Masquerade

 

The Van Alen mansion on the corner of 101st and Riverside had once been one of the largest and most majestic homes in all of New York. Countless generations of the family had entertained presidents, heads of state, foreign dignitaries, Nobel prize?winning laureates, as well as Hollywood royalty and the occasional flavor-of-the-month bohemian--artists, writers, and their ilk. Yet now it was a mere shadow of its former self: the cornices were chipped, there was graffiti on the side of the building, the roof leaked, and the walls were riddled with cracks, as the family had been unable to maintain its upkeep over the years.



Schuyler dragged her suitcase up the steps and rang the bell.



Hattie, her grandmother's loyal maid, answered and let her inside.



The living room was as dark and shrouded as when Schuyler had left. For years Schuyler and Cordelia had lived in only a quarter of the rooms in the vast house--kitchen, dining, and their two bedrooms. Everything else was locked and unused, which Schuyler had always attributed to Cordelia's penury. Her grandmother kept almost all the fur- niture in the house under canvas sheets, windows were cur- tained, and entire wings of the house were off-limits.



Hence the mansion was akin to a musty old museum, filled with antique artifacts and expensive art objects that were hidden and kept under lock and key.



Schuyler made her way to her room, where Beauty greeted her with a cheerful and resonant bark, and only then did Schuyler feel like she was truly at home.



Now the only problem was what to wear. The invitation had stated White Tie, which Schuyler understood to mean long, formal gowns for the women. She dimly remembered Cordelia getting ready for the yearly Four Hundred Ball, donning a succession of stiff, Oscar de la Renta ball gowns with elbow-length opera gloves. Perhaps she would be able to find something in Cordelia's closet. She made her way to her grandmother's bedroom. She hadn't been inside since the fateful evening of the attack. She dreaded being in there, remembering how she had found her grandmother lying in a pool of blood. But she comforted herself with the knowledge that Cordelia had managed to survive the attack, and she had been able to bring enough of Cordelia's blood to the medical center. They would keep it resting until the next cycle. Cordelia would return one day. She was not dead. She had not been taken by the Silver Blood.



"Looking for something, Miss Schuyler?" Hattie asked, popping her head in and finding Schuyler standing with her hands on her hips in front of her grandmother's closet.



"I need a dress, Hattie. For the ball tonight."



"Mrs. Cordelia had a lot of dresses."



"Yes." Schuyler frowned, removing several hangers and assessing the dresses that hung on them. They were very old- fashioned, with huge mutton sleeves or peplums. Several were very Reagan-eighties: shoulder pads that rivaled those on Alexis Carrington's Nolan Miller originals on Dynasty. "I just don't think these are going to cut it."



"Miss Allegra had dresses too," Hattie said.



"My mother? My mom's dresses are still here?"



"In her room, on the third landing."



Her mother had grown up in the same house, and Schuyler wished, not for the first time, that her mother was around to help her with her current dilemma. Hattie led her upstairs to the next floor, down the hallway, to a corner room in the back.



Schuyler's heart beat in nervous excitement. "It's a shame about Miss Allegra," Hattie said as she opened the door. "The room's just like it was when she was eighteen. Before she eloped and married your father."



The room was pristine. Schuyler was shocked to see that there were no cobwebs in the corners, or a layer of dust everywhere. She had expected a crypt, a mausoleum, but it was a bright and cheerful room, with crisp Italian linens on the bed and billowing white curtains on the windows.



"Mrs. Cordelia always insisted we keep it up. For when- ever your mother wakes up."



Schuyler walked toward the armoire in the middle of the room and opened one of its doors.



She reached inside and pulled out a shirt on a hanger. Valentino, circa 1989.



"Are you sure she had ball gowns?"



"She had a cotillion. She was presented at the Four Hundred Ball on her sixteenth birthday," Hattie explained. "Chanel made the dress. It should be in there."



Schuyler patiently went through each hanger. At last, in the farthest reaches of the closet, she found a black garment bag embroidered with the double-C logo.



She laid the bag out on her mother's bed and unzipped it slowly.



"Wow," Schuyler breathed, removing a carefully preserved dress. She held it up to the light. It was a gold dress with a tight, strapless corset bodice and a princess skirt with folds and folds of voluminous fabric.



She held it up against herself. It would fit, she knew it would fit.



When Schuyler entered the St. Regis Ballroom, the whole room stood still. The guests stared at her as she stood by the entrance, illuminated under the spotlight, uncertain about where to go next. A few gasps could be heard from the crowd.



Jack Force, for one, couldn't take his eyes off her.



Like almost everybody in the room, for one brief moment, he had believed that Gabrielle, Allegra Van Alen, had returned to them.