Mrs Cash’s right eye, her good eye. It was bright with moisture and they watched as a tear made its way down the smooth stretch of her undamaged cheek.
In the conservatory the hummingbird man took the cloth from his cage. The gong had sounded, that was his signal. Carefully he opened the door and then stood aside as his birds scattered like sequins over the dark velvet of the night air.
A minute later Bertha found him standing in front of the empty cage.
‘Samuel, I have something I want you to take to my mother. This should take care of her while I am in Europe.’ She held out a little purse with the seventy-five dollars. She had decided to keep the ‘boulder’, it was not the sort of thing her mother would be able to sell easily.
The hummingbird man said, ‘There was nobody to see them fly out. They looked so fine too.’
Bertha stood there with her hand still outstretched. Slowly, Samuel turned to face her and without haste he took the purse. He said nothing, but then he did not need to. Bertha filled the silence.
‘If I could leave now I would, but we sail at the end of the week. This is a good position. Mrs Cash, she’s looked after me.’ Bertha’s voice rose, as if asking a question.
The hummingbird man’s stare did not waver. ‘Goodbye, Bertha. I don’t reckon I’ll be coming up here again.’ He picked up his cage and walked into the darkness.